Out Goes the Squid

I think any fan of the source material can agree that the thing that made the disappointment that was the Watchmen movie sting the most was the changing of the ending. It's a real shame because the ending of the Watchmen graphic novel was arguably one of the most meaningful parts of the story. In the comic, Adrian Veidt creates an interdimentional being (the squid) and drops it on New York city, killing thousands. Immediately, the powers of the world throw aside their differences and unite against a threat that they don't fully understand. Cold War tensions dissolve as the world realizes that humanity has bigger things to worry about than squabbling between nations. Needless to say, its hard to decide whether Veidt is in the right for his actions. On the one hand, he killed thousands of people, but in doing so he stopped the countdown to doomsday and nuclear aggression. This ambiguous tone sets forth a moral quandary for the reader; are the lives of thousands worth sacrificing for the survival of millions?

In the filmic adaptation of Watchmen, director Zack Snyder removes the squid and instead depicts Veidt building a machine that replicates the energy created by the god-like being known as Dr. Manhattan. Veidt releases this energy in cities all over the world, killing millions, and making it look as if it is the work of Dr. Manhattan. Whereas the graphic novel stressed the threat of the unknown, Snyder leans more on the threat of Old Testament wrath. Snyder's ending essentially says: "As long as everyone thinks Doc is watching, no one will try to blow anyone else up". This totally misses the point of the original ending; actually uniting humanity against something they don't understand so that the thought of hurting one another doesn't even cross their minds. Snyder's ending doesn't unite anyone, it's just another glorified Iron Curtain stand-off. Worst of all, the characters' reactions make this seem as if it was the right thing to do, completely missing the morally ambiguous tone that made the graphic novel so thought provoking. In my mind, even a liberal adaptation should at least embody the same overarching themes and questions raised by the original work. The Watchmen movie's failure to do so makes it hard for fans of the source material to embrace as a true realization of the story on the big screen.