About that "Civil War" Trailer 🇺🇸
I just watched a trailer for an upcoming movie called Civil War. This popped up in my recommended feed, and I saw the title, and I decided to give it a watch, and I'll definitely say that I was intrigued by what I saw. Basically, Civil War is a science fiction movie that tells the story of a hypothetical civil war in the United States 🇺🇸. Like, this is the Second American Civil War 🇺🇸, and it's a fight between the US government 🇺🇸 and a bunch of states that seceded that they refer to in the trailer as the "Western States," and one of those states just happens to be Texas. Gee, I wonder why.
From what it seems like from the trailer, the movie is primarily going to be from the perspective of a journalist or a photographer who's documenting the war played by Kristen Dunst, the same actress who played Mary Jane in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, and Marie Antoinette in that Marie Antoinette movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola's daughter, Sophia Coppola. Nick Offerman is playing the President of the United States 🇺🇸, which sort of makes me think that he's playing a Republican president because when Nick Offerman plays politician type characters in movies, or TV shows, or comedy skits, usually it's a right-wing politician. I mean, he has the look and the voice for it.
That sort of brings me to potentially incendiary politics of this movie. Given the subject matter, and given that the movie is coming out next year, in 2024, which is an election year in the US 🇺🇸, I can see this movie potentially stirring up controversy, and being very divisive. I already know what the Right's reaction to this movie will probably be. They're going to say that it's an "SJW movie," and that the filmmakers have "Trump Derangement Syndrome," and that they only made this movie to swing the election in Joe Biden's favor or some stupid shit like that.
Oh, and expect a lot of "Orange Man Bad" jokes from those same right-wing chuckleheads too, they love to do that. The Right sure likes to beat dead memes to death. Like, the NPC meme was never all that funny, and it was just excuse for right-wingers to deflect criticism, and label anyone who doesn't like them an NPC because they think the world's literally like a video game. It dehumanizes people, and dismisses legitimate criticism. I mean, they used to refer to anyone who didn't buy into brand of reactionary politics as "normies," or "soyboy cucks" or "blue-haired feminazis," but they then chose NPC as a catch all term for all those people. And they just keep on using it as if it's still funny even in 2023 or 2024, when that meme stopped being relevant or funny about 4 years ago. I mean, this is a pre-pandemic 🦠😷 meme that we're talking about here.
I know this will be the reaction because this was the same reaction they had when that movie, The Hunt came out, and it was revealed that it wad about conservatives being hunted by liberals or liberals being conservatives one of those two. I don't know which was which because I didn't see that movie. And I know for sure that plenty of people hated The Purge: Election Year, because it did have a sort of left-leaning message, and it was released during an election year just like this movie will be. They hate it when their side is in any way criticized or mocked in a motion picture, and yet, they're perfectly fine with doing the same thing with liberals and progressives in their own movies.
And this movie will probably be more controversial because the director, Alex Garland, said that he was inspired to make this movie by seeing the polarized nature of American politics 🇺🇸, and he said that the movie itself is meant to be an allegory for the political polarization going on in America 🇺🇸. Indeed, this movie seems like it will be a cautionary tale for what happens when we let our politics become too polarized, and our country becomes too divided along political and partisan lines, and what happens when we entrust our country to an autocrat, or a wannabe autocrat. A message that is very relevant today, and will become even more relevant next year when this movie comes out. And not just in the United States 🇺🇸 either, but in many other countries where democracy is or was being threatened from within by wannabe autocrats, such as India 🇮🇳, Israel 🇮🇱, Argentina 🇦🇷, Hungary 🇭🇺, Brazil 🇧🇷, Pakistan 🇵🇰, Peru 🇵🇪, Turkey 🇹🇷, France 🇫🇷, Italy 🇮🇹, and the Philippines 🇵🇭, just to name a few.
Judging by the trailer, it seems like the government is on the enemy side, and the Western states are the "good side," rebelling against a totalitarian government. You'd think conservatives would love that sort of thing given how much they justify their love of guns and their opposition to gun control on the idea of government tyranny. But, because it'll probably be a right-wing government, they'll all probably hate it, and insist that it's only the Left that's capable of being authoritarian. You know, "We're freedom loving patriots. We're not fascists. We'd never stoop to that level, and embrace autocracy." Of course, when I say that I don't necessarily mean all conservatives or all Republicans.
