Warning: The following contains mentions of violence and sexual assault.

Summary

• The animated Watchmen movie can restore missing scenes from the original comics that Zack Snyder cut from his 2009 film, including the original ending and the Tales of the Black Freighter story within the story.
• Some scenes that simply don't work well in live-action can work well in an animated Watchmen movie.
• Zack Snyder made some changes to Watchmen due to time constraints and pressure to keep the film short, but an animated adaptation could provide the opportunity to include more scenes and additional depth to the characters' backstories.

The animated Watchmen animated movie can restore all the missing scenes from the original comics that Zack Snyder cut from his 2009 movie. While Snyder's film included most of the comics' major scenes, it also cut a lot. Some of these scenes were restored by Snyder's director's cut of Watchmen, but several notable scenes from the original graphic novel were still absent. However, Snyder also made a number of changes to the comics' story, some of which proved controversial with comic readers.

With a Watchmen animated adaptation scheduled for release in 2024, the subject of Zack Snyder's edits has arisen once again. While some of the changes made sense, given the differences between comics and films as storytelling mediums, others seemed somewhat arbitrary. However, there is little reason an animated Watchmen movie couldn't restore these missing scenes.

12 Watchemen's Squid Monster

The most obvious change an animated Watchmen movie might make from Snyder's adaptation is restoring the original ending. In the comics, billionaire Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias) secretly assembled a team to create a fake squid-like alien as part of a plot to scare the world's leaders into peaceful cooperation by giving them a fictional enemy to unite against. Snyder changed this to a plot to frame Doctor Manhattan for mass murder, with Ozymandius using a Sub Quantum Unifying Intrinsic Device (SQUID) to mimic his powers and attack several cities.

Some mistakenly believe that Snyder made this change because the CGI of the time could not make the alien monster look convincingly real. In truth, Snyder made the change because it would have taken too long to properly introduce the monster. In an interview with MTV, Snyder explained that he was under pressure from Warner Bros. to keep Watchmen as short as possible. Faced with the choice of explaining the squid or "more Rorschach and a little bit more Manhattan," Snyder opted to include more scenes of the main characters.

11 Tales of The Black Freighter

Another major cut from the comics that the animated film might restore is theTales of the Black Freighter story within the story. Presented as a fictional comic in the world of Watchmen, Tales of the Black Freighter tells the tale of a captain who commits numerous atrocities in his effort to save all that he loves from the titular pirate vessel. The captain's story foreshadows the fate of Ozymandias and reflects Watchmen's recurring theme of men becoming monsters in the name of doing good. Zack Snyder produced an animated Tales of the Black Freighter adaptation, but it doesn't have the same punch separated from the source story.

10 The Two Bernies

Zack Snyder cut many of the Watchmen comics' side stories involving the ordinary people who cross paths with the title superheroes, but the most notable of these cuts involved Bernie and Bernie. A newsdealer and a comic fan in Manhattan, it is the younger Bernie who reads the Tales of the Black Freighter comic, while the elder Bernie acts as a Greek Chorus regarding the main story. The two do not learn of their shared name until the destruction of Manhattan, where they embrace just before their bodies are destroyed. Zack Snyder gave the two Bernies a cameo, but their significance was not explained in the theatrical cut of Watchmen.

9 Kitty Genovese

Watchmen #6 was devoted to the origins of Rorschach and how Watler Kovacs developed his black-and-white morality. Much of this background was cut for time, but the most notable cut was the mention of the real-world murder of Kitty Genovese and how it inspired Kovacs to heroism. The Kitty Genovese case also inspired the creation of the bystander effect theory of psychology, which suggests that most people are less likely to help a victim in the presence of strangers.

Ignoring the criticism of the validity of the bystander effect, the original reporting on the Kitty Genovese case by the New York Times suggesting she was murdered while 38 people stood and watched has also come into question in recent years. Much of this analysis came after the release of Zack Snyder's Watchmen, however, making it likely this scene was cut for time rather than for fear of promoting a questionable story. In any case, Rorschach's backstory is a little less rich without his explanation of how he came to create his new face.

8 Rorscach's Original Turning Point

One of the bigger changes from the comics comes at the end of Rorschach's retelling of his origins and how Walter Kovacs truly became Rorschach after confronting a child killer. In Zack Snyder's movie, Rorschach hacks the killer to death with his own butcher tools. In the original comics, Rorschach traps the murderer in a burning building and watches to make sure that he does not escape. This sets up one of the most striking images of the comics, in which the white smoke of the fire becomes a giant Rorschach against the black of the night sky.

7 Dr. Malcolm Long's Story

Dr. Malcolm Long, the psychologist who examines Rorschach after he is imprisoned, has a drastically reduced role in Zack Snyder's Watchmen. In many ways, Watchmen #6 is just as much about Dr. Long as it is about Walter Kovacs, showing the optimistic doctor and his life before he takes on Rorschach's case. By the issue's end, however, Long has adopted Rorschach's bleak world view as his own and seriously threatened his happy marriage with his sudden shift in attitude.

6 Ozymandias' Acrobatics Demonstration

One of the more subtle bits of humor in the Watchmen comics comes in Watchmen #7 when Dan Dreiberg (Nite Owl II) and Laurie Jupiter (Silk Spectre II) have sex for the first time. As they do this, a television in the background shows Ozymandias giving a demonstration of his acrobatic talents, with the television hosts' comments acting as an ironic commentary on Dan and Laurie's awkward love-making, which is cut short by Dan's impotence. Zack Snyder retained the intimate scene but cut the demonstration, which also established Ozymandias' physical prowess before the final fight later in Watchmen.

5 The Police Figure Out Dan's Secret Identity

One of the more notable subplots Zack Snyder cut for time centered around NYPD Detective Steven Fine, who investigated the death of The Comedian and helped to capture Rorschach. Detective Fine also deduces Dan Dreiberg's secret identity, leading the police to him after Nite Owl helps Rorschach escape from prison. This also eliminated the need for Dan and Laurie to adopt new identities at the end of the Zack Snyder Watchmen movie.

4 Rorschach Confronts The Woman Who Rents Him His Home

In the original Watchmen comics, Rorschach returned to his apartment after breaking out of prison to recover his spare costume. This led to a tense confrontation with the sex worker who rents him a room, who bad-mouthed him to the press after his secret identity was revealed to the world. However, Rorschach leaves without further incident after seeing a scared child who reminds him of himself when he was a boy. This humanizing incident was cut from the Snyder film, where Rorschach recovers his costume from an evidence locker before escaping prison.

3 All The Flashbacks to Laurie's Past

Zack Snyder cut a number of flashbacks from the comics in adapting the story of Watchmen for live-action, but no character suffered more in this regard than Laurie Jupiter. Most of the flashbacks of Laurie's life in Watchmen #9 were cut, including the scene where she confronted The Comedian regarding his attempted sexual assualt of her mother. While all the scenes showing Laurie's childhood may not be strictly necessary, the confrontation scene contained a major clue as to The Comedian's true relationship with Laurie and showcased her fighting spirit far better than any action sequence.