Watchmen Movie is Terrible

[Freaky Lou]

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.

The changes are relatively subtle, but they are important. The overall message ceases to be "There is no god, no destiny, no higher meaning, nothing. The world consists of nothing besides us and our filth and decadence, and drifts rudderless." and becomes "It's not God's fault that the world is like this. It's ours." which is a more Christian way of looking at things.

As for the 80's script, I haven't seen it, but I'm sure it's not pretty.

 

[Mike Richards]

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.

The changes are relatively subtle, but they are important. The overall message ceases to be "There is no god, no destiny, no higher meaning, nothing. The world consists of nothing besides us and our filth and decadence, and drifts rudderless." and becomes "It's not God's fault that the world is like this. It's ours." which is a more Christian way of looking at things.

As for the 80's script, I haven't seen it, but I'm sure it's not pretty.

Fair enough. I got the same impression both ways but I suppose I can see how it could be misinterpreted in the movie.

And here's the link for the '89 script in case anyone's interested. Pay close attention to the ending, it's an even bigger departure then removing the squid.

http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/wtchmn.txt

 

[Soviet Heavy]

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.

The squid might have been abrupt, but the hints towards how it is entirely plausible within the context of the story are everywhere, especially with Bubastis.

 

[Freaky Lou]

And here's the link for the '89 script in case anyone's interested. Pay close attention to the ending, it's an even bigger departure then removing the squid.

http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/wtchmn.txt

Oh geez. Time travel. I'm glad this didn't happen.

 

[malestrithe]

Removing the giant squid was not the only thing that was wrong with the movie. The main thing wrong with the movie is that it is too faithful to the source material. Even though it did not make it into the movie, Zack Snyder filmed every scene in the comic book and in the director's cut, the so called "important" scene is restored. There is even a version that replaced the Black Freighter and the Rorsach segments where they appeared in the comic book, if you are interested.

The main thing wrong with the movie is that it is not an adaptation of the original source material. What Zack Snyder made was a motion comic, only with a bigger budget. He did not change a bloody thing and treated everything in Alan More's work like it was important. I know that the Internet loved that approach, but answer honestly: How many people actually watched the movie new? According to IMDB, barely enough to break even. Compare that to something like Spiderman and the Dark Knight, movies that made their studios massive bank.

A lot of you don't understand what an adaptation really means. An adaptation means that you take the material and change things around to make a coherent story. Like it or not, not everything from that book is important enough to make it into the movie. If that means leaving certain subplots out of the movie, so be it. And no, leaving that giant squid on the cutting room floor does not meant it was adapted. It just means that it was left out because of time.

Was there enough material in the Watchmen to make a movie? Sure, but the focus needed to change to two or three characters. Maybe Rorsach, Nite-Owl and the Silk Spectre could have been the focus of the piece, and more time devoted to Ozymandias. Knowing how Manhatten was created was not important to the movie, neither is that segment on Mars. The Comedian could have been removed entirely, as well as anything having to do with the previous generation.

If those changes were going to piss you off, then you just had to deal with it. You are not the important demographic. You would have seen it anyway and Hollywood already had your money. The people in Hollywood need to worry about the 90 percent that could potentially see it. They are not going to look at things that are not written for them.

 

[CODE-D]

By your description the novel version sounds retarded.

 

[Zen Toombs]

Off-topic Discussion: Watchmen Movie is Terrible

Pretty much, and for the reasons you explained.

 

[soes757]

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.

You read watchmen for English?
Lucky.
Anyway, the changes to the movie were awful however I don't think the general public would have approved of a giant squid thing destroying New York, and I don't think that the majority of the sales (dvd and tickets) came from people who had read the comic.

 

[Wushu Panda]

Im not putting in spoiler bubbles. If you haven't seen Watchmen by now in any form you're a terrible person and shame on you.

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.

Hi, welcome to several years ago...

Have you ever seen a book turned into a movie before? Is this some new experience for you? They cannot ALWAYS throw in every detail from the books. They had to remove/change a few things so people wouldn't be sitting in the movie theater for 4 hours, though I gladly would have. They needed to shorten the film plot to make it reasonable, so they turned Black Freighter into an animated short movie and changed a few things to take out an hour of explanation. Sad, but these things happen.

My friends and I read and were into Watchmen YEARS before the movie was even a notion. So quit your QQing because I doubt you could even fully understand the subtle themes of the book.

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.

