Balls and Walnuts
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Quest for spoilers
Karen won’t see Watchmen unless she knows that the ending is faithful in spirit to the ending of the graphic novel, and I don’t really want to go see it by myself, so this morning I’ve been looking for spoilers. I found this interesting article by Meredith Woerner, “How 9/11 Changed Watchmen.” At a minimum, Zack Snyder has turned the volume way, way down on the ending’s carnage. Okay, so we get no squid. I can live with that. But if you dial down the savage violence of the ending, doesn’t it pull the story’s sting?
Sadly, I haven’t found any true play-by-play spoilers. The more I hear about the ending, the more I worry. They’ve included scenes of Dr. Manhattan vaporizing the Viet Cong, but they’ve hamstrung the ending. In the comment thread to Ms. Woerner’s article, AngryLagomorph writes:
it really does come down to that: you can’t show masses of AMERICANS being slaughtered. we’re all that really matters anyway and its our movie so 😛
Indeed. And another great comment from cletar:
So, because of 9/11, there’s no giant squid? Maybe your 9/11 memories are different than mine, but I don’t remember a giant squid figuring into 9/11.
You know what would have made the New York carnage look completely unlike 9/11? A huge-ass squid, that’s what.
That comment thread looks fascinating . . . too bad I gotta go do my Saturday shopping 🙂
Of course, the ending could have been worse — here’s the ending as massaged by the major studios. Very funny.
Totally off topic, but my research this morning led to this old gem: Studio Script Notes on ‘The Passion,’ by Steve Martin.
I didn’t think the ending changed the spirit of the book. But then again I wasn’t super-attached to the squid like some people.
It didn’t have to be a squid, Keven! It could have been a shoe.
No, really. A shoe.
While we’re at it, check out The Watchman as Saturday morning kid’s cartoon. (You need to click on “Watch This Movie” just a little ways down from the top.)
Well (spoiler warning on), New York and lots of other places, in this version do get slammed hard and lots of Americans do get blown to icky component sludge by a kick-arse exposion. And we *are* left with Rorschach’s journal possibly published in the New Frontiersman, so it does look like Viedt’s efforts may well have ultimately been in vain.
Trust me on this, Doug.
My assumption was that the squid would propel the movie from teetering on the edge of alternate-universe/semi-godlike-blue-men plausibility to complete “where the fuck did this squid come from” eye rolling. On the one hand, being a fan of the comic, I would have appreciated the squid and the balls it would have taken to keep it in there. But on the other hand, I feel that they stayed as true to the story and the intent as a studio spending $150 million would allow.
(Same spoiler alert as above.) I’m sure somewhere, at some point, a studio executive said, “Do we have to kill millions of innocent people at the end of the movie? Can’t we have a feel-good ending?” And the resounding answer from the chorus was “Yes!” and “No!” in that order.
Squid was unnecessary. Woulda been too WTF-y for the non-fans. Also, upon rereading the graphic novel last year, squid was kinda WTF-y for this fan. Didn’t miss the squid in the slightest.
And call me silly, but I don’t know how nuking a dozen cities tones down anything…