Just saw Civil War (2024) It is the best version of itself it could have been GIVEN THE TRAILER. (It’s still dumb as hell, just not cringe) If you look really closely at the edges you can see the points scoring politics and how they scammed Hollywood into funding it...
This is classic social suggestion. They don’t have to be overt when POTUS is “othering” half of America daily. The active propagandists are getting willing help from unofficial interpreters and unseen engineers in fostering public expectations and prejudices. George William Curtis said: “Thoughts are bullets.”
Had a free ticket, so went to see this stinker. This isn’t my review, but I agree with it 100%.
‘So, I’m sitting there wondering why Civil War felt so familiar, and then it hit me—Elysium! The massive dumb in Elysium (2013). Remember how all that dumb rained down like hailstones the size of car batteries? I’ve seen this before—a hot & sweaty, desperate, left-wing wankathon undermined by smug plot holes that you could fly a 747 through that just screams: ‘This will hit so many left-wing sweet spots, there’s no reason to bother with logic or reality!’ Save your money for a range day or ammo and wait till it’s on cable (if you haven’t cut the cord yet).
I'm a bit skeptical of the conclusion here. The thing stopping good movies from being made isn't that people don't think they'll do well, it's that it's simply not allowed. There are already mountains of data showing that you can make vast amounts of money with a relatively normal movie in which a handsome straight White man ends up with an attractive White woman while engaging in some kind of high-intensity interpersonal struggle against bad guys. Even on Netflix, the most popular series (that you'll never hear about on social media) is a pretty standard police procedural in which the A-couple is two normal-looking Whites. As seen with the new Top Gun, you can even stick in a pretty substantial level of 'diversity' and still smash box office records as long as the main characters are neither ugly nor obnoxious.
Despite this, every new thing that comes out is some variation of "interracial and/or gay couple written with all the finesse of a fourteen year old on AO3 fights a transparent expy of Donald Trump", and ends up bleeding money. A cool, apolitical movie about insurgents in the American backwoods styled after an ancient epic is like three different kinds of verboten.
During the second china shock nearly all advanced manufacturing and other major industries were taken over by China. BYD crushed Tesla. China won the AI race.
To try to keep Chinese goods out tariffs were erected, but by relocating much production/assembly to Mexico China was able to use Nafta to get around this.
The green new deal and chips act also turned out to be major flops, but Mexico was immune to this as American became less competitive.
Meanwhile, boomer retirement and reckless spending caused a fiscal crises and China dumping treasuries wrecked the currency.
Demographic changes and Chinese backed Mexican economic strength caused Texas to flip blue in the 2030s.
Electorally this was offset by the entire rust belt flipping solid red as well as some places in the mid Atlantic or northeast turning against this Mexico/China alliance.
The western forces are Chinese/mexican proxy agents and the end of the movie shows their victory in the proxy war. The United States will henceforth be a puppet state (or perhaps carved up). Perhaps promises of independence were what kept the Florida Alliance on the sidelines (and clearly they allowed western forces through their territory).
The "civil" war can never be civil. Although we may fight a common enemy, my purpose and desired outcome may be quite different than others who fight the same battles. Mostly, people will be wanting to replace one set of rulers and masters with another set hoping the next crop of imbeciles is somehow less antagonistic. That is where we will part ways. No earthly master is worth surrendering your true freedom to.
The ridiculous point of all war/revolution movies is that the makers cannot really get a plausible story going when one side has such an extreme hardware advantage over the other.
> Seriously if you’ve ever wanted to be an Indy filmmaker…
Go out and do anything else and save your sanity.
*cough*
Sorry, I've done independent film, and I have Opinions.
Though I would like to take this moment to brag about having been the Armorer for four full length independent feature films in New Mexico and never even once have I let Alec Baldwin murder anyone on set.
As for my thoughts on a Second American Civil War, it's either going to last 20 minutes, or 20 years.
Thanks for the review. Would have better ending to the movie if the pres shouted out “You ain’t black!” before getting shot.
