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Don't Look Up, currently out on Netflix, seems to owe a fair amount to Idiocracy. And/or to the ways in which American culture morphed into Idiocracy over the

Don't Look Up, currently out on Netflix, seems to owe a fair amount to Idiocracy. And/or to the ways in which American culture morphed into Idiocracy over the last several years.

dragonsky67 5y ago
I Hated this movie. The level of discomfort it engendered was off the scale. The depiction of the political and media is so close to reality that I ended up fast forwarding through it and at this point have paused watching as continuing is just too uncomfortable. So from that point of view, and at least for me I would say that the movie is a success, job done. Unfortunately I don't think I'm the person who needs to receive this message. I don't need to be told that the world is going to shit at a faster rate than ever. I don't need to be told that most (all?) media, main stream or otherwise only succeed in rating somewhere between barely acceptable and blatantly corrupt on an ethical/truthfulness scale. The only way I can continue to exist with some degree of happiness is to simply try to ignore the majority of what is going on outside my bubble. I don't think I'm alone. That said, I'm really interested how this movie has been perceived by those who think everything is wonderful. Are their world views so different that they have any ability to understand that this is not a comedy set in a different world, where politicians and media are clueless to their own ignorance and stupidity? Do they understand that this movie is holding a big bloody mirror up to the Western world and giving a giant wake up call. Unfortunately given how a lot of people seem to have reacted to the last couple of years, I have to think that they would just look at themselves in the mirror, adjust the makeup and wonder how those stupid scientists can not understand that they are messing with the latest media fed delusion. Now I'm going to close my door again and pretend that the world really is wonderful. Have a nice day.
alphabettsy 5y ago
Yea, but while accurate it was terrible. Idiocracy is funny, Don’t Look Up was not to me.
- lghh 5y ago
  It felt so grounded in reality that it took very little creativity to write or think about. Making 1-to-1 comparisons of things and people isn't very interesting. Such thin layers of abstraction don't add much value in media just as they don't in software development. It's basically just cut-and-paste.
- k__ 5y ago
  It hit too close to home.
- elevatortrim 5y ago
  I do not think the point of this thread is to discuss our personal liking of these movies but just to add another data point to yours, as much as I agree with the message of Idiocracy and found it merely funny, Don't Look Up was a really good movie for me.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  Idiocracy was satirical comedy, Don't Look Up is just satire.
  - fortyseven 5y ago
    DLU didn't know WHAT it wanted to be, so it tried to be both a comedy AND drama. Sucked at both, imo. Great cast. Lousy execution. Can't for the life of me figure out the appeal. I mean, sure, people are morons, but everyone everywhere had to be CARTOONISHLY stupid and incompetent in the flick to make the plot work. That worked for Idiocracy because that was the projected future. A warning. DLU needs that level of dumb TODAY. And yes, I lived the last 5 years, and I'm deeply cynical of humanity... but even I thought it was all a bit too much.
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      It’s interesting that you call the characters cartoonishly stupid, but another poster in this thread characterized the film as “so grounded in reality that it took very little creativity to write or think about. Making 1-to-1 comparisons of things and people”. I have not seen the film yet, so I’m a little curious how opinions could differ so widely. Can you give an example of something from the film you thought was so cartoonishly stupid?
hereforphone 5y ago
"Boy, society sure has devolved into Idiocracy-world during the last couple of years" has been the claim since just after the movie came out.
cxr 5y ago
The thing that bothers me about most contemporary praise for Idiocracy is the failure to view it through the appropriate historical lens, and so most of the praise ends up being shallow in the retconned context. Idiocracy was created in a specific time period—the same one that American Dad! was born in. (NB: "born" being the crucial word in the previous sentence.) It's possible in 2021—or 2011, even—to have watched and enjoyed both for the first time and still not understand why either were created. I'm seeing more references to Idiocracy now on social media because of Don't Look Up's recent release (compared to, say, how frequently Idiocracy was mentioned last month). There's a lot of problems with Don't Look Up that make for it not being an example of greatness or even very-goodness, but one thing in particular in comparison to Idiocracy are the movies' protagonists. In Idiocracy, Not Sure is a pretty average guy—maybe even a little dumb. This is what the writers of Don't Look Up missed out on. Idiocracy is smart people writing about about a dumb-to-average "hero" because the egos of those involved (the creators and their audience) don't require him to be bigger than they are. In contrast, Don't Look Up is a movie written by people who are as smart as Not Sure is dumb, trying to write for characters who are supposed to be smarter than the writers themselves and the people who are supposed to enjoy the movie the most. Some reviews called Don't Look Up smug and sanctimonious—and they're right. With Idiocracy and Don't Look Up, the humility and lack thereof, respectively, when comparing the two accounts for a lot of why Don't Look Up is worse than it should be. (Given what Don't Look Up tries to do, it should do it better than Talladega Nights does, for example, but it doesn't.) Also accounting for a lot of what made Don't Look Up a not so great way of cribbing from Idiocracy is that Idiocracy was taking aim at the zeitgeist, whereas Don't Look Up is a very safe movie to make.
- chrsig 5y ago
  I mean...I can see why it'd be called smug...but to be honest, I don't think it was targeted to people that would be bothered by the smugness. That is, it seemed like it was genuinely an expression of frustration/dismay/astonishment by it's creators to give it's audience a bit of...not quite catharsis...solidarity perhaps?
  - cxr 5y ago
    Well, yeah. And that's exactly what's wrong with it. That's _all_ it is. As a result, the sense of smugness is undeserved. It's a way for everyone who sits in the second panel of the glowing brain meme to shit on people in the first panel and feel good about it, instead of focusing on the fact they're still in #2. It's an out-and-out display of the word "sophomoric".

