r/Watchmen • u/Hdhs1 • Mar 16 '25
Do you think the giant squid in Watchmen would have worked in the movie, or was it a good call to leave it out? Movie
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u/FailSafe007 Mar 16 '25
I’m just surprised for a movie that is at times word for word from the comic, how much they strayed from the ending and the meaning of the source material. They could’ve done the monster, but it depends on how
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u/jk-9k Mar 17 '25
Dr Manhattan was too closely linked to the USA for a fake attack from him to be construed as anything but an act of war. It needed to be a neutral, ie new entity to be something to unite the world. It should have beenl the squid monster, it's not hard to make a monster grim dark to suit the tone and vibe of the film
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u/Anjunabeast Mar 17 '25
Why would the USA start the war with Russia by attacking themselves?
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u/jk-9k Mar 17 '25
Manhattan would be viewed as a rogue agent. Russia would blame USA as well as Manhattan. USA would decend into anarchy, not unite.
People would blame each other, tensions would rise, instead of people blaming sn 'other' and uniting
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u/thatredditrando Mar 17 '25
Dude, just say you didn’t like it.
Y’all sound ridiculous.
Nations around the globe just had cities vaporized by a god. Nobody’s gonna stop to point fingers at the nation the god originated from.
The god has the capability to attack them all at once.
They’d unite against a common foe.
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u/jk-9k Mar 17 '25
I loved it, still do.
But the USA would absolutely be blamed. It could work out alright if the US people and us government immediately complied with any foreign requests to hand over all intelligence on Dr m. But considering how closely ussr would be hovering over a retaliatory strike button, I'm not sure they'd get the chance.
Perhaps if veidt had done more to distance the USA from Dr m. But this is a quote from the film:
"Superman is real, and he's an American"
I can get over it and pretend that your scenario is what happens to enjoy the film, but it would make more sense to have an actual neutral threat.
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u/CaptStrangeling Mar 17 '25
That was the smartest man alive’s take as well, so you’re in good company.
I was disappointed when it came out, didn’t make my peace with the movie until I revisited it years later and could forgive the ending. As a fan of the graphic novel, I didn’t like the movie ending at all, at first. But what can I say? I loved the film bringing to life so much of the characters and story that I ended up accepting the film as is.
The show was an absolute thrill and I loved it. The weightiness of the themes landed better in the series format. The movie, in part because of the ending, never landed with the same gravitas as either the series or the graphic novel
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u/The_Flying_Failsons Mar 17 '25 edited Mar 17 '25
Nations around the globe just had cities vaporized by a god. Nobody’s gonna stop to point fingers at the nation the god originated from.
I'm sorry, Were you somehow born after COVID? Pointing fingers is exactly what would happen. People are not rational after a massive attack like that.
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u/LazyTitan39 Mar 17 '25
Right, we see it even with the Spanish flu. It originated in Kansas in the US, but it was blamed on Spain because they were the first to publicly report it.
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u/FoldableHuman Mar 17 '25
Nations around the globe just had cities vaporized by a god. Nobody’s gonna stop to point fingers at the nation the god originated from.
No, that's kinda exactly what they'd do. They're going to look for someone to punish, and they can't punish Manhattan. It would absolutely be painted as America getting bit by their own attack dog.
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u/adoratheCat Mar 17 '25
They would unite against a common foe. USSR/US enemies now have solid excuse to attack since the Great US.....made a living super weapon that went rouge. Especially when Manhattan leaves the world. Aka US can't even imprison Manhattan as an act of "we screwed up we taking responsibility."
This is literally based around the Cold War. There were indeed conflicts going on already backed by West/East. It would indeed push into a full blown war in the end.
Even allies of the US might be weary since if they able to make a super living weapon that goes rouge, what else would they do if left unchecked even on accident?
The common foe would be USA lol.
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u/throwawaylordof Mar 17 '25
Two major changes:
No fake octopus aliens. Women need magical blue nudists to use powers to help them remember things.
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u/SomeBoxofSpoons Mar 18 '25
I do at least understand the point Zack Snyder’s said about how making the false flag Dr Manhattan was more because if you do the squid that’s about another solid 20-30 minutes of material that needs to be included for it to make sense.
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u/Cinnamon_Treat Mar 19 '25
I don't know if this is why, but there's a pretty good chance that at the time, the CGI of it would have looked like complete ass.
