It's official: Zack Snyder doesn't understand what his job is.

Remember those rumours about the possible different ending to the film version of Watchmen? In a recent interview, director Zack Snyder has laid those rumours to rest. In a bad way...

First he tried to avoid the subject:

“The fans, god love 'em, they're all up in arms about the squid. What they should be up in arms about are things like shooting the pregnant woman, 'God is real and he's American', whether THAT's in the movie. That's my point of view, maybe I'm crazy."

But then he flat out confessed:

“The squid was not in the movie when I got the script, the squid was never in any draft that I saw. My point is only that there was this elegant solution to the squid problem that I kind of embraced. I'm a fan of the thing as much as anyone, I was saying what are we going to do about this before I even read the script.”

And when asked about the ending that has been put in place:

“I won't say exactly but... Dr. Manhattan has a certain energy signature, it's clearly his thing...so you know.”

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You can find the full interview at Dark Horizons here: http://www.darkhorizons.com/news08/081107k.php

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Let's examine what exactly has happened here...

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- A director claims he is a fan of a source material enough to make a film from it.

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- He goes to extraordinary lengths to be be faithful to every aspect of the source material. Everything from set design, location, characters and dialogue.

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- But changes the ending which is the whole point of the story.

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- Then confesses to changing the ending in an arrogant and cowardly fashion. Stating the fans should care about other things, like incidental dialogue. And then he states it was the screenwriter's fault, trying to absolve himself of blame.

Hey Watchmen fans! Yeah, that's right, I'm telling you what you should care about in Watchmen!

This goes beyond a simply bad version of Watchmen. It changes the entire reason for telling the story in the first place. Here, I'll explain again:

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In the original comic of Watchmen, a retired superhero named Adrian Veidt realises the world is on the brink of destruction due to the nuclear arms race in an alternate 1985. The US and Russia are days away from launching massive amounts of warheads at each other and this superhero (who is known as the smartest man in the world) decides that the only course of action to stop this from happening is to give the human race a wake-up call - in the form of an alien invasion. Veidt has millions of dollars at his disposal so he hires a huge group of scientists, artists and researchers to create a colossal creature the likes of which the world has never seen. It is not an alien, but a scientific creation. But it is so huge and so bizarre, when it suddenly materialises in the centre of New York (dying from the instantaneous transport conducted by Veidt) and sends out a shockwave that kills millions of people, the entire world is so shocked by its presence that immediate ceasefires are called around the globe so the human race can band together as one and deal with this new threat. Other superheroes discover this plot (two of them are killed when they object) and are forced to keep quiet so that the world doesn't discover the truth and tear itself apart through fear and hatred. The death of a few million people is worth it if the entire world can re-build itself into a possibly peaceful utopia.

Got that? Right. Well, the 'alien' has become known as 'the squid' in fan circles. And in Snyder's version, it will be completely removed in favour of using the only superhero in the story that has powers (Dr Manhattan) as a plot device. From what has been said about this new ending, Dr Manhattan is tricked and/or coerced by Adrian Veidt into using his powers to detonate nuclear explosions all over the world in an attempt to stop the human race from fighting with each other.

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Dr Manhattan, at this point in the comic, is hated and feared by the entire world because he had been falsely accused by the media of spreading cancer because of his powers. A claim fed to the media by Adrian Veidt so that Dr Manhattan would be forced to flee Earth in fear of persecution so as not to interfere with Veidt's plans with the 'squid'.

With me so far? Yeah, probably not huh? What confused you? Let me guess. Was it the baffling change to the story which would not only make no sense but basically negate the entire story of Watchmen? Yeah, that was it.

Hey Watchmen fans! Alan Moore was right!

From what can be assumed, the squid was deemed too 'weird' for movie-going audiences and was dropped in favour of nuclear explosions. Explosions still kill millions of people right? What's the problem? The problem is that Zack Snyder doesn't understand the source material he claims to be such a fan of. The death of millions isn't the point. What causes it is. If a superhero that the entire world hates and fears kills millions of people, why would that stop war? It would galvanise the entire globe's population into picking up more guns and hunting down all superheroes and their families. And anyone else who gets in the way. Fear and hatred would increase ten-fold.

But if millions of people are killed by the sudden appearance of a alien species, it's natural to believe that the human race would stop shooting at each other to fight this new threat. And since the alien is fake, the human race wouldn't actually end up fighting anything but the amazement and general feeling of we're-so-small-in-the-universe-let's-stop-fighting would remain.

Phew.

In the end, it's extremely disappointing. On one hand you could say the film doesn't matter. You've always got the comic (which is awesome) so just ignore the film and don't go see it. That's a good point (and it is what I'll end up doing) but it's not that simple. If Zack Snyder wasn't so adamant about making Watchmen extremely shot-for-shot and word-for-word faithful (and the trailers for the film are evidence of this) then fans of the comic wouldn't be asking...WHY? Why change the ending if everything else in the movie is exactly like the comic?

If the movie version of Lord Of The Rings had Frodo kill himself at the end, why make it?

If the movie version of 1984 had Winston Smith escape at the end, why make it?

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If the movie version of Watchmen has no alien at the end, WHY MAKE IT?

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Hey Watchmen fans! Fuck you!