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Movie Review: Don't Look Up – By Scott Alexander

27 points by hirundo 5y ago

BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
> But for some reason, everyone else thinks the moral of this story is Believe Experts. Worse, I think the scriptwriter and director and people like that also thought the moral of this story was Believe Experts. I think they asked themselves “How can we create a polemical film that viscerally convinces people to Believe Experts” Maybe these people watched a very different version than I did, and maybe Scott watched a very different version than I did, but I strongly suspect that this is actually a straw man argument and the people thinking this don't exist and Scott has galloped off with his sidekick Sancho to rid the countryside of the windmill menace. The movie's moral very clearly and heavy handedly is that the government doesn't give a shit about anything but themselves, and media doesn't give a shit about anything but themselves, and rich capitalists don't give a shit about anything but themselves, and the UN isn't going to save anyone, and everyone is fucked because of it, and actually it's a gazillion times worse because actually that government is our government and that media is our media and that UN is our UN so all those people dying are _us_. The movie has nothing to do with "believe experts", and I really think one has to be very blind to think that it is, so... what's going on here?
- AA-BA-94-2A-56 5y ago
  I strongly suspect that Scott is trying to decipher a moral of the story, while missing the fact that Don’t Look Up is less of a parable and more of a tragedy. There is no moral to the story. There is nothing to take away here. The point is the Molochian systems at play are driven by maligned incentives, and therefore doomed to apocalyptic failure. You and I; we are fucked. Scott is trying to glean epistemical meaning from this work, and it’s like trying to blood-let a stone.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
typon 5y ago
This review is horribly mistaken, confused and hard to read. This person seemed like they watched the movie but missed the point entirely.
- _kulang 5y ago
  Which is shocking as the point of the movie is starkly presented. I’d rather think it’s some form of denial
hresvelgr 5y ago
This review is hot air at best. I feel the movie is pretty simple to understand. "Don't lie to yourself and devalue human connection" was the moral of the story to me. The female news host was the epitome of this lesson. A woman who was cultured and learned was consumed by a lifestyle in complete opposition to that. In the end, she more or less realises she truly has nothing of value to herself and can't decide what to do at the end of the world. Upon this, she resolves to get drunk with her co-host and bitch about other people. A sad and miserable demise.
marssaxman 5y ago
I don't agree that the movie "depicts a monstrous world where the establishment is conspiring to keep the truth from you in every possible way." Rather, it depicts a world very much like the one we live in, where the establishment is venal, short-sighted, incompetent, and almost entirely uninterested in truth. There's no conspiracy - merely an affinity for bullshit, in the Frankfurt sense.
dumpsterdiver 5y ago
A lot of the commenters on the blog focus on the inept president in the movie, or the other powers that be which ultimately contributed to the tragedy. Those blatantly outrageous characters didn't even register on my radar - they weren't believable, and I think that was the intended effect. The true tragedy in my mind was the way that the general population reacted. That was much more believable. They were all so caught up in their narcissistic lives that they didn't care enough to disengage from their "followers" long enough to candidly engage with reality. They basically got the president that they deserved - a reflection of their own indifference. There were so many bad actors in the story that it was probably easy to get caught in the weeds. Imo, the message wasn't about climate change (despite that being the stated message by the producers of the film), or vaccines, or even politics at all. It was about the new wave of adults who will someday become our leaders who appear to be incapable of overcoming their own narcissistic habits. The current state of the attention economy truly is a human tragedy, and one that we can all relate with I think.

27 points by hirundo 5y ago

> But for some reason, everyone else thinks the moral of this story is Believe Experts. Worse, I think the scriptwriter and director and people like that also thought the moral of this story was Believe Experts. I think they asked themselves “How can we create a polemical film that viscerally convinces people to Believe Experts” Maybe these people watched a very different version than I did, and maybe Scott watched a very different version than I did, but I strongly suspect that this is actually a straw man argument and the people thinking this don't exist and Scott has galloped off with his sidekick Sancho to rid the countryside of the windmill menace. The movie's moral very clearly and heavy handedly is that the government doesn't give a shit about anything but themselves, and media doesn't give a shit about anything but themselves, and rich capitalists don't give a shit about anything but themselves, and the UN isn't going to save anyone, and everyone is fucked because of it, and actually it's a gazillion times worse because actually that government is our government and that media is our media and that UN is our UN so all those people dying are _us_. The movie has nothing to do with "believe experts", and I really think one has to be very blind to think that it is, so... what's going on here?

AA-BA-94-2A-56 5y ago
I strongly suspect that Scott is trying to decipher a moral of the story, while missing the fact that Don’t Look Up is less of a parable and more of a tragedy. There is no moral to the story. There is nothing to take away here. The point is the Molochian systems at play are driven by maligned incentives, and therefore doomed to apocalyptic failure. You and I; we are fucked. Scott is trying to glean epistemical meaning from this work, and it’s like trying to blood-let a stone.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

typon 5y ago

This review is horribly mistaken, confused and hard to read. This person seemed like they watched the movie but missed the point entirely.

_kulang 5y ago
Which is shocking as the point of the movie is starkly presented. I’d rather think it’s some form of denial

hresvelgr 5y ago

This review is hot air at best. I feel the movie is pretty simple to understand. "Don't lie to yourself and devalue human connection" was the moral of the story to me. The female news host was the epitome of this lesson. A woman who was cultured and learned was consumed by a lifestyle in complete opposition to that. In the end, she more or less realises she truly has nothing of value to herself and can't decide what to do at the end of the world. Upon this, she resolves to get drunk with her co-host and bitch about other people. A sad and miserable demise.

marssaxman 5y ago

I don't agree that the movie "depicts a monstrous world where the establishment is conspiring to keep the truth from you in every possible way." Rather, it depicts a world very much like the one we live in, where the establishment is venal, short-sighted, incompetent, and almost entirely uninterested in truth. There's no conspiracy - merely an affinity for bullshit, in the Frankfurt sense.

dumpsterdiver 5y ago

A lot of the commenters on the blog focus on the inept president in the movie, or the other powers that be which ultimately contributed to the tragedy. Those blatantly outrageous characters didn't even register on my radar - they weren't believable, and I think that was the intended effect. The true tragedy in my mind was the way that the general population reacted. That was much more believable. They were all so caught up in their narcissistic lives that they didn't care enough to disengage from their "followers" long enough to candidly engage with reality. They basically got the president that they deserved - a reflection of their own indifference. There were so many bad actors in the story that it was probably easy to get caught in the weeds. Imo, the message wasn't about climate change (despite that being the stated message by the producers of the film), or vaccines, or even politics at all. It was about the new wave of adults who will someday become our leaders who appear to be incapable of overcoming their own narcissistic habits. The current state of the attention economy truly is a human tragedy, and one that we can all relate with I think.