10 Times Comic Book Movies Departed From The Canon And It Was Great

5. Watchmen - The Climactic Disaster Links Back To Doctor Manhattan

If you need any further evidence of why V For Vendetta was smart to update its context to the twenty-first century political environment that its audience is familiar with, you only need look at the problems with the most high profile Moore adaptation there has been. After years of rumours, negotiations and failed adaptations that were crucified by fans of the comic for the sweeping changes made to the material, Watchmen finally came to the screen courtesy of Zach Snyder's achingly faithful version. Whole swathes of dialogue, visuals and even soundtrack choices were lifted directly from the page and put right up on screen and, while it was a better film than it could have been, it ended up feeling disappointingly unambitious as a result. (Not to mention the fact that the best cut of the film is almost four hours long and still leaves stuff out). It's not a bad movie, but, while Watchmen the comic challenges the whole history and state of the medium and the form of the superhero comic, the best that the movie can manage is to replicate a decades old source. It has nothing contemporary to say and no way of commenting on the superhero movie as a genre the way that the comic does on preceding comics. That the opening credits, a slick montage of clever tableaux that packs a whole lot of the comic's alternative history into a stylish six minute sequence, is both the most praised part of the movie and the point where it departs most in style and structure from the comic should tell you everything that you need to know. In the dense, lengthy comic with its serial style story and accompanying extra-textual narratives, the complex conspiracy involving a tentacled sci-fi monster makes perfect sense. On film, however, Snyder made the smart decision to ditch all of that and simply link the climactic scenes of destruction right back to the godlike superpowers of the atomic Doctor Manhattan.