TVSquad

I've never read The Watchmen and I've only seen a few episodes of Heroes, but right off the bat, I would consider the "rip-off" accusations baseless. The Watchmen and Heroes are obviously based on mythology, and anyone who has studied classical mythology (or read Joseph Campbell) would know that all mythologies have similar motifs and outlines. The stories may vary in style, but they all share universal symbols. Is this plagarizaion? Of course not.

In the novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" by Michael Chabon, Joe Kavalier and Sammy Clay are two aspiring comic book authors in the late 30's. They are asked by a pulp publisher to "come up with a Superman for him." And they do. They create "The Escapist", a superhero with some similarities to Superman, but overall a different character, based more on Houdini, with an unusual entorage of helpers. But years later, Kavalier and Clay and the publisher are sued for plagarism-that "The Escapist" was too close to Superman.

Sound familiar?

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I've watched/read both and the accusations are not baseless. The storytelling happening is very different (Watchmen is much better) but the plot is definitely too close for comfort. Especially with a film adaptation of Watchmen coming so soon; it'll look bad for the film to be "copying" a recent television success.

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It all depends on mood and context. Heroes climax is known from the beginning and is the focus of the whole season. The main event. Also, the event itself actually happens to several of them. Same cannot be said for Watchmen.

Not only that, but Watchmen will have a much more realistic feel than Heroes. None of the Watchmen even had any powers except for Dr. Manhattan. The tone is completely different from Heroes, which has something happening for no real reason other than the leader being crazy.

And besides, the person behind the thing in Heroes is a known villain, which is also different from Watchmen. It might seem somewhat similar, and I definitely thought of Watchmen when I heard that plot point, but Heroes action-packed climax is by no means going to take anything away from the meaningful and unsettling climax of Watchmen.

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I agree that the ideas are vary similar and enough so that I made the connection as soon as the plot was revealed on Heroes, but actually the way it goes down in The Watchmen is much more "out there" but actually enough so that the concept is believable in bringing the world together, more then it is in Heroes if people just think a bomb went off.

On the other hand, maybe they are doing a Watchmen/X-men idea and making it so people are told it was a "Hero" who exploded and bands the world together by establishing a universal hate for the Heroes.

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typical of the post. a complete non-news item. no quotes from zach snyder, no quotes from alan moore, no quotes from dc comics, who is producing the movie, or warner brothers, no quotes from ANYONE! the entire idea of a conflict of interest between these two properties exists in the mind of a comic book geek reporter for the POST who needed to meet a deadline. yes there are similarities, but perleez. 'lost' is also heavily influenced by 'watchmen,' 'the incredibles' was heavily influenced by 'watchmen.' 'watchmen' is influential because it's iconic, and a classic.

god i hate the new york post.

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C C, I think the point of the accusation is that the plot of Watchmen is very similar, beyond their use of mythical archetypes and such. In Watchmen, Ozymandias, a wealthy, former superhero instigates mass devestation in New York City (he doesn't use an exploding atomic man, but rather an alien-looking creature that "explodes" when it is teleported into New York) in an effort to bring about "a better world."

I am a huge Watchmen and Heroes fan, and I admit that when I realized the plot, I immediately though of Watchmen.

That said, I don't see how this derails the film (though I almost hope it does as a 2-hour feature film will almost certainly be an abomination to the original comic). The plot is strikingly similar, but Watchmen is a much darker story, and aside from the plot and the rich-former-superhero behind it, they're not teribly alike.

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Look, I'm a fan of this site, and I think the writers generally do a very good job.

But if you've never seen "Heroes" or read "Watchmen," and aren't even willing to read the newspaper article you're commenting on because you "might want to catch the show or read that comic sometime," then what on earth are you doing writing this post?

I bet there are plenty of people at TV Squad who have seen every episode of "Heroes" (and possibly have read "Watchmen" too), or who are at least willing to read a single article about their similarities. I'm guessing that you, on the other hand, are by far the least-qualified person there to be writing about this topic.

I'm not saying you're an informed person and a fine writer in general, but if you're the only one who was available for this, maybe the site needs to be doing some hiring.

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That is, I'm not saying you're NOT an informed person and a fine writer in general. Darned double negatives.

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I love the pictures of the spoilers. Simple pleasures, not so simple mind.

