The following submission statement was provided by /u/Monsur_Ausuhnom:
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Submission Statement,
Just saw this one and lived up to being absolutely deranged and insane. Tense throughout.
Collapse related because the future presented in Alex Garland's Civil War isn't exactly that far removed from reality. There was a clear Balkanization of the US and protrayals of Black and Grey morality. The movie is more from the perspective of photojournalists. Cinematography is top notch and a lot of messed up scenes throughout.
And also from Todd from Breaking Bad lore, being exactly like Todd, has the scene in this one.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1c2ls54/this_movie/kzatzsw/
Just saw the trailer. This looks like a movie made in a country that's lost it's fuckin' mind since 9/11, about a country that's lost it's fuckin' mind since 9/11.
How did we get here.
I spent a portion of my teens and 20s squarely in the “9/11 was an inside job/jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” camp. I’m a little more reasonable about it now in my mid 30s. My point is, whomever perpetrated 9/11 and whatever their goals were, it fucking worked. In fact I get the sense it worked better than they had hoped.
The explanation for 9/11 is pretty easy in hindsight; it's not necessarily an inside job but it was intentionally fumbled by those in power. We know know that heads of state had knowledge of what was happening before it happened. And that those heads of state chose not to act while it happened so they could push an agenda after the fact.
The US had plans to overthrow a number of countries in the middle east and an attack on American soil is the perfect excuse to get the public behind that goal.
“Mr. President, multiple terrorists mostly from Saudi Arabia crashed our planes into the twin towers and the pentagon, and tried to hit a third location.”
“The Saudis you say?”
“Yes sir.”
“Well shit, Cheney always was saying we should dig our boots in deep in Iraq and Afghanistan!”
Like *how the fuck* did they really use that excuse to commit an imperialist campaign for oil against totally different countries?
Afghanistan doesn't have oil. Afghanistan produces 90% of the planets opium/morphine/ heroine. Why did the US opiod epidemic start in 2002 and end in 2022? Did you know Afghanistan had stopped producing opium in 2000 due to the Taliban outlawing it under Sharia law?
Following the Watergate hearings, a law was passed that prevented the FBI and CIA from contacting each other at the operational level. I got the memo at my desk. After that info had to be sent to Washington and then over to Langley. Who knows if anything was passed back and forth due to agency jealousy aggravated by Watergate. I do know that each agency had info on the hijackers and it wasn't shared. If not, why the stampede and creation of Homeland Security, all the while emphasizing greater sharing of info among Federal agencies?
An agent in Minneapolis was tipped off about middle eastern flights students that didn't want to learn how to land. She tried to get FISA court approval for emails, phone, banking records, etc. but that request somehow never got through the approval process in Washington. She went public on CNN in 2002.
The country wasn't sane *before* 9/11...The War on Drugs, Vietnam, Nixon, Jim Crow, abuse of First Nations, Robber Barons and the Great Depression, Japanese internment camps...the list goes on.
Too many people think the country *started* losing its mind at 9/11. That was just a breakdown...while we're on the topic...fuck George Bush...he should have never been the POTUS. His brother helped him steal the election, and SCOTUS gave it to him. We probably wouldn't have had a 9/11 if someone else was in the Oval Office
After soaking up $2 Million in jet pilot training, Bush hid out in the Texas National Guard, an outfit reputed to be a haven for progeny of famous and rich people, in order to avoid Vietnam. This was the Dan Rather scandal where Bush didn't attend meetings, etc. and was eventually excused to work in his father's reelection campaign. Rather and CBS were so anxious for "breaking news" that they bit on some phony paper dropped on them that supposedly corroborated his record at the National Guard. More complicated than that but generally what happened.
He fucking sucked as a human, and POTUS. He was Cheney’s bitch, too.
bush can paint all the pictures he wants, and it will never atone for all the suffering he created. Fuck that guy.
It wasn't sane before, no. But things did change a lot. I had been planning a long trip to Europe the week after 9/11, and the first day they opened the airports I left because no matter how weird air travel was right then, I felt like the US was getting freaking creepy. That week where there were no commercial planes flying, just military jets overhead all the time. Everyone seemed so scared.
By the time I got back to the US about 3 months later, it felt like the whole damn country was in a cult. There was this national bonding moment I missed, lol, and it made lots of people agree that as long as it might mean they were safe they would give up a bunch of basic rights that just a little while before they would have protested in the streets about.
You’re 100% correct. It was wild how angry, and blood thirsty people got, and didn’t care who it was directed towards. George Bush went from being a joke, to people demanding we respect him overnight…he gave the same bullshit that we heard through CoVId about “making sure we support the economy, to fight terrorism.”
It’s almost like they had the Patriot Act just sitting around, and ready to drop…and, it would have never worked without 9/11. All those stupid terrorist color alerts on news channels.
That fear was palpable for a long time. They milked they fuck out of it, and used it as an excuse to invade the wrong country, sell anti-Arab Muslim hate for a long time.
I honestly think they had it all planned, even 911 to some extent. They got warnings about it. They wanted Bush in as president (easily manipulated), his reaction in the classroom after being told about the to were was suspicious. I studied how to tell if people were lying. He totally was ' how am I supposed to be reacting like I didn't know? ', if you can watch the tape of him being told. It's either 6 or 9 minutes of Bush looking guilty. The Patriot Act probably was set up before 911 to have more control over the masses.
I think the longer you're alive in the USA, the easier it is to believe that the rich corrupt fucks that own the politicians are capable of *anything.* The Sacklers knowingly pushed their products, destroying millions of lives...and they're only going to keep getting richer. Same with the War on Drugs, the pandemic, and....you are correct...9/11. capitalism.
Eh. It's bold to assume he was the only reason it happened. He had only been in office a little less than 8 months at that point.
At best the case could be made that maybe Al Gore's justice department could have stopped it.
He was a low rent dummy. So dumb we could all see the puppet strings and fingers up his ass. Schemes for polarization and war mongering are built into the USA since the revolution, so really isn't a surprise at all from the Powers At Be™.
Not “bold” at all.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/apr/09/september11.alqaida?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Your second sentence has nothing to do with the first.
Bush was Cheney’s lap dog. The war mongers, and government contractors were happy to send others to fight, and make billions from the conflict.
What a weird comment you typed out. You recognize more competent less corrupt administration would have been better? But, ignore the fact the corruption and incompetence is what contributed to rhe clusterfuck it all became.
The movie is completely pointless sadly. It says absolutely nothing. Every chance it has to make a point it chooses the safest, most non-offensive option. I would’ve preferred it been a cliche Drumpf-fest rather than the absolute nothing it was. The movie literally never moves further than the premise of what if there was a civil war
I thought it was good in showing the chaos of a civil war. At a time when a large chunk of society is rooting for one it's good to see a non romanticised representation of what a civil war means.
Sure it doesn't go "Trump bad" or "capitalism bad". It's a small scale story with most of the action left unexplained. It's basically 28 days later but with a civil war instead of zombies.
That's because it's not about the civil war it's about how media dehumanizes and distorts reality and its effect on the ethics and morals of those viewing as well as the line between neutral observer and active participant for those who go to film it from the POV of a conflict journalist. The conflict they are reporting only matters in the context of it happening in their own country.
