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Watchmen Ending Debate (Warning: Contains Spoilers)
Its been over a week since Watchmen has been out in theatres, and i'm going to assume that most of you have either seen the movie, or at least know about the changed ending. With that said, I would like to open a discussion on which Watchmen ending was better; the Squid ending of the book, or the Blue Bombs ending of the movie.
In my opinion, the book ending was vastly superior for these reasons:
-Throughout the book, there is this constant tension building up. You, as the reader, know something horrible is about to happen, but you are led to assume that it will be nuclear war. What you get instead is something far more horrifying and shocking that you couldn't possibly have seen coming. Not only that, but this phony alien invasion, which kills half of New York City, puts a halt to the nuclear war. In the movie, you get the same plot, but with these Blue Bombs that blow up multiple cities, so it might as well have been nuclear war.
-In the book, Ozymandias uses tachyons to mess Dr. Manhatten's foresight, in order to carry out his plot. In the film, Ozymandias actually manipulates Dr. Manhattan into building the reactors that destroy multiple cities. This demeans Dr. Manhattan's character, and actually cheapens his phrase, "...this World's Smartest Man means no more to me than it's Smartest Termite." It also demeans Ozymandias' character as well. One of the final points established in the book is that even the World's Smartest Man must turn to a higher power for guidance. This is shown when Ozymandias asks Dr. Manhattan "I did the right thing, didn't I? It all worked out in the end." This moment is absent from the film.
So, thats my stance. What's your's?
In my opinion, the book ending was vastly superior for these reasons:
-Throughout the book, there is this constant tension building up. You, as the reader, know something horrible is about to happen, but you are led to assume that it will be nuclear war. What you get instead is something far more horrifying and shocking that you couldn't possibly have seen coming. Not only that, but this phony alien invasion, which kills half of New York City, puts a halt to the nuclear war. In the movie, you get the same plot, but with these Blue Bombs that blow up multiple cities, so it might as well have been nuclear war.
-In the book, Ozymandias uses tachyons to mess Dr. Manhatten's foresight, in order to carry out his plot. In the film, Ozymandias actually manipulates Dr. Manhattan into building the reactors that destroy multiple cities. This demeans Dr. Manhattan's character, and actually cheapens his phrase, "...this World's Smartest Man means no more to me than it's Smartest Termite." It also demeans Ozymandias' character as well. One of the final points established in the book is that even the World's Smartest Man must turn to a higher power for guidance. This is shown when Ozymandias asks Dr. Manhattan "I did the right thing, didn't I? It all worked out in the end." This moment is absent from the film.
So, thats my stance. What's your's?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Rudy on -
The books ending is so much better. But I don't hate the movie ending, it could have been so much worse.
In terms of the general public, think what the reactions would be with the giant squid.
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Permalink Reply by masterofthematrix91 on -
book- for me I was like Caryle in his review to where i loved the film up until the end. I just thaught that it was really lazy and that they didnt explain (according to my sister who has never read the book) almost anything.
save yourself the time and enjoy the book first.
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Permalink Reply by Maverick-Farenheit on -
I think that the movies ending was better to be honest. Because really the squid just comes out of nowhere, it isn't even based on any system of logic, I mean fair enough Ozy worked with genetics and made bubastis, but there is a difference between making a bigger version of a lynx and making what essentially has no basis in nature aside from tentacled creatures,everybody calls it a squid but really it's nothing like a squid.
The movie ending still gives a sense of building tension, with stuff like the scientists silently dying and as the heroes approach the complex the blue flash inside. Also there are hints throughout of the misleading intentions, after all the movie Ozy actually seemed to have an objective in his scenes as opposed to the book version who doesn't really seem to be doing anything until the end. So no wonder you don't expect him at the end, because you forget about him. In the book I'm sorry but masterpiece that the book is, they waste Ozymandius, in the film you actually understand him in the way he is.
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Permalink Reply by SketchedLilly on -
I've never read the book and thus had no idea about anyone working with genetic animals. The cat-thing might have well been a big question mark walking around on screen because, to me, it fit in no where. I understood that it must have been important in the comic but I had no idea why.
A squid would have been even worse. If they had stuck that in there they might as well have had it rain pancakes too because that's about all the logic I would see in it.
