Watchmen: Chapter I: Every Major Change From the Comics, Ranked

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Watchmen: Chapter I.

Watchmen: Chapter I is the most faithful adaptation yet of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ seminal DC Comics limited series, however, it still deviates from its source material in several ways. Below, we’ve rounded up (and ranked) every major change Watchmen: Chapter I makes to the comics.

5. The Back Matter Is Gone (Mostly)

Moore and Gibbons stuffed all 12 issues of Watchmen with back matter designed to flesh out the story’s world (and, in some cases, its narrative). Watchmen: Chapter I omits almost all of this content from its adaptation of the first five issues – and fair enough, too. After all, there’s no practical way to fully incorporate the memoirs, interviews, essays, and other prose content from the comics into an animated movie. Frankly, it’s impressive director Brandon Vietti and screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski squeezed an excerpt from fictional autobiography Under the Hood into the closing credits! But logistics notwithstanding, this content is integral to the comics (readers who skip it miss out on the full picture), so its absence here bears noting.

4. New, Altered, and Missing Dialogue

This is another of Watchmen: Chapter I‘s understandable changes, but it’s worth highlighting just the same: the movie’s dialogue isn’t 1:1 with that of the comics. There are new lines that fill in gaps caused by cut scenes (more on that later) and fill in world-building gaps left by the missing back matter. Some of the comics’ lengthy passages have also been shortened; for example, Rorschach’s misplaced admiration for his absentee dad isn’t in Watchmen: Chapter I. Vietti and Straczynski have removed homophobic slurs and other less 2024-friendly language (Doctor Manhattan no longer describes the man who stomps on Janey Slater’s watch as “fat”), as well. Oh, and in a similar vein, the quotations that rounded out Watchmen #1-5 are gone, too.

Related: All Major Actors & Cast List for Watchmen: Chapter I

3. The Opening Scene Is Different

Watchmen #1 has one of the all-time iconic introductions of any superhero comic. Rorschach’s grisly diary entry about a dead dog he encountered combined with the striking visual of a blood-drenched street and smiley face badge immediately draws readers in. However, those aren’t the first things we see and hear in Zack Snyder’s 2009 live-action adaptation, and it’s not how Watchmen: Chapter I gets the ball rolling, either. Instead, Chapter I kicks off with a montage of stills and voiceover that establishes Watchmen‘s “superheroes in the real world” premise. The comics’ opening panel is recreated immediately after the title screen, however. But even so, it’s interesting that no Watchmen adaptation to date starts like the comics (unless you count the motion comic version).

2. Detectives Fine and Bourquin Play Smaller Roles

Detectives Fine and Bourquin still serve the same basic function in Watchmen: Chapter I. They’re still the guys who investigate the Comedian’s murder, and they still collar Rorschach. But the pair’s amount of screentime is much smaller than comic book readers might expect, as Chapter I doesn’t depict their wider activities. Notably, in the Watchmen comics, we see Fine and Bourquin investigate the nuclear panic-motivated murders only referenced via dialogue in Chapter I. The comics also include a scene left out of the animated adaptation in which Fine receives the anonymous tip that results in Rorschach’s capture. It’s hardly essential, however, it adds additional weight to the story’s central “masked killer” conspiracy.

Related: How To Watch DC’s Watchmen Animated Movie

1. The Flashbacks Are Ordered Differently to the Comic

In general, Watchmen: Chapter I sticks pretty closely to Moore and Gibbons’ comic book roadmap. That said, the first half of movie is structured a bit differently, especially the way it deploys flashbacks. Whereas most of Watchmen‘s Comedian-centric throwback scenes coincide with the vigilante’s funeral in the comic, in Chapter I, they’re peppered throughout the first act. Presumably, Vietti and Straczynski were trying to make the start of the movie less episodic than the comics’ first couple of issues. If so, they largely succeed. At the same time, this material arguably has greater impact as originally arranged. In particular, the flashback reshuffle hurts the mini-mystery around the Comedian’s scar, because we now find out how he got it super early in proceedings!

Watchmen: Chapter I is available now on Blu-ray, 4K Ultra HD, and Digital.