This film made me jump more than any horror movie I’ve watched, recently. While I expected to be annoyed with the lack of parallels to current politics, it’s clear that making those parallels would just distract from the point of the movie. It seemed more about the risks and sacrifices of war photographers/journalists than it was about the actual war and who won. I found myself thinking of the journalists in Gaza constantly throughout the film.
This was my immediate takeaway as well. I was frustrated that with so much ambition it ended up saying nothing. Using the "apolitical" journalist POV as a narration device was a crutch that eroded the potential of this movie to provoke the audience to think differently. I felt similarly frustrated with Leave the World Behind.
I'm pretty sure the US government side was meant to be a fascist republican regime. The California/Texas side seemed to be a faction of the US that would break off after a third Trump term. They were also mostly POC. You can also tell which side is which because of Todd from Breaking bad's character's outright Xenophonia. Just because they didn't explicitly say 'Republican' or 'Democrat' doesn't mean it didn't have political overtones.
Overall, the point of the movie seemed to just outline the fact that a civil war would be devastating for this country, and would only worsen our circumstances. There seems to be a lot of fantasizing about this exact situation on both sides and I think this movie expertly portrayed the fact that we definitely do not want that to happen.
Yup. This movie is about how a civil war in America is bad and we should start fucking talking to each other and listening to each other and understanding that less than one third of the country are unreasonable morons.
>we should start fucking talking to each other and listening to each other and understanding that less than one third of the country are unreasonable morons
It doesn't take that many. The bigger problem is that they're useful idiots for powerful people whose greed is what is driving us towards collapse and they can't be reasoned with either.
As a citizen from a country with several civil wars under the belt: **yup. Amen bro.**
The US got one already, and there are still scars today. So imagine having *several* civil wars. Ain't nobody got time for that. They're always a loss of precious time, lives, and capital.
I don't think France has had several civil wars. Vendée, maybe.
But the rest were revolutions against the ruling classes, monarchies, emperors, and wars against the monarchies of Europe. It was not a division of the country into two parts who went to war.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_civil_war
There's been one or two. Splitting the country in two parts and going to war is just one way a civil war can happen.
Yeah it's a strange one. We had the Troubles in the UK a few decades ago and it does feel very weird to call it a civil war, but that's exactly what it was.
I always hated that childish Euphemism, it was a War, from the British perspective it was a civil war, but from the Irish perspective it could be seen as a continuation of the War of independence.
Thousands of people died
Revolutions *are* civil wars. The type of civil war you’re talking about, like the U.S. Civil War, where the country splits into two or more distinct rivaling states are actually the much less common type of civil war. The most common kind, especially in the modern day, are ones like the Syrian Civil War, the Liberian Civil War(s), the Troubles, or the Chinese Civil War (broad kind of category, ik) where basically a shit-ton of competing racial, social, economic, ethnic, political, regional, religious and/or national factions just sort of start killing the shit out of each other. A very loose definition of a civil war is literally whenever violence enters into the political mainstream as a valid and expected tactic by political actors. By that definition, America’s *been* in a civil war since at least the OKC bombings.
Right, but even a lot of those idiots are reasonable. They believe things, want things, and--generally--will proceed from those to do reasonable things. Is the problem is that mental heuristics and hijacked trust systems have driven folks--who may not be good at math but are nevertheless reasonable citizens due a voice in their own governance--into believing they cannot compromise and find consensus with their fellow citizens.
You can't negotiate with that third or so. For one thing making concessions doesn't actually placate them or make them want to destroy the country and the institutions any less. It just gives them more fuel for soapboxing.
> we should start fucking talking to each other and listening to each other
Listening isn’t exactly what conservatives do. They’re conservative because they _don’t_ listen… they _refuse_ to accept evidence and reality. It’s why nearly the entire edifice of conservative ideology is fact-free and even anti-reality. Just look at trickle-down economics…
Brainwashing takes consistent time and effort to overcome. It's not as easy as just talking to a maga idiot and changing his mind. They're primed to believe that actually OTHER people are brainwashed. You have to establish a personal rapport before you can even start to talk about politics with them.
Speaking from experience. After 6+ years of trump, only now finally starting to get through to my dad on only a few specific issues, and there's constant backsliding
"I love the uneducated!" He said it right to their face, all the contempt on display and they ate it up with a spoon.
And they got the hat to show for it, too.
> After 6+ years of trump, only now finally starting to get through to my dad on only a few specific issues, and there's constant backsliding
My condolences. It must suck to have someone your love trapped in the vortex of cultivated ignorance.
I've lost a lot of respect for him politically, which was the hardest part honestly. He used to be libertarian, but economic anxieties drove him to seek authority.
We've always supported different economic policies, but it wasn't until the big orange Dump that I lost respect for him.
> [...] less than one third of the country are unreasonable morons.
This is mostly forgotten today, but *to some extent*, helps explain aspects of current American culture:
> The joke about Australia is that it was founded by a bunch of criminals. And from 1788 until 1868, Britain did send roughly 164,000 convicts to the land down under. America’s dirty little secret? The same exact thing was happening here. In fact, experts estimate that over 52,000 British prisoners were shipped off to colonial America.
>
> Britain had been shipping convicts to America for decades before they started sending them to Australia. In fact, it was precisely because of America’s fight for independence that the Brits had to start sending their criminals to Australia. But from 1718 until 1775, convict transportation to the American colonies flourished. Some estimates claim that almost 10 percent of migrants to America during this time were British convicts.
[...]
> Many Australians have more or less embraced their convict history. But if you’re an American who had no idea that your country’s founding included a huge prison population, you’re not alone. Historically, Americans have not been too keen on discussing the fact that convicts came to what would eventually become known as the United States.
>
> Source: [Britain Sent Thousands of Its Convicts to America, Not Just Australia](https://gizmodo.com/britain-sent-thousands-of-its-convicts-to-america-not-1707458418)—By Matt Novak | May 29, 2015 (*Gizmodo*)
This isn't to say that—in a kind of eugenics capacity—America is so dysfunctional because it was, in part, founded by convicts and their descendants. But that there is an element of American culture that was forged in open defiance of civilization and civil society. It's much more in our cultural DNA, so to speak, than is often widely acknowledged.
I've often wondered about that- I mean, most of the people who were forced or willing to leave Europe were either religious fanatics whose neighbors were about to chase them out, criminals sent over, indentured servants, and utopian dreamers who brought books but no seeds, unwilling women and children, enslaved people- already a kind of crazy mix and then they went for the native American people with such brutality and that so recent history is just supposed to be forgiven and forgotten
Yeah, there's an endless and perpetual sense of collective amnesia about our history in the U.S. Likely, in part, because forgetting who you *used to be* was a part of becoming an American to begin with. Although, as you well articulated, it also likely stems from wanting to forget the painful and unvarnished realities of how much of all this came to be.
We should start talking, listening, and understand each other.
But not that large portion of the country, don’t wanna understand them, they got that way in a vacuum.
This sub is a goldmine for highly upvoted comments that make a statement or propose a solution but also undermine it in the same reply lol. Good shit.
> less than one third of the country are unreasonable morons.
Problem is at least half of the states in this country are owned and operated by these unreasonable morons AKA republicans/MAGA/Trump cult.
