“Tick tock, tick tock.” We’re only a month away from the highly anticipated premiere of Damon Lindelof’s new HBO series Watchmen. Rather than make another adaptation of the iconic graphic novel series, the show will pick up decades later with a completely new story that combines old characters with new. Watchmen‘s last trailer dropped a big blue bombshell on us, confirming the return of Mr. Manhattan. However, there’s still a lot we don’t know about the series, including its main plot. But thanks to a new featurette with the cast and crew that includes lots of new footage, we have a better idea of how the show will explore the similarities between its heroes and villains.
“Watchmen examines how we as a society feel about heroes, most notably people who wear masks and fight crime,” Damon Lindelof says in the featurette. While Lindelof’s tease doesn’t reveal too much about the upcoming series, the rest of this behind-the-scenes look makes it clear there may not be much of a difference between the good guys and the bad guys on the show.
After a coordinated attack on the police by a white terrorist group, law enforcement began wearing their own masks to hide their identities. However, as evidenced by Jean Smart’s Laurie Blake, the former superhero known as Silk Spectre II, anonymous officers don’t seem to care about the law either. And if two groups of masked vigilantes are both breaking the rules, what’s the difference between the police and the criminals?
That idea is far more in line with the original comic than Zack Snyder’s big screen adaptation, which turned Alan Moore’s fascist Rorschach into an uncompromising hero worthy of universal praise. Damon Lindelof turning the Seventh Cavalry into an entire army of white terrorists is far more fitting, especially since the masked “heroes” aren’t very different themselves.
This featurette might not have answered all of our questions, but as the clock ticks closer to the show’s premiere it, did answer a big one.
Featured Image: HBO