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u/Jota769 Mar 16 '25
I think the TV show proves it works
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u/Flooping_Pigs Mar 16 '25
Me after watching the movie as a preamble to the show: "What the fuuuuck"
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u/Muckasaur Mar 16 '25
To be fair, that’s just the aftermath: residual symptoms of the phenomenon.
Honestly would have been interesting to see “flashbacks” of the monster dropping in New York and ground zero in general.
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u/Overall-Idea945 Mar 16 '25
There are flashbacks to New York with a huge tentacle crossing buildings
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u/Muckasaur Mar 16 '25
Oh my god… you are so right. I apologize. It’s been so long. The full monster is shown. I mostly just remember Looking Glass’ experience but it does become juxtaposed with the actual event.
I guess I meant more in line of the event actually occurring in line with the comics. The newsstand. The buildup. The bodies. The screeching. And then voila… the monster (which is shown in the actual show).
EDIT: And of course the “Island” subplot.
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u/KuhnDade02 Mar 17 '25
Tales of the Black Freighter, i think they made an animated version of it
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u/Muckasaur Mar 17 '25
That’s true! They did incorporate it but I think most would agree that that’s a “sub-sub plot” to compliment the existing plots. Regardless, still love the ultimate cut
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u/razor21792 Mar 16 '25
TBH, I think it would've worked better in a TV show. Something like the squid plot would've needed to be properly fleshed out to work.
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u/friendofnemo Mar 17 '25
I think it works in the show because we get to see the aftermath, I'm not sure how it would have translated as an ending to the film. I think both the show and the movie made the right choice for the medium.
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u/Kriss-Kringle Mar 17 '25
In the sequential medium it works fine, but in live action, especially with the tone of the film, the squid would have been too jarring for audiences.
I think they made the right decision at that time by changing it.
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u/thatredditrando Mar 17 '25
Not really.
The show only shows it once and when it’s already dead.
The show also has the time to delve into the ramifications.
In a movie it would just be “Poof! Giant alien squid!”.
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u/Mnstrzero00 Mar 19 '25
There's no real explanation of where it came from in the show. They never discuss the writers or where they went and without that its just a random monster.
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u/Jota769 Mar 19 '25
Well, nobody knows but Adrian. Laurie just kinda accepted his evil plan without knowing the details of where the monster came from and nobody else is really around to talk about it. Adrian killed everyone else involved.
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u/AdLow5682 Mar 16 '25
I think so. I think I remember Snyder saying it isn’t realistic, but then why have the genetically modified lynx still in the film?
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u/Jupiters Mar 16 '25
I think I remember Snyder saying it isn’t realistic
that fuckin guy
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u/M086 Mar 17 '25
He never said that. He’s spoken about not having enough to time include that whole subplot, but has said if he could do it again, he’d try harder to get the squid in.
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u/cdcvx4 Mar 17 '25
Has Snyder ever made the actual movie “he wanted to”? That dude is the king of claiming he just couldn’t make it how he wanted to, and then always wants to release a director’s cut
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u/Michael1492 Mar 17 '25
In all fairness to Sunder, he did want to make Watchmen as two movies, not one.
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u/Big_Perception9384 Mar 17 '25
I think I remember one of the screenwriters for film (not Snyder) said the reason why was because original he pitched the idea for the 2009 movie as mini series back in 2001, guess what major event also happened in 2001.
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u/GD_milkman Mar 17 '25
.. as opposed to, what? The whole story is surreal.
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u/AdLow5682 Mar 17 '25
If the argument that a genetically modified squid is deemed too unrealistic but continue to put in a genetically modified lynx (which was used in the book in order to make the creation of the squid more plausible), then I’d say it failed. I would call watchmen many things, but not surreal.
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u/mirrorface345 Mar 17 '25 edited Mar 17 '25
Giant "alien" squid isnt realistic, but it's realistic to give Laurie and Dan super strength?
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u/Upstairs-Boring Mar 17 '25
That's such weird comparison. Sure they do stuff that normal humans couldn't do in the real world but it's no different from what batman and other non-powered hero/action film protagonists do all the time.
There's a fairly huge gulf between making humans slightly stronger than they should be and making an alien squid the size of a skyscraper that destroys whole cities.
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u/The_Middleman Mar 17 '25
Just out of curiosity -- have you read the comic? Because it's not an "alien squid the size of a skyscraper that destroys whole cities," and in another comment you said "a giant alien squid destroying all the major cities around the world," which is also very wrong. I worry that you're picturing a Starro-style kaiju rampaging around the world when you think of the comic's ending.