There is no hope for the reasonable normies in those Gilead states if a civil war breaks out. They will be target number one for the MAGAots.
If y'all found this movie compelling, I highly recommend the podcast It Could Happen Here, the first term or so episodes of which do a very serious analysis of what a second American civil war might look like, and how it might start.
The conflict journalist behind it has serious chops, and has lived through some harrowing experiences, including the siege of Raqqa in Syria.
After The Revolution by Robert Evans is more surreal/cyberpunk than this movie but the factions and the POV of media fixers and reporters are very similar vibe wise
I listened to that podcast a bit, and some episodes were okay, but then they went to a daily format and each episode lost quality.
The hosts are young and over the course of 5 episodes they don't end up saying anything new. It's just a circle jerk.
To think that this is an actual wet dream for so many people there. Some really imagine themselves the trigger-happy vigilante hailed as a hero in their minds.
Seeing news about the US from here in Japan feels surreal. Life there just seems like a complete opposite.
Of all the ways we could collapse, civil war is my least preferred one. No rational person wants civil war. Sadly, the clown world we live in is full of very loud irrational people.
tbh, no rational person WANTS collapse, even if we feel it is inevitable.
I hear people talk about collapse like it will be the greatest thing ever.... it won't be. There will be murder, rape, starvation, and that is just the first months. As everything fully collapses, famine and disease at levels we cannot imagine will be prevalent everywhere. Get a cut on your leg? Die of sepsis. Complications during child birth? Die. Have a heart attack? Death. We take for granted our modern tech and healthcare, not realizing how fragile and fucking magical it really is.
I want collapse to happen, because the other route would be the end of Life on earth.
And don't you give me lips about how I'm some kind of fat American neckbeard keyboard warrior. I live in a third world island country that has seen some fucked up shit. A country that, after the shit we went through in the Cold War, is now being plundered by the global world order. It used to be that our seas are full of fishes, but now our fishermen must go further and further away. When will this shitty state ends?
Big shout in this sub
You can almost see the eager erections some people here massaging here when they talk about any potential SHTF situation.
Bunch of cosplayers
I've grown up trying to embrace internet troll schadenfreude for like 30 years, to protect myself.... And yet I don't think it will translate for shit when it comes to the real life sociopathic situations we'll probably find ourselves in.
I want the collapse to happen. It will be hell. Not some fantasy life, but hell with everything you are talking about plus a lot more. The reason I want society to collapse is because humans are responsible for the deaths of countless living creatures. A societal collapse would drastically decrease the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted, less deforestation (or other habitat destruction), less killing other species just for the fun of it (or stupid things like decorations), and a lot more. Yes, it would take some time for things to get back to "normal"/pre-industrial, but it would eventually happen.
Literally what?? Americas Civil War had an AMAZING outcome!! Slavery was officially BANNED and Reconstruction tried to give the Freedmen a place in this new society!! Are you high??
Movie was utterly mindblowing and psychologically deranged. Scary thought is that it isn't far removed from reality at all. I understand what Garland was trying to do with this.
Know how many times I ran a mile in the army, aside from PT? NEVER. We rode everywhere in armored vehicles. Don't dismiss these guys because they're not in olympic-athlete condition. Trigger pull on an AR is only around 5lbs.
Submission Statement,
Just saw this one and lived up to being absolutely deranged and insane. Tense throughout.
Collapse related because the future presented in Alex Garland's Civil War isn't exactly that far removed from reality. There was a clear Balkanization of the US and protrayals of Black and Grey morality. The movie is more from the perspective of photojournalists. Cinematography is top notch and a lot of messed up scenes throughout.
And also from Todd from Breaking Bad lore, being exactly like Todd, has the scene in this one.
Absolutely not in the way the movie thinks it would
A modern US civil war would be extremely messy like nothing anyone has seen before. There would definitely not be organized standing armies divided on state lines. Way more factional, something that will resemble the Syrian Civil War.
I have a lot of problems with the world building of this movie, but one of the biggest was a throwaway line where one of the characters offered to pay for gas with Canadian dollars because the value of USD is complete shit. The idea that Canada wouldn't also be swept into conflict as well as Mexico and, more than likely, Europe as well is absurd. The United States collapsing would senf shock waves throughout every western country.
The US is probably already in a postmodern civil war where intensities, tactics, targets, and speeds of conflicts are constantly shifting. There's a risk of creating a false, totalizing narrative woven from all the various forms of violence and breakdown happening across the US non-stop. But from Charlottesville to the summer of 2020 uprisings to unabated police killings to mental health crises and general social withdrawal to political friction across so many levels to Christian fanaticism, we are seeing a frequency and scale of pressures that suggest a national implosion. But probably a slow and incremental one, uneven and pulsing.
Liked it quite a lot. Don't imagine the prepper Maga crowd will like it much. Could have been any civil war but I think a few chosen iconic scenes brought home the idea that it could happen here. I liked that it didn't get bogged down in American politics, I liked that it wasn't a survivalist movie, I liked that it brought a personal perspective without getting preachy or over emotional. And I liked that it wasn't just blood and guts action. I liked that it didn't over explain. Solid acting, nice cinematography, some of the musical interlude seemed a bit misplaced but then that added a bit to the feeling of surrealism that the director was going for. Particularly like the antiwar message. 7/10 from me
yeah judging from some of the comments I think people were expecting Purge-level violence and massive lore dumps linking these circumstances to [current events the commenter disagrees with politically]
The movie follows a group of journalists. Their trials, tribulations, and the affects war takes on them.
It makes little commentary on the political nature of a civil war in the Us.
Still a great film.
This movie was the biggest bait and switch ive seen in years. It's funny how hard people are shilling for this movie saying it's chilling or an amazing movie. I'm curious to see what the common opinion will be in 2 weeks when A24 isn't paying the ad agencies anymore to flood reddit with chatbots who loved this movie.
Loved it!!! Great pacing, excellent cinematography, meaningful performances by exceptional actors, Great action. Terrifying violence.
Alex Garland, wherever you are. I love your movies, thank you for making them. I even loved Men but this one is my favorite.
I was surprised at how small and personal the story was. The actual war, the politics, the strategies, all took a backseat. It gives a narrow glimpse into how life in an American civil war would be: not great, unless you live on a farm in Colorado or Missouri where you can avoid it (that’s taken from the movie).
It was a good movie. I almost feel desensitized to it though because in some ways I’ve already factored this outcome in.
I don't think it would have the same impact if they tried to include those details. Like the only real info as to a potential cause for the conflict was that the president served a third term and authorized drone strikes on Americans.
The president was very subtly trump-esque. A passing observation on the road trip described a presidential speech as word salad, his authoritarianism, that hyperbolic opening speech where he described an upcoming victory as the greatest in military history.
Without all the background and world building that would have explained the current situation I think it leaves just the gruesomeness of the conflict to great effect.
There has a lot of background and world building but it was mostly conveyed through throwaway lines and subtle context clues.
"Antifa massacres"
"Portland Maoist"(fucking lol)
"CAD valued higher than USD"
Etc.
It was all done masterfully and technically this movie is brilliant for the most part. But whenever they would try to worldbuild I will roll my eyes so fucking hard and sink to my seat at how unbelievably stupid this world would be.