There are indeed plenty of Republicans out there who are sane, and are against their party's embrace of authoritarianism, and their cult-like worship over Donald Trump, a man who has said in an interview that he wants to be a dictator when he gets back into office, but only "for one day." Yeah, sure, Donald, we totally trust you to keep that promise 🙄. Most of the Republicans who will probably oppose this movie, and many hundreds or thousands of videos criticizing it are the MAGA Republicans, the actual die hard Trump supporters, or Trump cultists as we should more accurately call them.
But, even so, the Republicans and conservatives who dislike Trump, and don't like what the GOP has become ever since he was president, aren't very outspoken about it. Most of them stay quiet, and by the time they do voice their concerns about a second Trump term, and do criticize Trump, and the section of the party still supports him, it's usually too little too late. Like, you all should have been saying these things 6 years ago, when it actually mattered. And even then, some of them still just support Trump anyway, because they have this mentality of "party loyalty comes first before country," even when the party is being led and shaped by a man who wants to turn the country into a dictatorship.
But, political backlash, political messaging, and culture war bullshit aside, this movie does look pretty cool. I mean, the idea of another civil war breaking out in the United States 🇺🇸 in the modern day is a pretty cool and terrifying concept. You know, we Americans 🇺🇸 tend to think that the sorts of political turmoil and internal conflicts that happen in other countries around the world can't really happen here. And if it does, it won't be all severe because our country is just different from all the rest.
Indeed, a lot of people are very dismissive of the idea that the US 🇺🇸 could ever fall to a dictatorship, like they still believe that sort of thing is impossible in the US 🇺🇸, and it can never happen here. Even as the presumptive frontrunner of the Republican Party and his allies within the party have all said that he plans on becoming a dictator, and exacting vengeance against his political opponents. You know, the kind of shit that Vladimir Putin does. Like, there's still a lot of denial that the US 🇺🇸 is at risk of an authoritarian takeover, even though the threat is staring us right in the face. They just rather hope, and think he's just "joking."
So, a movie that explores the idea of another civil war breaking out in the modern day, or the near future as the filmmakers have said, is a great way of showing that no, the US 🇺🇸 is not immune from the sort of political turmoil and internal conflict that plagues other countries, and this sort of thing can happen, and it will happen if we let it happen. Same thing with a dictatorship, the US 🇺🇸 is not immune from falling to a dictator, and it can happen here, and it will happen if we let it happen. And I think, going by the trailer, the movie will explore both concepts, the US 🇺🇸 being taken over by a dictator, and a civil war breaking out in response to that dictatorship.
And this isn't going to be like some low budget movie either. This seems like this is going to be a pretty big movie with a huge budget, and is going to be a fully mainstream movie released in theaters. I mean, it's going to be released in IMAX, if that doesn't scream "event movie," then I don't know what does. I looked on Wikipedia, and it said that the movie is $75 million 💵, which isn't the biggest budget in the world for a movie like this, like it isn't $100 million 💵, $200 million 💵, or even $300 million 💵.
But, $75 million 💵 is still a pretty big budget, it's still a lot of money 💵, especially for an A24 movie. I mean, that's way more money 💵 than what Everything Everywhere All at Once cost. Yes, this is indeed an A24 movie. I'm guessing this movie is apart of A24's new strategy of releasing more mainstream or commercial type movies, movies that are meant to be blockbusters, and that the studio is confident will be sure fire hits.
The very same strategy that all these cinephiles and film essayists ranted and complained about when this announcement was made. The latest one I saw was from Captain Midnight, a YouTuber who does a lot of entertainment news analysis, and a lot of entertainment criticism. He spent a good chunk of his video complaining about how people treat A24 as if it's the arthouse equivalent of Marvel Studios, and people talk about it as if A24 the company itself is the main creative force behind these movies, when all they are is a distribution and production company no different from any other studio or film company out there.
He complained about that, only to then do the same thing by saying that the idea of A24 making mid budget action movies is a weird turn, but a welcome one, and how A24 making IP movies is "regrettable." You just completely contradicted yourself, and said that A24 is making the movies, not the filmmakers themselves.
