Watch This Before Your Next Nerd Date: The Watchman Trailer

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A bloghum by Clark Perry

Getting you properly prepared on Thursday for your date on Friday, Saturday or Sunday

If you’re not a nerd, chances are you’ll date someone who is. Relax. I’m here to help.

Contrary to popular belief,nerds have always been pretty good at dating. We just had to keep it under the radar until the rest of the world realized they were ready for some of this geek lovin’.

If you go to a movie or talk about books or music, every date is gonna have a nerd component. That’s just where pop culture is right now and it’s not gonna chance anytime soon. As a cultural influence, the nerds
control the message right now.

So welcome to your first nerd date column. Here’s a hot topic that may help you keep the conversation lively while you and your next date size each other up (full back story after the jump):

Watching the Watchmen

Before dinner arrives, whip out your high-tech pocket gadget of choice and show your date this stunning trailer for Watchmen:

Chances are your date saw and loved at least one superhero movie this summer (and it probably wasn’t The Incredible Hulk). The summer’s best efforts in that category were Iron Man, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army and, of course, The Dark Knight.

Can you imagine a rival studio trying to ban one of these movies? Sounds crazy, it would never work, right? But that’s what may happen next year with one of the most eagerly-anticipated super-flicks of all time.

Alan Moore’s acclaimed 1980s graphic novel is the War and Peace of comic books. It posits a world in which superheroes are subject to fascistic government control — Richard Nixon is still president in this retro-fitting of Reagan-era politics. The really good caped crusaders either retire or go underground. When they start being murdered, a mystery is unveiled that may threaten the fate of the entire planet.

Many of have tried and failed to bring Watchmen to the big screen, most notably Terry Gilliam, who declared the multi-layered realistic thriller to be unfilmable.

Director Zach Snyder proved his muscle with 300 and his Dawn of the Dead remake. He’s promising a 3-hour adaptation that’s as faithful as possible to Moore’s vision (though Moore, sickened by lackluster
adaptations of his graphic novels From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, will not even allow his name on the project).

Fans are in a lather about Watchmen and not just because this advance footage looks really friggin’ good. 20th Century Fox is filing motions against Watchmen studio Warner Bros., claiming legal ownership of the
property. And Fox isn’t just tapping its shoe impatiently for a cut of the profit. They’re actually seeking an injunction to keep the big-budget movie from ever seeing the light of day.

Industry analysts say Fox would never be granted such a motion. They’ll probably settle for a few tens of millions and a hefty cut of the film’s profits. But hell hath no fury like a scorned comic book fan. Already legions of online nerds are promising to boycott every Fox movie and TV show if this proceeds.

Legal claims aside, Fox might wanna take things down a notch here. Which studio had the worst track record at the summer box-office this year? Fox. Why was that? Many believe the studio goofed big-time by not having even one superhero movie ready for the marketplace. Now, that explains why they’re hating the fact that another studio has done what they failed to do. But seeking to annihilate Watchmen doesn’t make them heroic in the eyes of fans. You might say it makes them the biggest corporate super-villain of all time.

And the bad guys never, ever win.