I saw this yesterday - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11286314/ and the only thing I can say is I can very well see it happening exactly the way it has been shared. And the part about 'modern culture' or the part about literally don't look up and could happen in the U.S., the UK, and even India with the same consequences.

The movie is supposed to be a comedy but I found to be more chilling than comedy

It is a stark warning for the climate crisis. So in my view it is happening, just not with a commit.

GDB wrote:

Happened for real in the UK a couple of weeks ago, whatever your view on the activist and her point it was bad interviewing and journalism, from a man who noted he's been a journalist for 50 years.
Indeed but not in a positive sense.
He is often compared usually for his faux pas to the comic creation 'Alan Partridge', the perma parochial TV character. I found that harsh, Partridge is more like the current crop of government ministers.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... 7a3514de2c

The activist had not seen the film but did after her interview went viral and was duly shocked.
GMB, the program, got a lot of negative comparisons too from viewers, negating his claims before the interview, so he trashed his own rep and enhanced the person and her group he was trying to belittle.

Wowee, literally the same thing. I was shocked by that movie and now this. Of course, there is gonna be even more dumb stuff ahead

Dutchy wrote:

It is a stark warning for the climate crisis. So in my view it is happening, just not with a commit.

just not with a commit, commit to what exactly?

pune wrote:

I saw this yesterday - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11286314/ and the only thing I can say is I can very well see it happening exactly the way it has been shared. And the part about 'modern culture' or the part about literally don't look up and could happen in the U.S., the UK, and even India with the same consequences.

The movie is supposed to be a comedy but I found to be more chilling than comedy

For me “Don’t Look Up” exposed how the media (and associated social media) have destroyed rational thought and reasonable discussion in modern society. It’s all “gotchas”, “gossip”, “personality”, “emotion based hate”, “narcissism” and “short term wins”. The big picture is ignored so everyone can harp on about their own personal agenda

I was reminded of this parody video if the events of the movie “Independence Day” happened in modern society. To me it’s similar to “Don’t Look Up”, and frighteningly real:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0q1GetC83ec

sierrakilo44 wrote:

pune wrote:

I saw this yesterday - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11286314/ and the only thing I can say is I can very well see it happening exactly the way it has been shared. And the part about 'modern culture' or the part about literally don't look up and could happen in the U.S., the UK, and even India with the same consequences.

The movie is supposed to be a comedy but I found to be more chilling than comedy

For me “Don’t Look Up” exposed how the media (and associated social media) have destroyed rational thought and reasonable discussion in modern society. It’s all “gotchas”, “gossip”, “personality”, “emotion based hate”, “narcissism” and “short term wins”. The big picture is ignored so everyone can harp on about their own personal agenda

I was reminded of this parody video if the events of the movie “Independence Day” happened in modern society. To me it’s similar to “Don’t Look Up”, and frighteningly real:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0q1GetC83ec

Haven't watched the title yet, but social media, or "Web 2.0/3.0", are focus on using the internet to share and promote and read about emotions. It is no longer the internet of the pass where people focused on sharing knowledge and information. And since the way our human mind work that naturally draw us into sharing the empathy, sadness, anger, and such, such content keep getting our attentions, and advertisement revenue from screentime pushes all online platform nowadays to focus on such aspect of emotion-based internet navigation.
How to mitigate this, I don't know, but there clearly isn't a way to go back, not even if solar flare destroyed the world's internet and magnetizing the atmosphere to prevent any digital communications in the future, as content publishers now know the power of human emotion that they can harvest, and will continue to do so even without social media platforms to.

sierrakilo44 wrote:

For me “Don’t Look Up” exposed how the media (and associated social media) have destroyed rational thought and reasonable discussion in modern society. It’s all “gotchas”, “gossip”, “personality”, “emotion based hate”, “narcissism” and “short term wins”. The big picture is ignored so everyone can harp on about their own personal agenda

Most of the world's media is entirely built around trying to entertain, not inform and that's completely at odds with dealing with situations like climate change. Whilst it is for the most part a dull topic/issue - and one that people cant really feel good about (since it's clearly impossible for one single person to fix the problem), it is something that actually needs to be talked about daily. But instead the media will spend two weeks analyzing one useless Hollywood celebrity hitting another from every possible angle.

Kiwirob wrote:

Dutchy wrote:

It is a stark warning for the climate crisis. So in my view it is happening, just not with a commit.

just not with a commit, commit to what exactly?