Its not supposed to be some random 'squid monster'. Ozymandias created the thing to fake an alien attack on the earth. He saw that the only way to create peace was to unite the world with a common tragedy. When an attack is made against a country, that country stands together...only Ozymandias had to attack on a global scale. He couldn't use ANY conventional weapon because one country would just assume its an enemy, but if he was able to fool the world into thinking an outside force threatened the world as a whole, then nations from all over would stand together and put away their old differences. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

This was changed from alien to Dr. Manhattan in the movie because they couldn't fit in the explanation of his gene laboratory/experiments. The only reason they threw Ozy's pet in the movie was for the diehard fans of the graphic novel. But the change STILL fits the theme set up by the main plot. Everyone knows Dr. Manhattan is an ace-in-the-hole for any country. But if the world believed he was an enemy to everyone, they would unite together to fight a powerful foe which threatened everyone.

As stated by others, Watchmen was originally believed to be un-filmable for MANY reasons. The movie was incredible. If Soviet is unhappy because he thinks they did a sub-par job of creating a movie, then I ask him to give it a try.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Im not putting in spoiler bubbles. If you haven't seen Watchmen by now in any form you're a terrible person and shame on you.

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.

Hi, welcome to several years ago...

Have you ever seen a book turned into a movie before? Is this some new experience for you? They cannot ALWAYS throw in every detail from the books. They had to remove/change a few things so people wouldn't be sitting in the movie theater for 4 hours, though I gladly would have. They needed to shorten the film plot to make it reasonable, so they turned Black Freighter into an animated short movie and changed a few things to take out an hour of explanation. Sad, but these things happen.

My friends and I read and were into Watchmen YEARS before the movie was even a notion. So quit your QQing because I doubt you could even fully understand the subtle themes of the book.

High, how's the view from your high horse up there? I read the novel, and I GOT the themes they were going for. Is it my fault if I had never read the fucking thing before now? It came out before I was born for christ's sake.

My point isn't that they didn't adapt the novel faithfully, but that the changes they did make were detrimental to the story. I also love how you say that if I didn't like the movie, I should just make it myself. How about YOU do that then? If its so simple for me to do it, then why not you as well?

No shit movies that adapt novels make changes, but most of the time, they are to save on time or to remove extraneous plotlines in order to keep the pacing proper. But the genetic engineering was a theme in the novel that was very subtly used, keeping the squid as a surprise. Instead, they go with the free energy reactors being super nukes so that they could make a bunch of take thats to the goddamn oil industry. Was that needed in the movie?

 

[Slimshad]

***SPOILER WARNING*** (Cause I don't know how to make those fancy spoiler bar thingies)

OP, everything you just described as not making sense... makes sense. You ask why the comedian falls out of faith with Ozy? Because he finds out Ozy is gonna blow up a bunch of cities. And in my opinion, making the Dr. an enemy of earth rather than fake aliens is a much better and concise plot move. It doesn't matter if he moves to another galaxy, because the people of earth will not know that. The people of earth will fear an omnipotent godhead, even if he isn't there. What I like about using the Dr. is that it takes out the small element of Deus Ex Machina that the squid had. I mean sure there were hints throughout the story (which could not have been portrayed in the movie anyways), but it still felt like coming out of left field with a giant tentacle monster.

As for Dr. Manhattan being an American symbol, I'm sure that the Russians would INSTANTLY send their nukes out to America even after they see that America was half to hell, because obviously blowing up most American cities is just part of the capitalistic plot to destabilize the motherland! Yeah, they wouldn't shoot anything.

 

[Viral_Lola]

Im not putting in spoiler bubbles. If you haven't seen Watchmen by now in any form you're a terrible person and shame on you.

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.

Hi, welcome to several years ago...

Have you ever seen a book turned into a movie before? Is this some new experience for you? They cannot ALWAYS throw in every detail from the books. They had to remove/change a few things so people wouldn't be sitting in the movie theater for 4 hours, though I gladly would have. They needed to shorten the film plot to make it reasonable, so they turned Black Freighter into an animated short movie and changed a few things to take out an hour of explanation. Sad, but these things happen.

My friends and I read and were into Watchmen YEARS before the movie was even a notion. So quit your QQing because I doubt you could even fully understand the subtle themes of the book.

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.

Its not supposed to be some random 'squid monster'. Ozymandias created the thing to fake an alien attack on the earth. He saw that the only way to create peace was to unite the world with a common tragedy. When an attack is made against a country, that country stands together...only Ozymandias had to attack on a global scale. He couldn't use ANY conventional weapon because one country would just assume its an enemy, but if he was able to fool the world into thinking an outside force threatened the world as a whole, then nations from all over would stand together and put away their old differences. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

This was changed from alien to Dr. Manhattan in the movie because they couldn't fit in the explanation of his gene laboratory/experiments. The only reason they threw Ozy's pet in the movie was for the diehard fans of the graphic novel. But the change STILL fits the theme set up by the main plot. Everyone knows Dr. Manhattan is an ace-in-the-hole for any country. But if the world believed he was an enemy to everyone, they would unite together to fight a powerful foe which threatened everyone.

