Just some small things here and there. Of the three people on the mission, one is Chinese, the other is Russian. The boss lady in charge grew up in the GDR. There is a very deliberately framed shot of what I think is a Soviet era spspace mural on the walls of this base they are in. Near the end of the film they play the song Gracias A La Vida by Mercedes Sosa, who I looked up by chance and seems to have been a supporter of Perón and exiled after the military coup against Perón and his government. I don’t know a lot about Argentinian history but Wikipedia gives me the impression that Perón was alright.
IDK, just some interesting little things I noticed in the movie.
Fun film overall!
Unfortunately the author is a strange centrist who believes sci-fi shouldn’t really have political messages. So it’s all entirely by accident.
He does lack some of the usual brainworms of the “apolitical” tech guy and have a consistent throughline of international win-win cooperation in his books anyway though, like in The Martian the main character only survives long enough to be rescued because of a Chinese supply rocket.
That’s true. Makes me realise it’s kind of sad that “admits the Chinese are actually people” already puts a lib dangerously to the edge of the Overton window.
One person to write a book, hundreds to make a movie. The author may have some truly baffling notions about what sci-fi is, but it doesn’t mean that goes for everyone else involved.
Yup; the guy who directed Starship troopers was opposed to fascism while the book’s author was writing a pro-military story
Well actually you stupid tankie I’ll have you know that Heinlein was not in fact a fascist. He was an “individualist and libertarian with conservative and hawkish views.” There’s a big difference! 😤
Asking the
answer machine if someone was a fascist:
Actually, he was a large-state free-market libertarian with strong conservative views and supported wars to preserve the sanctity of contracts and genocide communists and trade unionists.Read Starship Troopers and conclude that Heinlein was a fascist. Read Stranger in a Strange Land and conclude that he was a free love hippy. Read For Us, The Living and conclude that he was a socialist. Read I Will Fear No Evil and conclude that she was a closeted trans woman.
People can be weird and contradictory. Tolkien hated allegory ffs. Tolkien!
allegorists are cowards
It’s not intentional - the author has stated that he tries to avoid his stories being “woke”. The stories he writes often include themes about international cooperation to save something, and as such they tend to swerve around the liberal condemnation of “authoritarianism”. For western books, the idea of international cooperation means China/Russia featuring prominently coming to the rescue, but if Andy Weir was Chinese, the same trope would be, for example, a JAXA spacecraft helping out a beleaguered Taikonaut.
For a moment, consider how incredible it is that a movie clearing the low bar of “considering foreigners as human” is enough for us to ask if a movie is friendly to the idea of socialism.
There’s a scene in the book where the boss lady gets called up before a court to be sued for breaking every copyright patent and trademark at once (uploaded all human knowledge, software and creative works into the ship, just in case), and she hands the judge two documents, one from the UN and one from the US president, that say she’s allowed to break whatever law she needs to. Somehow that didn’t make it into the Jeff Bezos produced movie. Imagine that.
She is Ron Swanson
Sovereign Soviet Citizen
I’m fine with that. I actually thought the movie did a better job with her character than the book, which was pretty much just that bit over and over. The party scene in the movie gave her more depth than the entire book imo.
Yeah, the book is fun and I appreciate that the author’s trying to put the science front and center… but the movie just worked better on a lot of levels.
If you’ve not read it yet, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry for the Future told a decent “pull out all the stops while dealing with the world governments” story about tackling climate change. A bit lib at times, but overall enjoyable.
I wonder if it was inspired by the three body problem. The 2nd book there also had a bunch of people given the full power to do whatever they thought was necessary to overcome a crisis.
Good chance of it
I always thought one of the swordbearers should have started a centuries long project to terraform Mars or Venus and just offer to change the project specs to whatever the trisolarans would like. Throw in resource rights to half the solar system, and maybe negotiate a scientific exchange in return for the terraforming labor. Point is, both sides dismissed the benifits of cooperation way too quickly. You can probably guess what I think of the third book.
All the sword bearer projects were surprisingly short term. One of the downsides of the trilogy was that it was so full with ideas that sometimes they couldnt grow to their potential because it needed to move on to the next idea.
that’s kinda strange, actually! phil lord, one of the directors, is a miami cuban (lol) and an outspoken anti-communist. He gets angry every time someone mentions Kalatozov’s Soy Cuba so i dunno where that came from, it couldnt have been the other one either cause they’re joined at the hip
Weird because the lego movie is basically dengist propaganda.
If Lord and Miller made a movie about Cuba, it’d be Soy
Cuba, amirite?I enjoy their movies, but yeah they’re a gusano and a gusano’s bestie.
it couldnt have been the other one either cause they’re joined at the hip
I think it’s funny to share a wikipedia and imdb page with someone.
maybe the writers and set designers pulled a fast on on the director?
i enjoyed the movie a lot and yes it obviously depicts a level of international cooperation that we could never have in capitalism (and treats Chinese people as humans unlike the thematically similar Arrival)
Perón is a weird one tbh — kinda “what if fascism made good on the populist parts they normally ditch at the first opportunity”
peronistas remind me of the ACP’s “maga communism”.
I hovered over the trailer yesterday, I heard some terrible acoustic cover of a song, and then Gosling said “sooooo… Today I met an alien :)”
Can’t be putting myself through the rest of the trailer let alone the movie
it’s good. don’t recommend judging movies by trailers generally
Hehe I’m sure it’s actually good it just made me laugh
I think its a thing where if you actually care about your art then its going to lead to some truth. If you ask about motivations and what have you then it kind of leads to things like accidental socialism. Also, I think whimsy which I think this story has despite the dark undertones is kind of just inherently anti fascist. Kind of hard to project their idea of strength and be whimsical.