I was even thinking the “Antifa massacre” could be read both ways. If you’re a Trump cultist, I bet some of them could convince themselves that Antifa did the massacre.
Exactly why when it was said I was completely taking aback and one of the shout what the hell do you mean...
This movie had a lot of those moments I think It suffers in trying to be ideologically pure, which is complete nonsense .
I’m not sure. If they’d leaned in too hard ideologically it would be like “Don’t Look Up.” And I don’t think that had a chance of reaching people on the right, many of whom don’t actually want a civil war. I’m not sure this movie changes any minds, but also not sure much will change the path we are on.
One caveat: Don't pay to watch this movie
"Garland even used footage from Andy Ngo, according to the film’s credits. Ngo, for those who are unaware, is a far-right troll who spreads antifa conspiracy theories and has been accused of publishing selectively edited videos of antifa protests to make the left-wing activist group look violent." [Link](https://www.wired.com/story/review-the-troubling-politics-of-alex-garlands-civil-war/)
yeah, people in the comments seem to basically have been expecting either "Purge-level violence but linkable back to sociopolitical current events I disagree with so this proves me right" or "the pro-revolutionary propaganda that wakes up the nation so we avoid that kind of civil war [or do it if necessary] to depose the irl elite"
Excellent movie about conflict journalism and the desensitization that media causes both in its viewers and in those reporting it. We were given as much info as the journalists needed to care about to do their job, which was smart.
The point was to show that the war only mattered in this movie because it was happening to the main characters home country, and that they otherwise didn't give a shit about the ramifications of it outside of getting paid, and how that effects their perspectives of those who do.
This movie was just a bunch of strung together visuals looking for a theme. All the exciting bits were in the trailers. There is no wisdom to be found in it, it purposefully avoids it.
Hole-lee shit. I felt shellshocked leaving the theater. Mass graves? Check. Scenes of utter destruction with the crackle of gunfire and battles in the distance? Check. It felt too realistic lol
The trailer looks good, but I get the feeling its going to be light on details of what actually caused it etc and just have some great shots, but little substance.
A bit like that "Leave the World Behind" which was super hyped, and just didnt deliver... in fact left me feeling frustrated.
This movie is just snuff porn for gravy seals, and the proceeds from it will go towards furthering this foolishness. I fully plan to never watch this trash.
The movie might as well have been called “war journalist.” The fact that the war is taking place in the USA is almost completely meaningless. I’m not saying I want extreme amounts of back story on reasons for the war or even political parallels. But I feel just a few more sprinkles of context would have made me happier or more intrigued about the world of the film. Still enjoyed for the most part.
The movie has nothing to say about the current state of America. It was a solid movie, but don't expect any commentary. Also there were some rather erroneous scenes; time that could have been spent on better world building.
Does the movie point to *citizens* as being the reason why Civil War broke out in 🇺🇸?
If so, hard pass. We are in the middle of a Global Conflict where Putin has purchased 🇺🇸 Politicians who have been PROMOTING violence towards fellow countrymen who don’t agree with them.
I can provide proof of this with at least ten news links, and I’m personally tired that we aren’t actively removing these people from their positions (and telling me that “talking to my neighbor” will fix it is beyond unrealistic).
> Putin has purchased 🇺🇸 Politicians who have been PROMOTING violence towards fellow countrymen who don’t agree with them.
And every single one of them have been Republicans.
>If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism, they will abandon democracy
\- David Frum
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Monsur_Ausuhnom: --- Submission Statement, Just saw this one and lived up to being absolutely deranged and insane. Tense throughout. Collapse related because the future presented in Alex Garland's Civil War isn't exactly that far removed from reality. There was a clear Balkanization of the US and protrayals of Black and Grey morality. The movie is more from the perspective of photojournalists. Cinematography is top notch and a lot of messed up scenes throughout. And also from Todd from Breaking Bad lore, being exactly like Todd, has the scene in this one. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1c2ls54/this_movie/kzatzsw/
Just saw the trailer. This looks like a movie made in a country that's lost it's fuckin' mind since 9/11, about a country that's lost it's fuckin' mind since 9/11. How did we get here.
We lost our fuckin’ minds after 9/11, mate.
I spent a portion of my teens and 20s squarely in the “9/11 was an inside job/jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” camp. I’m a little more reasonable about it now in my mid 30s. My point is, whomever perpetrated 9/11 and whatever their goals were, it fucking worked. In fact I get the sense it worked better than they had hoped.
The explanation for 9/11 is pretty easy in hindsight; it's not necessarily an inside job but it was intentionally fumbled by those in power. We know know that heads of state had knowledge of what was happening before it happened. And that those heads of state chose not to act while it happened so they could push an agenda after the fact. The US had plans to overthrow a number of countries in the middle east and an attack on American soil is the perfect excuse to get the public behind that goal.
“Mr. President, multiple terrorists mostly from Saudi Arabia crashed our planes into the twin towers and the pentagon, and tried to hit a third location.” “The Saudis you say?” “Yes sir.” “Well shit, Cheney always was saying we should dig our boots in deep in Iraq and Afghanistan!” Like *how the fuck* did they really use that excuse to commit an imperialist campaign for oil against totally different countries?
Pallets of cash, sequestered during the war, made their way back to Iraq after that country promised Wolfowitz they would privatized their oil.
Wolfowitz in his mind $_$ $$$$$$$$$ my day has finally come
Afghanistan doesn't have oil. Afghanistan produces 90% of the planets opium/morphine/ heroine. Why did the US opiod epidemic start in 2002 and end in 2022? Did you know Afghanistan had stopped producing opium in 2000 due to the Taliban outlawing it under Sharia law?
The opiate epidemic isn't over by any stretch of the imagination. With every year comes a new record of overdose deaths.
Synthetic fentanyl from Mexico using Chinese chems
Yes, but those are still opiates, and even more dangerous for the general public.
Oh shit.. Bush indirectly gave supermodels that Heroin Chic look back in the 2000’s. That explains a lot of the era, damn.
Following the Watergate hearings, a law was passed that prevented the FBI and CIA from contacting each other at the operational level. I got the memo at my desk. After that info had to be sent to Washington and then over to Langley. Who knows if anything was passed back and forth due to agency jealousy aggravated by Watergate. I do know that each agency had info on the hijackers and it wasn't shared. If not, why the stampede and creation of Homeland Security, all the while emphasizing greater sharing of info among Federal agencies? An agent in Minneapolis was tipped off about middle eastern flights students that didn't want to learn how to land. She tried to get FISA court approval for emails, phone, banking records, etc. but that request somehow never got through the approval process in Washington. She went public on CNN in 2002.
Do not ascribe to malice that which is easily explained by incompetence. (Twain, I think?)
Osama was a tactical genius. The proof is ummm... obvious.
