Squid Quibbles

It is bound to be the biggest issue debated come Friday. It will be far more contentious than how big the box office will be, Dr. Manhattan’s constant state of obvious “endowment”, or the removal of several subtexts. No, what fanboys and freshman to the entire Watchmen experience will surely be hair-splitting over the ending Zack Snyder and his screenwriters David Hayter and Alex Tse have come up with for Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ classic graphic novel. It will definitely be the focus of more than one review, and will perhaps turn some potentially favorable notices in strangled, sour pans. One thing’s for sure – of all the things the filmmakers could fiddle with, the Squid is clearly a comic book – sorry, graphic novel – sacred cow.

For those who want to go into the entire Watchmen experience unaffected by spoilers, this may be your point of literary departure. It is impossible to discuss this element of the book and film without giving away the major plot points in both. Again, you have been warned. For its main story thread, Watchmen revolves around a group of masked vigilantes, once active, now banned by the US government. As tensions between America and the Soviets escalate, the world is pushed to the point of nuclear annihilation. Only the superhero Dr. Manhattan – the only member of the group with any true power – can stop the slaughter. But according to paranoid crimefighter Rorschach, there is a conspiracy to stop anyone from saving the day. One by one, the masked avengers are killed, compromised, and framed for crimes they did not commit.

In the end, it turns out that (SPOILER ALERT – LAST WARNING) Adrian Veidt (also known as Ozymandias), desperate to mimic his hero Alexander the Great, has orchestrated a massive hoax to “scare” the nations of the world into working together toward peace. In the case of Alan Moore’s novel, the event in question is the arrival of a huge alien squid who terrorizes and destroys most of New York City. The character known as the Comedian is killed because he stumbles upon the plan. Rorschach is set up as a murderer because he insists upon investigating the man’s death. Even Dr. Manhattan is condemned as being the cause of cancer in many of his former associates. The allegations make him leave Earth, thereby guaranteeing Adrian minimal interference with his plan. The mock invasion does occur, and he is proven right. America and the Soviets vow to help each other, while the remaining heroes decide to keep quite about what happened.