In hindsight: did removing the squid really help this movie?

[MessiahDecoy123]

The movie wasn't really a success considering the poor word-of-mouth and bad box office performance. In hindsight, was taking out the squid really necessary?

Do you think the island of artist/scientist conspiracy would've made a better movie?

 

[Compi716]

Not really, no. Though it wasn't as much a crime as some made it out to be. Other things being removed ("Nothing ever ends") were far more traumatic to the story as a whole.

 

[Armored Avenger]

Not really, no. Though it wasn't as much a crime as some made it out to be. Other things being removed ("Nothing ever ends") were far more traumatic to the story as a whole.

I would have loved to see the Squid in the film and the devastation it causes. Seeing the city streets littered with bloodied corpses would have been far more emotionally powerful than just having New York explode and become a crater. However, I had come to terms with the fact that the Squid would be removed, so when it came to watching the movie it did not shock or upset me.
The replacement plot about Jonergy bombs was not that bad either, and worked within the film, so overall I accepted the change, despite prefering the Squid. However keeping the Squid might have helped drive home to the audience the intentional ridiculousness of Watchmen.
I do agree that some of the other changes, such as changing "Nothing Ever Ends" were far more disappointing. It's one of them most iconic lines in the novel, and a very powerful moment, yet in the film it's given to another character and said as the film is wrapping up, with no reaction from the person who it should be affecting the most (Adrian). Other changes, such as the removal or change of every icnoic moment from Adrian, were far worse than the removal of the Squid in my opinion. Adrian is my favourite character. I had no problem with Matthew Goode's casting or performance. I had no problem with the Ozymandias costume. But I was disappointed with Adrian in the movie because of the removal of all of his best moments in the novel ("I DID IT!" probably being the most painful removal, along with "I did it 35 minutes ago" being changed).
To answer the original question of whether or not removing the Squid was necessary, I doubt it would have changed the box office response too much. But I think including the Squid would have made a better movie.

 

[Bubastis]

I'm still of the school of thought that the film didn't need to be made. I feel like the squid was completely necesary to the story, because the book is largely about the apocalypse; the looming fear of it, and then an apocalypse that lives up to everybody's terrifyed expectations. But you need a lot of time to include that, all the character development, information about the characters, time for everything to build and click into place, and time for all the "little" things (I use that term very lightly) that make up Watchmen. TRANSLATION: 6 hours.
No, I do not think removing the squid helped this movie. I think it was a gigantic failure on the part of the filmmakers to understand or respect the book. It was am embarassing attempt to improve upon the original story.
As people have said before, it wasn't the worst change, but it was a big clue that they were trying to make what felt like an abridged replacement of the original book

 

[Doctor Jones]

Yes it did. Just listen to yourself explaining what really happened in the book to someone else. Saying it makes it sound ridiculous. A giant squid there? Nobody would get that. Just the image of a giant squid landing in new york. There's so much detail in the film, people wouildn't catch the squid details, and the subplot with the island wouldn't even fit into the film.

Manhatten works better in ways. One, he's still out there and to the people still be a threat, the squid just dies on impact, there's it's done, no more threat. Two, DM bombed the rest of the world, a better way for everyone to unite since everyone is weaker now. Three, if it was just the squid, wouldn't the Russians see this as an easier way to attack now that America is devastated?

It worked in the comic it wouldn't work in the film. Just a giant squid would look so out of place. I know it an homage, but that doesn't mean it would work as well.

"Noting ever ends" is one of the things where I had a problem with. But even if it was in the film, would it make much of an impace since what happened had something to do with DM himself? It would seem out of place. I still have to think about it more.

 

[Bubastis]

Yes it did. Just listen to yourself explaining what really happened in the book to someone else. Saying it makes it sound ridiculous. A giant squid there? Nobody would get that. Just the image of a giant squid landing in new york. There's so much detail in the film, people wouildn't catch the squid details, and the subplot with the island wouldn't even fit into the film.

Manhatten works better in ways. One, he's still out there and to the people still be a threat, the squid just dies on impact, there's it's done, no more threat. Two, DM bombed the rest of the world, a better way for everyone to unite since everyone is weaker now. Three, if it was just the squid, wouldn't the Russians see this as an easier way to attack now that America is devastated?

It worked in the comic it wouldn't work in the film. Just a giant squid would look so out of place. I know it an homage, but that doesn't mean it would work as well.

"Noting ever ends" is one of the things where I had a problem with. But even if it was in the film, would it make much of an impace since what happened had something to do with DM himself? It would seem out of place. I still have to think about it more.

