We went and watched Watchmen yesterday. Though I absolutely loved the movie, I didn’t care much for the ending. Not because it differed from the ending in the graphic novel (because it did), but because it was flawed.
In the graphic novel, the cold war comes to an immediate end by the introduction of a giant space squid that destroys much of New York City. People realize that they must stop waging war against each other. No matter what our differences are with each other, we have much more in common with each other than we do big giant space squids. The big giant space squid unifies all of mankind.
In the movie, there is no big giant space squid. Instead, a massive bomb based on the same technology that gives Dr. Manhattan his god-like powers is detonated not only in New York City, but in major cities all over the world. Dr. Manhattan is immediately blamed for the attacks that have killed millions. The cold war still ends, but instead of mankind uniting against the threat of giant space squids, it unites against the threat posed by Dr. Manhattan.
And that is where the problem lies.
A giant space squid that destroys much of New York City is neutral. Dr. Manhattan that deploys massive bombs in the world’s major cities is not neutral.
For years Dr. Manhattan has been the poster child of American power. Not only was he once a man, he was an American. Nixon after all used Dr. Manhattan to bring an immediate and swift end to the Vietnam conflict turning it into the 51st state. I’m not so sure the rest of the world would unite with the United States. I’m not sure the the rest of the world would see the United States in the same way that it sees all the other countries attacked by Dr. Manhattan. If anything, Nixon using the power of Dr. Manhattan in Vietnam would have likely united the world against the United States.
That’s not to say that I didn’t love this movie. Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach ridiculously good. He was born to play the part of Rorschach. His portrayal of Rorschach was truly Oscar worthy.
The level of graphic violence was at the same level with directer Zack Snyder’s other graphic novel adaption, 300. I was somewhat surprised by this. This movie is definitely not a movie for children or the squeamish.
I enjoyed this movie and I’m looking forward to watching it again and again when it’s released on Blu-ray.
Steve
/ March 9, 2009I actually liked the movie’s ending a little better than the original. As boundless as is my admiration for Watchmen, I think the appearance of a giant tentacled space-squid at the end of the film would have taken me out of the movie. The comic had enough of a quirky sense of humor, and was itself enough of a satire of superhero/science fiction comics to pull off the squid, but the filmmakers did the right thing by writing it out.
I also think the fact that Dr. Manhattan supposedly attacked not only foreign cities, but New York as well, would help the whole uniting of humanity against a common threat thing along. Ever seen Fail-Safe? It reminded me of that, somewhat.
Oh, and (I hope I’m not trying too hard to justify the ending here . . .) having Dr. Manhattan willingly accept the blame for the atrocity, even murdering Rorschach to protect the secret, adds another great layer to his character, really puts him over one last time as something more than (or other than, anyway) human.
Arguments over the ending aside, I thought it was a great movie, too. My thought as soon as it was over was, “If I could, I would watch this whole thing again right now.” Just impossibly good. My only major gripe is leaving out Dylan’s original version of “Desolation Row” from the soundtrack. The music used throughout was just right, but then come the credits and . . . a My Chemical Romance cover of “Desolation Row”? Bad form, Zack Snyder. Lucky for you the other two-and-a-half hours of your movie were so awesome. You skate this time.
Rick
/ March 9, 2009But still, the United States in a very real sense created Dr.Manhattan. I don’t think every other country would consider the U.S. with clean hands when it came to him as turning his power on humanity. With that said, I did love the fact that Dr. Manhattan accepted all blame and seemed even happy to do so what extremely heroic. When the same concept was used at the end of Dark Knight Returns, you could tell that Batman was giving up a great deal when agreeing to take on all the blame for what Harvey Dent did to Gotham. The only point I would make about Dr.Manhattan is that he just does not care. In that regard, we are all “intelligent termites” to him. He has the power of a god, yet lacks even a shred of interest in what we mortals think about him.
I don’t think it had to be a squid. It could have been something alien to earth. Something that obviously had no ties to humanity.
I read Fail Safe, but I think the difference is that the president chose to nuke NYC, especially considering that he knew his wife was in the city at the time.
Scott
/ March 14, 2009I just got back from the movie. I’ve never read the novel, but knew a little about it. I had sorta heard the ending a while back, but had stayed away from anything more about the story recently to be able to watch the movie as cleanly as possible.
I’ll be interested to see how the squid “works” in the original story if I ever get around to reading it, but I actually really liked the ending, at least for a movie. I liked that basically everyone was a little uneasy about having a “weapon” that really had a mind of it’s own. I also like that Dr Manhattan was the only supernatural element in the movie – the concept of aliens, especially only at the end, feels like it would be a little to out there. I realize that I don’t know how this was handled in the book, and I’m sure it was well done.
I guess I actually liked that as far as the public knew, the “great weapon” was also the “big threat.”