This show debuted a week ago while the boards were down, so there's no prior post for it I don't think. Stellar show with the nice amount of 8 episodes for the season. For those that don't know, the show revolves around a The Watchmen type look at a world inhabited by superheros from the point of view of a group of regular civilians looking to take them down. I won't spoil too much of the show since revealing the twist in the plot points will take some of the fun out of the show, but I will say this was riveting television and binge watching all episodes in one sitting felt so effortless. The only weakness was a somewhat ham-fisted romantic plot point between two of the main characters.

What say you folks that watched this?

I'm a huge Banshee fan from pretty much season 1 so I have always liked Starr but had NO idea his abilities extended this far. In a just world this should be a career/star-making performance for him.

In fact, the entire cast is uniformly excellent in this. I read the comic in prep for this and absolutely hated it. It's chock-full of mean-spirited cynicism but devoid of any substance or useful commentary on pretty much anything. It's the kind of white male rage that I have absolutely zero tolerance for. Thankfully, the show takes the premise and molds it into something that, while not perfect, at least attempts to have something to say about power and celebrity and what it means to be a good human being much less a hero.

It's gory and problematic no doubt but there's a humanity at work here that the comic never had and frankly Ennis, from what I've seen, is utterly incapable of.

This is basically what I wanted from the film adaptation of Watchmen. It's faithful but not slavish and understands what the source material is ultimately getting at all and therefore ends up being vastly superior to the source material. Thankfully they have a great creative team involved in this instead of a Randian moron who can only ape but not interpret.

I'm very much look forward to season 2.

Where UA is "What if the X-Men were horrible real people?", this is "What if the Justice Leauge were horrible real people?". The gore caught me off guard at some points, but otherwise, this is about 2nd or 3rd as far as super-hero content this year, with Endgame being my favorite.

Edit: I definitely didn't mean to reply to your post.

I watched all of Banshee and all of this and didn't realize that was the same person lol

>I'm a huge Banshee fan from pretty much season 1 so I have
>always liked Starr but had NO idea his abilities extended this
>far. In a just world this should be a career/star-making
>performance for him.
>
>In fact, the entire cast is uniformly excellent in this. I
>read the comic in prep for this and absolutely hated it. It's
>chock-full of mean-spirited cynicism but devoid of any
>substance or useful commentary on pretty much anything. It's
>the kind of white male rage that I have absolutely zero
>tolerance for. Thankfully, the show takes the premise and
>molds it into something that, while not perfect, at least
>attempts to have something to say about power and celebrity
>and what it means to be a good human being much less a hero.
>
>It's gory and problematic no doubt but there's a humanity at
>work here that the comic never had and frankly Ennis, from
>what I've seen, is utterly incapable of.
>
>This is basically what I wanted from the film adaptation of
>Watchmen. It's faithful but not slavish and understands what
>the source material is ultimately getting at all and therefore
>ends up being vastly superior to the source material.
>Thankfully they have a great creative team involved in this
>instead of a Randian moron who can only ape but not interpret.
>
>
>I'm very much look forward to season 2.


I wanted to read the comics after binge watching the first season, but the less than stellar art style that I saw on various youtube reviews for the show turned me off. I also am a little disinterested after hearing some of the differences between the comics and the show from some Youtube comments as well. It seems as if the violence in the comics is there for shock values sake and I dunno how much of that I can stomach before getting too bored. The comics don't seem to have the nuance that the show has. I'm of the opinion that the show will be worthy of watching even if you have full knowledge of the comics since I have the feeling the show will diverge a ton from the original source.

It's stunningly terrible. The fact the show works at all, much less to the degree it does is solely because of just how much it diverges from the comic. The comic is just pure angry mediocre white man rage and I've got no tolerance for that bullshit.

its pretty impressive how much they got done in 8 eps too.

Sadly enough, I have the feeling this show won't get the eyeballs it truly deserves because I have the feeling Amazon video is viewed on a much much much lower scale than Netflix.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Really well done, but you can see how Amazon may have hedged their bets a bit, budget wise. Really looking forward to see what they do next season.
______________________________________________________________________________

"To Each His Reach"

but.....

Fuck aliens.

despite how fucking bonkers the ending is

i feel like they built up all the characters to where it kinda made sense. everyones motivations seemed to fit perfectly for me unlike some other previous shows that seemed to not be able to connect dots...


like the whole weird arc of homelander is really really enjoyable


got some very strong worlds finest meets hancock vibes from it too

4 eps in. Been genuinely surprised with something unexpected in every episode so far. great casting all the way round...

my favorite thing on tv right now.

