Who Watches the Commercials?

You're going to hear this a lot between now and March 6th, 2009, when the movie comes out (mostly right here), but Watchmen is a really good comic book. How good? So good that it has commercials in it, and you actually want to read them. Okay, so they're fake ads for various fictional products put out by the World's Smartest Man, Ozymandias (left), a former member of the superteam the Minutemen, but that's beside the point.

Now a billionaire, Adrian Veidt sells shoes, perfume, airlines, and even himself in the form of toys and cartoons, and the commercials help show, one by one, how big an empire the man controls. For the same reasons, Watchmen director Zack Snyder is going to put Veidt commercials in his movie, which certainly isn't going to help it run less than 150-180 minutes, the movie's current estimated length. However, they'll most likely be background elements, since he's pawned the work off on others, via a YouTube-hosted video competition. Ten winners have received $1,000 each, and their commercials may appear in the film, but these are our five favorites:

"Nostalgia by Veidt" by Hypnosavant - Now that is a well-made perfume commercial. As sexily pretentious as any real perfume ad I've seen, and I've seen several.

"Unaired Ozymandias Toy ad 1985" by Timtoon - I don't remember this toy commercial specifically from the book, but it's done straight out of 1985, and the crew member mispronouncing "Ozymandias" at the beginning is awesomely annoying.

"Veidt Nostalgia (Moon Shot)" by Mrfuetur - Another great perfume ad -- I actually think I remember this one for the book, although I don't remember thinking, "Why is that giant woman climbing the Empire State Building?"

"Real Men Use Veidt" by watergunfilms - An ad for hair-care products. I highly respect the maker's attention to 1985 fashion. I felt like I was in a Duran Duran video, despite the Soft Cell-esque music.

"Nostalgia: Timeless" by KatyHux - I actually thought this perfume commercial was good enough to be something you'd see on TV today, until the nuclear bomb went off at the end. Then I thought it was better.

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