Watchmen Not Watched?

I just bought the Watchmen DVD (widescreen edition). I love this movie, and I can’t wait to get a chance to watch it again.

Looking at the DVD cover, front and back, I see that whoever wrote the blurb material apparently didn’t bother watching the movie. This kind of sloppy marketing work is pathetic, especially for a blockbuster hit like this.

The front cover blurb says, “WHO WILL SAVE US NOW?” Huh? That doesn’t really make sense for this movie.

Then on the back, there’s this description of the movie:

Someone’s killing our super heroes. The year is 1985 and super heroes have banded together to respond to the murder of one of their own. They soon uncover a sinister plot that puts all humanity in grave danger. The super heroes fight to stop the impending doom, only to find themselves a target for annihilation. But if our super heroes are gone, who will save us?

Aha. The front blurb is just taken from this back blurb, which also doesn’t make sense. Whoever wrote this copy didn’t bother to watch the movie, and apparently didn’t even bother to get someone who had seen it to explain the general premise to him or her. I hate when a marketing writer does crap like this.

This kind of writing shows a complete lack of interest and responsibility, and it pretty much insults the movie’s fans and potential purchasers. Either the copywriter thinks the movie isn’t worth the effort to get the blurb at least relevant, or he/she thinks anyone checking the packaging before renting/purchasing isn’t worth the effort to give accurate information.

For those who don’t know anything about the movie, it’s useless at best, and misleading at worst. It’s written like a horoscope; it’s vague, but sort of sounds like a general plot for the genre.

“Someone’s killing our super heroes”? One guy is murdered. (I won’t even bother quibbling over the fact that only one of all the heroes in the movie is actually super, and he isn’t the one murdered.)

“Super heroes have banded together to respond to the murder”? Only one of the living heroes “responds” to the killing in any way more than just speaking of it.

“A sinister plot that puts all humanity in grave danger”? The grave danger is the general threat of nuclear war between the US and the USSR — this was the “grave danger” that we all lived through in 1985.

“The super heroes fight to stop the impending doom”? No they don’t. The doom is decidedly over by the time the heroes learn of it.

“Find themselves a target for annihilation”? Oh come on. This might arguably describe just one guy.

“But if our super heroes are gone, who will save us?” Geez. Maybe the same someones who’ve been saving us over the past several years since the “super heroes” retired? Only one of the characters has been active as any kind of “hero” when the movie started.

There is a big plot to this movie, and the central characters are sort-of super heroes (they call themselves “costumed adventurers”), but the description on the box is so unrelated to the actual story as to be false advertising. Here, let me try:

The murder of a costumed adventurer brings his old compatriots together again. The year is 1985, and the United States and the Soviet Union are reaching a boiling point for a global nuclear war. The reuniting members of the costumed hero group known as the Watchmen uncover a plot connecting their friend’s death and the threat of world annihilation.

There, I just wrote a more relevant and accurate description for the movie with just few minutes of thought. All it took beyond these few minutes is 2 hours to actually watch the movie. Is that too much to ask a marketing writer?

Bullgrit