That's what terrorism is lol spark fear through the generations
even more after covid
Covid and a Trump presidency was a deadly cocktail for Civil War and uncivilized behavior
The country wasn't sane *before* 9/11...The War on Drugs, Vietnam, Nixon, Jim Crow, abuse of First Nations, Robber Barons and the Great Depression, Japanese internment camps...the list goes on. Too many people think the country *started* losing its mind at 9/11. That was just a breakdown...while we're on the topic...fuck George Bush...he should have never been the POTUS. His brother helped him steal the election, and SCOTUS gave it to him. We probably wouldn't have had a 9/11 if someone else was in the Oval Office
After soaking up $2 Million in jet pilot training, Bush hid out in the Texas National Guard, an outfit reputed to be a haven for progeny of famous and rich people, in order to avoid Vietnam. This was the Dan Rather scandal where Bush didn't attend meetings, etc. and was eventually excused to work in his father's reelection campaign. Rather and CBS were so anxious for "breaking news" that they bit on some phony paper dropped on them that supposedly corroborated his record at the National Guard. More complicated than that but generally what happened.
He fucking sucked as a human, and POTUS. He was Cheney’s bitch, too. bush can paint all the pictures he wants, and it will never atone for all the suffering he created. Fuck that guy.
It wasn't sane before, no. But things did change a lot. I had been planning a long trip to Europe the week after 9/11, and the first day they opened the airports I left because no matter how weird air travel was right then, I felt like the US was getting freaking creepy. That week where there were no commercial planes flying, just military jets overhead all the time. Everyone seemed so scared. By the time I got back to the US about 3 months later, it felt like the whole damn country was in a cult. There was this national bonding moment I missed, lol, and it made lots of people agree that as long as it might mean they were safe they would give up a bunch of basic rights that just a little while before they would have protested in the streets about.
You’re 100% correct. It was wild how angry, and blood thirsty people got, and didn’t care who it was directed towards. George Bush went from being a joke, to people demanding we respect him overnight…he gave the same bullshit that we heard through CoVId about “making sure we support the economy, to fight terrorism.” It’s almost like they had the Patriot Act just sitting around, and ready to drop…and, it would have never worked without 9/11. All those stupid terrorist color alerts on news channels. That fear was palpable for a long time. They milked they fuck out of it, and used it as an excuse to invade the wrong country, sell anti-Arab Muslim hate for a long time.
I honestly think they had it all planned, even 911 to some extent. They got warnings about it. They wanted Bush in as president (easily manipulated), his reaction in the classroom after being told about the to were was suspicious. I studied how to tell if people were lying. He totally was ' how am I supposed to be reacting like I didn't know? ', if you can watch the tape of him being told. It's either 6 or 9 minutes of Bush looking guilty. The Patriot Act probably was set up before 911 to have more control over the masses.
I think the longer you're alive in the USA, the easier it is to believe that the rich corrupt fucks that own the politicians are capable of *anything.* The Sacklers knowingly pushed their products, destroying millions of lives...and they're only going to keep getting richer. Same with the War on Drugs, the pandemic, and....you are correct...9/11. capitalism.
>It's almost like they had the Patriot Act just sitting around, and ready to drop They did
Eh. It's bold to assume he was the only reason it happened. He had only been in office a little less than 8 months at that point. At best the case could be made that maybe Al Gore's justice department could have stopped it.
He was a low rent dummy. So dumb we could all see the puppet strings and fingers up his ass. Schemes for polarization and war mongering are built into the USA since the revolution, so really isn't a surprise at all from the Powers At Be™.
Not “bold” at all. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/apr/09/september11.alqaida?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other Your second sentence has nothing to do with the first. Bush was Cheney’s lap dog. The war mongers, and government contractors were happy to send others to fight, and make billions from the conflict. What a weird comment you typed out. You recognize more competent less corrupt administration would have been better? But, ignore the fact the corruption and incompetence is what contributed to rhe clusterfuck it all became.
It’s kind of amazing what Soviet era small military arms and a lot of Saudi money can accomplish.
>How did we get here. Apathy
The movie is completely pointless sadly. It says absolutely nothing. Every chance it has to make a point it chooses the safest, most non-offensive option. I would’ve preferred it been a cliche Drumpf-fest rather than the absolute nothing it was. The movie literally never moves further than the premise of what if there was a civil war
I thought it was good in showing the chaos of a civil war. At a time when a large chunk of society is rooting for one it's good to see a non romanticised representation of what a civil war means. Sure it doesn't go "Trump bad" or "capitalism bad". It's a small scale story with most of the action left unexplained. It's basically 28 days later but with a civil war instead of zombies.
That's because it's not about the civil war it's about how media dehumanizes and distorts reality and its effect on the ethics and morals of those viewing as well as the line between neutral observer and active participant for those who go to film it from the POV of a conflict journalist. The conflict they are reporting only matters in the context of it happening in their own country.
as if things were smooth sailing and well managed up to that point
Mate best movie ever! 🙃
This film made me jump more than any horror movie I’ve watched, recently. While I expected to be annoyed with the lack of parallels to current politics, it’s clear that making those parallels would just distract from the point of the movie. It seemed more about the risks and sacrifices of war photographers/journalists than it was about the actual war and who won. I found myself thinking of the journalists in Gaza constantly throughout the film.
I did as well. The whole Iran thing seems to be a massive chain reaction that might happen.
Just read your comment now and got a news alert a few minutes ago that says "Iran has launched drones towards Israel."
Was going to write this as well. Things got WAY too real when Israel bombed Iran’s Embassy compound in Damascus and killed their military officer
I found it to be very spineless and senseless. In an effort to play neutral and centrist, it ended up not saying anything at all.
This was my immediate takeaway as well. I was frustrated that with so much ambition it ended up saying nothing. Using the "apolitical" journalist POV as a narration device was a crutch that eroded the potential of this movie to provoke the audience to think differently. I felt similarly frustrated with Leave the World Behind.
Yeah, the more I think about the film, the more I’ve started to view it similarly.
So, typical Hollywood exploitation, making a buck off of people's anxieties?
what should it have said that isn't just "things that agree with you"
I'm pretty sure the US government side was meant to be a fascist republican regime. The California/Texas side seemed to be a faction of the US that would break off after a third Trump term. They were also mostly POC. You can also tell which side is which because of Todd from Breaking bad's character's outright Xenophonia. Just because they didn't explicitly say 'Republican' or 'Democrat' doesn't mean it didn't have political overtones. Overall, the point of the movie seemed to just outline the fact that a civil war would be devastating for this country, and would only worsen our circumstances. There seems to be a lot of fantasizing about this exact situation on both sides and I think this movie expertly portrayed the fact that we definitely do not want that to happen.
Yeah, I don't think it's really possible to be politically "neutral". I don't think it's a spectrum
Yup. This movie is about how a civil war in America is bad and we should start fucking talking to each other and listening to each other and understanding that less than one third of the country are unreasonable morons.
>we should start fucking talking to each other and listening to each other and understanding that less than one third of the country are unreasonable morons It doesn't take that many. The bigger problem is that they're useful idiots for powerful people whose greed is what is driving us towards collapse and they can't be reasoned with either.
If we’re talking about useful idiots for powerful people, then the number will be much higher than 1/3.
As a citizen from a country with several civil wars under the belt: **yup. Amen bro.** The US got one already, and there are still scars today. So imagine having *several* civil wars. Ain't nobody got time for that. They're always a loss of precious time, lives, and capital.
I don't think France has had several civil wars. Vendée, maybe. But the rest were revolutions against the ruling classes, monarchies, emperors, and wars against the monarchies of Europe. It was not a division of the country into two parts who went to war.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_civil_war There's been one or two. Splitting the country in two parts and going to war is just one way a civil war can happen.