As stated by others, Watchmen was originally believed to be un-filmable for MANY reasons. The movie was incredible. If Soviet is unhappy because he thinks they did a sub-par job of creating a movie, then I ask him to give it a try.

I know it wasn?t a random squid monster but I didn?t like it. That?s just my personal opinion.

 

[Mr Thin]

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

I couldn't help but notice, Soviet, that you have not replied to this gentleman. I bring this up because he is correct.

'That one change', as you say, changes nothing at all. Going by your description of the comic, the Comedian has the exact same role, and is killed for the exact same reason.

The only valid part of your argument is that

Spoiler

because Dr Manhattan left, there would be no reason to unite against him. I disagree. He can manipulate matter and travel through space, I hardly think his absence is sufficient justification for forgetting about him.

And even if that wasn't true, I'm OK with the change because - giant squid monster? There is absolutely no way they could've put that up on screen without destroying the mood of the movie. It's just too silly, too hilarious. It actually sounds like a joke ending, like "Giant squid monster appears, everybody dies". I'm not saying the comic doesn't justify it, just that it would look stupid in film.

 

[LiquidGrape]

The Watchmen movie is awful because Snyder is a vapid hack of a director. It's all glossy surfaces and gratuitous displays of action set pieces. He's a filmmaker in the Michael Bay school. Same voyeuristic sensibility.

And while I would never demand a page-by-page adaptation of any literary source (that would be madness), I found it infuriating how utterly Snyder failed to grasp how the rapport between Rorschach and his therapist is pretty much the emotional heart of the piece.
Rorschach's nihilism initially overwhelms the latter, bringing him to the edge of existential despair - a brink from which he manages to pull himself away in favour of a more open-eyed and humanistic mindset. Rorschach is essentially rendered a weaker character, as when faced with the same soul crushing realisation, he opted for the conclusion that people had no intrinsic worth.

- In Snyder's hands it all turned into little more than a "man Rorschach so cool" segue.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

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

The Comedian is forgotten by the end of the movie. For people who have read the comic, they understand, but for the main movie going audience, it makes things confusing.

However, I do have to comment on this. The Comedian was horrified of the squid monster because the thing was an abomination, an absolutely sick creature created through grotesque genetic engineering and human tissue.

Having a bunch of bombs scare the shit out of the Comedian doesn't make sense. This is a guy who revels in bloodshed, killing people not out of a sense of patriotism, but out of pleasure. He doesn't care who lives or who dies, as long as he gets the joke.

He was profoundly disturbed by HOW Ozymandias was going to gain world peace, not WHY. A bunch of energy bombs versus an ungodly thing born of people's worst nightmares?

 

[Grug16]

I recall reading a commentary of the film that explains why the ending was changed.

After all the deconstruction and relationships and muddy morality from the heroes, The Alien was meant to be awkward and unexpected, the same way that old comics contrived ways to get monsters for the heroes to fight. The average moviegoer who saw the alien wouldn't get it at all, they'd just ask "why is there a big alien now"? The reactors were for practicality's sake, requiring no extra infodumps.

 

[scar_47]

As with almost every adaptation their are changes and cuts but I thought the movie did a good job capturing the look and feel of the comic, Most of the changes were really needed for it to work as a movie and be generally acceptable to a large audience ie the removal of the squid which really only works once you go back through and see all of the little hints in the comic and couldn't be well replicated in film, I missed some of the smaller character moments but reall it was already a 3 hour movie you can't include everything. Is it perfect no, but it was a good adaptation and hit the big themes and thats more than we get most of the time.

 

[Grug16]

I recall reading a commentary of the film that explains why the ending was changed.

After all the deconstruction and relationships and muddy morality from the heroes, The Alien was meant to be awkward and unexpected, the same way that old comics contrived ways to get monsters for the heroes to fight. The average moviegoer who saw the alien wouldn't get it at all, they'd just ask "why is there a big alien now"? The reactors were for practicality's sake, requiring no extra infodumps.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I read the novel and honestly, I think the movie was better.

While maybe it wasn't as sound plot-wise, I thought the new plan was FAR better than the squid.

Just tastes I suppose. People have been arguing over this movie for a very long while.

 

[Oliver Pink]

SPOILER

I liked Watchmen the Comic. I liked the movie More.

Why?

BECAUSE THEY REMOVED THE RIDICULOUS SQUID MONSTER!

The attack by Dr Manhattan after his public humiliation was a Lot more plausible than a totally unexplained and unexpected alien attack!

And the whole point of making them unite against Dr. Manhattan even though he's never coming back - IS JUST THAT: HE'S NEVER COMING BACK! The Earth will remain united and peaceful against an attack that will NEVER come, thus ensuring world peace!

And the only people who know that Manhattan won't return are the Heroes themselves who won't say a word!

Good Lord - every change the movie made Improved the comic. Sorry!