I’ve gotta say, you’re take on the movie matches up exactly with mine. You’re laying out my grievances word for word.
Hello, sister of mine. 
He is the personification of the ultimate Randian Objectivist - someone who believes that there is an elite who have a bigger understanding - and are willing to make the hard choices for the Better Good.
(The event - although different in the book - is meant to be effective by giving humanity a common enemy to bond against.)
The book is a meta-commentary on various superhero tropes, each taken to their extremes, set within a mystery plot that moves things along. If you aren’t reasonably invested in superhero comics to understand the various tropes and how much Moore exquisitely twists them to comment on humanity, politics, power, etc., then I totally understand how this movie would not work for you.
After all, the man was practically a fascist.
What a cursory, dismissive point of view you have. When you approach anything so uninvested and half-hearted “meh” is a pretty predictable reaction.
It actually did say – they were going to detonate bombs filled with Dr. Manhattan’s energy, and blame the attack on Dr. Manhattan. This would cause the world to hate him and band against him as a common enemy, causing world peace because now everyone is common allies.
The movie never mentions whether it WORKS or not, just that that’s the PLAN, regardless of how stupid or smart it is.
Unfortunately not. BUT, I do think it could have been extremely interesting. I don’t mind deconstructions, if well done, and I like seeing things twisted around 90 degrees. I agree that the medium did not do it justice.
Jragon, perhaps I meant more the reasons why he would ever think such a thing would work. Regardless, it did work, in the movie anyway - at the end Nixon is allying with the Soviet Union to defend against Doctor Manhattan.
Anyway, I thank you all for this fruitful discussion. I’m still not terribly fond of it, but it did add some dimensions to what was otherwise a flat movie.
His paln is to use a huge, outside threat to make mankind untie against it and it works. (in the movie it is Dr. Manhattan, in the comic it is a fake alien attack) Yes, his plan is nuts, but noone who knows what really happened can do anything about it without destroying the good that it did.
I love both of you, Death of Rats, and Jragon, but your typos are making me <snerk>:
“make mankind untie against it”
And Jragon originally had “causing world piece” but he sneakily got in there and corrected it. 
I thought to ignore you at first, but I will post this one thing. Other people have posted to correct some of my misconceptions and even help me understand the larger world beyond Watchmen, and have given me a renewed interest in perhaps reading the comic book. They’ve tried to educate me, and I’ve listened, and found it interesting and a good discussion, as I said.
Is your approach going to make me do the same? I think not.
At the end? Nothing ends, Anaamika. Nothing ever ends.
Too true.
For a while, anyway. The ending of both the book and the movie suggests that the truth may well out.
If you do read the book, and you should, because its head and shoulders above the movie, read the Dark Knight Returns at the same time. They both have a similar element of the overdependence of the USA on a single, apparently all powerful individual who demonstrates himself to be eventually fallible.
No. It was billed as a “real” superhero comic. As a graphic novel it was revolutionary and a reaction to the happy-go-lucky comics of the 50s and 60s where heroes were one-dimensional and villains were diabolical and irrational.
The movie on the other hand is largely a scene by scene recreation of that graphic novel. That is both a strength and a weakness. The material is dated by about 30 years and it wasn’t updated accordingly. The idea of the anti-hero and the complex/conflicted super hero is no longer revolutionary.
The movie is great for fans of the graphic novel. The movie is visually stunning and it’s an achievement to so faithfully recreate a pop culture icon.
All that said, the source material isn’t as good or as revered as say Lord of the Rings and the adaptation wasn’t molded to suit the format or the times. I loved that it wasn’t repackaged to look like every other gritty super hero movie, I’ve seen The Dark Knight, I don’t need to see it again. I think it’s one of the most visually stunning movies I’ve ever seen and the soundtrack was absolutely flawless. But, I realize that the story simply isn’t really relevant any more and it had it’s flaws even when it was relevant. This is one of the many reasons that movies are different than books and have assets beyond just the story.
This, like many others, is a better theater movie than a living room movie, especially if the volume is low, the sound system sucks and there are a dozen distractions around the house.
The movie does not faithfully recreate the graphic novel, any more than V for Vendetta did. And the source material is better than Lord of the Rings.
Which I may, because I was disappointed with aspects of the Dark Knight movie, too, and I bet they are better explained in the novel.
The movie wasn’t based on Dark Knight Returns, I don’t think.
No, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Returns have nothing to do with each other save some shared words in their titles and being about the same fictional character.
One think I don’t understand is why Dr. Manhattan didn’t kill Ozymandias at the end. Sure, he may have saved the world, but he did murder millions of people - and not only did he get away with it, he actually profited financially from it. Dr. Manhattan could have killed him with a wave of his hand, and should have. There was no reason the arrogant prick should have kept on living.