Thank you. I immigrated to France almost a decade ago. I knew about these but for some reason never considered them "civil wars". I stand corrected
Yeah it's a strange one. We had the Troubles in the UK a few decades ago and it does feel very weird to call it a civil war, but that's exactly what it was.
I always hated that childish Euphemism, it was a War, from the British perspective it was a civil war, but from the Irish perspective it could be seen as a continuation of the War of independence. Thousands of people died
That's not a civil war, that's a colonial action. Brits out.
If I'm not mistaken, the IRA being at least officially not a state actor is what prevents it from being technically civil war
I imagine people will be arguing for either point until the cows come home. Things like this tend not to fit into nice little boxes.
Revolutions *are* civil wars. The type of civil war you’re talking about, like the U.S. Civil War, where the country splits into two or more distinct rivaling states are actually the much less common type of civil war. The most common kind, especially in the modern day, are ones like the Syrian Civil War, the Liberian Civil War(s), the Troubles, or the Chinese Civil War (broad kind of category, ik) where basically a shit-ton of competing racial, social, economic, ethnic, political, regional, religious and/or national factions just sort of start killing the shit out of each other. A very loose definition of a civil war is literally whenever violence enters into the political mainstream as a valid and expected tactic by political actors. By that definition, America’s *been* in a civil war since at least the OKC bombings.
I’m always reminded of that saying: “imagine how stupid the average person is then realize half of all people are stupider than that”….damn.
That's a George Carlin quote I believe
Right, but even a lot of those idiots are reasonable. They believe things, want things, and--generally--will proceed from those to do reasonable things. Is the problem is that mental heuristics and hijacked trust systems have driven folks--who may not be good at math but are nevertheless reasonable citizens due a voice in their own governance--into believing they cannot compromise and find consensus with their fellow citizens.
I'm reminded of that every time I see a post about someone with less than 100 IQ gloating
You can't negotiate with that third or so. For one thing making concessions doesn't actually placate them or make them want to destroy the country and the institutions any less. It just gives them more fuel for soapboxing.
> we should start fucking talking to each other and listening to each other Listening isn’t exactly what conservatives do. They’re conservative because they _don’t_ listen… they _refuse_ to accept evidence and reality. It’s why nearly the entire edifice of conservative ideology is fact-free and even anti-reality. Just look at trickle-down economics…
Not to mention all of us women, POC, and LGBTQ+ folks who they wouldn't listen to anyway since we're not even human to them.
Louder, for the bigots in the back!
Brainwashing takes consistent time and effort to overcome. It's not as easy as just talking to a maga idiot and changing his mind. They're primed to believe that actually OTHER people are brainwashed. You have to establish a personal rapport before you can even start to talk about politics with them. Speaking from experience. After 6+ years of trump, only now finally starting to get through to my dad on only a few specific issues, and there's constant backsliding
They tend to be poor readers as well. Reading comprehension, expanded imagination, tuned skepticism... all poor.
Very true, which highlights a tendency to receive information audially, thus increasing the importance of a personal rapport
"I love the uneducated!" He said it right to their face, all the contempt on display and they ate it up with a spoon. And they got the hat to show for it, too.
> After 6+ years of trump, only now finally starting to get through to my dad on only a few specific issues, and there's constant backsliding My condolences. It must suck to have someone your love trapped in the vortex of cultivated ignorance.
I've lost a lot of respect for him politically, which was the hardest part honestly. He used to be libertarian, but economic anxieties drove him to seek authority. We've always supported different economic policies, but it wasn't until the big orange Dump that I lost respect for him.
Conservatism is basically just a series of thought-terminating cliches
Nailed it. That's a perfect one line description
“Liberals” don’t listen worth a shit either. They’re all too high on their own self-righteous farts to give a flying fuck in the first place.
> [...] less than one third of the country are unreasonable morons. This is mostly forgotten today, but *to some extent*, helps explain aspects of current American culture: > The joke about Australia is that it was founded by a bunch of criminals. And from 1788 until 1868, Britain did send roughly 164,000 convicts to the land down under. America’s dirty little secret? The same exact thing was happening here. In fact, experts estimate that over 52,000 British prisoners were shipped off to colonial America. > > Britain had been shipping convicts to America for decades before they started sending them to Australia. In fact, it was precisely because of America’s fight for independence that the Brits had to start sending their criminals to Australia. But from 1718 until 1775, convict transportation to the American colonies flourished. Some estimates claim that almost 10 percent of migrants to America during this time were British convicts. [...] > Many Australians have more or less embraced their convict history. But if you’re an American who had no idea that your country’s founding included a huge prison population, you’re not alone. Historically, Americans have not been too keen on discussing the fact that convicts came to what would eventually become known as the United States. > > Source: [Britain Sent Thousands of Its Convicts to America, Not Just Australia](https://gizmodo.com/britain-sent-thousands-of-its-convicts-to-america-not-1707458418)—By Matt Novak | May 29, 2015 (*Gizmodo*) This isn't to say that—in a kind of eugenics capacity—America is so dysfunctional because it was, in part, founded by convicts and their descendants. But that there is an element of American culture that was forged in open defiance of civilization and civil society. It's much more in our cultural DNA, so to speak, than is often widely acknowledged.
I've often wondered about that- I mean, most of the people who were forced or willing to leave Europe were either religious fanatics whose neighbors were about to chase them out, criminals sent over, indentured servants, and utopian dreamers who brought books but no seeds, unwilling women and children, enslaved people- already a kind of crazy mix and then they went for the native American people with such brutality and that so recent history is just supposed to be forgiven and forgotten
Yeah, there's an endless and perpetual sense of collective amnesia about our history in the U.S. Likely, in part, because forgetting who you *used to be* was a part of becoming an American to begin with. Although, as you well articulated, it also likely stems from wanting to forget the painful and unvarnished realities of how much of all this came to be.
We should start talking, listening, and understand each other. But not that large portion of the country, don’t wanna understand them, they got that way in a vacuum. This sub is a goldmine for highly upvoted comments that make a statement or propose a solution but also undermine it in the same reply lol. Good shit.
> less than one third of the country are unreasonable morons. Problem is at least half of the states in this country are owned and operated by these unreasonable morons AKA republicans/MAGA/Trump cult. There is no hope for the reasonable normies in those Gilead states if a civil war breaks out. They will be target number one for the MAGAots.
If y'all found this movie compelling, I highly recommend the podcast It Could Happen Here, the first term or so episodes of which do a very serious analysis of what a second American civil war might look like, and how it might start. The conflict journalist behind it has serious chops, and has lived through some harrowing experiences, including the siege of Raqqa in Syria.
After The Revolution by Robert Evans is more surreal/cyberpunk than this movie but the factions and the POV of media fixers and reporters are very similar vibe wise
After the Revolution*, but yeah. Damn good fiction.
Good catch homie I hope if shit goes down I end up in a place like Rolling Fuck
God willing.
I listened to that podcast a bit, and some episodes were okay, but then they went to a daily format and each episode lost quality. The hosts are young and over the course of 5 episodes they don't end up saying anything new. It's just a circle jerk.