This is classic social suggestion. They don’t have to be overt when POTUS is “othering” half of America daily. The active propagandists are getting willing help from unofficial interpreters and unseen engineers in fostering public expectations and prejudices. George William Curtis said: “Thoughts are bullets.”
Had a free ticket, so went to see this stinker. This isn’t my review, but I agree with it 100%.
‘So, I’m sitting there wondering why Civil War felt so familiar, and then it hit me—Elysium! The massive dumb in Elysium (2013). Remember how all that dumb rained down like hailstones the size of car batteries? I’ve seen this before—a hot & sweaty, desperate, left-wing wankathon undermined by smug plot holes that you could fly a 747 through that just screams: ‘This will hit so many left-wing sweet spots, there’s no reason to bother with logic or reality!’ Save your money for a range day or ammo and wait till it’s on cable (if you haven’t cut the cord yet).
Thanks for the seed that you planted for the soon-to-be burgeoning civil war genre. Maybe I’ll break out my younger self’s script-writing pretensions.
I just want to know: can I still do the "What kind of American are you?" meme?
I'm a bit skeptical of the conclusion here. The thing stopping good movies from being made isn't that people don't think they'll do well, it's that it's simply not allowed. There are already mountains of data showing that you can make vast amounts of money with a relatively normal movie in which a handsome straight White man ends up with an attractive White woman while engaging in some kind of high-intensity interpersonal struggle against bad guys. Even on Netflix, the most popular series (that you'll never hear about on social media) is a pretty standard police procedural in which the A-couple is two normal-looking Whites. As seen with the new Top Gun, you can even stick in a pretty substantial level of 'diversity' and still smash box office records as long as the main characters are neither ugly nor obnoxious.
Despite this, every new thing that comes out is some variation of "interracial and/or gay couple written with all the finesse of a fourteen year old on AO3 fights a transparent expy of Donald Trump", and ends up bleeding money. A cool, apolitical movie about insurgents in the American backwoods styled after an ancient epic is like three different kinds of verboten.
The year is 2044.
During the second china shock nearly all advanced manufacturing and other major industries were taken over by China. BYD crushed Tesla. China won the AI race.
To try to keep Chinese goods out tariffs were erected, but by relocating much production/assembly to Mexico China was able to use Nafta to get around this.
The green new deal and chips act also turned out to be major flops, but Mexico was immune to this as American became less competitive.
Meanwhile, boomer retirement and reckless spending caused a fiscal crises and China dumping treasuries wrecked the currency.
Demographic changes and Chinese backed Mexican economic strength caused Texas to flip blue in the 2030s.
Electorally this was offset by the entire rust belt flipping solid red as well as some places in the mid Atlantic or northeast turning against this Mexico/China alliance.
The western forces are Chinese/mexican proxy agents and the end of the movie shows their victory in the proxy war. The United States will henceforth be a puppet state (or perhaps carved up). Perhaps promises of independence were what kept the Florida Alliance on the sidelines (and clearly they allowed western forces through their territory).
The "civil" war can never be civil. Although we may fight a common enemy, my purpose and desired outcome may be quite different than others who fight the same battles. Mostly, people will be wanting to replace one set of rulers and masters with another set hoping the next crop of imbeciles is somehow less antagonistic. That is where we will part ways. No earthly master is worth surrendering your true freedom to.
Movies are made to get people to do something.
The ridiculous point of all war/revolution movies is that the makers cannot really get a plausible story going when one side has such an extreme hardware advantage over the other.
for example:
https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1779251095300141056/vid/avc1/656x1280/xuvmkCj2e52At_uW.mp4?tag=14
Revolution with weapons is a fantasy.
> Seriously if you’ve ever wanted to be an Indy filmmaker…
Go out and do anything else and save your sanity.
*cough*
Sorry, I've done independent film, and I have Opinions.
Though I would like to take this moment to brag about having been the Armorer for four full length independent feature films in New Mexico and never even once have I let Alec Baldwin murder anyone on set.
As for my thoughts on a Second American Civil War, it's either going to last 20 minutes, or 20 years.
I dunno about most of that, but I'm excited by the idea of BARRY LYNDON IN VEGAS.