Movie Review: Oblivion

[SPOILER ALERT!]

Seriously, if you don’t want me to ruin Oblivion for you, don’t read the rest of this post. Or do. Whatever. Have it your way. Jack Harper would be proud of you.

It’s good to be writing here again after eons of neglect. I probably could’ve picked a better time to do this than exam period, but then I figured that, seeing as they both involve writing, composing a blog post and revision is effectively the same thing. Conscience cleared.

I was initially quite sceptical about Oblivion. I don’t hold Tom Cruise’s acting ability (or life choices) in the highest regard, but the whole sci-fi theme managed to hook me. After getting through the first 10 minutes of the film, characterised primarily by a robotic performance from Mr. Cruise, his acting began to shape up, along with the rest of the movie. I left the cinema quite impressed with the film.

Seriously. Just look at that cape.

And it wasn’t just Morgan Freeman’s badass cape which impressed me; the film was actually able to dish out a little food for thought.

Spoilers ahead! Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Director Joseph Kosinski kicks off the movie with a dream sequence in which Jack Harper (Cruise) struggles to remember his past in a manner not unlike your average tequila enthusiast. When Harper wakes up, we are introduced to his partner Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) and their swanky pad, which I can only describe as Apple’s latest product, the iHouse. Between all this, Harper conveniently fills us in on the backstory.

The Earth has been ruined as the result of a nuclear war between humanity and an alien race known as the ‘Scavengers’, who apparently thought the best way of say “Greetings!” was to blow up the moon (not kidding). In somewhat blazing efficiency, the remnants of the human population were relocated to Titan, one of Saturn’s moons. To ensure the survival of the species, we began sucking up the Earth’s oceans with rigs which and used the water to fuel fusion reactors to provide us with energy (because everybody hates it when a little nuclear war knocks out the WiFi). Harper and Victoria remained on Earth as a glorified maintenance crew for the rigs; their efforts co-ordinated by a shiny space station known as the ‘Tet’. But wait! To make sure they didn’t leak any information to the Scavengers who survived on Earth, both Harper and Victoria had their entire memory prior to their mission erased.

Super-fun twist time!

Harper discovers that the Scavengers who roam the Earth are, in fact, the planet’s human survivors! Humanity never waged a war against hordes of alien invaders. Humanity actually got its ass handed to it by the Tet, which is revealed to possess AI (Skynet anyone?). Harper and Victoria’s retirement plan on Titan is but one of the space station’s many deceptions. Another big one is that the pair are in fact clones of human astronauts abducted by the Tet and brainwashed into turning the spanners on its rigs, which are actually sucking up seawater for its own energy purposes.

Don’t worry if the idea that the near-destruction of the human race was caused by an unmanned space station left your head spinning slightly. There’s more to the story than that, but I’ll leave it for now.

Apparently the rigs were designed by Apple too.

One part of the plot which I thought was actually quite well done was the role of the Titan survivor colony. Initially, Harper’s maintenance of the rigs stems from the idea that they are being used to power humanity’s efforts, which he will eventually be able to enjoy when he retires to Titan. I thought this bore a neat resemblance to the way actually manage/mindlessly consume our resources in the present, as if we too have a nice moon we can all retire to when things run out on Earth. Of course, Harper realises he was wasting his time when he discovers that Titan was just one of the Tet’s big fat lies. Unfortunately for us, we won’t have a shiny orbital scapegoat to pin things on after we’ve consumed every last resource on the planet. Once we’re out, we’re out. No Titan to save the day.

Another part of the film which I thought was quite interesting was the characters of Harper and Victoria. To me, they seemed to represent two opposing forces in our minds. Harper’s the force that questions things, and ultimately unravels the truth about that big ol’ phony space station. On the other hand, Victoria’s the force that happily obeys orders and tells Harper to stop dicking about before he ruins their vacation to Camp Titan. Even though Harper’s the hero of the story, it made me wonder how often one force ‘wins’ over the other, and which one usually does the winning.