You could apply that to anything in the book. "Naked bald blue god that everybody is pretty normal about." "Guy with a shifting inkblot mask who can see/breathe through it." "Owlship"

Well if manhattan remains a threat, how does that create a utopia? Nobody can defeat him. It just creates a more paranoid world.

 

[copywrite]

You could apply that to anything in the book. "Naked bald blue god that everybody is pretty normal about." "Guy with a shifting inkblot mask who can see/breathe through it." "Owlship"

Well if manhattan remains a threat, how does that create a utopia? Nobody can defeat him. It just creates a more paranoid world.

It's not about being able to defeat him, it's about the world realizing there are more important things to worry about than their petty differences. They don't know that they can defeat the aliens they think attacked them in the book either, it's irrelevant.

 

[Drz]

I think keeping the Squid away from the film helped to make the movie more neutral on whenever Adrian did the right thing or not. I mean if you saw him unleashing a giant squid you'd have the whole movie audiance say: Well hes just insane, i mean its a GIANT squid!

With him bombing and ending peoples' life swiftly, you might think "well he did try to prevent a bigger massacre" because there isn't some giant freaking squid there haha. :P Now really i do think the squid worked for the comic book, but not so much for the common audiance, which this movie sadly didn't seem to work out at all. :/

 

[CrimsonMist]

The squid has nothing to do with how this film went. Squid or not, you'd still have tons of people getting all pissy about having to see a blue penis for 3 hours, not understanding the film in any capacity, and *****ing about how it's too long. That's what hurt this film. I'm also willing to say that people would still piss and moan about the above things even if this film was a 100% faithful adaptation of the book. It would still do poorly.

 

[Drz]

Well im happy it didnt become that modern interpertation with Rorschach becoming a war prisoner instead of jail, throwing in Afghanistan and iran to the movie and whatnot.

 

[BestGirl]

I thought it helped the movie by providing Adrian with a more plausible reason to get rid of DM, and working Ozzy more into the plot. I honestly thought the whole squid plot was rather silly when I read the GN so I can't say I missed it at all.

I agree with CrimsonMist that removing the squid had no impact at the BO at all. As for the reviews, critics who hadn't read the GN tended not to like Watchmen anyway and a far-fetched squid plan wouldnt've helped matters.

 

[Katsuro]

People complained about the movie being long as it was. Adding in a half hour subplot of people on an island and missing scientists would've just made that worse.

The squid needed to go.

 

[Project862006]

it still wouldn't of mattered we needed to know the people in the city if you destroy a city with bombs or a squid. We were not emotionally connected with the people so who cares

 

[BestGirl]

I would have loved to see the Squid in the film and the devastation it causes. Seeing the city streets littered with bloodied corpses would have been far more emotionally powerful than just having New York explode and become a crater. However, I had come to terms with the fact that the Squid would be removed, so when it came to watching the movie it did not shock or upset me.
The replacement plot about Jonergy bombs was not that bad either, and worked within the film, so overall I accepted the change, despite prefering the Squid. However keeping the Squid might have helped drive home to the audience the intentional ridiculousness of Watchmen.
I do agree that some of the other changes, such as changing "Nothing Ever Ends" were far more disappointing. It's one of them most iconic lines in the novel, and a very powerful moment, yet in the film it's given to another character and said as the film is wrapping up, with no reaction from the person who it should be affecting the most (Adrian). Other changes, such as the removal or change of every icnoic moment from Adrian, were far worse than the removal of the Squid in my opinion. Adrian is my favourite character. I had no problem with Matthew Goode's casting or performance. I had no problem with the Ozymandias costume. But I was disappointed with Adrian in the movie because of the removal of all of his best moments in the novel ("I DID IT!" probably being the most painful removal, along with "I did it 35 minutes ago" being changed).
To answer the original question of whether or not removing the Squid was necessary, I doubt it would have changed the box office response too much. But I think including the Squid would have made a better movie.

That was the one thing I didn't like about the new ending. I wish Adrian would've designed the energy signature to leave a bunch of bloody corpses in its wake. That would've been frightening to see on screen and made Adrian's plan even more horrific. The new ending was a little too clinical and neat by comparison so it was easy to rationalize away Ozzy's solution.

 

[Project862006]

yeah but still it just would of been bodies and nothing more we didn't get to know or care for those fallen victims

 

[CrimsonMist]

which is why i thought they should have shown the other actual cities getting blown up, rather than digital maps of the cities on computer monitors. It would have been much more effective, rather than just showing NYC and 2 characters who seemingly just randomly hug one another. There's no emotional ties to just NYC, so they should have shown everything.