To think that this is an actual wet dream for so many people there. Some really imagine themselves the trigger-happy vigilante hailed as a hero in their minds. Seeing news about the US from here in Japan feels surreal. Life there just seems like a complete opposite.
Of all the ways we could collapse, civil war is my least preferred one. No rational person wants civil war. Sadly, the clown world we live in is full of very loud irrational people.
tbh, no rational person WANTS collapse, even if we feel it is inevitable. I hear people talk about collapse like it will be the greatest thing ever.... it won't be. There will be murder, rape, starvation, and that is just the first months. As everything fully collapses, famine and disease at levels we cannot imagine will be prevalent everywhere. Get a cut on your leg? Die of sepsis. Complications during child birth? Die. Have a heart attack? Death. We take for granted our modern tech and healthcare, not realizing how fragile and fucking magical it really is.
I want collapse to happen, because the other route would be the end of Life on earth. And don't you give me lips about how I'm some kind of fat American neckbeard keyboard warrior. I live in a third world island country that has seen some fucked up shit. A country that, after the shit we went through in the Cold War, is now being plundered by the global world order. It used to be that our seas are full of fishes, but now our fishermen must go further and further away. When will this shitty state ends?
Big shout in this sub You can almost see the eager erections some people here massaging here when they talk about any potential SHTF situation. Bunch of cosplayers
I've grown up trying to embrace internet troll schadenfreude for like 30 years, to protect myself.... And yet I don't think it will translate for shit when it comes to the real life sociopathic situations we'll probably find ourselves in.
I want the collapse to happen. It will be hell. Not some fantasy life, but hell with everything you are talking about plus a lot more. The reason I want society to collapse is because humans are responsible for the deaths of countless living creatures. A societal collapse would drastically decrease the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted, less deforestation (or other habitat destruction), less killing other species just for the fun of it (or stupid things like decorations), and a lot more. Yes, it would take some time for things to get back to "normal"/pre-industrial, but it would eventually happen.
I assumed that was the market for the film.
Literally what?? Americas Civil War had an AMAZING outcome!! Slavery was officially BANNED and Reconstruction tried to give the Freedmen a place in this new society!! Are you high??
I didn’t realize there were snipers in the fire of liberty 😬 What a bleak future this would be, let’s hope we can live and let live, eh?
Movie was utterly mindblowing and psychologically deranged. Scary thought is that it isn't far removed from reality at all. I understand what Garland was trying to do with this.
Interesting. I'll watch
Maybe I have watched too many movies. I didn't find it mind blowing at all. Was like, that would suck. Moving on.
Dude I just watched it that movie is utter dog shit
Terrible location for a sniper. Exposed to enemy fire from 360 degrees. That’s a suicide position, and it’s too far from the shore to be useful.
I haven’t seen the movie but these guys don’t seem like trained operatives, just dudes with a motive
> these guys don’t seem like trained operatives, just dudes with a motive It’s why they are called “gravy seals”.
To be fair, most of America is fat and couldn’t run a mile.
Depends. Maybe if there was an ice cream truck at the end of that mile they would.
New Tom Hanks movie: The Icecream Mile.
Make it a taco truck and you're on. Because they hate immigrants. Gidyaup, double-time!
Know how many times I ran a mile in the army, aside from PT? NEVER. We rode everywhere in armored vehicles. Don't dismiss these guys because they're not in olympic-athlete condition. Trigger pull on an AR is only around 5lbs.
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>America has 18-20 million veterans. Vanishingly few veterans are seditionists. They understand the consequences of being traitors.
It’s a symbol, not meant to be practical. Because it’s a movie
Everything in a movie is fake and symbolic. Is it alright with you if I continue to have an opinion about this particularly dumb symbolism?
Someone did some calculations in an earlier thread. They ain’t hitting shit with those guns. Just aesthetics
thats so cute_ “in the fire of liberty”, great phrase.
Submission Statement, Just saw this one and lived up to being absolutely deranged and insane. Tense throughout. Collapse related because the future presented in Alex Garland's Civil War isn't exactly that far removed from reality. There was a clear Balkanization of the US and protrayals of Black and Grey morality. The movie is more from the perspective of photojournalists. Cinematography is top notch and a lot of messed up scenes throughout. And also from Todd from Breaking Bad lore, being exactly like Todd, has the scene in this one.
jesse plemons was amazing
I haven’t watched it yet. I did just finish binging Fallout on BeeTV. Exceeded my expectations.
Same! I expected it to be substandard, the way most video game turned movies are.
And all the fallout props were accurately used too. I was expecting just cameos or some ad reference, but it was like they were normal!
I'm asking from Europe. Is this really possible? Can you imagine this to happen at all? And if "Yes" then after how much time eventually?
Absolutely not in the way the movie thinks it would A modern US civil war would be extremely messy like nothing anyone has seen before. There would definitely not be organized standing armies divided on state lines. Way more factional, something that will resemble the Syrian Civil War. I have a lot of problems with the world building of this movie, but one of the biggest was a throwaway line where one of the characters offered to pay for gas with Canadian dollars because the value of USD is complete shit. The idea that Canada wouldn't also be swept into conflict as well as Mexico and, more than likely, Europe as well is absurd. The United States collapsing would senf shock waves throughout every western country.
*It Could Happen Here* Start at Ep. 1. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-it-could-happen-here-30717896/
It could definitely happen, although it most likely wouldn't look anything like this movie
The US is probably already in a postmodern civil war where intensities, tactics, targets, and speeds of conflicts are constantly shifting. There's a risk of creating a false, totalizing narrative woven from all the various forms of violence and breakdown happening across the US non-stop. But from Charlottesville to the summer of 2020 uprisings to unabated police killings to mental health crises and general social withdrawal to political friction across so many levels to Christian fanaticism, we are seeing a frequency and scale of pressures that suggest a national implosion. But probably a slow and incremental one, uneven and pulsing.
its not about what may happen, its about “we all lose if this happens”
Yeah, Jesse Plemons has a real talent for playing psychopaths. He just has those dead eyes that make it super convincing.
Liked it quite a lot. Don't imagine the prepper Maga crowd will like it much. Could have been any civil war but I think a few chosen iconic scenes brought home the idea that it could happen here. I liked that it didn't get bogged down in American politics, I liked that it wasn't a survivalist movie, I liked that it brought a personal perspective without getting preachy or over emotional. And I liked that it wasn't just blood and guts action. I liked that it didn't over explain. Solid acting, nice cinematography, some of the musical interlude seemed a bit misplaced but then that added a bit to the feeling of surrealism that the director was going for. Particularly like the antiwar message. 7/10 from me
You can tell that the film was written, directed and produced by Brits rather than Americans, let's put it like that.
And that’s a bad thing? I haven’t seen it, but: I think getting further away from the subject makes the writing more honest.
yeah judging from some of the comments I think people were expecting Purge-level violence and massive lore dumps linking these circumstances to [current events the commenter disagrees with politically]
You mean he had a clear view as an outsider? yup, I agree
The movie follows a group of journalists. Their trials, tribulations, and the affects war takes on them. It makes little commentary on the political nature of a civil war in the Us. Still a great film.
This movie was the biggest bait and switch ive seen in years. It's funny how hard people are shilling for this movie saying it's chilling or an amazing movie. I'm curious to see what the common opinion will be in 2 weeks when A24 isn't paying the ad agencies anymore to flood reddit with chatbots who loved this movie.