All in all, not a bad run from Oblivion in the philosophy race. You could say I read a little too much into the movie, and you’re probably right. What can I say? As a history student, reading a little too much into things is kind of my specialty.   

Kony 2012 vs. Invisible Children

I’ll be frank, whatever the Invisible Children filmmakers did, it worked. I cried watching the Kony 2012 documentary, and, in a surge of emotion, carefully typed in my credit card number and ordered a Kony 2012 Action Pack.

Only afterwards did I decide to actually do some research on the topic, and what I discovered made me want to kick myself. For example, a short blog post written by Grant Oyston, a sociology and political science student at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada, expresses accusations of less-than savoury financial activity by the Invisible Children organization. You’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who’s squeaky-clean these days, but the possibility remains that the accusations are true and I was furious with myself for allowing their video to manipulate me in the way it did.

Oyston also describes Invisible Children’s strong support for the Ugandan Army and military action in general, citing a photo of the organization’s founders posing with Ugandan troops and weapons. While I think the photo itself is pretty pathetic and reminiscent of the behaviour of some of Facebook’s most braindead male users, I am not unsupportive of Invisible Children’s advocacy of military intervention, foreign or domestic. Joseph Kony has repeatedly failed to respond to diplomacy, leaving those affected by his atrocities, as well as the international community, with few remaining options.

I would like to return to Invisible Children’s financial misdemeanours, since they almost led to me booting myself in the skull. However, as I put on my heaviest shoe and prepared to perform a feat of gymnastics worthy of an Olympic athlete (or a Jackass member), I realized something: people and ideas are discrete categories. We are not prohibited, by any law whatsoever, from separating a noble idea (such as the Kony 2012 campaign) from its questionable origin (the Invisible Children organization). As such, it is entirely possible (and in my view, advisable) to support the Kony 2012 without supporting Invisible Children.

Oyston himself advocates something similar in his own blog post, urging us to “keep it about Joseph Kony, not KONY 2012.” I take his point, not least because of the strong manner in which Invisible Children associates itself with its own campaign. After all, how can we stick up posters which boldly proclaim “KONY 2012” and yet have “Invisible Children” strategically written below?

Nonetheless, I think it is entirely possible, and once again, advisable, to create some distance between Kony 2012 and Invisible Children. The Kony 2012 campaign has already gained so much momentum, it would be a waste of energy and an insult to all the noble-hearted individuals who helped drive it if we dismissed it altogether. But from this point onwards, let the Kony 2012 campaigners (myself included) explicitly state their disassociation from Invisible Children. Let us point to Invisible Children’s financial activities and state our disapproval. Rather than merely prompting defensive comments from Invisible Children, a large-scale disapproval from Kony 2012 supporters will urge the founders of the organization to clean up their act. We will be able to swiftly execute the internal reform needed to re-align the people with the idea, thereby emboldening both.

Whether you choose to buy Kony 2012 merchandise from Invisible Children is your call. If you are not comfortable doing it, don’t do it. Don’t let the absence of merchandise be a barrier between you and Kony 2012. The T-shirts are a bit overpriced anyway.

The link to Oyston’s blog is here: http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/

Resources and Space

Wandering around a shopping mall today got me thinking about the rate at which we humans consume the earth's resources. Even if we master the art of recycling and somehow manage to replace the earth's resources at the same rate that we consume them, our growing population will immediately upset that balance.

Even the very space we inhabit is limited, and if we choose to preserve some of the earth's natural areas (an endeavour I wholeheartedly support) we may soon find ourselves literally running out of room to live.

Short of culling the human population, our only recourse is to expand to new areas in which we can continue our growth. Below are some potential candidates, each more ridiculous than the last:

1. Tunnelling underground: The most reasonable solution. It is however only temporary, as the area beneath the earth's crust can only accomodate limited growth in a stable manner. We would soon find ourselves back where we started. Furthermore, this solution would not provide us with enough resources to continue our growth.

