Alex Garland's Civil War

[Hurm...]

So context Helen Lewis is a TERF journalist and Andy Ngo is an American right wing author.

This is completely overblown. In the Special Thanks section of film credits, it's common to 'thank' people who contributed to the ideas, commented on cuts of the film or provided brief consultation on your project. This film is literally about far right and left philosophies in America -- you should be reaching out to people you disagree with in order to paint an accurate, authentic image of a particular world. The "special thanks" is not an earnest, "wow, thank you for this!" -- it's just terminology used for a fairly inconsequential, likely unpaid contribution on a movie.

Now, if they were involved in something unrelated to political subject matter (like a Disney animated movie), then yes, I would understand the concern. But for this particular film, it makes sense to hear straight from the horse's mouth. That's what a good artist would do anyway.

Also, apparently the Andy Ngo footage used appears for a couple of seconds.

I feel like the discourse around this movie is kind of proving why this movie should exist.

 

[Kane52630]

 

[antsman41]

There's countless of other non-nazi/terf affiliated journalists and photographers from the past ten years of riots and upheaval across this country to use.

It's easy as that.

Hell, I have 3-5 friends just in Minneapolis that have thousands of photos and hours of footage just from Summer 2020 // George Floyd.

 

[Stringer]

Haven't seen it yet but watching the DT review (positive overall), confirmed my potential issue with Garland trying to remain so objective on the themes and characters it could neuter the whole premise. I'll see for myself of course, but that seems like an error on his part.

 

[Lily Adler]

My main complaint is his dismissiveness of how journalism works in the US. It's mostly bought by corporations that push their interests rather than the truth or objective facts. Fox News and MSNBC are just arms for their respective parties and push their narratives for them.

 

[Sithborg]

My main complaint is his dismissiveness of how journalism works in the US. It's mostly bought by corporations that push their interests rather than the truth or objective facts. Fox News and MSNBC are just arms for their respective parties and push their narratives for them.

Considering who NBC tried to hire, I do find calling NBC/MSNBC anything close to Fox News hilarious.

 

[Lily Adler]

Considering who NBC tried to hire, I do find calling NBC/MSNBC anything close to Fox News hilarious.

I don't know pushing the following Trump to shift the Overton Window by hiring Bush Republicans because Orange Man Bad isn't helping anything.

 

[Sithborg]

I don't know pushing the following Trump to shift the Overton Window by hiring Bush Republicans because Orange Man Bad isn't helping anything.

They hired (and then fired because of backlash within the company) the woman who legally changed her name because of Trump's feud with her uncle. She ain't no Bush Republican.

 

[blueharvest]

 

[Deck Rickard]

They hired (and then fired because of backlash within the company) the woman who legally changed her name because of Trump's feud with her uncle. She ain't no Bush Republican.

Yeah and she also helped in his attempt to overturn the election. She’s not just a republican; she’s a damned criminal who should be brought up on charges. But of course, Garland looks the other way like he did with Gaetz, Pipebomber Greene, Scott Perry, etc.

 

[Kane52630]

 

[Lasirius]

This is quite insane on IMAX. A tough film to watch but might be Garland's greatest.

 

[Kane52630]

 

[Lily Adler]

They hired (and then fired because of backlash within the company) the woman who legally changed her name because of Trump's feud with her uncle. She ain't no Bush Republican.

I wasn't specifying one host. They have been hiring talking heads and hosts like Nicole Wallace simply because their party media didn't want their opinions since they weren't pro-Trump.

 

[blueharvest]

 

[Elayis]

I'm a huge Alex Garland fan (love Annihilation, Sunshine, 28 Days Later and Ex Machina), but I haven't cared for his last couple projects and Civil War was another let down. It's not bad, but it's oddly lifeless and un-engaging. The lack of political specificity gives the audience no insight into this war, so there's nothing to latch onto or understand. What are the sides, who exactly is fighting and why? How are California and Texas even allies when broadly speaking their complete political opposites? The characters are also no developed beyond the usual tropes so there's nothing to invest in, either. Combine that with a fairly predicable series of events (I saw every major story beat coming from a mile away) and I walked away surprisingly unaffected. The violence and combat is nothing we haven't seen a million times before, even the highways full of abandoned cars have been done by Garland before.

It's not a bad movie, just a mediocre one. 6/10.

 

[Cap2024]

Unsure why people say the film was apolitical.

Spoiler

Western forces was clearly the left by means of the President being obviously Trump: disbanded fbi, claims reporters are the enemy of the people to extremes, the employees were mostly white males whereas the Western Forces were diverse. Etc. The president was clearly painted as an extremist as seen in how he treated the press. It’s really a left leaning film of Trump years taken to the max.

I can’t say it was emotionally disturbing to me though except for the white supremacist. Maybe because 2016 to 2020 and so many post apocalyptic movies (ie. The Road) have similar visuals.