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Everyone-thank you for your perspectives. It does sound like, at the very least, that "The Watchmen" has had a very strong influence on "Heroes". I'm a mythology nut, and I find anything mythological, from books to movies, a topic for discussion, even if I'm not that familiar with it.

Personally, I'm not that impressed with Heroes. I've tried watching it, and I haven't found the characters particularly compelling. But I do see why it has struck a chord-it's mythology.

The problem with art is that it influences other art. The writers of Heroes intended for it to be a comic-book novel for television. Of course they would reference other pulps in the making of it. But are they directly lifting the plotline?

What I was saying earlier was that all "mythology" based stories generally are inspired by earlier mythologies. For instance, what do Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The DaVinci Code have in common? They're all influenced by the Arthurian legends. All of them have characters or plot devices borrowed directly from those legends. Do we criticize the writers for doing that? No.

However, it sounds like in this case, we may be dealing with plot borrowing, which is not good. But if The Watchmen is as influential as it is, there should be no problem with a translation to screen, even if Heroes has been "copying" the plotline.

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Though there are similarities in the general plot (rich, villainous once-hero causing destruction to bring about unity), the fundamentals of the ideas are so fundamental that it's hard to accuse them of plagiarism.

A character like Linderman and Ozymandius share similarities in their backstory, but there is also logic to the development of their characters. With that much money and power, having seen that much good will squandered, is it too far out of the realm of reality for either character to develop such a plot? Not particularly.

(SPOILERS Ahead!)

Also of note, and a note I find most important, is that when Hiro teleports five years into the future, you see a world where the plan has ultimately failed, and heroes are seen as terrorists and there is talk of genocide. If there was unity, it did not last long. In The Watchmen, we are to assume that, upon the successful launching of the plan, that unity was achieved.

So, my belief is that there are similar themes, but Heroes did not go out of its way to develop a plot that is outside the realm of believability. And if Zack Snyder were really pissed that a TV show and a movie shared plot elements, then he'd be ignorant to the reality that stories share elements all the frackin' time. Of course, there are no quotes from Snyder, so it's just the NYPost making editorial.

Rosco
Joystiq

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I also love Watchmen and immediately made the connection. And I'm sure it'll be troubling for the people making the movie, but not because of what Heroes did, but because it got people talking about the climactic moments of Watchmen which will take away from the excitement for moviegoers unfamilliar with Moore's original.

Still though, every story bears a similarity to stories that have come before, and the superhero genre is so specific that you can't help but hit on elements that someone else did first. I wish Heroes had come up with something mindblowingly new and exciting, but Linderman is different enough from Veidt that it's not a complete ripoff, and the rest of the show, in plot, tone, character, and theme, seems radically different.

http://popculturejunk.blogspot.com/

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so you know, this is coming from someone who was freakishly obsessed w/ watchmen when the comics were coming out and spent way more time reading/thinking about it than anyone probably should. i say this because i have since fallen out of infatuation w/ alan moore, for reasons relevant to this situation.
no one has the right to complain that someone has ripped off alan moore's ideas, because he never had one that he didn't steal. period. there are complete panel-for-panel ripoffs of lesser-known comics (eg. nexus) in watchmen. marvelman, dr & quinch, v for vendetta, and everything he ever put his name on all contain ideas stolen from other sources. the basic plot of watchmen is from an outer limits episode. all of this has been well documented by now.
which is why i didn't get all bent out of shape by the heroes episode, tho the connection was pretty obvious to me as soon as i saw it.
as for cursing the movie, if tom cruise plays anybody in it, it's going to suck anyway. i never thought about it before, but that rumor brought it home to me: i don't want to see a film of it. as a comic book story, i think its best medium is the comic book. any other version is just going to be ersatz. let it go.

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Quick asides for the non-comic book nuts or conspiracy theorists in the crowd:

- While incredibly similar to 'Watchmen', Moore's classic also was inspired by Chris Claremont's incredibly important run on 'X-Men' entitled 'Days of Future Past' (ibid)

- If you're not watching 'Heroes' or reading the 'Watchmen', then you probably have missed the comparisons that have been made toward the Bush administration regarding 9/11. Not to say this is fact, but if all of these stories go back to a mythological or military strategem Dick Cheney probably read it too.

