Trish Babbles: The obligatory "ZOMG they actually made a _Watchmen_ movie and it actually came out within our lifetimes!?!" Post.

Happy Chuck Norris Day! As usual, art first. As always, click for the big version. This is Viserion from the "Song of Ice and Fire and Please Finish The Last Book Before my Dad Goes Bananas K Thnx" -um- trilogy. Meaning, of course, there's four of them. Like the earlier painting of Safira, he begs the question, I know this is a portrait of someone else's character, but is it still called fanart if (to my Dad's dismay incidentally) you tried to read the books and didn't like them?
Never mind that now. I really like the flatter look here. It's different.

Here Be Vague Spoilers! Also, rambling. Lots and lots of rambling.

Well.
I haven't seen the movie yet. Not at the time of writing anyway (last Friday). I've heard a lot of word-of-mouth of course. You probably have too, even if you never heard of the book before and really don't care one way or the other. It's been pretty inescapable.
And the thing is, honestly, I think I'd rather just read The Watchmen again. This'd be the fifth time, I think. I am sure there are still details I've missed on the previous go-rounds. This book is dense and intense and it still boggles me that a film actually exists now. (All that said, if my friends wanted to get a group together and see the movie, I wouldn't say "No".)
But the fact that I really have a craving to read the book actually worries me. I had that feeling before. I felt it strongest a couple of years ago when the "Golden Compass" movie came out. I went into the attic and read the whole trilogy in a couple of days - still one of the most intense reading experiences I've ever had. Thus, according to the reviews, I skipped seeing that most dreaded of film adaptations: the kind where the filmmakers just completely fail to get the book.
I realize that I'm starting to sound like One Of Those. The kind of fan that will b*tch about even the slightest little changes. ("Wahhh Wolverine is too tall WTF!") I'm not really One Of Those (usually), it's just that reading is SO important to me. Little changes irk me ("Prisoner of Azkaban" is easily the best "Harry Potter" movie, but would it have killed them to put in a quick line of dialogue to explain the significance of the deer?) But I can deal. It's big, "they just didn't get it" changes that stoke my Nerd Rage.
Let me put it this way: The fact that the long in development limbo "Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy" film wound up entering this world as a fun-for-the-whole-family Disney movie still makes me deeply sad in a way that's damn hard to put into words.
Mind you this applies mostly to movies where I read the book first. "Secret of N.I.M.H." is my favorite movie. (Um, I'm not One Of Those either. Ok, all my characters are animals, so technically I am -- but I'm not into the weird stuff!) It's the movie that made me want to learn how to draw and animate. But is it a good adaptation of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of N.I.M.H.? Hell no! Likewise, Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is a better, closer adaptation of Roald "Most Impossibly Hard Name to Have to Try and Spell" Dahl's original, printed page Charlie -- but "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" is a much better movie.
Really, my feelings on book-to-film adaptations are very ambiguous, even contradictory. But generally, if you alter the story ("Let's turn the whole epic 'Pheonix Saga' into a fourty minute long subplot in an already crammed movie!") or the characters (poor Deadpool) to the point where it's clear you didn't understand the source material at all, I will probably wind up hating your adaptation.

Which brings us, finally, to Squidgate.

The rumor making the rounds in Internet-land for the past few months is that the producers of the "Watchmen" movie have changed the ending. Somehow. Nobody seems to agree how. But it's different.
Note that the book's ending was one of the very few "shocking twist" endings that actually shocked me. You could have slapped me. It's heartbreaking and astonishing and ballsy and... damn. I'm not going to describe it. I don't want to ruin it for you. Suffice it to say, however, it is a horrifying atrocity in which a squid is involved (sort of).
Now I was going to go on an even longer ramble on how, if one of the rumored changes is true, it would completely alter the tone of the story at large. And, worse yet, it would also be a sad reminder of -really- how little executives think of us stupid viewers and what we can handle seeing onscreen. In a fantastic fiction film set in an alternate history crawling with costumed heroes and this one guy who can bend the forces of nature to his will. Yeah. >:(
This website beat me to it.
Wah. <:( Man, that was probably the worst post I've made so far. But I'd be remiss if I didn't include this perfect parody: