Spoilers: Download Link Surfaces to 122-Page ‘Watchmen’ Screenplay By Alex Tse; Plus Script Analysis, Too

If you’re interested in the upcoming Zack Snyder film “Watchmen,” Dustin Levell has pointed me to a site that appears to be its informational haven.

For starters, and of course this is a spoiler, here’s an image I created from the first page of the screenplay as penned by Alex Tse.


Next, we have a link to the full, 122-page script. As for the story behind what you’d read in that script, WatchmenComicMovie.com has provided this text:

On June 23, 2006, Warner Bros. announced that Zack Snyder would direct “Watchmen” with Alex Tse attached to write the script.

Tse drew the best elements from two of the project’s previous drafts (written by David Hayter). The script did not keep the contemporary atmosphere that Hayter created [and] instead returned to the Cold War setting of the Watchmen comic.

Tse produced rap videos and worked part-time for Miramax and Disney until he sold a script called “87 Fleer” to Showtime. He [later] wrote “The Game,” which eventually became “Sucker Free City” [and was] directed by Spike Lee.

Warning: Major spoilers lie ahead.

Digging even deeper, here’s analysis from a reader who “stayed up reading the new version and ended up only getting three of hours sleep” last night. “Overall, it’s my favorite ‘Watchmen’ script.”

To qualify this analysis, this person has read every draft of this script there has been thus far.

It’s most faithful. It’s the only “Watchmen” script that has Dr. Manhattan’s “dry your eyes and let’s go home” speech. It’s possibly one of my favorite pieces of writing ever.

There are flashbacks – not only in the same places but deliberately transitioned in the same way as the comic.

It uses a lot of the same non-diegetic voiceover to comment on other scenes (what Alan Moore did with narration).

The Minutemen are called the Watchmen.

I laughed very hard at the cleverness of one line that I don’t remember from the comic. Laurie asks Dan about his dad and he very casually says: “Oh, he was killed in a mugging.”

Its timeline is very vague. Dr. Manhattan and the Comedian are still in Vietnam. There’s no mention of time aside from that.

There’s no Russia invading Afghanistan. In fact, there’s no USSR at all. Pakistan’s about to invade India, China’s about to invade Taiwan and everyone’s attacking Israel. There’s lots of terrorism.

Taking a cue from “Ex Machina,” Dr. Manhattan saves the Twin Tower before the story.

Islamic fundamentalism is mentioned frequently.

The president is just called “president”.

Here is more spoiler analysis from the same person. This is about the ending.

This is a hybrid of the book and Haytner’s draft. Veidt was working with Dr. Manhattan on fusion energy. He uses it as a satellite to destory major cities.

He frames Dr. Manhattan for it (thus making his motives for exiling Manhattan much clearer).

The Comedian finds out because the government has him investigating other superheroes. (“They never caught Rorschach because I guess the Comedian always liked him.”)

Some of it works and some of it doesn’t. Manhattan just leaves but doesn’t say his “nothing ever ends” line.

Like Haytner’s draft, Dan stays around to kill Veidt but not (like Haytner’s draft smartly did) because Veidt was stalling and wouldn’t really have let Dan and Laurie leave Antarctica alive.

WatchmenComicMovie.com also recently posted various photos from an insider on the set of the film. These were shot on Sept. 7 at Nat Bailey Stadium in Vancouver.