All right….
You were warned…
If you care about seeing Watchmen without knowing anything…especially about the ending…
DO NOT READ ON.
Ok, with that being said…
The secret screening of Watchmen in Portland returned very interesting responses posted online, such as:
"I just was a part of the first crowd in the world to see the movie Watchmen here in Portland. You had to go through so much security to get in, have ID, online registration, sign a disclosure agreement to tell no one about the movie. I even had to go back to my car and put my cell phone away because it had a camera in it. This movie is probably one of the best super hero movies I've ever seen. The characters are great. Dude named Rorschach, after the ink blot tests but the spelling is different I think, he owns everyone. Has this one line after he throws hot grease on this prisoners face, "I'm not locked up in here with you, your locked in here with me". He whoops everyone in this movie. Also Dr. Manhattan is this blue god like character that can teleport and screws his GF at the same time as working on this machine. Anyway, sorry to babble but this movie is worth seeing. I feel lucky to have seen it already. It's unfinished because they need to add in some CGI and green screen effects but when it's done I'm going to go pay to see it. The movie is 2 hours and 30 minutes long, there is so much to talk about one little scene won't spoil it. This movie is absolutely rated R. There is sex scenes, nipples showing, you can see Dr. Manhattans d*ck. There's scenes where a a guy gets his arms chopped off, an ax put into his skull, people being blown up in war. This movie is hardcore. One of the super heros kills a woman for cutting his face in a bar."
But the biggest controversy appears to be about the ending. For those familiar with the graphic novel, you know that the ending has Ozymandias (proclaimed the smartest man in the world) genetically engineering a giant "alien"…a sort of…space squid…that enters Earth through a supposed dimensional portal and then explodes, destroying all of New York but in turn setting into motion events that save the entire planet and avert nuclear disaster.
In this version, there's no squid.
One internet poster states:
"No squid. Manhattan and Ozy build a device that mimics Manhattan's power and Ozy uses it to blow up a bunch of cities and frames Manhattan. Manhattan realizes that this is best for the world and so when Rorschach storms out… well we know what happens to him. Dan's scream in the snow is a reaction to that. After that it wasn't too clear on the final shots. They did not mention a kid going for a journal or disguised Dan and Laurie visiting Silk Spectre I."
Another confirms, stating:
"There was no squid… He and Dr Manhattan built a machine to mimic the powers of Dr Manhattan, under the guise of "free energy" to solve the energy crisis. Unbeknown to Manhattan, he used the machine to set off an atomic bomb like thing in various large cities around the world."
Besides this change, it also appears that the ending scene of Rorschach's journal possibly being discovered has also been removed:
I must be one the few "hardcore old-school" fans who doesn't care a bit about the squid and might actually prefer it be left out, provided the spirit of a "uniting threat" (which is the really important part, as far as the theme and plot go) is left in. But was there really, truly any indication that the New Frontiersman possibly publishing Rorschach's journal, thereby undoing everything that Veidt has worked so hard to accomplish is getting left out, too? This last thing is a major deal breaker for me. The "cliffhanger" ending is, IMO, one of the greatest endings to any story/piece of literature. It was really powerful for me to be left eternally hanging, not knowing what might happen. I could have sworn that there was earlier confirmation that this was in. Also, why include the journal at all (I've seen it in shots from the movie} if you're not going to do this? Does anyone have any idea what the deal is with this?
There are some, however, who think that this "test run" of the movie isn't the true ending:
You may notice the guy claims the movie ends at Karnak, without the pivotal scene of Rorschach's journal at the New Frontiersman. This has people very distressed. However, I'm hearing this scene was in the movie and the guy just forgot to mention it or thought it wasn't important. Secondly, the exclusion of the squid goes against several months of rumors and inside information. Some are speculating Zack Snyder took a page from Ozymandias's book and is one step ahead of us and tested a fake ending, knowing it would reach the Internet. So we should remain cautious about this.
Personally, I could do without the "space squid", but I agree that the cliffhanger of Rorschach's journal was an awesome way to end the story, with the potential of everything that had been accomplished at such a massive cost potentially being undone…
But it seems, either way, that the general consensus, in spite of what's missing or not missing, is that this movie is full of win and truly will be something incredible to see.