I can't tell if you're being facetious or not, but Dutchy certainly meant comet, not "commit."

emperortk wrote:

I can't tell if you're being facetious or not, but Dutchy certainly meant comet, not "commit."

An massive asteroid or comet hurtling toward earth threatening an extinction level event always makes a good movie. A defined threat, and a certain date which you have to stop it by otherwise the world is destroyed in an instant.

Climate change is going to be far more drawn out and subtle, happening over decades. Makes for a boring movie, people lose interest and move on to short term interests.

The one movie I can think of which tried to accelerate climate disaster into a movie was The Day After Tomorrow. Within days a sudden drop in sea temperatures caused massive global superstorms. Frightening but totally unrealistic to the point it made those concerned about climate change seem alarmist.

emperortk wrote:

Kiwirob wrote:

Dutchy wrote:

It is a stark warning for the climate crisis. So in my view it is happening, just not with a commit.

just not with a commit, commit to what exactly?

I can't tell if you're being facetious or not, but Dutchy certainly meant comet, not "commit."

I had no clue what he was talking about since I haven’t seen the film, or even heard about it until now.

Kiwirob wrote:

emperortk wrote:

Kiwirob wrote:

just not with a commit, commit to what exactly?

I can't tell if you're being facetious or not, but Dutchy certainly meant comet, not "commit."

I had no clue what he was talking about since I haven’t seen the film, or even heard about it until now.

Same here. It was nominated for the Oscars but failed to win even a single prize and the reason is probably it was 'too popular' or at least that was the reason given. Of course this year Oscar's had other distractions so hence it was not discussed.

The film has many themes in addition to climate change and willing mass deception. How tech entrepreneurs are convinced of their own infallibility, and that their solutions will always work, until they don't. How election cycles dominate the thinking of elected officials. How the powerful ensure their own immunity from the problems they claim to be solving for others. The personally devastating impact of telling truths that no one wants to hear. How the powerful are equally susceptible to harm once the protections they create around them are stripped away. And how in the end, human relationships turn out to be most valued and important. It's actually a great movie in portraying so many of those themes, even if the mechanism is somewhat contrived.

sierrakilo44 wrote:

emperortk wrote:

I can't tell if you're being facetious or not, but Dutchy certainly meant comet, not "commit."

An massive asteroid or comet hurtling toward earth threatening an extinction level event always makes a good movie. A defined threat, and a certain date which you have to stop it by otherwise the world is destroyed in an instant.

Climate change is going to be far more drawn out and subtle, happening over decades. Makes for a boring movie, people lose interest and move on to short term interests.

The one movie I can think of which tried to accelerate climate disaster into a movie was The Day After Tomorrow. Within days a sudden drop in sea temperatures caused massive global superstorms. Frightening but totally unrealistic to the point it made those concerned about climate change seem alarmist.

One of the writers David Sirota did say they made it about a comet because of that very reason, that climate change is a slow killer and the comet is a fast one.

Avatar2go wrote:

The film has many themes in addition to climate change and willing mass deception. How tech entrepreneurs are convinced of their own infallibility, and that their solutions will always work, until they don't. How election cycles dominate the thinking of elected officials. How the powerful ensure their own immunity from the problems they claim to be solving for others. The personally devastating impact of telling truths that no one wants to hear. How the powerful are equally susceptible to harm once the protections they create around them are stripped away. And how in the end, human relationships turn out to be most valued and important. It's actually a great movie in portraying so many of those themes, even if the mechanism is somewhat contrived.

That guy was the best part of the movie.

I was watching it to see who they were spoofing and IIRC it was based a combination of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs

StarAC17 wrote:

That guy was the best part of the movie.

I was watching it to see who they were spoofing and IIRC it was based a combination of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs

Yes, it was funny to watch online how Musk fans thought it was Bezos, and Bezos fans thought it was Musk, but everyone thought it was part Zuckerberg. I hadn't heard the Jobs reference before, but it makes sense. I really only thought of Musk/Bezos due to the rocketry component.

There was a similar debate as to whether the President represented Republicans or Democrats, with a similar split of opinion based on political affiliation. For those who know history, the character had cleverly embedded references to both.

A parody is a good litmus test as to whom people regard as being problematic in society, since that's the person to whom they will instinctively draw comparisons.

