But Ozy did create a plan that that depended on someone reacting exactly the way he planned. His plan did hinge on Manhattan deciding to abandon Earth for Mars.

He planned on a way to kill Manhattan as well and admited later that he wasn't sure it would work.

So he's got Manhattan figured out so well emotionally that he can predict what he's going to do. And he is willing to go through with a plan even if he's not sure it will succeed.

Please keep in mind I'm not saying I like the new ending, I'm just saying it could work and I'm going to see the movie anyways to see if it draws the same reaction that the comic did.

There's a large distance between forcing someone to leave under public pressure and expecting them to go along with your plan once they figured it out.
If Ozy knew Dr Manhatten would protect the knowledge of Ozy's plan Ozy would not have tried to kill Dr Manhatten.
If Ozy knew Dr Manhatten would have been fine with it he could have rung him up and been like "Ozy, this is my plan. Kept quiet about it."

Yeah I was thinking about it after my post, and I think Meister summed it up well.

Plus it also removes Ozy as an unquestionable asshole when he kills everyone and everything related to the project creating the creature or teleporting it in. Remember that the Watchmen world is like ours but kind of advanced, if he doesn't need to explain teleporting other than that Dr Manhattan can do it, it might work in their favor.

I mean I'm going to go see it because I have to, but I'm going to flip-flop on my Hate O Meter for a while.

How exactly do you force Dr. Manhattan to do anything? If he decided to stay on the planet after the fact there's not a damn thing anyone could do about it. So what if the people hate him, he really only cares about one of them, the rest are just interesting miracles.

He could stay and put himself out in the spotlight and tell the truth about Ozy's plan. I think enough people would believe him that it would ruin the intended effect.

But he returns to the Earth, not just for her, but for everyone. To save everyone. If it had just been for her, he wouldn't have said no at first. One thing I love about Manhattan is how he can know the future, and still be surprised about something he knew would happen. He's very... interesting...

He returned to save the Earth. In this version, I get the feeling he's going to get there, realize that leaving Earth is the best way to save it, and then do so. Granted that does change lots of things, and it still isn't original Watchmen, but it might make the movie acceptable.

Maybe?

I hope.

I think another general reason this worries me, is because whenever a change is made in a movie from the source material, Watchmen or not, I cannot think of a single case where the change was better than the original, only worse. Not just from a fan perspective, either.

Directors and whatnot like to put their own "special" twist on something when bringing a book, or some such thing, to the big screen. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it's unnecessary, which I feel this is, and dumb, which I guess we'll see.

Especially when the original authour is excellent. You need an author as good to pull it off and authors that good aren't writing hollywood screenplays.

Chuck Palahniuk liked the movie ending to Fight Club better than the book one which he himself had written.

Chuck Palahniuk is kind of his own worst enemy when it comes to some of his writing, I believe, but that's kind of off topic.

Regardless, I think it could go either way, but this is probably the first time it has a decent chance of working well in the movie's favor in a long time.