I don't know, I find myself disagreeing with Captain Midnight most of the time on his videos, like his takes are pretty bad a lot of the times. Not as bad as some of the worst YouTube film essayists, but still pretty bad. I don't know why I even still watch him. I guess I still have a fleeting hope that he'll make a video where he makes a good point, and where I actually agree with the majority of what he says. He has a made a few of those in the past after all.
So, it seems like this movie will be one of A24's first of many attempts at doing a more mainstream or commercial movie, and I personally don't care. As long as the movie's good, I don't care how mainstream or commercial it is. For me, it's not the end of the world that A24 is going in this direction like a lot of other film enthusiasts are treating it as. More important than the company distributing and producing the movie is the guy directing it, the main creative force behind it: Alex Garland.
Garland is a guy that's made a lot of movies that people have liked. He's directed movies like Ex Machina, Annihilation, and Men, and he's written movies that people have liked as well such as 28 Days Later and Sunshine ☀️. So, he's a pretty respected filmmaker who's done a lot of work that most consider to be well done 👍. So, I'm confident that the movie will at the very least be decent. I have no reason to believe that this movie will be a complete train wreck or anything like that. Even if it will probably get a lot of hate from a lot of right-wing morons out there 🙄.
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Here's the trailer:
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Update (Friday December 15, 2023):
Yep, I was right.
So, these guys are all pretty racist, sexist, and homophobic, among other things. They just hide it by saying things like, "I'm not against female leads, I just want them done in this super specific way," or "I'm not against diversity. I just want it done in this super specific way that I only I deem is right. But, also I still wish that the lead was a white male ♂︎, and these movies would stop hating men ♂︎." But, when another movie comes along that does diversity in a more subtle way that isn't in your face, or it has a female protagonist ♀︎ that isn't perfect, and is flawed, and is like a real person, they still complain about it and still call it "woke."
They just say those things to make themselves sound more reasonable and more moderate to outsiders than they actually are, to hide their true bigoted nature. For people like Nerdrotic, hating on Disney Star Wars and Marvel for being "woke" is just a gateway to right-wing politics. It's only a way for them to use to try to get unsuspecting people to adopt right-wing politics, and become racist, homophobic, transphobic misogynists themselves. They'll swear up and down that they're not conservative or they're not right-wing, even though all they do is spew right-wing talking points. That's how they get so many moderates and more centrist type people. And they'll just keep repeating these same talking points until eventually, they've fully radicalized you.
I mean, at a certain, they stop trying to hide it, and just talk about politics straight up. They no longer hide it behind pop culture discussions, they're just straight up telling you to support Donald Trump, and vote Republican, as well as talking to more and more crazy fringe type characters. I'm talking Alt-Righters, Neo-Nazis, fascists, Neo-Confederates, white supremacists and white nationalists, KKK members, KKK supporters, Men's Rights Activists, Pickup Artists, MGTOWs, antisemites, and even Taliban supporters. A lot of these guys simped for the Taliban when they took over Afghanistan 🇦🇫 in 2021. All of the worst kind of people with the worst beliefs. They also start trying to push conspiracy theories onto their audiences, and actually manage to convince a lot of them into believing in them. Think Alex Jones or QAnon type stuff. It's very insidious what these guys do. They pretend to be film buffs or gamers, they pretend to be fans of these IPs, but really, they're just low-rent political commentators who are trying to get you, the Internet nerd into movies and games, to believe in their reactionary brand of politics.
Nerdrotic isn't even the worst offender when it comes to this. There's another YouTube channel called Geeks+Gamers, which does a lot of the same type of content as Nerdrotic, only they're a lot bigger, they're a lot more popular, and are much more well-known. I mean, these guys did an interview with Zack Snyder, that's how big they are. Only for them to start hating on Snyder after he called them out on their racism and sexism during said interview. Nerdrotic only became popular, and only grew a following on YouTube by riding the coattails of Geeks+Gamers. They even did an interview with Alex Jones one time, I remember that. They even pushed QAnon bullshit in their videos as well, especially when the 2020 presidential election was ramping up. That's how unhinged these guys are. They really showed their true colors with that one.
Another thing that sets Geeks+Gamers from all the second-rate YouTubers trying to copy them is that they have a secondary channel that's exclusively about politics. No pop culture, no culture war nonsense, just politics. They don't hide it. In that way, I do sort of respect Geeks+Gamers a bit more than hacks like Nerdrotic, but only by a slim margin. To be perfectly clear, I think Geeks+Gamers and other right-wing anti-SJW pop culture YouTube channels are pure trash with nothing of value to say.