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It wouldn't matter if the Heroes story line slightly mirrored the same plot as the Watchmen. If you've seen an episode of Heroes you would know the writing for Heroes pales in comparison. And the writers don't seem to have a clear vision at all. They have said Heroes was supposed to be an on going serialized drama but then contradicted that same statement in interviews where the show creator has said this was never intended to be an on going story, that characters were supposed to come and go and new characters would be introduced and their stories told.
This indicisiveness has resulted in cartoonish stereotype characters with almost no depth and predictable story lines which rob the episodes of any excitement. With the exception of one or two episodes the season has been really bad. The main thing that stands out in any episode is the characters use of their abilities and it's clear they have relied on the special effects to keep the show interesting and entertaining. Throw in enough to dazzle the audience each week and they'll be back again hungry for more. All you need is some T.K. a little invisibility, and a couple bolts of radioactivity and it's "the most awesome episode ever." Who needs a good story?

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I just finished reading watchmen the other day. After becoming a fan of Heroes and reading up about it I naturally came across "The Watchmen" over and over again and decided to try it out. I was thoroughly disappointed though. I found most of the 12 book series to be needless fluff, that added nothing to the overall story line. The conclusions that the book drew on society were very presumptuous and the "solution" to these problems were completely oversimplified. Such a solution, which was no doubt a shock value way to attain world peace would surely last mere months without a continued "alien" threat. The story was many times violent just for shock value as well. The book's attempts at symbolism reminded me of a child mimcking the motions of an adult without really knowing what he or she was doing. I read (here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen) that Moore aimed to create the comic book equivalent of Moby Dick, hence the reckless use of symbolism. Hmm... I already used the word presumptuous, so I hesitate to use it again, but it fits here so well. Over all the story was thoroughly boring, overly arrogant, and had absolutely no sense of timelessness what so ever. I'm very glad I got "The Watchmen" from my library and not from eBay.

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I've never seen Heroes but as others have said the plot for Watchmen is from an Outer Limits episode. Moreover, in the final issue that episode of the Outer Limits is playing on the tv in the background.

As far as the quality of Watchmen. All of the criticisms about the solution being naive and not lasting are kind of the point. Arguing that something is good when someone doesn't like it is kind of fruitless. However, I will say that every time I've read Watchmen I've noticed some detail that I hadn't noticed before.

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The point remains, does a TV show plot point that parallels the big reveal of the bad guy plot in an upcoming movie hurt that movie's chances at the box office when it eventually comes out?

Superman Returns was a worse than mediocre movie, and the evil plot that had to be foiled was true, borrowed from previous Superman plots - Lex Luthor was still trying to create his own real estate, damning those around it with the side effects.

Thing is, with Superman Returns we already know that Lex's plans are silly and grandiose. Movie goers are along for the ride.

However, if someone had spoiled the nature of the two last Matrix movies were with a very similar plot line in some current TV show, it might be a different thing.

The upcoming Batman movie with the Joker in it just had some fake Joker pics hit the web -- even spoiling THAT image too far away from the actual promotion of the film is considered harmful by the studio, and the Joker is a known character in the movie. The actual image of the Joker alone is a spoiler and could harm the film's take at the box office. Putting a real picture out now doesn't harm the film, but it is seen as harming the box office take.

Imagine if you already knew what nefarious plan the Joker was intent on doing? Again, fans of the movie might not care.

But folks who are choosing whether to see the movie at the box office or wait for the DVD might.

WATCHMEN, whatever you feel about the comic book and the upcoming admittedly hard to make movie, doesn't want it's plot points advertised, and HEROES plot point isn't being advertised as trying to spoil WATCHMEN's thunder, but to some degree it actually is.

WATCHMEN was written pre 9/11 and everything dealing with NYC today, the WATCHMEN movie and the HEROES tv show is written with some understanding of recent events.

The HEROES plotline is such that we are led to believe that the events in NYC can still be prevented.

And the WATCHMEN movie... well, I'm one of the ones that think that Alan Moore's comic should never have become a movie.

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Yayaja,

You kind of missed the point. The solution isn't meant to last. That's foreshadowed in the pirate comic, Dr. Manhattan's last comments and the closing shot of Rorschach's journal. As for timeliness, it was written in the 80s about the Cold War.

Blanket dismissals carry a lot more weight when the dismisser actually understands the material.

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