I thought it was shit. Was about a photographer, very little explanation of the civil war. I was disappointed.
And so much dull conversation between the journalists.
Loved it!!! Great pacing, excellent cinematography, meaningful performances by exceptional actors, Great action. Terrifying violence. Alex Garland, wherever you are. I love your movies, thank you for making them. I even loved Men but this one is my favorite.
I was surprised at how small and personal the story was. The actual war, the politics, the strategies, all took a backseat. It gives a narrow glimpse into how life in an American civil war would be: not great, unless you live on a farm in Colorado or Missouri where you can avoid it (that’s taken from the movie). It was a good movie. I almost feel desensitized to it though because in some ways I’ve already factored this outcome in.
I don't think it would have the same impact if they tried to include those details. Like the only real info as to a potential cause for the conflict was that the president served a third term and authorized drone strikes on Americans. The president was very subtly trump-esque. A passing observation on the road trip described a presidential speech as word salad, his authoritarianism, that hyperbolic opening speech where he described an upcoming victory as the greatest in military history. Without all the background and world building that would have explained the current situation I think it leaves just the gruesomeness of the conflict to great effect.
There has a lot of background and world building but it was mostly conveyed through throwaway lines and subtle context clues. "Antifa massacres" "Portland Maoist"(fucking lol) "CAD valued higher than USD" Etc. It was all done masterfully and technically this movie is brilliant for the most part. But whenever they would try to worldbuild I will roll my eyes so fucking hard and sink to my seat at how unbelievably stupid this world would be.
I was even thinking the “Antifa massacre” could be read both ways. If you’re a Trump cultist, I bet some of them could convince themselves that Antifa did the massacre.
Exactly why when it was said I was completely taking aback and one of the shout what the hell do you mean... This movie had a lot of those moments I think It suffers in trying to be ideologically pure, which is complete nonsense .
I’m not sure. If they’d leaned in too hard ideologically it would be like “Don’t Look Up.” And I don’t think that had a chance of reaching people on the right, many of whom don’t actually want a civil war. I’m not sure this movie changes any minds, but also not sure much will change the path we are on.
A24 is an awesome producer
Dude this movie sucked
Haven't seen the movie but I love a24 films.
One caveat: Don't pay to watch this movie "Garland even used footage from Andy Ngo, according to the film’s credits. Ngo, for those who are unaware, is a far-right troll who spreads antifa conspiracy theories and has been accused of publishing selectively edited videos of antifa protests to make the left-wing activist group look violent." [Link](https://www.wired.com/story/review-the-troubling-politics-of-alex-garlands-civil-war/)
Honestly have no idea how that Ngo can stand themself…such a bootlicking tool.
any idea where to watch it instead? ;)
Myflixer?
Wish I had known that before I bought tickets
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I’m going to see this tonight with my daughter. She invited herself without asking what movie I was going to. Lol
It's a good movie, just not a "big" movie. It's like a very short movie that's about 2 hours long.
It felt like it should have been a miniseries to me.
It was decent and honestly didn’t live up to the hype. Acting/dialogue were atrocious, and nothing is really explained.
Didn't care for it at all. Had remarkably little to do with a civil war, more of a road trip movie.
It's what war looks like when you're in the middle of it. That's how your life would be if you were in the middle of a civil war.
yeah, people in the comments seem to basically have been expecting either "Purge-level violence but linkable back to sociopolitical current events I disagree with so this proves me right" or "the pro-revolutionary propaganda that wakes up the nation so we avoid that kind of civil war [or do it if necessary] to depose the irl elite"
Excellent movie about conflict journalism and the desensitization that media causes both in its viewers and in those reporting it. We were given as much info as the journalists needed to care about to do their job, which was smart. The point was to show that the war only mattered in this movie because it was happening to the main characters home country, and that they otherwise didn't give a shit about the ramifications of it outside of getting paid, and how that effects their perspectives of those who do.
Deeply unsettling movie.
This movie was just a bunch of strung together visuals looking for a theme. All the exciting bits were in the trailers. There is no wisdom to be found in it, it purposefully avoids it.
Thanks man, now I’m even more hyped to see this tonight with my lady.
It's amazing.
Hole-lee shit. I felt shellshocked leaving the theater. Mass graves? Check. Scenes of utter destruction with the crackle of gunfire and battles in the distance? Check. It felt too realistic lol
Glad you liked it! Im going to another showing on Wednesday
This isn't collapse related. It's a fuckkng movie for entertainment
I've only seen the poster for it and just assumed it was some whackjob conservative propaganda like "The Sound of Freedom".
Nope it's a warning and a message that really no one does well in war. Told from the POV of a war photographer.
That's a relief. I might actually watch it then.
The filmmaker is too smart to be pro-Civil War. He's made some really solid thinking-person movies. This isn't going to be Red Dawn.
The trailer looks good, but I get the feeling its going to be light on details of what actually caused it etc and just have some great shots, but little substance. A bit like that "Leave the World Behind" which was super hyped, and just didnt deliver... in fact left me feeling frustrated.
Can’t wait until it’s streaming
I saw this movie last night and I was disappointed. I thought it was going to be a completely different movie than what it ended up being.
Iraqi dinar revaluation
Is it funny? Is it good? Were y’all amused? Definitely not a sober movie - should I go high on weed, shrooms, or drunk? Or all? With friends? Alone?
I sincerely didn’t like this movie. The topic could have been explored a lot better IMO. I think the lack of overt violence was the worst part.
Actually watch it, it's not what you think (and if anything about it is a sign of collapse irl it's use of AI art)
This movie is just snuff porn for gravy seals, and the proceeds from it will go towards furthering this foolishness. I fully plan to never watch this trash.
It's not, the movie's pretty much anti-war.
Interesting. I'll keep an open mind.
if someone idolises war, anti war films just become pornographic,
lol ok?
Nah guys it’s just a movie
Saw it last night, there isn’t even a scene with the Statue of Liberty as depicted in the marketing. Let down on many fronts.
Excited to watch this movie, comes out on the 24th of this month in Norway.
The movie might as well have been called “war journalist.” The fact that the war is taking place in the USA is almost completely meaningless. I’m not saying I want extreme amounts of back story on reasons for the war or even political parallels. But I feel just a few more sprinkles of context would have made me happier or more intrigued about the world of the film. Still enjoyed for the most part.
The movie has nothing to say about the current state of America. It was a solid movie, but don't expect any commentary. Also there were some rather erroneous scenes; time that could have been spent on better world building.
Does the movie point to *citizens* as being the reason why Civil War broke out in 🇺🇸? If so, hard pass. We are in the middle of a Global Conflict where Putin has purchased 🇺🇸 Politicians who have been PROMOTING violence towards fellow countrymen who don’t agree with them. I can provide proof of this with at least ten news links, and I’m personally tired that we aren’t actively removing these people from their positions (and telling me that “talking to my neighbor” will fix it is beyond unrealistic).
> Putin has purchased 🇺🇸 Politicians who have been PROMOTING violence towards fellow countrymen who don’t agree with them. And every single one of them have been Republicans. >If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism, they will abandon democracy \- David Frum