10 Blockbuster Films Made More Interesting Thanks To Their Flaws

2. Watchmen

The Flaws: The climactic moment in Zack Snyder's Watchmen occurs when Ozymandias (Matthew Goode) reveals that he is the mastermind behind everything, and is plotting to destroy the world's key cities using energy reactors he and Dr. Manhattan built together. The desired effect is that this would unite the U.S. and Soviet Union together against a common enemy, and bring about peace on Earth. A clever plan? Sure, except that in the original graphic novel, it occurred a little differently: Ozy instead sent a giant squid to New York City, which subsequently died and sent out a gigantic psychic shockwave, killing half the city's population. Though Snyder's ending still works, it's not as bracingly effective as the squid, because the visual image of a grotesque squid is simply more potent and dramatic than that of explosive energy, and is therefore more likely to unite the citizens of the world. Why It's More Interesting: The exclusion of the squid certainly got people talking, but you also have to consider that the squid would likely not have translated well to the movie form: seeing some slimy CGI squid exploding all over the place would probably elicit laughs from those not already acquainted with the source material and therefore already accepting of the idea. 20 years following the graphic novel's publication, where the idea of a giant squid likely seems a bit sillier than it did back in the mid-1980s, switching it out for Dr. Manhattan really isn't that bad an idea: it doesn't make the same point as emphatically, but conveys it in a way that more casual viewers are going to be able to comprehend. Dumbed down? Not so much as altered to fit with the times.