Graphic Novel's/Movie's Ending?

[Jack Kovacs]

If you're a Watchmen fan like me, you'd realize that the way they reenacted Ozy's master plan was by making it seem like Dr. Manhattan destroyed half of New York. In the GN, Ozy created an alien that was teleported to New York, in which the resulting shockwave caused the deaths.

Thoughts on this matter?

[Aero]

To be honest, I thought the ending in the movie made a bit more sense. The denizens of Earth will still believe that Dr. Manhattan will still be watching them, so they're less likely to send each other into World War III lest they ignite the wrath of the near-God again. They would probably question why he vaporized the various cities, but I don't think they would act on it (unless Rorschach's journal got published or somebody else somehow managed to find the weakness in Adrian's plan to conceal it).

However, that kind of defeats the purpose I think that was put out in the GN. At the end, Dr. Manhattan tells Adrian "Nothing ever ends." Even though it seemed like an initial alien attack to Earth, eventually the lack of aliens attacking (or contact with aliens) will cause suspicion and/or make the humans revert back to attacking each other, so Adrian's plan for world peace would pretty much fail unless he pulled off another mass stunt like the squid. Basically, when you try to create world peace, even if you're the smartest man in the world, in the end you'll fail because the nature of humans make such impossible, unless you're a god. I think that's what it sort of meant.

[Valarak]

I'm personally with Aero here -- the movie made much more sense. The world was already beginning to believe that Dr. Manhattan would end the world if he wanted to, and that was Ozy's motive with duplicating Dr. Manhattan's power.

Valarak

[pax]

It made more sense for me too. Now, I don't know if it's just my age or the Black Freighter (And other backstories related to the squid) really confused everyone, so I was quite happy they decided to go the Manhattan way. Plus, there's something else for those who read the GN to look forward to, because the movie practically followed the GN EXCEPT for the ending (I was actually wondering when they would insert the backstory, not knowing the backstory was gone.).