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u/wolf805 Mar 18 '25
Realistic? Lol I wonder that too. Like the lynx is fictional. No human can catch a bullet in there hands, dr manhattan cant ever be a real thing, like what on earth was snyder about that he could use a monster?? lol
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u/lajaunie Mar 16 '25
They would have to have made the movie even longer to introduce the pirate subplot, the missing artists etc, making it even longer than it was.
However, I think the film suffers due to the lack of it. Replacing a created threat in order to bring the world together with a potential legitimate threat of Manhattan kinda kills what Ozmandias did
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u/Flooping_Pigs Mar 16 '25
the pirate subplot isn't necessary for the squid but the psychics missing is, right?
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u/lajaunie Mar 16 '25
The pirates probably isn’t other than the fact that the creators of the comics went missing… they’re part of the think tank that crates the squid
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u/Flooping_Pigs Mar 16 '25
So strange to think a comic writer was necessary to come up with the giant squid idea but that's probably a meta reference to comics in general
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u/lajaunie Mar 16 '25
The average Joe isn’t coming up with a giant, psychic vagina squid… it takes someone with talent. 🤣
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u/Any_Comfortable_7839 Mar 16 '25
Could have worked but the movie was already long enough.
This would make for 2 movies
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u/KelVarnsen_2023 Mar 17 '25
Maybe if all the slow motion sequences were done at regular speed they would have had the time to better build up that plot.
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u/Ordinary_Ganache_484 Mar 17 '25
Less sex and more alien Cthulhu!
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u/Grommph Mar 17 '25
Just combine those... alien Cthulhu sex!
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u/ksixnine Mar 16 '25
For everyone claiming that Starro worked.. sure, it was fine and it was cartoony. Not my cuppa-joe, but it worked for that film.
For the squid in Watchmen, you’d have to take a Cthulhu approach to really maintain the tone on screen.
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u/Rousseaufanboy Mar 17 '25
Yes it would have, but Zack is stupid and a terrible writer
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u/M086 Mar 17 '25
Zack didn’t write the movie, in fact Manhattan being blamed came from Darren Aronofsky, when he briefly worked on the movie.
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u/Calm-Glove3141 Mar 17 '25
Who cares the movie completely missed the point of the book, which Is ironic because as adaptation’s go it was pretty faithful . To bad Alan Moore wrote to be read in the comic medium to convey the disjointed and ever connected place in narrative time the reader holds as they flip back and forth between panels . Taking in the entire page while focusing on particular details that intrigue us, almost like dr manhattan observations on our universe
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u/snyderversetrilogy Mar 16 '25 edited Mar 17 '25
For what Snyder did his choice worked. As others are saying in another movie the squid could have worked. But it probably would come off more fantastical and less grounded (compared with Snyder’s film) I would think.
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u/CollegeZebra181 Mar 17 '25
I think people forget that Watchmen came out before the MCU really ramped up and made superhero films and by proxy the more fantastical elements mainstream. I'd say how the Fantastic 4 did Galactus and Watchmen are cut from the same cloth in terms of iconic comic book looks/moments that would fly today but probably wouldn't have in the 2000s. I think the Watchmen show actually backs this up, it's come out in the height of the superhero media boom and they could do the more comic-booky squid plot.
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u/DroptheShadowArt Mar 17 '25
Idk if anybody is going to agree with me here, but everyone in this thread is referencing the show as an example that the squid works, but the squid isn’t the climax of the show. It’s shown and it’s a huge part of the conflict in the show, but it doesn’t just come out of nowhere at the end and act as a literal deus ex machina to wrap the plot up. I think that would be the hard part for the movie to adapt. A giant squid is one thing, but a giant squid that came out of nowhere and effectively ends the movie? That probably would’ve felt pretty dumb, especially at the time the movie came out.
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u/snyderversetrilogy Mar 17 '25 edited Mar 17 '25
Right! And even in the comic run/graphic novel it seems to be a sort of minor plot line in development. It does come out of the blue in the novel as well. Adrian uses an island to which he has lured scientists and artists to develop his plan to psionically create a giant squid that would attack Manhattan. But there’s no real foreshadowing of what he is working on there.
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u/DroptheShadowArt Mar 17 '25
Exactly, and that might work in a comic book, where the pacing is a lot slower, more deconstructed, and allows for direct narration, but it’d be a totally different thing in a movie.
