A special advance screening of Watchmen was held in Portland, Oregon recently, and spoilers from the screening are appearing (and being deleted) faster than you might believe. The folks at Comic Book Movie have been capturing as many of those reactions and spoilers as they can, including several reports that the ending of the film has some significant differences from the comic.

WARNING: What follows includes significant spoilers, so read on at your own risk.

In the comic, the ending of the film involves the appearance of a massive "alien invader squid-thing" which Ozymandias creates to give mankind something to unite against. Nite-Owl, Rorschach and the Silk Spectre uncover Ozymandia's plan, but not until it has already occurred. Nite-Owl and Silk Spectre realize that, the plan having been carried out, the best thing they can do for the world is to accept what has happened, and so Ozymandias gets away with the plan. Rorschach rejects the idea of keeping quiet, and Dr. Manhattan disintegrates him.

Well, according to the viewers, that isn't quite what happens in the movie. One viewer writes:

There was no squid... He and Dr Manhattan built a machine to mimic the powers of Dr Manhattan, under the guise of "free energy" to solve the energy crisis. Unbeknown to Manhattan, he used the machine to set off an atomic bomb like thing in various large cities around the world.

The rest of the plan still comes together as in the comic, but the squid thing is gone.

If you'd like to read some of the other reactions CLICK HERE

Watchmen hits theatres on March 10, 2009. Adapted from the comic by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, the movie stars Patrick Wilson, Billy Crudup, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jackie Earle Haley, Malin Akerman, Matthew Goode, Stephen McHattie, Carla Gugino and Matt Frewer.