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Permalink Reply by Alter_Ego on -
I felt the same way. While I was reading the book, I kept forgetting about Ozymandias because while Rorschach was out trying to solve The Comedian's murder, and Silk Spectre and Nite Owl were trying to stop whatever was about to happen, and Dr. Manhattan was hiding out on Mars, Ozymandias wasn't really doing anything at all. I don't even think we really learn anything about him until the end of the comic, when he's about to set off the bombs. You don't even get to see much of the squid in the book.
To be honest, to me it seemed more logical to turn the world against Dr. Manhattan instead of just pull this squid out from nowhere. Dr. Manhattan has clearly become detached with humanity, and public opinion of superheroes was very antagonistic.
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Permalink Reply by Shinigami64 on -
You missed the fact that Ozymandias still used tachyons in the movie too...
And I disagree with the conclusion that John's character was demeaned in that way.
However, there are a couple of things about the film's ending that I don't like at all. First, pinning the incident on Dr. Manhattan. The world's leaders are all sitting with their fingers wavering over "the button" when suddenly a chain of nuclear attacks happen all over the globe caused by America's big blue Superman. Collectively, other countries suffered greater losses than the U.S. did in this scenario, and the fact that it was public knowledge that Doc worked for the U.S. government is more than enough to create suspicion that would lead to retaliatory attacks. The reason why the Squid worked better was because it appeared to be an outside force. It was connected in no way to any nation which gave a much more believable reason for other countries of the world to see a need to band together with America. By blaming it Dr. Manhattan, the attacker is given a name and a nationality that will lead to a much quicker dissolution of unity.
The other thing that irked me was having Laurie comment on how Adrian's plan wouldn't work instead of John. It carries a lot more weight when the guy that can see past, present, and future tells you that your current plans won't last...
All and all, I still don't hate the movie. I just don't consider it a substitute for reading the graphic novel, and I never did. Nor should anyone...
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Permalink Reply by supermanx1 on -
i think the point for the squid was that it wasn't atomic, now the bomb in the movie was very atomicbomb looking
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Permalink Reply by Guitaro Man on -
While I didn't HATE the movie's ending, the book's ending was just better. In the movie, it felt really rushed and I blinked and thought,"That's it?" Pi-man brings up a lot of good points as does Carlyle on ACOCO.
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Permalink Reply by Randy Flagg on -
The thing is, there is that scene where John and Laurie are staring into the giant hole in New York. They could easily have put the squid into the hole, but it would look incredibly stupid. No way they could have pulled it off.
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Permalink Reply by Alter_Ego on
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SPOILERS:
You know, despite the obvious differences between the two endings, at their core, they truly are the same ending: Ozymandias manages to avert a nuclear war by killing a bunch of people and getting the world to unite against a common enemy.
The ending of the movie seems to be the thing most of thehatersfanboys seem to hate about the movie. To those people, I would just like to ask: What did you think about the first 2 hours and 20 minutes?
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Permalink Reply by Shinigami64 on
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I still don't see any valid reasons why the movie's ending works better. All I've seen is "a squid wouldn't work", and that says nothing about the overall purpose behind it. In truth, the only reason it's referred to as a squid is because of a lack for a better term. We really don't know what the hell it actually is, so it didn't have to be a squid. The problem with the ending as it is in the film is that it points a finger at a specific culprit and that blame can easily be re-directed thus making the whole point mute.
This could've been avoided in a number of ways (limiting the attack to the U.S., using some other Cthulhu-esque monstrosity, etc.), but ultimately this ending feels to me like it dumbs down the original at best. By constructing a scenario that could much more easily lead to other countries in the world blaming America for what happened, you don't need Dr. Manhattan giving us a subtle hint that this won't work. We know it won't.
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Permalink Reply by Captain Funk on -
The book was better, and here's why:
In the book, the squid made people realize that we are all on this planet together. The squid teleporting in and exploding showed people massive destruction and made them all think "Holy shit! Look what just happened! Why the hell are we at war?" They realized the value of human life.
The movie, on the other hand, put the world into mass paranoia. They thought Dr. Manhattan was always watching, and if they did something bad, he'd blow the shit out of them all once again. They didn't get a message about humanity. They just got frightened into becoming good people.
One other point that made me mad was Ozymandias not getting his justice. He never seemed to regret that he killed all those innocent people, like he did in the book. That was the justice he got; living in his own regret for the rest of his life. They never really showed that in the film.
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