Then you have your appearances from senators and congressman or whatever, who's role is usually to bring in that "nuke it all" General to force the "expert"into some kind of corner and add unnecessary tension to the plot. Even in movies where the hero actually works for the government, (Captain America: WS; Avengers; Mission: Impossible) the government still turns on the hero, doesn't listen to the advice of their ESTABLISHED employees or agents, they just want to nuke everything.
What's interesting to me is that whenever you see a military movie "based on real events", you see a level headed leader deferring to the experience and expertise of his subordinates, or in laymen's terms, making logical and thought out decisions to preserve as many lives as possible while getting his men back alive. If the movies were to be believed, the same man would just as soon send one of his men in with a bomb surgically implanted into his spine and an irreversible timer counting down.
Why such a big difference between the "based in reality" and the fantasy?
What really caught my attention on the subject wasn't exactly American movies. There's a British made movie coming out called "Kingsmen: The Secret Service" and it just adds to the number of British movies I've seen based on people working for Her Majesty. Of course the most notable being the long running James Bond Franchise. In the new Kingsmen trailer, the bad guys are... bad guys. Terrorists... No moles in the government, no evil doppelganger Queen or Prime Minister, just good old fashioned Government protecting it's citizens.
Why is that? We watch James Bond movies in America, and it actually does pretty well in the Box office, as good as any American made secret Agent flick, but our version, Mission: Impossible, literally every movie in the franchise involved someone inside of his own agency forcing him to go rogue and tear apart his entire organization to clear his name. In every. Single. Movie.
Some people say it's because it's what the American people want, but I wonder why we still line up to see those "based on true events" movies, or every Bond movie that comes out? In reality it's not about what the people want, but what the people have access to. If you want to watch some secret agent guy go kick ass on the big screen, if he's American, the first thing established will probably be that he's an EX-secret agent, and the second thing will probably be he got out because of some mission where his boss told him to punt a room full of babies into an active volcano and he wouldn't do it.
"They're a threat to National Security!"
If not, get ready for that unofficial "The Notebook" sequel you've been dying for.
Seems more like it's what the writers want. To insert their personal political views into every bit of their work. It annoys me, as a soldier to see the military always portrayed as the "we need to turn everything into a weapon" or "nuke it all" mentality. I'll tell you what happens when someone is found to have an extraordinary ability. They are NOT kidnapped and throne in a cell somewhere to be experimented on. They are paid (very well) by DARPA (the people who brought you most of the technology for synthetic limbs, microwaves, GPS, the technology for Siri and Google Now, the INTERNET and even Internet Privacy) to do, yes, performance tests, blood tests and probably stress tests depending on the results, but there will be no cells or attempts at immediately weaponizing something that isn't even understood yet. That's not how this works. We're not a legion of brainless drones ready, willing, and even hoping to destroy things.
With the media having such a strong influence over the mindset of the people, what does this mean for us?
No comments:
Post a Comment