Watchmen and Disclosure Day: similar plots, very different messages

Both Watchmen and Disclosure Day open on worlds teetering toward nuclear catastrophe, then pivot to the same dramatic remedy: the revelation of extraterrestrials. In Watchmen the Doomsday Clock inches toward midnight as U.S.-Soviet tensions escalate; Disclosure Day shows people filling their cars and fleeing cities amid a crisis involving North Korea, Russia and the U.S., framed like a new Cuban missile standoff.

Alan Moore’s story follows Ozymandias as he engineers an elaborate deception, staging a giant squid attack on New York to manufacture a common enemy and force global cooperation. The other heroes go along with the lie and silence the lone dissenter, Rorschach. Zack Snyder’s 2019 adaptation removes the giant squid but keeps the core idea of a fabricated threat meant to unify humanity.

Steven Spielberg takes the opposite tack in Disclosure Day, where Deep State whistleblowers led by Hugo Wakefield recruit others, including cybersecurity expert Daniel Kellner, to reveal decades of hidden knowledge.

United States, New York

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