Watchmen Movie is Terrible

[Soviet Heavy]

So, When Watchmen came out as a film, I saw it. I was a little confused by it and none of the over the top violence felt right to me. But I enjoyed it for being a neat looking film.

Until now.

During my English Class, we were required to read the comic version of Watchmen. I enjoyed it immensely, since I could see just how every little thing in the comic was intertwined. Upon retrospect, the changes to the film version totally wreck the cohesion.

Spoiler

For example, the film changes the destruction of New York by the genetically engineered Squid Monster to multiple cities across the world being destroyed by Ozy and Manhattan's unlimited energy reactors. (something that wasn't in the novel)

That one change defeats the purpose of everything. The entire reason the plot happened was because the Comedian discovered what Ozy was doing with the artists and scientists to create the grotesque monster. The Comedian became a loose end that had to be eliminated. He had to be removed, as well as anyone who might figure out what he saw, or who he talked to. That was why Moloch was murdered, Manhattan was discredited and forced into exile, and Rorschach framed and arrested.

The film version forgets about the Comedian near the end, and changes the threat from the fake alien invasion to Dr. Manhattan being an enemy of Earth. Which makes everything pointless, since Manhattan leaves for another galaxy anyways, meaning that there is no reason to unite against him. Which in turn means that Ozy's plan would fail.

So, by changing one thing, it renders the entire plot completely pointless.

I also care even less for the extreme violence in the film after reading the book. Yes, the book is violent and especially gritty for the time when it was published, but really, the mountains of blood in the movie just seem forced.

 

[Bomberman4000]

I didn't like Watchmen because it bored me. I was watching it with my brother and sister who were both really excited to see it, and I couldn't have been more bored. Of course, we'd just watched Kick-Ass which is a very different type of movie so it may have just been coming off of that high.

As someone who knows nothing about the original story of Watchmen or anything beyond the scope of the movie I saw, I didn't care anything for the characters and couldn't have cared less about the story itself.

 

[Logiclul]

Watch Transformers 3 if you think that Watchmen is the only bad 'superhero' movie.

 

[ChupathingyX]

Well I haven't read the graphic novel so I can't really comment.

Spoiler

Also, out of curiosity, but what exactly is the point of the giant squid monster?

However, even if I did I still think the film has the best opening credits in any film I have ever seen.

 

[johnzaku]

Because my rebuttal is spoilerific as your argument,

Spoiler

comedian found out about the plot to blow up the cities using the reactors. and that cancer was given to the friends of Manhattan. Moloch was murdered because Rorschach was close to figuring stuff out from him. The plot was exactly the same, and the motives are all identical, just the tenty-monster was replaced by an easier-to-believe threat: Dr Manhattan himself. When the book was written it was more relavant to use hostile aliens as a credible world-unifier. Not so much nowadays.

The blood and everything was, I felt, perfectly faithful to the book.

That being said, yes, the novel's better, but the movie is far far from bad. To me anyways

 

[Waaghpowa]

The comic IS much better than the movie. They changed a bunch of things that made me nerd rage, like

Spoiler

How Rorschach killed that kid murderer, because supposedly it was to avoid ignorant fuck tards saying that they ripped off Saw, despite the comic was released in the 80's

I also agree about the ending, I hated how they changed that.

I still liked the movie because as far as comic movies go, it was rather well done and had a larger appeal than simply comic readers.

 

[redisforever]

Didn't watch it, trailer bored me. Seriously, why was everyone so excited by it? I just thought it looked nice.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I think you're looking at it wrong. Watchmen was always considered to be one of those "Unfilmable Films", and I think that, really, the movie we got was the best it could possibly have been.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Because my rebuttal is spoilerific as your argument,

Spoiler

comedian found out about the plot to blow up the cities using the reactors. and that cancer was given to the friends of Manhattan. The plot was exactly the same, just the tenty-monster was replaced by an easier-to-believe threat.

The blood and everything was, I felt, perfectly faithful to the book.

Spoiler: Spoiler related explanation

From what I recall, the original ending was intended to unite the world under threat of alien invasion. It sounds strange yeah...

 

[Worgen]

For me the best part of the movie was like the first 10 minutes, the rest was kinda crap, the special effects were cool and the woman who played the silk specter looked hot (couldn't act worth a damn though) but the rest of the film was just was kinda meh.

