A man with the actual name “Orlando Parfitt” is reporting a bit of a spoiler for the Watchmen movie, although anyone who would not want to know has surely heard by now.
The Huge, Annoying Tentacles that unite the world at the end of the Watchmen graphic novel? Toast.
Personally, I am bummed. Mostly because of my affinity for drippy trippy squippy things. A comment on the Newsarama announcement of this development contained a sentiment that sums up my remorse.
Spaz_Monkey wrote:To be fair, the Squid Monster has a definite “Georgia O’Keefe” feel to it, if you know what I mean. I dunno how well that would be translated in the movie.
Spaz Monkey may be correct about the difficulty of filming such a thing, and it would have been tough to get past an “R” rating if they did it right, but I sure would have enjoyed it. Alas, no O’Keefe squidstuff for us. Back to Orlando Parfitt’s interview, shall we?
The big question: What have you got against the squid?!
Zack Snyder: I had a bad calamari experience as a child! Look I’ve got nothing against the squid. When I sat down with the studio and talked about the film, we had to make a decision about what stuff we included and what stuff we wouldn’t. For me Watchmen is all about the characters, whereas if we included the squid, I would have to illustrate it in the story and cut out some of the character. So I wanted more character and less story.
So we came up with something else – no-one knows yet what we’ve done but we hope it’s similar in philosophy to the ending of the graphic novel. I mean the end is all about taking a superhero all the way – you know it’s the bad guy who is the one who wants world peace. It’s a moral dilemma for all the characters involved.
Dave Gibbons: The tone of the graphic novel – the message, the moral ambiguity – has still been left intact. Also it’s not a squid; it’s a fifth dimensional phalymapod!
Fifth dimensional phalymapod, world uniting squid, whatever you want to call it, it is out. Oh well, at least we still have the squishy stuff in Hellboy.
Finally, for anyone who is seriously bummed out about this inglorious removal of tentacles, just wait until you see how much they need to change when they adapt Alan Moore’s Promethea.
Somehow, we adjust.
Full. Body. Transplant. 
Don’t know Promethea? You really should. Matthew Craig once wrote the sweetest review ever. It has always captured the essence for me.
http://www.thematthewcraig.com/frame_promethea.htm
Enjoy this excerpt:
What if stories could walk the Earth?
Promethea is the tale of Sophie Bangs, a quiet college student with a trampy mother and a sarcastic best friend. In the course of writing a college paper on Promethea, a fictional character that had appeared and reappeared throughout history in different guises, Sophie discovers that Promethea is very real. Sophie learns that Promethea can be brought into the real world through the act of telling her story…but that she needs a human host to make it work.
Cue legions of demons, trying to stop Sophie from becoming the new Promethea, while the last surviving host tries to enlist the aid of all the Prometheas that have gone before. Throw in a multiple personality mayor (whose psyche is so fractured, even his personality facets have their own problems), a science-fiction New York, with flying cars and floating billboards (with comicbook advertisements – how fictional is that?), and a team of white-collar adventurers who are really just Five Swell Guys, and you have the first chapter in the story of Promethea. While the comic has a lot of the trappings that one would normally associate with superhero books – secret origins, special powers, nefarious villains, corsets, and so on – Promethea is really about other, more enlightened things.
Promethea is probably the single best new comicbook of the last ten years. It’s certainly the most beautiful. J.H. Williams, Mick Gray and Jeremy Cox provide the acme of artwork. Even when depicting the “real” world, the pages exhibit a stunning depth of field, and a mastercraftsman-like attention to detail. Williams, Grey et al. play with the page layout as often as not, giving the comic an aesthetic freshness that even the better of the more traditional books lack.
Promethea is a visually stunning book which can be read on as many levels as you feel you need: as a straight adventure book; as a meandering journey through the imagination; as a philosophical and magical primer; or as the happiest, most hope-filled book this side of The Little Book of Calm. However you read it, make sure that you do, for Promethea is probably the richest, smartest, most worthwhile comicbook this writer has ever read. It’s funny. Intellectually, it takes you places that you might otherwise pass by. It makes the world a better place.
In short, it’s magic.
When fiends of lovecraftian horror are commonly known, and described, as “squid” … it’s time to up the level of undefinability. It’s supposed to be indescribable horror … so going away from the classic mythos definition might be a good thing. In general, it’s what the thing does that’s important, not so much what it is.
Another comic reccomended is Batman: The Killing Joke. It is another comic written by Alan Moore.
So to the squid thing, disappointing, I hope they come up with something good and not too cliche or too Hollywood.