Watchmen helmer Damon Lindelof can "completely and totally dismiss" bad-faith review bombing

Despite various methods trying to stop the practice, reviewing bombing and tidal waves of fan backlash have not gone anywhere. Just this month, Star Wars series The Acolyte—a new show set a long, long time before the events of the main saga—was unceremoniously canceled by Disney after its first season, becoming the first Disney Star Wars joint to suffer that fate. While it was generally well received critically—we gave it a B+—there was significant backlash from a subset of the Star Wars fandom, upset over its non-white lead actors and female showrunner. Actor Amandla Stenberg bore the brunt of much of the backlash, both when the show was dubbed “The Woke-alyte” before it aired and via social media after it was canceled.

All this to say, the volume of backlash can be a very real problem for both creators and actors. So what can be done about it? In a new article in The Guardian, Watchmen writer and executive producer Damon Lindelof reflected on his experience helming the 2019 HBO miniseries and some of the bad faith criticism it inspired. “I can completely and totally dismiss it, because very often the individuals haven’t even seen it,” Lindelof told the newspaper. “Any criticism once you’ve seen the thing doesn’t bother me. But criticism made by individuals in a review-bombing context usually happens before they’ve even seen it. You have to taste my food before you spit it out.” 

Lindelof also chalked up the backlash largely to political motivations, which he felt made it easier to ignore. “[R]eview bombing is disproportionately because a beloved piece of IP has been rendered woke, or there’s too many women in it, or there’s too many people of colour in it, or it’s sympathetic to LGBTQIA+ issues,” he said. In the case of Watchmen, Lindelof had to deal with not only the backlash from fans, but from the comic’s original creator Alan Moore (who apparently hates every single adaptation of his work). 

Of course, there is one major difference between Watchmen and a show like The Acolyte or The Rings Of Power (another title cited in The Guardian’s piece): Watchmen is a limited series that was complete before wide audiences ever saw it. Ignoring the backlash was a viable solution when Lindelof didn’t have to worry about currying favor for future seasons. Even if critics and audiences both universally hated Watchmen (which they didn’t), the show was in the can. But as far as protecting one’s own mental peace goes, blocking out the haters is always a good strategy.