But anyway, I am not surprised at all that Nerdrotic decided to put a video complaining about the trailer for Civil War. I knew that this would be the Right's reaction to seeing this trailer, and I know that they'll probably make a thousand videos saying that this movie sucks before the damn thing even comes out. And when it does come out, they'll just shit on it, and say it's the worst movie ever, and that it's woke, Leftist propaganda that was only made to boost the Democrats, or "Demonrats" as these loonies call them, in the polls and help them win the election against Trump.
I mean, I want the Democrats to beat the Republicans, and I want Trump to lose the election as much as the next guy, but I doubt this specific movie will move the needle one way or other. I doubt Garland even made this movie to influence the election. I think he just made this movie as an exercise in hypotheticals. The idea of another civil war happening in America 🇺🇸 is a fascinating one. And also be an allegory for political polarization in the US 🇺🇸, and be a cautionary tale of what can happen if we let it get out of hand. Political polarization is a real issue, and it does have the potential to rip our country apart in violent ways if we aren't careful. It just so happened that the movie is going to be released in 2024. If this movie had been made in 2021 or 2022, you'd still hear a lot of the same complaints from these assholes, especially if it were released in 2022 since that was also an election year. A mid-term election year, but still an election year.
It is pretty sad, and pathetic how predictable these guys are. There's nothing unique or shocking about anti-SJWism anymore, and there's no more hiding what it actually is: right-wing reactionary rants. January 6 did a lot of bad things, and was overall not good for this country, what happened that day was not good for this country and the unity of these country. But, one good thing that the January 6 Insurrection did do was expose these kinds of people, and show what they really are. People like Nerdrotic can't pretend to be liberals or progressives anymore, or hide behind more palatable labels like "libertarian" or "classical liberal." These guys are right-wing conservatives, and they are no different from other right-wing conservatives of the past for complained about pop culture. Except maybe they're slightly more radical than conservatives of the past.
Some of them aren't even what you could call conservative, they're just straight up fascists or white supremacists. They always talk about tradition, and how our society vilifies men ♂︎ and masculinity, and props up women ♀︎ and props up minorities at the expense of white people. And they always talk about how they want to return to a time when men ♂︎, or more specifically, straight white men ♂︎, were dominant, women ♀︎ were more subservient and submissive and knew their place, and where they didn't have to think about other races, like black people or Asian people or Hispanic people, and just continue to live in their own little bubble where only white people exist, and they can just pretend that America 🇺🇸 is a "white country."
And also a Christian nation ✝️ because a lot of these people are closet Evangelical Christians ✝️, who have fully embraced the toxic ideology and movement known as Christian Nationalism ✝️. A lot of them pretend to not be Christians ✝️, and they'll say they're atheists, or they're agnostics, but a lot of the time they just spew Evangelical Christian ✝️ talking points, and label anything they don't like as "Satanic." Even if they were actual atheists at one point, the overwhelming influence of right-wing conservatism has overtaken them, and they just end up converting to Christianity ✝️, and just taking up the cause of Christian Nationalism ✝️. A movement and an ideology that believes that the United States 🇺🇸 is fundamentally a "Christian nation ✝️" that was created by God himself, and therefore, the US 🇺🇸 should become a Christian theocracy ✝️, where the Bible replaces the Constitution as main authority or law of the land, and all other religions are banned. These people are nuts.
I haven't watched channels like Geeks+Gamers, Nerdrotic, Comic Book Pro Secrets, Clownfish TV, and Yellow Flash, in a long time, not since 2021 really. But, I'm still shocked at how insane these guys have become. They just lash out at any new movie or video game that has the slightest hint of liberalism or progressivism. Like, if it has a woman ♀︎ in the lead role who's a little bit more outspoken or snarky than women ♀︎ in past movies that they claim to like, or if it has a diverse cast with very few white people, or if it has gay people 🏳️🌈 in it, even just one, they lose their fucking minds. But, the reality is that these guys really haven't changed at all. They were always like this. I, and many others like me, just failed to see it, until January 6 opened our eyes to the truth of how vile these people are, and how vile they've always been.)
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