Watchmen was a script adaptation by David Hayter of Alan Moore's landmark 1986-87 comic maxi-series Watchmen.
Differences from the Comic
- Captain Metropolis is included minimally in flashbacks, but with no speaking parts; Dan Dreiberg is used in his place as organizing the Crimebusters meeting.
- The comics had the Minutemen come together in 1939, split in 1949, and dissolved completely as a group by the 1950s as a result of the Communist Red Scare by the House of Un-American Activities. However, the script has them forming as a team in the early 1960s.
- Instead of the 1985 setting used in the comics, the script takes place in 2004. Whereas The Comedian had fought in World War Two, Korea, and Vietnam, Hayter has it stated that Blake fought in the last days of the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and Iraq. The United States' conflict with Russia is changed to one with Afghanistan, and all references to the Communists are replaced with Middle Eastern terrorists.
- The graphic novel states that Edward Blake was born in 1924, but Hayter has him born in 1944.
- Laurie Juspeczyk is called Silk Spectre in the comics, but this version has her codename as being "Slingshot." This is explained by having Doctor Manhattan given her the power to sling balls of energy as a birthday present.
- While the ending is relatively faithful to that of the comic, Hayter adds Dan witnessing Rorschach's death and an intense fight between Dan and Ozymandias, in which the latter is impaled by one of Nite Owl's boomerangs.
- Instead of a giant squid, Adrian Veidt triggers a series of nuclear explosions around the world.