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New Details on the Alternate History of HBO’s Watchmen


We know that HBO's Watchmen takes place in an alternate reality which takes place after the events of the original comic, but with the show taking place in what's supposed to be the present time, there's a lot of history to fill in by the show. Thanks to Entertainment Weekly, we have some new details at this alternate-America that has spawned from Ozymandias' post-alien utopia.

EW writes about the show:

Robert Redford has been president for 28 years. Cell phones and the internet are outlawed. Fossil fuels are a thing of the past. Costumed heroes were popular, then banned. Police wear masks to protect their identities and cannot use their guns without a dispatcher unlocking them first. Reparations were issued for racial injustice, and our country remains ever divided.

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Showrunner Damon Lindelof also goes in-depth about the other changes in history in the show. As it turns out, the world has no need for fossil fuels thanks to the innovations that Dr. Manhattan had come up with decades earlier. What's more, there is a lifetime tax exemption for people who are victims of racial injustice. Lindelof explains:

"There's also this legislation that's passed, Victims OF Racial Violence Legislation, which is a form of reparations that are colloquially known as "Redford-ations." It's a lifetime tax exemption for victims of, and the direct descendants of, designated areas of racial injustice throughout America's history, the most important of which, as it relates to our show, is the Tulsa massacre of 1921. That legislation had a ripple effect into another piece of legalization, DoPA, the Defense of Police Act, which allows police to hide their face behind masks because they were being targeted by terrorist organizations for protecting the victims of the initial act."

That's certainly a lot to swallow when it comes to world-building, but I wouldn't expect anything less meticulous from the guy who made The Leftovers. There are a bunch of other new details when it comes to this alternate history, but I think it's best if we just wait for the show and find out these details as the show presents it.

I'm very excited for HBO's Watchmen, and though I'm sure Alan Moore doesn't care for it, I'm sure it will be to this generation what the original Watchmen comic was like for the 80s.

HBO's Watchmen premieres on Oct. 20.

Read:HBO's Watchmen: New Featurette Offers More Plot Plus an Interesting Batman v Superman Reference

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