10 Weird Things Left Out Of Comic Book Movies

6. The Giant Squid Alien From Watchmen

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' classic comic is a meticulously constructed and purposefully designed book, breaking down both the form of superhero stories as the characters themselves, and the various genre tropes therein. The story of a bunch of washed-up former cape-wearers is a commentary on both contemporary politics and the state of comics themselves, with critiques on the violence of Reagan's America during the Cold War and the consequence-free fist fights that appear at the climax of pretty much every superhero narrative.

Zack Snyder's adaptation of the book was incredibly faithful, almost to a fault, as he recreated each and every part of the beloved graphic novel. He even went so far as to film the ancillary materials, which appeared as excerpts from a fake memoir and a comic book in the story itself, as a documentary and animated feature which were included in the director's cut DVD. The one thing that he did change in bringing the story to the screen was a bit of a doozy, though: it was the ending, in fact.

Eschewing the fistfight thing, Watchmen ends with a giant telepathic squid being zapped into the centre of New York, killing thousands and uniting the warring East and West against a common enemy from beyond the stars. Except in the film they figured the big octopus might not work as well, and changed it so that the blue nuclear nudist Dr Manhattan appeared to do the dirty deed, so everyone turned against him instead. We respect that decision.