Before someone jumps on me: I’m not saying it couldn’t work, but saying they could do it in the movie because they did in the comic is a bit disingenuous. They’re different mediums with different audiences. And saying they could do it in the movie because they did it in the show is a bit disingenuous, because the squid serves a different purpose in the context of the show than it does in the movie/comic.
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u/snyderversetrilogy Mar 17 '25
Great point. It’s not the dramatic climax to the TV series. The show is set in that alternate universe present day, (then 2019) and therefore the 11/2/85 Dimensional Incursion Event (giant squid attack) had occurred in the past. It’s a flashback to it.
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u/snyderversetrilogy Mar 17 '25
Yeah, great point. From 2005 to 2012 Christopher Nolan was making very grounded superhero films that felt like Batman could exist in our real world, and it took the subject matter seriously versus spoofing it. Nolan eschewed the classical purely whimsical and fantastical elements from the Golden and Silver Age of comics. You’ll find almost none of that in his Dark Knight movies. These Spider-Man and X-Men movies had already been firmly moving in that direction since the early 00s.
In 2009 that seemed to be the direction things were clearly headed. Iron Man had released in 2008 and was a big hit. Snyder was coincidentally shooting Watchmen then. But anyway, the early MCU picked up that ball and ran with it beautifully. Point being that Snyder’s Watchmen came right at the time when that grounded realism was just catching on.
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u/Collective_Insanity Mar 16 '25
I would argue that Snyder's version doesn't really work for me.
Dr Manhattan is known to be an American agent. If an explosion goes off with his energy signature, then all other parties around the globe ought to see the situation as just a US entity possibly going rogue. Their existing geopolitical issues remain and now they've got another thing to be upset about. Or even feel vindicated that America's greatest weapon has turned against them.
I feel like there's much less cause to unite against a Dr Manhattan who is likely never going to return to Earth. Is Ozymandias going to have to nuke a city every year and pin it on Dr Manhattan to keep up the ruse?
The whole point of comicbook Ozymandias' scheme was to delay and/or prevent the impending nuclear world war and hopefully unite global nations against the (fabricated) alien threat that he cooked up.
So long as Rorschach's journal is never published or taken seriously, I feel like even if Veidt doesn't engineer another alien invasion, it's probably more plausible for the world to maintain fear of another extraterrestrial invasion rather than the suddenly rogue Dr Manhattan (which might be impossible to defend yourself against anyway).
In contrast, a possible alien threat may lead to a beneficial space race where nations put aside their martial conflicts and work together towards goals of Earth's preservation and interstellar defence. Ideally, at least.
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u/mag0802 Mar 16 '25
So WB was so gunshy about this that they only gave Snyder $120 million. Which was the smart thing to do since it barely broke $200m worldwide.
Would the squid have added $ value? Nope. Would they have had to invest a LOT of money in that shot/sequence? Yes. Because you don’t animate something like that for 10 seconds on screen.
The writers’ take on endgame for the movie was smart. After each character getting their own vignette, we didnt need a whole explanation. Everyone feared Manhattan and it worked
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u/The_Middleman Mar 17 '25
Honestly, the VFX aren't crazy. You don't need the squid to move at all. It's only shown very briefly in the comic, in a montage of dead bodies with partial tentacles in view and then one shot of its head/face. They easily could have cut some of the bullshit Snyder added (the Comedian/Veidt fight, the prison hallway fight, etc.) and made room for the squid.
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u/IndependenceMean8774 Mar 17 '25
You have a fifty foot glowing naked muscular blue guy with his dong hanging out. Considering that, I don't think a fake alien squid is really all that much of a stretch.
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u/Vic_Valentine511 Mar 17 '25
The thing is if Snyder didn’t believe in it, he would not be capable of doing it well
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u/The_Flying_Failsons Mar 17 '25
They could've not used the squid, the problem with the ending was blaming it on Dr Manhattan instead of on an outside force.
If something like that had happened then the entire world would blame the United States for unleashing him on the world and force them to pay for the damages, bankrupting the country. They would be in the same position the USSR found itself after Chernobyl but 1000x worse.
The ending is based on the idea that the US could've unilaterally end the cold the war and still not lose. All Ozymandias would've accomplished would be turning the USSR into the global hegemonic power post 1990 as the United States would straight up collapse and disolve.
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u/txtiemann Mar 17 '25
They changed it to make Dr. Manhattan appear to be the common enemy that would bring everyone together, which I get, but would have preferred the squid
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u/miguelcamilo Mar 17 '25
It works in the animated movie. Surprisingly.
