premise: Watchmen is a film about superheroes.
hypothesis: Watchmen . Watchmen depicts an alternate history where superheroes emerged in the 1940s and 1960s and their presence changed history so that the United States won the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal was never exposed . The story focuses on the personal development and moral struggles of the protagonists as an investigation into the murder of a government-sponsored superhero pulls them out of retirement . Watchmen (film) . A dark satirical and dystopian take on the superhero genre , the film is set in an alternate history in the year 1985 at the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union , as a group of mostly retired American superheroes investigates the murder of one of their own before uncovering an elaborate and deadly conspiracy , while their moral limitations are challenged by the complex nature of the circumstances . A DVD based on elements of the Watchmen universe was released , including an animated adaptation of the comic Tales of the Black Freighter within the story starring Gerard Butler , and the fictional biography Under the Hood , detailing the older generation of superheroes from the film 's back-story .