 

[Freaky Lou]

Spoilers throughout the following reply.

I haven't seen the movie, but I just kind of assumed that it'd be like that. Walter Chaw explained the Watchmen film thusly: It can play the notes but it doesn't know the music.

I understand the decision not to use the squid monster, since that'd look a lot sillier on-camera than it did on the page. But besides the Comedian problem you mentioned, there's also the fact that he hit a ton of cities instead of just New York, and pinned it on Manhattan.

I don't think that the USSR or any of the other countries would've stopped seeing Manhattan as an American force just because he went to Mars. If they thought he attacked them, they would see it as an American attack and retaliate. The result would be the opposite of what Veidt was trying.

There's also the softening of Rorschach's spiel when he's talking to the psychiatrist. I'm a Christian, and even so I would rather 'Schach just be allowed to be the nihilistic atheist he was in the book. They tinkered Rorschach to be a little more acceptable to Americans, which is ironic because he was always supposed to be the worst parts of Americanism.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Well I haven't read the graphic novel so I can't really comment.

Spoiler

Also, out of curiosity, but what exactly is the point of the giant squid monster?

However, even if I did I still think the film has the best opening credits in any film I have ever seen.

Spoiler

The giant squid monster was part of Ozymandias' plan to unite the world and end nuclear conflict. Remember the weird purple lynx from the film, Bubastis? That was a result of genetic engineering. The Comic mentions the fact that several highly proclaimed artists, filmmakers and scientists have gone missing over the past few months. Near the end, Ozy explains that he had all these people moved to an island where they were supposedly working on a science fiction film. However, once the creature was complete, Ozy had everyone killed to hide the evidence.

The creature was born out of the most twisted artists imaginations, while using cloned human brain tissue, which when teleported to New York City, would release a psychic shockwave that would kill half of the city and destroy the monster in the process. The fear of an alien invasion would theoretically unite the world against the perceived threat, thus ending war.

 

[crazyarms33]

So, When Watchmen came out as a film, I saw it. I was a little confused by it and none of the over the top violence felt right to me. But I enjoyed it for being a neat looking film.

Until now.

During my English Class, we were required to read the comic version of Watchmen. I enjoyed it immensely, since I could see just how every little thing in the comic was intertwined. Upon retrospect, the changes to the film version totally wreck the cohesion.

Spoiler

For example, the film changes the destruction of New York by the genetically engineered Squid Monster to multiple cities across the world being destroyed by Ozy and Manhattan's unlimited energy reactors. (something that wasn't in the novel)

That one change defeats the purpose of everything. The entire reason the plot happened was because the Comedian discovered what Ozy was doing with the artists and scientists to create the grotesque monster. The Comedian became a loose end that had to be eliminated. He had to be removed, as well as anyone who might figure out what he saw, or who he talked to. That was why Moloch was murdered, Manhattan was discredited and forced into exile, and Rorschach framed and arrested.

The film version forgets about the Comedian near the end, and changes the threat from the fake alien invasion to Dr. Manhattan being an enemy of Earth. Which makes everything pointless, since Manhattan leaves for another galaxy anyways, meaning that there is no reason to unite against him. Which in turn means that Ozy's plan would fail.

So, by changing one thing, it renders the entire plot completely pointless.

I also care even less for the extreme violence in the film after reading the book. Yes, the book is violent and especially gritty for the time when it was published, but really, the mountains of blood in the movie just seem forced.

This is EXACTLY how I feel about the movie Fight Club. I HATED it. I could not find one redeeming feature in it. I don't particularly care for the book much either, but comparing the two of them its like offering me a choice: Would I rather eat a big pile of steamy offal OR would you like a slightly stale cracker? To me its a no brainer, cracker please!

 

[2ndblackjedi]

Spoiler: In spoiler tags just in case...

Well, if I recall correctly, no one but those present at the time know that Dr Manhattan left, so the Earth would still have reason to unite in defence against him. And really even if the whole world knew with how much damage it seems like he did, they'd still have to have something in place for if he came back.

And the Squid monster (imo) only really works in the comic because all the background information is there, particularly in the stuff between chapters. The movie didn't have those things. And really all Ozy's plan needed was a large, unknown, yet believable enemy of the whole planet.