GDB wrote:

Happened for real in the UK a couple of weeks ago, whatever your view on the activist and her point it was bad interviewing and journalism, from a man who noted he's been a journalist for 50 years.
Indeed but not in a positive sense.
He is often compared usually for his faux pas to the comic creation 'Alan Partridge', the perma parochial TV character. I found that harsh, Partridge is more like the current crop of government ministers.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... 7a3514de2c

The activist had not seen the film but did after her interview went viral and was duly shocked.
GMB, the program, got a lot of negative comparisons too from viewers, negating his claims before the interview, so he trashed his own rep and enhanced the person and her group he was trying to belittle.

It's a brilliant movie in so many aspects.
And a much needed one.

There are tons of movies with a setting in some kind of dystopia, but this movie pictures our reality as a dystopia. And it's pretty hard to find arguments against that. Hard to say "well, that's where the movie gets it wrong". It's over the top, yes, but is it really that much over the top?

Great that it now helps to identify moments that are "just like Don't look up!".

Was a silly movie and it's exactly that, a movie.

sierrakilo44 wrote:

pune wrote:

I saw this yesterday - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11286314/ and the only thing I can say is I can very well see it happening exactly the way it has been shared. And the part about 'modern culture' or the part about literally don't look up and could happen in the U.S., the UK, and even India with the same consequences.

The movie is supposed to be a comedy but I found to be more chilling than comedy

For me “Don’t Look Up” exposed how the media (and associated social media) have destroyed rational thought and reasonable discussion in modern society. It’s all “gotchas”, “gossip”, “personality”, “emotion based hate”, “narcissism” and “short term wins”. The big picture is ignored so everyone can harp on about their own personal agenda

I was reminded of this parody video if the events of the movie “Independence Day” happened in modern society. To me it’s similar to “Don’t Look Up”, and frighteningly real:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0q1GetC83ec

Well said. I still frequent Reddit and people have become almost intolerable. They’re immediately hostile and aggressive towards anything they disagree with. The name calling is a bit much too. I was just banned from an anti-fascist sub for criticizing Biden lol. I thought anti-fascists are supposed to support free speech?

ACDC8 wrote:

Was a silly movie and it's exactly that, a movie.

Except movies often reflect truth and many are important windows through time and barometers of the general social climate. That silly movie certainly got a lot of people talking.

Avatar2go wrote:

The film has many themes in addition to climate change and willing mass deception. How tech entrepreneurs are convinced of their own infallibility, and that their solutions will always work until they don't. How election cycles dominate the thinking of elected officials. How the powerful ensure their own immunity from the problems they claim to be solving for others. The personally devastating impact of telling truths that no one wants to hear. How the powerful are equally susceptible to harm once the protections they create around them are stripped away. And how in the end, human relationships turn out to be most valued and important. It's actually a great movie in portraying so many of those themes, even if the mechanism is somewhat contrived.

Agreed, the gentleman who tried to portray a cross between Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Zuckerberg. There are and were many things to pick up from as you have shared. Interestingly, when I was seeing the movie, a thought occurred that irrespective of where and what you saw the movie, the conclusions will be similar. If a North Korean or a Chinese saw the movie or an Indian or American/European it would be the same. The director did do a good job of 'in your face' kinda movie. Sadly, the lessons won't be learnt as we saw in 'real life' just a month ago.

My own country India has been going through a particularly nasty heatwave. Some of the places experiencing heatwave they have experienced in the last 120 odd years or so.

Update - I had shared the above before the other people chimed in but forgot to submit but good to know we are on the same track

GDB wrote:

In 1964, the same studio released in one year, two movies about a hot button issue of the day, both with acclaimed directors, well known stars etc.
The first one released had started out as a serious film, based on a book, however the director, known for his very extensive research, finally decided he could not get the message, or warning, he wanted to get across unless satire and dark humour was used.
The second film from the same source novel played it straight.

The first was 'Dr Stangelove; Or How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love The Bomb', with changes to the writing team such as adding Terry Southern and cast, using Peter Sellar's comic and multi character in one film abilities.
The second, which made much less money and outside of those interested in the subject and that period of history is an obscurity, was 'Fail Safe'.

The studio thought the Kubrick film which they were very unsure of, should be released first and at the other end of the year, the second one, which they had much higher expectations of, would not unduly affected by two nuke movies in a year and the likely negative reaction to Kubrick's satire.

