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| The NSA site right here in Utah where I live. |
X-Men: Days of Future Past is tapping into the same viral marketing that propelled other successful movies into the black with a commercial for Trask Industries. If you don't have time to watch the commercial, it's done in the same tone as some of the Apple commercials that you see on t.v., you know...the ones with nice music playing in the background and video of people going about having fun and just loving life. The giant robot with glowing orange eyes at the end of the video is part of the Sentinel program which is the plot for the next X-Men movie. You kind of see a "hint" of this if you stay through the credits on "Wolverine," which came out this last weekend. Charles Xavier (yes he's somehow alive) and Magneto find Wolverine in the airport and tell him he needs to join them because the humans are doing something horrible to persecute their kind.
The "horrible" in this situation comes from the Sentinels. So instead of giant robots fighting kaiju, we get giant robots fighting humans with superpowers. I did love this summer's giant robots fighting kaiju story put out by del Toro and wish it had done better at the box office. I have no doubt that the latest Marvel offering will avoid a similar fate mostly because it's part of an existing franchise with a huge fan base.
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| This is one of the Sentinels protecting New York. |
After I watched the video I did have one question that popped into my mind: if a perceived threat is big enough, do you think we'd ever be okay with surveillance from a giant robot with glowing orange eyes? The whole NSA thing has really blown up this year. I'm not sure why 2013 was the year of outrage, since Michael Moore has been blowing his horn on the NSA for years now. In Utah there's been a few protests staged outside the NSA's super facility that's located in the side of a mountain. An environmental impact statement indicated it would require 1.7 million gallons of water each day to keep the computers cool that will store all of "your" information. That statistic by itself is impressive.
And keep in mind that all of this is to "protect you" from terrorism.
So maybe this new X-Men offering is allegorically about our own decision to forego certain freedoms in order to feel safe. Maybe mutants have gotten so out of hand and destructive in this alternate reality, that the only way to live a normal life is under the perceived protection of a giant robot with glowing orange eyes.
What do you think? Would you ever be okay with something like this? How severe would the threats have to be before you thought, "Hey this is a great idea!" Oh dystopia...will your plots ever run out so we can have happy fun movies again? I'm kind of missing the days when we had offerings like Mary Poppins. However, this new X-Men plot does have me intrigued.
"Cage of Freedom" - song on the Metropolis soundtrack from the 80's version - describes the situation perfectly. I'm all right with some level of security, but the power should always reside with the people, not the government.
ReplyDeleteAnd you'll be happy to know Pacific Rim is kicking butt overseas and there just might be a sequel after all...
Protect me by means of scaring me? I'd rather take my chances with 'whatever' is out there. And wonder of wonders...I saw Pacific Rim here in Mexico and loved it. I had to be dragged there to see it, but was really glad I did.
ReplyDeleteOkay, so if there's a big giant robot protecting NYC, what if a bomb goes off in a part of town it's not in? How is a big lumbering machine like that going to get across town? Without stepping on all the cars and buses and cyclists and pedestrians? No. Thanks. I'll take my own personal robot but I don't want some giant one who only serves the government. Far too much power rests in their hands as it stands and I don't feel any more safe today than I did ten years ago. In fact, I feel less safe.
ReplyDeleteI hope they alter the past from Last Stand
ReplyDeleteI'm not holding my breath. With the way they have the current continuity set up, I don't see how they can really pull this story off. They need Wolverine in both time lines to make it work, and they've already excluded him from the earlier one. This is going to be another of those where I'm really going to have to remember that this is movie continuity and nothing more.
ReplyDeleteAs for the giant robot thing, well, I'm for full equality for mutants, so we never should have gotten to the place where we need the giant robots to begin with. And they wouldn't make me feel safe. I'd just be waiting for one to step on my house.
Pacific rim is still on my list of movies to watch. Might have to do a movie marathon this weekend to catch up on everything.