I love every episode and the cast knocked it out of the park.

..from cinematography & writing, to cast & crew.

they tackled quite a bit in 8 eps without becoming stagnant or boring.


*skatin' the rings of saturn*


..and miles to go before i sleep...

Like a blurb describing the show doesn't sound that interesting and even visuals stills look super hokey. But this has a starship troopers thing going where you know the showrunners are in on the joke. Like of course its ridiculous that these guys where there costumes all the time.

I think this is actually more effective than watchmen in showing what the world would be like with superheros in it. Or maybe it's an update that we didn't really know that we needed.

This might not take off because I think you may have to be a comic book person to get into it but it will definitely grow and find a fan base.

*Spoilers*

That airplane scene is the best thing I have seen in a superhero movie ever. Powerful stuff.

I was super sure that they were going to blow the ending but damn did they deliver.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

>
>*Spoilers*
>
>That airplane scene is the best thing I have seen in a
>superhero movie ever. Powerful stuff.
>
>I was super sure that they were going to blow the ending but
>damn did they deliver.
>
>

Homelander & airplanes are not a good mix haha

cant wait for the next season

Karl Urban is awesome in this. The "Spice Girls" speech had me dying.

Got 2 left right now.
I can usually be really analytical, and nitpicky with details in thing. But this is so well done, that I'm willing to overlook the flaws and silly nonsense.
Accidentally read a spoiler when trying to figure out what the hell Black Noir's powers were.

i just heard that due to the success of season 1 amazon just gave them a shit ton of money for season 2. hopefully that doesn't mean they try and do too much and lose the focus that made season 1 so good.

I hope the season length is kept to eight episodes. Perfect number of episodes IMO without the threat of things getting to muddied up or convoluted. Not too long, not too short.

In a perfect world, I'd like the show to actually shoot episodes in NYC since there were some shots where it was glaringly obvious they weren't in NYC, but that's nitpicking on my part.

Very good to hear there some evidence of success for this show though.

locations that I recognized - it took me out of a few scenes. nothing crazy, but the scenes with the Christmas party and the other corporate party were filmed in Roy Thomson Hall. I've been to a few suit & tie events there and those scenes definitely took me out of the show's universe. But I mean, I get it, filming in Toronto is hella cheap compared to NYC so they do what they have to.

Like Preacher, I can't get with Garth Enis' heartless violence/gore. It just comes off as shock value with no regard for the characters.

When discount Flash tore through o girl, I noped out.

Maybe I need to go back though. Everyone is praising this, even people who normally don't dig hyper-violent shows.

but the characters are very well drawn out and are aren't completely one dimensional. In addition, the plot points don't come across as being done simply for shock values sake.

Lastly, I will say this show is much much much much better than the TV version of Preacher, if that means anything.

its not though

I'm all in for a darker, more realistic take on superheroes. That's not my issue.

I just don't dig on the way Garth Enis portrays the gore/violence in his stories. I don't mind gore or violence, but just the way he depict it in his comics is off-putting. TO me. Based on the hype I thought maybe the show might not go that route, but it seems like they stay pretty true to it, which is hard for me to hang with.

But again, a lot of people whose opinion I trust have said it's really good, so I might give it another shot.

tell me despite the gore factor, it's still apparently significantly toned down compared to the OG. that said, Seth (Rogen) recently talked about the fact that they've already started filming season 2 and it's gonna be bigger, better and they're gonna go for some of the gorier, crazier shit they initially left out.

...so i guess enjoy season 1 while it's still only 'mildly gory' lol. personally i found it to be a pretty damn good character study. Homelander in particular is...complex, to say the least.

V.

lol sorry, channeling Billy.
altho, here in Australia, "cunt" is pretty much a replacement word for "dude". samesies for our peeps across the pond (Urban is Kiwi but i think Butcher's sposed to be British right?).
even wifey enjoyed it, and she's picky as hell about the shit she actually likes.
Frenchie & Mothers Milk are the standouts for me, hands down my favs. the characters and the actors playing em.
the airplane scene with Maeve and Homelander. dear lord, *that* shit disturbed me more than any of the blood and guts.
The DEEP lol. dude was mostly played for laughs but he should have an intriguing journey ahead. that reverse-rape with the gills was somethin else.
Starlight & Hughey are obviously the beating heart of the show, but whenever Billy has moments of emotional clarity and honesty, he kinda steals all the feels. Urban kills it.
Homelander is played so fucking well, i *want* to be disturbed and terrified most of the time (and i kinda am cos he got them crazy eyes (not the lasers, just his regular eyes)), but a lot of the time i just give one of them super-impressed laughs every time he does some scandalous shit. just seeing that Dark Superman hypothetical come to life like that is literally awesome to see, and well...yeah, pretty terrifying. his takedown of the terrorist cell using nothing but his laser eyes? the ending too? how was Billy even meant to make a dent in that man?

glad it ended the way it did. it wasn't a *twist* ending, but a nice change of pace from what we might've expected (and thankfully not a "subverting expectations" style thing that D&D harped on about for GoT season 8). hope they get at least 10 eps for s2.