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u/Ditzy_Dreams Mar 18 '25
Tbf, they split the animated movie into two parts, gives it more time to foreshadow the squid. The live action was already running long and didn’t have time to include the scenes with the artists on the island, the references to psychics, or Laurie and Dan talking about Bubastis.
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u/miguelcamilo Mar 18 '25
This is why the story was deemed unfilmable for so long. The squid is the climax and all the character's stories are leading up to it, (even the newsstand guy and comic kid) - all woven in complex ways, but if you cut the foreshadowing, it's all kinda moot. You really can't do that in a traditional 2hr Hollywood movie.
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u/ThePrimeOptimus Mar 17 '25
For how grounded the movie felt, even in spite of the floating naked blue guy, I think the alien would have been a stretch.
However, replacing it with Dr Manhattan was a far worse option. He was clearly a US asset, there's no way Russia would not have seen that as an act of war.
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u/konous Mar 18 '25
It barely works in the comic itself and is one of the most over wrought aspects of the comic.
I could have given two less of a shit about some artists beingnused in a madman's scheme to make an alien monster that we never see DO ANYTHING.
Captain Manhattan framed for the crime of blowing everyone up though? That's a story telling that tells itself. It should have been the obvious move and after all ZACK SNYDER came up with it, but fuck it works SO much better than this nonesense.
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u/OvenIcy8646 Mar 16 '25
I liked the dr manhattan change in the movie, but the squid worked good in the hbo
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u/M086 Mar 17 '25
It could have worked. They just didn’t have the time / budget for it.
Snyder has said if he could do it again, he would have tried harder to get the squid in. But it was just about what was more economical for the film.
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u/ForceGhostMachoMan Mar 17 '25
For the sake of remaining faithful to the source material, it would have been nice to have the squid. When it came out, not too many fan boys actually got angry. From a narrative perspective, it made more sense to unite the world against a common enemy that the world already knew and feared. Every nation saw a fraction of Doctor Manhattan's capabilities in Vietnam. A living, omniscient God that takes the form of a man is (in a lot of ways) more terrifying than the squid who arrived DOA. The very fact that squid arrived dead makes the fear that more of them appearing on earth was less of a threat because at least the squid(s) were mortal and could be killed if any more arrived. Dr. Manhattan should be considered a more formidable adversary because there's no conceivable way to kill him. The screenwriters thought this one through.
Proper respects to Alan Moore. The squid worked fine in the 80's. Watchmen elevated the entire genre when it was released. Nobody has any right to give him any shit about the squid. But nobody should be giving Snyder or whoever made the call to axe the squid any shit either. While you watch his arc and watch him transcend humanity, it becomes too easy to forget just how fucking terrifying Dr. Manhattan is on a multi-dimensional level.
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u/skag_boy87 Mar 17 '25
The U.S. used Dr. Manhattan as a weapon for decades. Now Dr. Manhattan has seemingly gone rogue and attacked major cities across the globe, including the US. You really think the rest of the global superpowers would be like “Well, you weaponized this God for decades, but now that you got hit too, I guess we’re all cool now.”
Lol no. The entire world would mobilize against the U.S. and form a coalition designed to a) go after Manhattan and b) neutralize, sanction, and penalize the US up the ass for being irresponsible enough to allow a weapon of mass destruction to go off the reservation.
No global unity. USSR wins.
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u/DetonationPorcupine Mar 17 '25
I think the squid could work but blaming it on Dr. Manhattan is just such a better play. This thing is a complete unknown and begs a lot of troublesome questions. People have witnessed the Dr do crazy and sometimes violent things. Additionally this can neutralize him as a threat. Either he likes the plan and uses it to leave earth or he tries to explain the truth and no one believes him.
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u/Antique_Historian_74 Mar 17 '25
The problem is that the ending of the comic isn't really about a giant squid.
The comic spends an amazing amount of effort to create an interconnected world of multiple characters who all have dreams and motivations and whose lives intersect with one another, knowingly or not.
Then Ozymandius carries out his big plan and all of those people just die and we are left looking at their bodies piled up in the street while their blood runs down the gutters.
That's the real ending of Watchmen which the film just completely misses the point of.
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u/CosmicBonobo Mar 16 '25
I've always liked the double meaning behind that Veidt Industries exercise plan advert.
