Watchmen Footage Revealed, Sort Of

Posted by Paige MacGregor (paige@filmschoolrejects.com) on June 26, 2008

No, this isn’t the footage that was recently screened at the Cinema Expo, but don’t click the back button just yet…

A few months ago, Zack Snyder started an interesting contest revolving around one of his latest projects, the cinematic adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ twelve-issue series Watchmen. What he asked fans to do was to create their own commercials for products created by the Veidt Corporation. The idea was that the winning entries would be played in the background of the movie as advertisements for Veidt’s products. A pretty sweet idea, not to mention a cool way to make fans feel like they’re part of the film.

Now, thanks to YouTube, the first wave of entries has hit the Web, and what a delight they are! Not only are the products somewhat ridiculous, but the style of each video, purposefully constructed to fit into the Watchmen world, is an intense throwback to the 80’s. Some of these are priceless, and hopefully their creators will be rewarded with some much-deserved screen time… but that is a wait-and-see at this point. Of course, we have to mention that none of these videos feature any of the characters from the movie—with one obvious exception, Ozymandias, a.k.a. Adrian Veidt—but believe us, this is Watchmen footage nonetheless. We here at FSR have taken the time to painstakingly select a handful of the funniest Veidt commercials yet to appear on YouTube, just for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Ozymandias Toys

Nostalgia Perfume

Nostalgia Commercial, Crazy 80’s Style

Veidt Air

Real Men Use Veidt

Watchmen tells the story of a group of past and present superheroes and the events surrounding the “mysterious murder of one of their own.” The series has engendered a large group of devout followers with its depictions of superheroes as real people who must confront ethical and personal issues, who struggle with neuroses and failings, and who generally lack anything recognizable as “super powers.” Watchmen’s deconstruction of the conventional superhero archetype, combined with its heavy use of symbolism and multi-layered dialogue has influenced both comics and film (hmmm… superheroes with real, everyday problems? Hancock, anyone?).

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