V.

how do folks view this show in comparison to The Watchmen? It's been a while since I've seen this, so I honestly don't know how well to answer the question myself. Another reason why I dunno if I can give an honest answer is because I read The Watchmen prior to watching the show, but I haven't picked up a single copy of The Boys, so my perspective isn't the same for both shows.

not that i thought it was bad, i just wasn't as engaged as just about everyone i know who is watching. Then i kept hearing leftovers comparisons which made me even less interested. Again, not that i thought Leftovers was bad, I just didn't like as much as most, and found it too miserable. Maybe I'll binge this at some point and realize i slept, or maybe Lindeloff just isn't for me.

I was in on the Boys from the jump, but I don't see the shows as at all similar. Watchmen has much more depth just going off the 2 i watched.

Besides Regina King and Doug Lindelof (sp?), The Watchmen isn't all that similar to The Leftovers to me. The Leftovers delves a bit more into supernatural subject matter than The Watchmen IMO and is more dour and downbeat than The Watchmen as well. FYI, I'm a huge fan of The Leftovers, but I have no interest in trying to convince you to give the show a second chance if you have no interest in it. The same goes with The Watchmen show as well.

I almost wish I didn't have prior knowledge of the graphic novel to see if my interest in this show would be the same because I find it somewhat hard for folks that have zero knowledge of the novel and have never seen the movie to have deep interest in this. A large chunk of the plot points aren't fully spelled out of viewers, so it must be doubly confusing for folks with absolutely no knowledge of the lore. A deep part of my admiration for the show is seeing how well the show runners a developing new stories and characters that diverge so differently from the original material. Folks with zero knowledge of the source material wouldn't have any clue about that, so dunno.

I figured I ask folks their opinions on both shows since they are both anti-hero takes on comic books, but I do agree with you that The Watchmen takes itself much more seriously than The Boys does, at least when you compared the television depictions.

I don't have anything bad to say about it other than it was too miserable for my taste lol. I got the same vibe going into Watchmen, even before people were bringing up Leftovers.

FYI, I'm a huge fan of The Leftovers, but I have no
>interest in trying to convince you to give the show a second
>chance if you have no interest in it. The same goes with The
>Watchmen show as well.

Granted, the TV adaptation of the Boys has more to say than the comic, which ZERO to say but at the end of the day it's not really exploring anything. It uses 'what if superhero's were awful?' mostly to do gross-out gags (the comic book uses that conceit ONLY to be as gross and mean-spirited as possible). It's satirical edge isn't all that honed.

The Boys does add some stuff about corporatization and media but nothing particularly that deep or interesting. The Boys strengths are its performances and its wild, do anything energy. It's VASTLY superior to the books but its nothing on the level of Watchmen at all.

As an exploration of anything beyond that initial 'what if...' there's nothing. I really enjoyed The Boys but I haven't given it one iota of thought since I finished the final episode because it doesn't require any.

Also, The Boys is an adaptation of a comic and Watchmen is a sequel to the comic. So while you can (and absolutely should) watch The Boys without reading the comic I can't imagine doing so with Watchmen nor would I recommend it.

>Granted, the TV adaptation of the Boys has more to say than
>the comic, which ZERO to say but at the end of the day it's
>not really exploring anything. It uses 'what if superhero's
>were awful?' mostly to do gross-out gags (the comic book uses
>that conceit ONLY to be as gross and mean-spirited as
>possible). It's satirical edge isn't all that honed.
>
>The Boys does add some stuff about corporatization and media
>but nothing particularly that deep or interesting. The Boys
>strengths are its performances and its wild, do anything
>energy. It's VASTLY superior to the books but its nothing on
>the level of Watchmen at all.
>
>As an exploration of anything beyond that initial 'what if...'
>there's nothing. I really enjoyed The Boys but I haven't given
>it one iota of thought since I finished the final episode
>because it doesn't require any.
>
>Also, The Boys is an adaptation of a comic and Watchmen is a
>sequel to the comic. So while you can (and absolutely should)
>watch The Boys without reading the comic I can't imagine doing
>so with Watchmen nor would I recommend it.