On a second viewing of Watchmen

After a simmer and a rewatch, the movie has brightened in my eyes. My main complaint before, the ending...well, I still have my quibbles with that, though much as I hate to see movies used as psychological tools, it's understandable that the filmmakers didn't want to put too bright of a shine on mass slaughter, even if it were done to avert a greater slaughter. Reading some quotes on Ozymandias from Alan Moore, the author of the original graphic novel, also changed my mind somewhat. I'll put them up if I can find them again.

On this second viewing, what stuck out was the Comedian--his role, his world view, him as a character. That scene in the room where Ozymandias (originally Captain Metropolis or some such other in the book) tried to plan an organized effort by superheroes to help save the country, and then possibly the world. The Comedian chuckles, flicks his lighter out and puts Ozymandias's grand map to the flame, saying something along the lines of "People have been killing each other for thousands of years. Now we actually have the tools to finish the job. That some people could be stubborn and stupid enough to sit in a room and talk about somehow stopping that--that's the real joke." As I said, a paraphrase. The Comedian understands the nature of humanity, and more specifically, man, and revels in his role as the embodiment of its greatest extremes. Torturing, raping, murdering, general brutality--all part and parcel of being human, and the Comedian is the audience's constant reminder of that. The 'joke' aspect of it...that, I don't quite understand. Perhaps that human society tries so hard to disassociate itself from these worst aspects, and the Comedian laughingly brings them back into sharp relief?

NITE OWL II: Whatever happened to the American Dream!?
COMEDIAN: It came true.
What do we do once...what, precisely, is the Comedian referring to? I don't know, I can't delineate it so scientifically and exactly...just an intense feeling I got, a feeling that I instinctively understood him. What do we do once society, capitalism, all that, reach adulthood? Does that question even make sense? I can understand such sentiment during the 1980s--"America In Decline" and all that, though Doctor Manhattan's existence would certainly have put a damper on such gloomy feelings, at least as far as America's place in the world.

Essentially, the movie is about human nature. Another review I read spoke disparagingly of it, as though it was nothing but a relic of unreconstructed Cold War anti-Reagan liberalism. It is that, in some respects, but this other review went on to assume that this fact rendered it irrelevant, which it does not. Human nature, the best and the worst of us. Not even quite the best, but a miracle as recognized by Dr. Manhattan, out of the Comedian and Sally Juspeczyk, Laurie--perhaps the 'greatest improvement' award? That's something, anyway.

Oddly enough, watching the movie helped me understand the book better. That somehow reeks of sacrilege, but I'll take greater understanding over ignorance regardless of the package.