 

[SwordOfMorning]

I think the movie is trying to be overly vague politically in a way that doesn't really work but yeah Offerman is obviously basically Trump which in turn obviously points the movies politics in a particular direction.

 

[Cap2024]

I'm a huge Alex Garland fan (love Annihilation, Sunshine, 28 Days Later and Ex Machina), but I haven't cared for his last couple projects and Civil War was another let down. It's not bad, but it's oddly lifeless and un-engaging. The lack of political specificity gives the audience no insight into this war, so there's nothing to latch onto or understand. What are the sides, who exactly is fighting and why? How are California and Texas even allies when broadly speaking their complete political opposites? The characters are also no developed beyond the usual tropes so there's nothing to invest in, either. Combine that with a fairly predicable series of events (I saw every major story beat coming from a mile away) and I walked away surprisingly unaffected. The violence and combat is nothing we haven't seen a million times before, even the highways full of abandoned cars have been done by Garland before.

It's not a bad movie, just a mediocre one. 6/10.

If I was to guess -

Spoiler

The Western Forces are the left fighting against a right wing extremist President who models himself after being an authoritarian, ie. Trump. As seen in the press being killed on sight, disbarring the FBI (a wet dream on the right), attacking any who speak out against him, as well as holding power to a third term and potentially more if he wasn’t stopped.

Why California and Texas? California is a liberal state. Texas at the time of first writing the film was likely more purple with more possibility of turning blue (there were articles on this in relatively recent history). Notice how Florida was stated as not wanting anything to do with WF; in that proposed scenario, that isn’t surprising.

I’d say less “civil war” than states trying to stop an authoritarian President. There were outliers like the White Supremacist who likely took the opportunity of the country being in chaos as a smoke screen to enact his own agenda, but he didn’t seem to be part of any faction.

Or that’s my reading - two states fighting back against an extremist President. Out of all the characters in the whole film he seemed to be framed the most as the antagonist. His death wasn’t even painted as depressing rather “finally”.

Just one of many examples of news from 2019/2020 (if I was to guess, the story was conceptualized during this time, on google the headline is ‘Is Texas Turning Blue?’). Could that realistically be the case? Probably not. Could articles like this have impacted the prepro stages of the story? Maybe.

How Texas Turned Purple

Whatever happens Tuesday, Democrats have put the Lone Star State in play.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[Lily Adler]

If I was to guess -

Spoiler

The Western Forces are the left fighting against a right wing extremist President who models himself after being an authoritarian, ie. Trump. As seen in the press being killed on sight, disbarring the FBI (a wet dream on the right), attacking any who speak out against him, as well as holding power to a third term and potentially more if he wasn’t stopped.

Why California and Texas? California is a liberal state. Texas at the time of first writing the film was likely more purple with more possibility of turning blue (there were articles on this in relatively recent history). Notice how Florida was stated as not wanting anything to do with WF; in that proposed scenario, that isn’t surprising.

I’d say less “civil war” than states trying to stop an authoritarian President. There were outliers like the White Supremacist who likely took the opportunity of the country being in chaos as a smoke screen to enact his own agenda, but he didn’t seem to be part of any faction.

Or that’s my reading - two states fighting back against an extremist President. Out of all the characters in the whole film he seemed to be framed the most as the antagonist. His death wasn’t even painted as depressing rather “finally”.

Just one of many examples of news from 2019/2020 (if I was to guess, the story was conceptualized during this time, on google the headline is ‘Is Texas Turning Blue?’). Could that realistically be the case? Probably not. Could articles like this have impacted the prepro stages of the story? Maybe.

How Texas Turned Purple

Whatever happens Tuesday, Democrats have put the Lone Star State in play.

www.theatlantic.com

I wished this was true... I mean it probably still is but Texas government are limiting voting so badly here that any change that could happen probably won't anytime soon.

 

[Primal Slayer]

Just watched it and really enjoyed it.

"youths" suck though...

Spoiler

new girl that wants to be a photographer putting herself in the line of danger causing Kirstens characters death....I knew it'd happen

 

[blueharvest]

 

[Sawyer]

I knew who wrote this the second I saw the headline.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Guy One: "We're Americans."
Guy Two: "Yeah but what kind of Americans"
*intense music*
Guy One: "Oh we're just swing voters"
Guy Two: "Bro totally! We're swing voters too. I hear this war was both sides fault and there's already a peace treaty on day one"

FIN

Credits: NO LABELS

The civil war movie we didn't know we needed.

 

[Kane52630]

Yeah despite whatever politics or no politics this had, I thought it was brilliantly well done. It felt like watching Apocalypse Now crossed with Nightcrawler with a little bit of Saving Private Ryan and The Road thrown in.


Seeing it in IMAX was unreal, the sound design was so crazy.