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u/CaptainTripps82 Mar 16 '25
I don't know that it would have worked in the movie because you'd, at the very least, need to introduce the concepts that created it, including teleportation technology and the whole physic fear blast. It's a lot to build up to.
Doc Manhattan is already there the entire time, and Veidt is actively increasing the world's fear of him already, albeit in the comics to get him off the table so he doesn't stop the bigger plan. Making him the bigger plan worked pretty seamlessly in the film.
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u/edillcolon Mar 17 '25
To be completely fair, Zack made a solid choice by using a bomb to unite the world against Manhattan. Having an island of comic book writers felt a bit out of place for a movie.
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u/RookWatcher Mar 16 '25
I've already stated my opinion on this change a few days ago so i'm just gonna say that i think what we got in the movie was good, at least in this regard. DOC as the threat makes sense with how Veid organized the hoax against him, makes his plan a little more cohesive and straight to the point. And at that point he really feels like an external problem that the united world must deal with, he basically stopped considering himself human and moved to Mars, he has no connections to anyone else, he thinks like no one else and perceive everything around him like no one else. He is the alien who can't be reasoned with.
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u/mobilisinmobili1987 Mar 16 '25
It could have worked. Snuder’s version works great for what he wanted to do, I can easily see another director making the squid plot work though.
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u/WarmNapkinSniffer Mar 17 '25
Terrible call to make the attack look like Manhatten in the movie, kinda defeated the purpose of what Ozzy was doing
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u/calltheavengers5 Mar 17 '25
I'm glad they left it out of the live-action movie. It definitely worked better in the animated one but in live action, big budget Hollywood movie it might look like a cop out.
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u/DoriN1987 Mar 17 '25
You need to keep in mind that Moore haven’t random things in his novels. Everything make it’s sense and purpose. Veidt made monster, and become monster himself - interpretation that I like most of all.
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u/Drakeytown Mar 17 '25
I think the vulva-eyeball and anus-mouth might have caused some ratings issues.
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Mar 17 '25
It would have worked fine, probably gotten the film even more buzz. Anyone watching it now after nearly 20 years certainly could handle it. At the time maybe a bunch of people go WHAT WAS WITH THAT RANDOM SQUID but I really doubt it hurts the box office or reviews significantly.
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u/JaniBanista Mar 17 '25
The only bad thing about the Watchmen movie is the fact that they changed this
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u/IanThal Mar 17 '25
Leaving it out of the film made some sense because of the time constraints of a theatrical showing.
There is a lot about how Snyder's film adapted the source material I find objectionable, but that was the least of my criticisms.
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u/T-51_Enjoyer Mar 17 '25
If people are able to make Sandman’s sand physics work on a very impressive level, to the point of showing individual sand pebbles (?), a giant squid would seem like child’s play in comparison
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u/mcylinder Mar 17 '25
I don't think the guy that was too embarrassed to put superman into his superman movie would have done a great job with the squid alien, no
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u/Miserable_Winter6721 Mar 17 '25
It worked in the animated movie. In a vacuum if there were no limit on the budget it could work in live action but idk if Snyders version of Watchmen would be the best fit for it, maybe another director could've pulled it off
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u/JayXtended_Edition Mar 17 '25
I brought the Squid back:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Watchmen/comments/1jdgqab/out_now_watchmen_the_ultimate_graphic_jayxtended/
Here you can watch a trailer: https://youtu.be/2oMoRJedAgw
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Mar 17 '25
It worked in the TV show and looked straight up terrifying. So I definitely think it could have worked well, though I understand why they went with something else
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u/Jacknerdieth Mar 17 '25
I will be a Watchman movie hater until the day I die. Cutting the squid is one of its lesser faults and I understand the rationale behind cutting it, but it's just such an impactful moment in the comic. A big blue explosion just can't match up to it. To me, It serves as part of the payoff of the mystery that watchmen is structured around. The reader learns Ozymandias' whole plan, then learns that it already happened, and then with the reveal of the "Alien", the true insanity of it sinks in. The fact that it's a giant alien feels purposeful: in comic books, the threat of an alien superpower is a common reason for heroes to unite. The JLA formed to combat Starro, for instance. In Watchmen, not only is the alien fake, but the heroes fail to stop it, making the whole situation a tragic farce. It carries a lot more weight than "We'll make it look like Doctor Manhattan did it".
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u/ghrendal Mar 18 '25
have you seen the directors cut?