 

[The Guard]

More gore! More! I wanna see blood and guts and brains in my teeth!

 

[BestGirl]

yeah but still it just would of been bodies and nothing more we didn't get to know or care for those fallen victims

Yes, but the energy signature was too neat. The victims just disintegrated. Lots of gore would at least have disgusted or frightened the audience. Both would have been better reactions than nothing.

Don't take this post as a sign that I didn't like the new ending. As I said above, I preferred it to the squid but this was one aspect I didn't like.

 

[Agentsands77]

Yes, it did. For two reasons:

#1. It gave the final moments of the story a rich significance that I think improves the story (namely, the much-discussed and much-debated "angry God" metaphor).

#2. It helped streamline the pacing of the story (ala we didn't have to cut back to the mysterious island, or deal with a speech about genetic developments and psychic brains).

Now the finale of the film still has issues (it never quite dwells on the devastation or the tragedy long enough, and it certainly could have used a stronger dash of the bizarre), but that has nothing to do with the squid's absence and everything to do with how the team chose to flesh out the new ending.

 

[Angel_Faerie]

I think it did help the movie, I just wish they would've shown dead bodies in the streets and shown different televisions around the world talking about the "attack" on Veidt's screen-o-rama (as I call it)

Oh, and also, I think the movie will be 100x better with the Director's Cut stuff put back in. It'll solve the whole "not caring about the dead New Yorkers" problem, because we know that stuff was filmed and wil be in the DC

 

[storyteller]

Personally I feel a squidless movie was better for the plot. Making DM the "enemy" to me seems like a better reason to unite the world. Honestly who care of new york went down if all the other countries in the world arent to fond of the US.

Also as to why the movie didnt make out like a bandit. Watchmen while a good graphic novel isnt superman/batman/spiderman. Kids were not gearing up to see this and really people who are not aware of the comic wouldn't be gung ho to see it. The otherside of hollywood. You can have a great movie but if the interest really isnt there, then it doesnt matter.

The squid helped the plot. The island stuff would have just been much more confusing. Honestly the island plot was really a "If you didnt pay attention to detail you would have missed the island plot and still got the point of the squid".

 

[Bubastis]

maybe i woulda been fine with the new ending if it'd been executed in a way that had the impact on the viewer that the ending of the book did.

 

[SuperFerret]

Honestly, all in all, it was a neutral change. The important part was that Adrian had to fake an armageddon to unite the world (for however long it lasts).

 

[Nivek]

Yes, it was better. Considering a good portion of the audience couldn't wrap their brains around other details that are easy to understand from a fan perspective (like Nixon still being President), why in the hell throw in aliens?

 

[ClarkLuther55]

No, it didn't IMO. Here are my reasons:

1. Watchmen is a superhero story. An extremely dark and dysfunctional deconstruction of the genre that straddles the line between a full superhero story and "what would they be like in real life," but the scifi/fantasy elements were still there. The squid made the story more fantastical and interesting, which is the kind of thing I like to see when I read these kinds of stories.

2. Bubastis is pointless without the squid. She was another little scifi element, that served the story by foreshadowing what Adrian was capable of. In the movie, she just shows up without a word of explanation. I've heard that moviegoers were confused as to what the hell Bubastis was supposed to be. Saying that the squid was too hard for people to grasp makes no sense if you're going to retain Adrian's weird mutant lynx.

3. Removing the squid took out one of the comic's most disturbing and powerful moments. The scene depicting the piles of corpses filling New York's streets had far more impact than the bloodless and sterile nuking in the movie. Which is really strange, because Snyder clearly likes to show blood and guts and made several other scenes far gorier than they were in the original comic.

4. Adrian's plan doesn't make as much sense without the squid. In the comic, they explained that artists were hired to come up with disturbing things (sights, sounds, ideas) that would be broadcasted in the psychic shockwave and traumatize the survivors. This served to flesh out the "alien threat" so that people would understand what had "actually" happened.

The squid represented a powerful, but clearly mortal threat to the Earth. The ideas that it sent out would allow people to think that they could actually unite and fight the aliens. Dr. Manhattan, on the other hand, is a freaking god with the destructive power of entire nuclear arsenals. In the movie Adrian actually leads people to believe that he had wiped out not just New York, but capitals and major cities across the world. There is no fighting Dr. Manhattan; if he goes rogue then it's GAME OVER. Adrian's plot as depicted in the movie would have more likely caused a breakdown of society.