This animated version of the story-within-the-story in Watchmen tells the tale of the lone survivor of a pirate attack, who has a truly harrowing journey from the island on which he is marooned to his home town. the unnamed protagonist is certain that the pirates who destroyed his ship and crew will have gone on to do the same to his hometown, and sets out to avenge them. The adaptation improves upon the original narrative by avoiding the huge plot holes of the original; for one, the couple he encounters on the beach are actually there for a tryst, so that at least something in the protagonists assessment of them (taken directly from the book) has some recognizable correlation with reality. The encounter with the pirate sentry/scarecrow is glanced over, rather than having the sea captain make frankly absurd interpretations of the "sentry's" (in)actions. In the film, he hallucinates signs of a massacre upon entering the town, rather than failing to notice or wonder how his supposedly slaughtered and sacked hometown in none the worse for the wear. Finally, upon reaching his house, he is taken by surprise by the awake inhabitant, which makes what happens next more plausible than if said inhabitant had been sleeping in bed (as was the case in the book).
I've never much cared for the story, as a story; supposedly touching on deep philosophical themes and paralleling the action of the main Watchmen narrative, it came across as an overly long cautionary tale about the dangers of jumping to conclusions. Stories in which the reader is aware that the protagonist is dong the wrong thing long before said character is are annoying at best. The story never establishes why the protagonist is so certain the pirates are going to attack his town next, a certainty on which all his subsequent actions are based, and this disconnect sinks it. In addition, the story is extremely gruesome, which in additional to the nihilistic outcome, make it thoroughly unpleasant to see in either film or print.
I've never much cared for the story, as a story; supposedly touching on deep philosophical themes and paralleling the action of the main Watchmen narrative, it came across as an overly long cautionary tale about the dangers of jumping to conclusions. Stories in which the reader is aware that the protagonist is dong the wrong thing long before said character is are annoying at best. The story never establishes why the protagonist is so certain the pirates are going to attack his town next, a certainty on which all his subsequent actions are based, and this disconnect sinks it. In addition, the story is extremely gruesome, which in additional to the nihilistic outcome, make it thoroughly unpleasant to see in either film or print.