grinninfoole

In response to an article on the AV Club about James Cameron passing off the disappointing box office performance of T:DF, I noticed a number of commenters missed the point of the movie, and in particular were upset with the decision to kill of the character of John Connor, the one-time future savior of humanity, in the first ten minutes. But I think that this is actually central to the point of the film. With the armageddon that makes him the savior of humanity averted, with the time loop created by sending his father back to 1984 broken, John Connor isn’t a figure of destiny anymore, he’s lost his plot armor and is instead just a teenager. Because he and his mom have already saved the world, his death on a beach in Mexico a couple of years later is no more meaningful or tragic than any other human’s.

Moreover, the movie reinterprets the ‘lather, rinse, repeat’ cliche of sequels like this, and instead of it undoing everything Sarah and John accomplished just so they can do it all over again, they have a totally different apocalyptic future reaching back to snuff out humanity’s savior before they begin.

This has three important functions: 1) it means that the first two movies still count–every person on screen is only alive because the Connors averted nuclear war; 2) it means that we can introduce all new characters and put them in this familiar story with similar threats and stakes. 3) it takes ‘the same damn thing over and over’ of it and makes it into part of the movie’s message. Yes, it’s a whole different AI tyrant from different desperate future, but that’s not (just) because Hollywood has no new ideas, it’s because history actually does rhyme, if not quite repeat itself.

Yes, Sarah destroyed the Cyberdyne factory and tech that made Skynet possible, but some other group of researchers comes along and invents something functionally similar, because of course they do. Individual people can learn from mistakes, but humans collectively? We’re going to keep on doing the same terrible shit over and over again.

To put it another way: Sarah and John saved the world from nuclear war back in the 1990s, but so what? Col. Stanislav Petrov absolutely prevented a nuclear in 1983 in real life by keeping his cool (and we should honor his memory), but the world has moved on, and those accomplishments are just old news. The nuclear detente of the Cold War was hugely consequential at the time, and that we didn’t have a global holocaust is 100% good, but we still have to face the rising tide of tyranny, a domestic fascist movement, COVID not going away, and of course climate change.

This is the Dark Fate we all face, that today’s present is tomorrow’s footnote, that all past is prologue, and just because we saved the world today doesn’t mean it will stay saved tomorrow. And that’s why John dying anticlimactically on a beach in Mexico not only works, but is central to the movie’s message.

Here's a special episode of my store's podcast, reviewing Dark Knight Rises, in which I fill the third slot.  We stay spoiler free for the first ten minutes or so, and apart from me saying 'you know' too much while I collect my thoughts, I think I did a great job.

Oh, and Mike and Ellie were OK, too. :)

Actually, i probably should have plugged the store's podcast here months ago, since I think the regular trio of Jim, Mike and Ellie are actually interesting if you have any interest in nerdy pop culture.  You can find all the episodes on iTunes and on our website.  Here's a link to the first episode.

In one word: WOW.

In more words: I was moved by this movie.

I have read several critiques of the film which all pointed to a racist sub-text of one sort or another.
Tasha Robinson posted a good short review, and there are links to some of those more negative reviews of this sort in the comments. (For reviews attacking the film as 'liberal' and 'America hating', check out Big Hollywood.)

I do not contradict those opinions–even the ones at which I rolled my eyes. Avatar does share thematic (and plot, iIrc) elements with Dances With Wolves, and probably a number of other films. Seeing as the latest in what rollick  calls America's Holocaust Narrative makes sense, and this is the story of a white man who becomes one of the colored people, etc.

As a (re)viewer, though, I tend to focus on the particulars of the film itself, on how the story works within its own little world. (Yes, I know, very New Criticism. I did go to Kenyon.:) I don't deny the applicability of larger perspectives, or of experiencing the movie through the emotional lens of 'ugh, this is White Guilt Fantasy–I hate those', but this film, I think, is not an allegory, and I believe that there is more to it, both emotionally and dramatically, than a sop to White Guilt.

( Here's where the spoilers come in: )



Or, maybe this comic puts it more simply: Multiplex from last week.