ReplyDeleteIt has me intrigued too. I like dystopia, but it has to be done right. The only X-men movie I've seen is Wolverine (X-Men Origins) but I loved it and would like to check this one out.
ReplyDeleteFor me to be comfortable with the idea I'd have to be WAY convinced that what I'm being protected from is worse. As of now, I have no confidence in the govt doing anything except turning the US into a police state that will do almost nothing to make us any safer.
ReplyDeleteHistorically, governments that exert this type of surveillance on their own people usually develop into tyrannies. so I'm against it.
ReplyDeleteInteresting topic Michael.... Yes, innocent times were nice, weren't they. Kids today will never feel that kind of security. Not what's going on in our world.
ReplyDeleteSadly, I have to agree with Rusty. Our government has and always will withhold vital information and do as they wish, which really won't protect the masses only the chosen few who are eminently in control.
Robots protecting us from mutants? What could possibly go wrong?
ReplyDeleteIs that the Utah Data Center?
ReplyDeleteI can't wait for this movie. No I wouldn't be ok with that sort of surveillance.
ReplyDeleteFear is used to sell everything. We need to give up our privacy to "protect our security".
ReplyDeleteThis topic is so vast that I can't do it justice in a comment.
But oddly, it makes me think of this episode of "History's Mysteries", a series from about 2000. It was about Area 51, and one mighty big distraction.
The selling of fear is a distraction...
I'm with Marcy: the bigger the NSA gets, the less safe I feel. It's not worth sacrificing privacy and personal rights for security, because eventually, security completely overrides rights, and then you're not actually secure at all, because something is always watching to make sure you don't step out of line. See: 1984, A Brave New World, etc ;) I do need to see Pacific Rim, though...
ReplyDeleteConsidering how there never seems to be any justice for anyone who's poor and a minority, I'll definitely take my chances with terrorism. It's much less scary. And what kind of weakling suckers are we that we're so scared of a bunch of fanatics who shout about holy war? Aren't we supposed to be the fearless ones? Isn't it letting them win to give up our freedoms?
ReplyDeleteJai
Sentinels! Awesome. It's about time they brought them in. I would not feel at all safe with giant robots. Makes me see flashes of a Terminator future!
ReplyDeleteI've known about the surveillance thing for years. It was obvious that sometimes my emails were read. The used to have other countries read them to get out of the sticky widget. Now I guess they feel they don't have to hide that much anymore.
ReplyDeleteUnless an alien invasion were coming, I don't think I'd be OK with giant robots.
First question: Are they seriously resurrecting Charles Xavier?
ReplyDeleteSecond question: Where the hell is he gov getting 1.7 million gallons a day for its computers here in the arid West? If they need water like that they should have built the facility east of the Mississippi.
Finally, about the surveillance: Our entire intelligence system, and not just the NSA, failed to predict the massive Arab Spring movement, the fall of the Soviet Union and hell, even the fall of the Berlin Wall. But their big robot will keep us safe? Don't think so.
The whole NSA thing is creepy especially knowing how many people have access to your stuff.
ReplyDeleteStill haven't seen Pacific Rim or Wolverine but I'll make sure to stay through the credits if I do.
No, I'm just not ready for giant robot security. It makes for an interesting story though.
ReplyDeleteAnd yesterday's question about horror. No, I don't like it 99% of the time. I thought "The Omen" was pretty good though.
Brilliant commercial. I liked Pacific Rim, but I thought it had some story flaws. I blame Hollywood and not necessarily del Toro or his team, since del Toro is the bomb.
ReplyDeleteSeems to me it isn't a question of whether the public is okay with the activities of the NSA or CSEC (the Canadian NSA equivalent, eh?). It's more like you wake up one day and it's a reality that all of your emails and phone calls are up for grabs. You turn a corner and all of a sudden it's up to you to get used to that giant robot that showed up one day "for your own good."
As for the impending X-Men movie, yup. Peter Dinklage is in it. Between him, James McAvoy, and Ellen Page, I am there.