Don't Look Up, currently out on Netflix, seems to owe a fair amount to Idiocracy. And/or to the ways in which American culture morphed into Idiocracy over the last several years.

dragonsky67 5y ago

I Hated this movie. The level of discomfort it engendered was off the scale. The depiction of the political and media is so close to reality that I ended up fast forwarding through it and at this point have paused watching as continuing is just too uncomfortable. So from that point of view, and at least for me I would say that the movie is a success, job done. Unfortunately I don't think I'm the person who needs to receive this message. I don't need to be told that the world is going to shit at a faster rate than ever. I don't need to be told that most (all?) media, main stream or otherwise only succeed in rating somewhere between barely acceptable and blatantly corrupt on an ethical/truthfulness scale. The only way I can continue to exist with some degree of happiness is to simply try to ignore the majority of what is going on outside my bubble. I don't think I'm alone. That said, I'm really interested how this movie has been perceived by those who think everything is wonderful. Are their world views so different that they have any ability to understand that this is not a comedy set in a different world, where politicians and media are clueless to their own ignorance and stupidity? Do they understand that this movie is holding a big bloody mirror up to the Western world and giving a giant wake up call. Unfortunately given how a lot of people seem to have reacted to the last couple of years, I have to think that they would just look at themselves in the mirror, adjust the makeup and wonder how those stupid scientists can not understand that they are messing with the latest media fed delusion. Now I'm going to close my door again and pretend that the world really is wonderful. Have a nice day.

alphabettsy 5y ago

Yea, but while accurate it was terrible. Idiocracy is funny, Don’t Look Up was not to me.

lghh 5y ago
It felt so grounded in reality that it took very little creativity to write or think about. Making 1-to-1 comparisons of things and people isn't very interesting. Such thin layers of abstraction don't add much value in media just as they don't in software development. It's basically just cut-and-paste.
k__ 5y ago
It hit too close to home.
elevatortrim 5y ago
I do not think the point of this thread is to discuss our personal liking of these movies but just to add another data point to yours, as much as I agree with the message of Idiocracy and found it merely funny, Don't Look Up was a really good movie for me.
micromacrofoot 5y ago
Idiocracy was satirical comedy, Don't Look Up is just satire.
- fortyseven 5y ago
  DLU didn't know WHAT it wanted to be, so it tried to be both a comedy AND drama. Sucked at both, imo. Great cast. Lousy execution. Can't for the life of me figure out the appeal. I mean, sure, people are morons, but everyone everywhere had to be CARTOONISHLY stupid and incompetent in the flick to make the plot work. That worked for Idiocracy because that was the projected future. A warning. DLU needs that level of dumb TODAY. And yes, I lived the last 5 years, and I'm deeply cynical of humanity... but even I thought it was all a bit too much.
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    It’s interesting that you call the characters cartoonishly stupid, but another poster in this thread characterized the film as “so grounded in reality that it took very little creativity to write or think about. Making 1-to-1 comparisons of things and people”. I have not seen the film yet, so I’m a little curious how opinions could differ so widely. Can you give an example of something from the film you thought was so cartoonishly stupid?

hereforphone 5y ago

"Boy, society sure has devolved into Idiocracy-world during the last couple of years" has been the claim since just after the movie came out.

cxr 5y ago

The thing that bothers me about most contemporary praise for Idiocracy is the failure to view it through the appropriate historical lens, and so most of the praise ends up being shallow in the retconned context. Idiocracy was created in a specific time period—the same one that American Dad! was born in. (NB: "born" being the crucial word in the previous sentence.) It's possible in 2021—or 2011, even—to have watched and enjoyed both for the first time and still not understand why either were created. I'm seeing more references to Idiocracy now on social media because of Don't Look Up's recent release (compared to, say, how frequently Idiocracy was mentioned last month). There's a lot of problems with Don't Look Up that make for it not being an example of greatness or even very-goodness, but one thing in particular in comparison to Idiocracy are the movies' protagonists. In Idiocracy, Not Sure is a pretty average guy—maybe even a little dumb. This is what the writers of Don't Look Up missed out on. Idiocracy is smart people writing about about a dumb-to-average "hero" because the egos of those involved (the creators and their audience) don't require him to be bigger than they are. In contrast, Don't Look Up is a movie written by people who are as smart as Not Sure is dumb, trying to write for characters who are supposed to be smarter than the writers themselves and the people who are supposed to enjoy the movie the most. Some reviews called Don't Look Up smug and sanctimonious—and they're right. With Idiocracy and Don't Look Up, the humility and lack thereof, respectively, when comparing the two accounts for a lot of why Don't Look Up is worse than it should be. (Given what Don't Look Up tries to do, it should do it better than Talladega Nights does, for example, but it doesn't.) Also accounting for a lot of what made Don't Look Up a not so great way of cribbing from Idiocracy is that Idiocracy was taking aim at the zeitgeist, whereas Don't Look Up is a very safe movie to make.

chrsig 5y ago
I mean...I can see why it'd be called smug...but to be honest, I don't think it was targeted to people that would be bothered by the smugness. That is, it seemed like it was genuinely an expression of frustration/dismay/astonishment by it's creators to give it's audience a bit of...not quite catharsis...solidarity perhaps?
- cxr 5y ago
  Well, yeah. And that's exactly what's wrong with it. That's _all_ it is. As a result, the sense of smugness is undeserved. It's a way for everyone who sits in the second panel of the glowing brain meme to shit on people in the first panel and feel good about it, instead of focusing on the fact they're still in #2. It's an out-and-out display of the word "sophomoric".