Yup, I like this way much better. The space squid thing was always pretty retarded and didn’t make much sense in the context of having Dr. Manhattan still on humanities side. Having Manhattan be the heavy is much more logical and impactful.
It must be nice to have the option. I read the comic when it first came out in single issues back in the 1980s. Still does my head in, how many angles it has.
My thinking is read the book first, just because if you start with the movie and don’t like it (opinions seem pretty mixed) you may no longer want to read the book. Which would be a shame, because the book is great. Also, watching the movie will spoil surprises from the book.
Read the book first. It’s excellent and the movie’s just okay.
Watch the movie first.
It’ll improve both.
Instead of spending the whole movie waiting for the really memorable bits, or comparing the movie to the equivalent scenes from the book, you can just enjoy it.
Then, knowing the plot, when you read the book, you can spend your time concentrating on the details, rather than trying to figure out what’s happening.
One of my friends hasn’t read the GN yet and we more or less forced him to pick it up before we would let him see it in the theatre. 
I haven’t seen the movie yet. I will probably go on friday. But the GN is the original work and the acclaimed masterpiece and I think that it should be your first impression of Watchmen - because it *is *Watchmen. Not just the hyped movie version of it. Some here claim that you’d lessen the movie experience if you know the story beforehand, but how would you not lessen the GN experience if you’ve seen the movie first?
Book first, I say.
I agree with Movie -> book.
One thing I noticed is that nearly everyone who disliked the movie, disliked it because they were overly-familiar of the book. I’m not saying they were doing the fanboy pickiness thing, but… yeah, there was a lot of that going around. For whatever reasons, fans of some things absolutely hate to see it adapted, and this was among the best adaptations I’ve ever seen. The movie plot made a bit more sense and really spirited up the character of the comic.
I liked both the movie and the comic. I read the comic first a few weeks before seeing the movie, but I wish I had done it the other way around. The comic provides a lot more detail than the movie.
I’m one of the people who thought the original squid was a pretty dumb idea in the original comic, and captain Manhattan being the threat works a lot better. The soviets know about Manhattan’s powers, so they’d be much more likely to assume the squid is a failed experiment from the US government anyway. It was implausible that people would automatically believe it came from another dimension.
The squid is also much more vulnerable to the potential reveal of the Rorschach’s journal. The journal going public would ruin the entire squid plot, since the squid is such an incredible thing to believe. Once the journal became public, people would easily leap to the squid being a human creation, and there being no inter-dimensional threat to unite against after all.
The Manhattan plot isn’t as vulnerable to reveal though, whether it comes from the journal or living people. If the truth is revealed, people would likely just assume that Manhattan and Ozymandias worked together to kill those millions. After all there is proof of Manhattan’s mental instability from the cancer footage, and proof that he worked with Ozymandias on the new technology. Whether it was Manhattan himself or technology he helped to create, it still serves to create that sense of fear toward Manhattan. Rorschach’s journal only proves that Ozymandias was responsible for the destruction of New York. It doesn’t prove that Manhattan wasn’t responsible.
I didn’t like how clean the destruction of NY was(and the other cities around the world, did we even get any footage of what happened to them.) For a film that was so openly violent otherwise, the mass-murder of more than 10 million people was shown only shortly with little detail. They could have done much more to show the true magnitude of Ozymandias’ actions.
I’ve read the book several times since it came out and I’m a big fan.
I found the movie to be flawed, but visually stunning.
See the movie first. But afterwards, definitely read the book. Don’t skip that part.
One problem I had was that there was no motivation provided for Dr. Manhatten’s sudden hatred for humanity. After years of working for them, he suddenly decides to kill millions. I guess Sohvan’s point about mental stability might be the closest thing to a motive provided in the film.
But …
He didn’t actually kill them, right? Veidt simply found a way to pin it on Osterman, and in the end he decided not to fight it
The book creates a whole new world. The movie’s an OK action movie, not as good as Iron Man.
If you label it an action movie, you are probably missing out on most of the point.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I meant that Ozymandias didn’t provide humanity with a reason for the attacks.
Movie first pro: Since you can’t watch at your own pace, it’s an advantage to not be spoiled, whereas even though seeing the movie will slightly spoil the book, you won’t get bored because you can read at your own pace and the book has more details, and a few differences.
Movie first con: A few things might not be clear without the extra background of the book, and you won’t notice all the easter eggs.
Book first pro: Understand the movie better. Have the joy of seeing what’s on the page translated into fabulous CGI.
Book first con: Spoils the movie somewhat.
My vote: Movie, then book, then movie (or DVD) again.
I haven’t seen the movie yet. I started reading the book a day before this thread was started. After reading some of these comments I probably would have seen the movie first, but now I’m halfway through the book.
I would like to see an answer to this.