The genius of "Strangelove" was that it used some of the actual statements and lines of reasoning used to defend nuclear spending at the time, and spoofed the MAD doctrine, which was easy because it's pretty crazy as a concept. "Fail Safe" more or less accepted the MAD doctrine and showed the possible consequence. Both are good films but humor & parody always resonate more with audiences.

Columbia pictures was basically given «Fail Safe» because the book it was based on more or less was plagsrising «red alert»(strangelove).
Strangelove was Columbias priority and Kubrick their star, so Strangelove went first.
Fail Safe is an ok movie for the time, it was drowned out by (rightfully) coming out number 2, but it is also not the greatest movie of all times, which coincidentally Strangelove is.

Ok, so is this movie better than Armageddon or Deep Impact, Day after Tomorrow, 2012?
I ask, as it seems we have been through this before, and I am not sure what newness this all brings.

casinterest wrote:

Ok, so is this movie better than Armageddon or Deep Impact, Day after Tomorrow, 2012?
I ask, as it seems we have been through this before, and I am not sure what newness this all brings.

In the earlier films, the meteor was the antagonist, and they were disaster films where man rises against the challenge from nature. In this film, man is actually the antagonist, preventing the needed response, with the meteor providing only the backdrop for action (or lack thereof).

CitizenJustin wrote:

ACDC8 wrote:

Was a silly movie and it's exactly that, a movie.

Except movies often reflect truth and many are important windows through time and barometers of the general social climate. That silly movie certainly got a lot of people talking.

Lots of movies get people talking, and they forget about it before the next big thing hits the screens and gets people talking.

Its a movie.

casinterest wrote:

Ok, so is this movie better than Armageddon or Deep Impact, Day after Tomorrow, 2012?
I ask, as it seems we have been through this before, and I am not sure what newness this all brings.

Those movies (released about 6 weeks apart in 1998) are about the potential impacts of a comet for Deep Impact and and Asteroid in Armageddon. In both movies humans react to the extinction level event by trying to stop it and and eventually succeeding.

Deep Impact is more dramatic and more of a human story and has a good cast and tear jerking moments.
Armageddon is the typical Michael Bay movie which is entertaining and crazy. If you have ever seen Transformers or Bad Boys then its like that, explosions, use of the military, silly and inappropriate jokes etc.

Don't look up is a satire looking at how humans could react in the event of this actually happening and its the believers vs the non-believers. Its presented like the Big Short and Vice which are the other two Adam McKay political movies.

The point of this movie is to show how we are reacting to a crisis when the population is divided on the fact that one exists and thus no action is taken.
It also shows that we probably place too much faith in billionaires to solve all of our problems and does show in a satirical way how connected a handful of people are to at least the US government.

ACDC8 wrote:

CitizenJustin wrote:

ACDC8 wrote:

Was a silly movie and it's exactly that, a movie.

Except movies often reflect truth and many are important windows through time and barometers of the general social climate. That silly movie certainly got a lot of people talking.

Lots of movies get people talking, and they forget about it before the next big thing hits the screens and gets people talking.

Its a movie.

There are plenty movies, theatre pieces, novels, possibly even songs that get people talking on a deeper level then your average hollywood movie does.

Perhaps the best example is 1984. "Just a book", written over 70 years ago. But it's still being talked about or referred to today.

There's another interesting movie, Starship Troopers. Look at it brainlessly like "just a movie" and it's a rather bad one. But if you really look at it, it shows what people could be capable of if adequately brainwashed. I think most people didn't get the message of that movie, because the "enemy" was very very hard to relate to, even if you know they are being massacred by humans for no reason at all.

Jalap wrote:

Perhaps the best example is 1984. "Just a book", written over 70 years ago. But it's still being talked about or referred to today.

The funny thing about 1984, is that the most people who are talking about it haven't even read the damn thing and when you ask them why not, they tell you because its been banned. Idiots

I have been reading this book 'Decipher' by Stel Pavlou written in 2001 and yet I can see so many things which would raise heckles (more by right than left). It is about 600 pages plus and goes deep about civilizations, the first civilizations, the sciences, and how they came to be and whatnot in a fictional setting of how the earth is going to fail in 2012. It even has a Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decipher_(novel) which means that on some level it is a notable addition to the literature. And that is the main point. If literature doesn't tell you anything new or challenges you, how would we grow? For e.g. the Big Short was also a lesson for all of us. I have seen that documentary multiple times. The sad part with that one is the lessons were known but were kept away and today Governments around the world have record debts with no idea how to repay it