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Before the release of J.J. Abram’s massive success in “Star Trek,” “Watchmen” was the geek movie event of the year.  The amount of attention it got from geeks across the country couldn’t go ignored by Warner Bros., which decided to add a bit of extra functionality to the Blu-Ray release of Watchmen.

The Blu-ray Director’s cut of the movie will allow you to connect to use BD-Live to watch the movie along with any number of Facebook friends.  It will use Warner Home Video’s live community screening to link the movie between all those watching so you can comment on the movie as you watch it with your friends. 

Of course there is a bit of an obvious catch: everyone has to own a copy of the Blu-ray Director’s cut, and a Blu-ray player capable of BD-Live that is connected to a broadband connection.  Seems like a lot of trouble where it’d just be easier for that one person who has a PS3 or Blu-Ray player to buy the movie, and then invite their friends over to watch it together.

The BD-Live and Facebook connection sounds like it could be an interesting gimmick, but nothing more.  It seems like a way to get people to invest in Blu-ray for a feature they may never be able to use.  Warner Bros. has a better way of doing that with “Watchmen,” though.  The only way to obtain a physical copy of the Director’s cut is to get the Blu-ray version.  Granted, the Theatrical cut and Director’s cut only have a difference of 28 minutes, for some fans of the material it will be hard to not get the Director’s cut.  Those same people might not have Blu-ray yet, and may not be able to afford a PS3 or other Blu-ray player.  The only other options are to get the Director’s cut through Amazon On Demand or iTunes.

Read [PC Mag]