 

[Freaky Lou]

Because my rebuttal is spoilerific as your argument,

Spoiler

comedian found out about the plot to blow up the cities using the reactors. and that cancer was given to the friends of Manhattan. The plot was exactly the same, just the tenty-monster was replaced by an easier-to-believe threat.

The blood and everything was, I felt, perfectly faithful to the book.

Read my reply to see a problem with the removal of

Spoiler

the squid monster.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Spoilers throughout the following reply.

I haven't seen the movie, but I just kind of assumed that it'd be like that. Walter Chaw explained the Watchmen film thusly: It can play the notes but it doesn't know the music.

I understand the decision not to use the squid monster, since that'd look a lot sillier on-camera than it did on the page. But besides the Comedian problem you mentioned, there's also the fact that he hit a ton of cities instead of just New York, and pinned it on Manhattan.

I don't think that the USSR or any of the other countries would've stopped seeing Manhattan as an American force just because he went to Mars. If they thought he attacked them, they would see it as an American attack and retaliate. The result would be the opposite of what Veidt was trying.

There's also the softening of Rorschach's spiel when he's talking to the psychiatrist. I'm a Christian, and even so I would rather 'Schach just be allowed to be the nihilistic atheist he was in the book. They tinkered Rorschach to be a little more acceptable to Americans, which is ironic because he was always supposed to be the worst parts of Americanism.

Exactly. Rorschach was born of the accumulated filth of America. He was the personification of all their evil. And then ironically, his views were proven true in the end, when his psychiatrist adopted Rorschach's world view, and died trying to stop two people from fighting.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Spoiler: In spoiler tags just in case...

Well, if I recall correctly, no one but those present at the time know that Dr Manhattan left, so the Earth would still have reason to unite in defence against him. And really even if the whole world knew with how much damage it seems like he did, they'd still have to have something in place for if he came back.

And the Squid monster (imo) only really works in the comic because all the background information is there, particularly in the stuff between chapters. The movie didn't have those things. And really all Ozy's plan needed was a large, unknown, yet believable enemy of the whole planet.

Spoiler

Except that Dr. Manhattan was still seen as a symbol of America. Even if he left the world for merely a month, that wouldn't be enough to stop Russia from attacking the states as soon as he's back. There's also the problem that sooner or later, someone will catch on that Manhattan isn't coming back, and the whole thing falls apart.

With the Squid, if people start to question its relevance, Ozymandias could simply clone more and repeat the New York scenario.

 

[Freaky Lou]

Exactly. Rorschach was born of the accumulated filth of America. He was the personification of all their evil. And then ironically, his views were proven true in the end, when his psychiatrist adopted Rorschach's world view, and died trying to stop two people from fighting.

On top of that, Bubastis doesn't make any sense now. =/

 

[Viral_Lola]

I liked the movie and I have read the comic book. *looks at collector?s edition nearby* I didn?t like the comic book ending of a squid monster. It just didn?t seem right.

 

[Mike Richards]

To be honest I always thought the squid was a bit silly to begin with. The book does a remarkable job justifying it but it still always ended up feeling extremely abrupt and treading into territory the story hadn't covered up to that point. The new ending takes everything that was ever important about the original and grounds it in a believable thread that runs through the entire film. Like someone else already pointed out, it's not like anyone knew Manhattan was leaving anyways.

There's also the softening of Rorschach's spiel when he's talking to the psychiatrist. I'm a Christian, and even so I would rather 'Schach just be allowed to be the nihilistic atheist he was in the book. They tinkered Rorschach to be a little more acceptable to Americans, which is ironic because he was always supposed to be the worst parts of Americanism.

Maybe I just haven't read it recently enough, but I don't remember there being any particularly noticeable changes to his philosophy or outlook on the world. A few bits of dropped dialogue in the conversations perhaps, but that always happens.

In any case, if you people want to see what a bad Watchmen film really looks like go look up the original script from the 80s. You'll forgive everything the new one adjusted instantly.

EDIT - Plus, the squid relied on the clone of a psychic's brain. I like the idea of keeping everything weird about this world localized to Manhattan himself, it feels more relevant and powerful that way.