WARNING: "Here be Tygers...or Spoilers" (not so much for the movie, but for The Book)
1.No Squid. Yes, Squiddy is sort of ridiculous and unbelievable, but it's just so ridiculous and believable to be believed. Plus, for the ending to really “work,” at least in my opinion, the common threat that unites the planet needs to truly be an external (extra-planetary) threat. It's much harder for me to buy that all of the United States' enemies would suddenly rally with them when it was the US's ultimate weapon that attacked them all (even if the US was harmed as well). If I were the Russians, and there was a big “Boom” on my soil in that political climate, those missiles would be in the air faster than I could say “boil a beet for borscht.” Even if it didn't elicit an immediate response, once it became clear that it was the American “Superman” that caused the damage, I doubt that it would endear the United States' enemies to their common cause. It was 'tidier' for the movie, but ultimately less satisfying than Squiddy.
2.Bodies well within my wildest imagining: As much as the rest of the movie was overly violent, the ending was far too bloodless. Chapter 12 of The Book opens with 6 full-page, wordless shots (distinctly different from the normal 9-panel grid layout) that give a panoramic view of the utter atrocity of the results of the attack. These are the “Bodies beyond your wildest Imagining” that the “Veidt Method” promised. It is graphic, bloody and Shocking. We see nearly all of the 'regular' people we've met in the book have died horrific deaths when all they wanted was some Tandoori to go. In the movie the body count is just a number, albeit an even bigger, yet still less meaningful, number than in the book. There's also very little emotional connection to the non-super people of the movie's Earth. Without the depth of connection to the '40th & 7th' people', there's very little 'humanity' in the movie. Bernard and Bernie's deaths are nothing but a nod to those who have read the book.
3.“Jon would say 'Nothing Ever Ends'”: You're darn right he would! In fact he did in The Book, and it was in what was probably the most important panel/scene of the entire story. Veidt, showing the tiniest sliver of self-doubt, asks for Jon's vindication to help him justify his means. Jon replies, “Nothing Ends, Adrian, Nothing ever Ends,” and disappears to Mars, leaving Adrian's need for Jon's approval unfulfilled, and leaving him to contend with the consequences of his Stronger, Loving World. Giving the line to Laurie cheapens it. It would be better to cut it entirely than give it to someone else.
4.Jon as Scapegoat: Making Jon the scapegoat fundamentally changes his character arc. Instead of leaving earth having had his faith in humanity restored (at least enough to want to go create some of his own in another universe), and leaving humanity without his protection from the “Alien” threat (and thus giving them one more reason to rally together), Jon is now leaving no longer welcome on the planet. I will grant that this probably doesn't really matter to Jon himself, but it does matter to the character's story.
5. Rorschach's Journal: The stillness of the final panel really does put the ending “entirely in your hands” as a reader. The camera's slow zoom to focus on Rorschach's diary doesn't. And therein is the true failing of the translation of “Watchmen,”a comic designed to exemplify the medium, to film. The movie will never never really be in our hands (unless you have it on your portable video player, but you get the point). We are pushed and pulled at the pace set by the filmmaker.
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