2. Underwater cities: Much like with the first option, this solution can only ever be temporary, since the earth's oceans can also only accomodate limited growth. This solution becomes even more impractical when we consider that the oceans also provide us with a tremendous proportion of the resources needed to sustain the human global population, and as such, building within them would limit their ability to replenish their resources. In addition, we should also be trying to preserve the oceans, rather than exploit them further.

3. Occupation of other planets: We have yet to discover a planet capable of sustaining human life, and yet this seems like the most reasonable option in the long run.

Discussing this issue does seem a little ridiculous at the moment. After all, our situation has not deteriorated to the point where humans need to explore the aforementioned options. However, resource shortages and overcrowding are current issues, and are poised to become more serious as time passes.

The Right Way To Deal With Debt

I'll confess right now, I have an appallingly limited understanding of economics and the current global crisis, which is why I'm going to resort to oversimplifications and generalizations in this post. You have been warned!

It seems to me that both left and right-wing political administrations have their own ways of dealing with a country's debt, each employing methods to directly and indirectly reduce debt levels.

Left: Tax increases (to directly pay back and reduce debt) and increased government spending (to stimulate economic growth and indirectly reduce debt).

Right: Tax cuts (to stimulate spending and economic growth and, as such, indirectly reduce debt) and reduced government spending (to directly prevent debt from increasing).

Now, from what I understand concerning the matter, it appears that the right-wing approach is actually more effective. The reduction in services (caused by reduced government spending) is negated by a growth of similar services provided by the private sector (which can afford to do so on account of the tax cuts). While the left-wing approach creates jobs through increased government spending, the increased taxes stifle spending and growth in the private sector, ultimately crippling economic growth and preventing the government from repaying the new debt incurred from its spending.

New World Order?

The more I look at the world, the more I come to believe that there is something fundamentally flawed in our current world order. Call it capitalism, call it what you wish, a serious upheaval of the very way we think and the assumptions about the world that we take for granted, needs to take place.

And it won't require a little thinking outside of the box either. To generate an upheaval of such magnitude we will need to step so far out of the proverbial box that we will have practically left the building. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if such a revolutionary idea literally came to someone in their dreams.

Where to begin though?

What makes a Looter?

I'm sure those of you reading this post have heard about the riots taking place in London and in other cities in the UK. Supposedly, the riots have their roots in what is believed to be the wrongful shooting of Mark Duggan. The whole truth concerning this matter has yet to be revealed, but what has become evident is that the riots taking place at the moment have nothing to do with the shooting anymore. Even Duggan's friends and family have spoken out against the rioters.

Which begs the question, "Why are these riots taking place?" I'm sure there are a number of staple answers to this, such as frustration towards unemployment and the general economic situation, but when we remember that the majority of the rioters are minors, the lack of jobs doesn't seem to be the likely cause of their outbursts.

This, quite frighteningly, appears to leave sheer criminality as the most likely cause of the riots. If this is the case, it would mean that the rioters have been exposed to an appalling lack of social and family values. Some have pointed fingers at the welfare system, claiming the rioters are the children of those who abuse the system. In my view however, thing's aren't so cut and dried. Granted, children of people who live off welfare have an increased chance of following in their parents' footsteps and living off the system, but would such an environment result directly in a generation of violent criminals? It could also be said that people who abuse the welfare system make for poor parents, and as such make no attempt to prevent their children from entering a life of crime. However, once again, could simple neglect breed individuals capable of so boldly committing the crimes we have seen take place?

First Post

Hello all.

I hope this is the beginning of what will become a long and enriching journey for anyone who chooses to join me and embark upon it. All too often these days, I hear people complaining about all the misery and hardship they see and read about on the news. I like to think of myself as an optimist, but I'd be blind not to acknowledge the validity of these complaints.

However, when I watch the news, I'm not overcome by a sensation of fear or sadness. Rather, I feel curious about the causes of events, even frustrated about my powerlessness to do anything about them.

I reach out to anyone who feels the same way. Simply put, by discussing the world around us, we can expand our understanding of it and perhaps even find solutions to its problems. Is this naive of me? Maybe, but I am still confident that among our small steps we'll find a giant leap.