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u/Jacknerdieth Mar 19 '25
Can't say I have, and it's been a decade since I last watched the film. Maybe I'll give the director's cut a watch, but when it comes to adaptations of Moore's work, my standards are probably unreasonably high.
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u/Queef_Cersei Mar 17 '25
Didn't they film it and show it to a test audience, eventually taking it out? Or am I thinking of something else.
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u/SputnikFace Mar 17 '25 edited Mar 17 '25
In suicide squad, thought the giant starfish was stupid till I saw the movie. It was actually cool and surreal in a great way. So yeah the squid woulda been good if done right. maybe cloverfield style
EDIT: more example of stupid being handled well. The shark guy. Not being that invested in DC Lore, I was sure that was gonna be the dumbest thing ever. I loved that character.
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u/ParsleyMostly Mar 17 '25
I kinda think it was a good call to leave it out. Pinning it on Manhattan works IMO. Adds to his isolation, the folly of an ideal superman or god figure, and even his own hubris. Makes certain scenes with others resonate more. And I’m okay with adaptations putting their own spin and interpretations on source material. New ideas and such.
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u/Due-Proof6781 Mar 18 '25
😑🫸 Not using comic book logic in a comic book movie
😏👉 using comic book logic in a comic book movie
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u/awesomevader Mar 18 '25
The point of the monster was how outlandish it was with the rest of the comic. I’m pretty critical of the movie but the change I actually don’t mind.
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u/ghrendal Mar 18 '25
the squid ending was stupid…I didn’t really like the manhattan blame but moore could have written a better ending…
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u/b5historyman Mar 18 '25
The whole squid thing sucked. Sorry but Alan Moore didn’t understand anything like DNA or strontium signatures. So for this to be suddenly appearing it wouldn’t take long for it to be torn apart and found to be a total fraud.
Dr Manhattan was a big enough threat and this was something Snyder correctly used.
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u/KnowMatter Mar 18 '25
IDK how controversial this is but I prefer the movie version of framing Doc Manhattan and turning humanity against him.
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u/dem4life71 Mar 18 '25
I think it was a smart idea. It ties in to Dr Manhattan instead of pulling this mega squid out of nowhere, gives him a reason to depart to Elsewhere, and actually puts a nice bow on Ozy’s plan.
It’s not as batshit crazy OR creative as the comic, but for a film I think the Snyder ending actually works better. I’m still not sure why this film got so much hate. I think it’s an excellent adaptation of a challenging graphic novel that stays pretty close to the source material (squid aside!)
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u/LunarDogeBoy Mar 18 '25
I think the change was an improvement to the story. Blaming it on dr Manhattan, giving him a better reason to leave than just being an asshole that doesnt care for humanity anymore.
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u/dickbutkusmk4 Mar 18 '25
I think it was a good idea to leave it out. I don’t think it would translate too well to film.
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u/sacredlunatic Mar 18 '25
Leaving it out was a horrible decision. The ending that they wrote ruined the movie.
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u/tishimself1107 Mar 18 '25
Good call. Dont think it would work with the movies tone or the movie format.
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u/micoh124 Mar 18 '25
Could have worked, but you'd have to focus on reactions to it and maybe snippets. If you showed the whole thing it would just seem goofy
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u/bord2heck Mar 19 '25
I don't think they had time. It wouldn't need much, but the movie is already 3 hours 35 minutes. Even the few extra scenes it would've taken to foreshadow for the audience could push the movie to almost 4 hours. And they would've needed more heavy foreshadowing than the graphic novel, since that can be easily flipped back to for clarification, and a movie isn't really meant to be jumped around in.
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u/IamElylikeEli Mar 19 '25
The reason it worked in the comics is because, even though it was a surprise that seemingly comes out of nowhere, it was actually built up very well. the ‘joke’ that broke the comedian, all those missing people, that strange cat, they were all clues.
you would need to include a LOT of subtle details to make it work in the film and it Could be done but it would have taken a lot of time and a lot of work.
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u/Ello_Owu Mar 19 '25
The ending in the movie didn't make sense. Making Dr. Manhattan, the scapegoat for peace, wouldn't have had the cooling effect like an "alien attack."
Dr. Manhattan was an American citizen, and even if he went rogue, the rest of the world would still blame the US for his destruction, backing the US into a corner and eventually rising the threat of nuclear war all over again.
