Sunday, March 1, 2009

Watchmen

Watchmen Dir: Zack Snyder
Starring: Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup
Runtime: 2 hrs 43 mins


Watchmen is what we like to call “Historical Fiction.” Historical Fiction is a great way to learn about the past without reading about stupid history. Just be careful, because sometimes it can be difficult to tell what is real. That's why I wrote this guide about what's fact and what's fiction within the Watchmen Universe:


Factual or Fictional? with Tom Thayer.


Nite Owl: Fictional. The crime fighting Nite Owl is not real. His character was based on Batman, who is real. The real Batman, however, does not really fight crime. But he does duct-tape real bats to his naked body and run around Central Park, screaming at everyone.

Newspapers: Factual. Newspapers are real, you dummy.


Richard Nixon: Fictional. A “bogeyman” invented by the GOP for reasons highly speculated, but ultimately unknown. Much like an evil Republican Santa Claus, he has captured the nation's imagination, and has been the topic of many recent films, such as Frost/Nixon, Dick, and Tricky Dick and the Candy Factory of Love (spoiler: he destroys the factory).


Dr. Manhattan: Part factual and part fictional. There was no Jon Osterman who got trapped in a reactor and became all-powerful. There was a gigantic blue guy who set most of Vietnam on fire. That happened, however, nearly a decade after the Vietnam War had ended.


4 out of 5 stars.

3 comments:

Sean Catlett said...

I've never heard of this movie. What is it about?

Tom Thayer said...

The Watchmen is about a group of superheroes who are also best friends. It's basically exactly like that show "Friends" except with superheroes. Ross is like Nite Owl, and Jennifer Aniston is Silk Spectre, and Matthew Perry is Rorshach.

Sean Catlett said...

Cool! I want to see it now because it sounds like everything I like already!