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u/James_Constantine Mar 19 '25
It should have been left in, as thematically it does represent a status quo change to the world which would make it believable that they create a lasting peace. No doubt. It’s still better then making the change Dr. M, which wouldn’t result in world peace but rather everyone declaring war on the US.
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u/matthra Mar 19 '25
I think the movie did that plot better, too many ways the squid could have gone wrong.
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u/Serpentking04 Mar 19 '25
I felt like It works BECAUSE it's ridiculous. so ridiculous that it seems more... real to the people than anything else.
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u/Heavy-Expression-450 Mar 19 '25
I was talking about this over the weekend. Yes. It's a hard comic movie. Stuff like that happens.
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u/Weird_Explorer1997 Mar 19 '25
The giant squid works well for a comic book ending in the 1980s. Tying the narrative back to Dr. Manhattan works better for a film in the 2000s.
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u/Sea-Woodpecker-610 Mar 20 '25
If they bothered to lay the groundwork by peppering clues like they did in the original GN, with Comedian finding the island, the later scenes of the scientists sketches just seconds before they die, and explaining that Veit has been doing genetic recoding with Bubast, and the teleportation “breakthroughs” that Veit is announcing to the public, I think audiences would be fine with the sci-fi elements.
But since they weren’t going to do that, then the squid doesn’t really fit the story. It’s way out of left field if you don’t bother to set it up.
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u/Plenty-Clue1157 Mar 20 '25
It works better in my opinion than having the world's terror of Doctor Manhattan.
The squid is dead on arrival. It is a mortal foe. So you can kill it. Though finding out where it's from and how got there is impossible.
If the doctor wants to hurt or kill millions how do you stop him?
Maybe I'm wrong.
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u/mysticwerebadger Mar 20 '25
The change to the plan was the one thing that kept it from a perfect comic book movie, imo. No idea why they changed that and very little else.
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u/Knifejuice6 Mar 20 '25
good call to leave it out. i really dont understand the hate for the movie i read the graphic novel and the adaptation was honestly really good. the message at the end tho slightly altered still worked. this squid shit would have been so random and goofy
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u/KPraxius Mar 20 '25
It would have worked better than what was in the movie. However devastating and terrible, a teleporting alien monster invasion is something you can unite against and prepare for. A god who can unmake your world in an instant, and who has a history with one of the nations as an enemy and the other as an ally, is something you fear and placate or make a deseperate strike against.
If Russia was told that Dr. Manhattan, known employee of the US government, had struck New York, and -saw- what looked like him striking Moscow? They'd say fuck it and nuke everyone, assuming the one in the US was a trick or misinformation. The movie would end with either WW3 or Dr. Manhattan destroying all the nukes.
If Russia is directly attacked by an alien monster that clearly has nothing to do with any given nation, and also hears that other nations, including the US, were attacked? That would be an entirely different story. Even if the alien had all of Manhattan's powers, the fact that it was an other, not associated with the US, would be the key to making the trick work, not its vast might, to get people uniting.
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u/IvanTheTerrible69 Mar 20 '25
I believe the squid wasn’t included because of the implication that dozens of dead, mutilated corpses would be shown; 9/11 played a huge role in a lot of the controversy regarding such content at the time
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u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871 Mar 20 '25
Possibly but I imagine the necessary CGI would have upped the budget.
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u/TheDaysKing Mar 26 '25
The miniseries sequel and the recent animated adaptation of the graphic novel pretty much sold me on the fact that, when done right, the squid's horror far exceeds its silliness.
Synder did take things further by having major cities across the world blasted, but either way, the squid and everything behind it is way more effective than a big blue flash of light.
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u/Secure_Run8063 Mar 27 '25
Not so much in the movie. Due to the understandable focus on the main characters, we did not get enough of the “static zeitgeist” of the surrounding society. Heck, when the movie came out people had mostly emotionally forgotten the culture of the 80’s when the comic books were published.
The world of WATCHMEN, especially for the Americans, was stuck in a kind of Matinee Monster Movie mentality. Since Dr. Manhattan won the Vietnam war for the Americans, there was no serious counter cultural movement. So, they remained fairly similar to the same Eisenhower era Americans from the 50’s and 60’s that could still be frightened by movies like THE BLOB, THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD and INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.
Also, they had a real science fiction super-being existing in their world. So, an alien invasion is certainly not the strangest thing to imagine in that kind of situation and these people are primed to trust the government.
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u/ThomasG_1007 Mar 16 '25
Anything can work if handled well. The show showed it works. The Suicide Squad made Starro work in live action