10 ms·

I consider Idiocracy to be the greatest satirical film post WWII.

by TechNewb 14y ago

lobster_johnson 14y ago
Greater than Dr. Strangelove?
- ojbyrne 14y ago
  I had the same thought, and my personal opinion is "not even close." Idiocracy was good, but very much "one note." I can think of other better films - MAS*H comes to mind, not to mention Catch-22 (though somewhat uneven, still better). Even Mel Brook's movies - Young Frankenstein, and The Producers, especially. Nothing in Idiocracy matches "Springtime for Hitler."
- rsheridan6 14y ago
  Maybe not, but Dr Strangelove is extremely dated, and the people and issues it satirized are mostly dead now.
  - mechanical_fish 14y ago
    The question was "Is Idiocracy the greatest satirical film since World War Two?" not "Is Idiocracy the greatest satirical film since the end of the Cold War?" Now, it's true that many aspects of the Cold War feel like really old news. Thank god. (Though at this point, as (arguably!) a former colleague of Hans Bethe [1], I'm professionally obligated to deliver this public-service announcement: Nuclear arsenals are way out of fashion these days, and are never talked about outside of defense procurement committee meetings, but that doesn't mean they're gone. Nuclear weapons still exist and could blow you up today.) However, even apart from the nuclear angle, Dr. Strangelove continues to be a movie about a big war that is secretly planned in advance by cabinet-level executives working with the military-industrial complex. Then the war gets kicked off by a very small cabal which engineers a highly visible attack on a handful of targets by a few rogue aircraft. Can anyone else see how this story might have remained relevant in the twenty-first century? --- [1] I was a grad student in his department. It's a bit tenuous, really. But, for better and for worse, I consider myself inducted into the guild of people that build doom devices and later come to regret them. Sigh.
  - forensic 14y ago
    What a lot of computer scientists don't know is that Dr. Strangelove was DIRECTLY modelled on John von Neumann. They don't talk about this in CS departments. Your hero was Dr. Evil.
    - lobster_johnson 14y ago
      Inspired, not directly modeled, I think. Dr. Strangelove was in part based on Edward Teller. Unlike von Neumann, Teller actually a bit bonkers in many ways; he was a deeply jealous and vindictive person who was directly responsible for destroying the career (and likely shortening the life of) J. Robert Oppenheimer, and he tried to convince people that Stanislaw Ulam did not contribute to the Manhattan Project. Teller wanted to use hydrogen bombs to dig deep-water harbours, and to extract oil by blowing up underground oil deposits with nuclear weapons, and lobbied to create what became known as Reagan's failed "Star Wars" project. He also tried to get the US to build a network of underground shelters similar to the scenario that Dr. Strangelove outlines at the end of the film.
      - forensic 14y ago
        It's very direct. 1. Von Neumann was biggest proponent of first strike 2. Was in a wheelchair 3. Wanted to create a doomsday machine that would destroy the worlds crops with intentional global warming. By destroying Russia's crops USA would end up ahead by better agricultural tech 4. Time magazine and others have acknowledged that it was directly based on Von Neumann. Also Von neumann was way more important. He was easily the most important intellectual of his time. Without him there might have been no nuke at all--it was his design that finally suceeded.
    - taejo 14y ago
      Perhaps partially, but John von Neumann was Jewish and left Europe for America before WWII, while Dr Strangelove is a former Nazi... the references to Operation Paperclip seem clear.
      - forensic 14y ago
        This is literally the only part of Dr. Strangelove that doesn't fit Von Neumann. Everything else including the accet is a dead ringer.
  - lobster_johnson 14y ago
    I hope you're kidding. Dated? It satirizes the cold war, the elements of which — deterrence, mutual assured destruction, espionage, minority factions which desire to provoke war, etc. — are still relevant, if in a modified form. (USA and Russia are no longer in a cold war, but there are plenty of nukes, and plenty of countries who desire them.) It's still consistently and widely considered a masterpiece of political satire.
MiguelHudnandez 14y ago
It's the only comedy which is slowly transforming into a documentary.
tossacct 14y ago
That's an opinion(so of course it can't be wrong) that I have heard, it is being debated fairly intelligently downthread along with a debate about the fantastic King of the Hill and Office Space. Here is a list of movies that critics and non-critics consider to be much better post WWII satires than Idiocracy, according to internet ratings of these movies. Note: many of these are more humorous and brutal while being less crude and light-hearted than Idiocracy. Also many have plot, emotion, and deep characterization. Films: American Psycho, A Clockwork Orange, Fahrenheit 451, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Dr. Strangelove, Office Space(also Mike Judge) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire My main problem with Idiocracy as a satire is that the message it sends is flatly incorrect, because the rules of their world are not the same as ours. It is a satire of some alternate universe in which we are not living, it has no applicability for the world we live in. Film's message: "If our societies ever end up giving a competitive advantage to low IQ people, time travel will be necessary to correct society's decline." The truth:"If our societies ever end up giving a competitive advantage to low IQ people, natural selection will take care of it, since intelligence seems to be a competitive advantage for apes." I think the true message is also a better call to arms for both intelligent people and unintelligent people. The movie Idiocracy seemed like it was made to be consumed by the citizens of the low-IQ world, in both plot and acting. I do enjoy its light-heartedness. Much more realistic are the famous dystopian texts, especially Harrison Bergeron: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron
- maxerickson 14y ago
  The time travel is a plot device. It exists only to set the stage for the story. The satire is the stuff like politics being an obvious (blatant?) popularity contest and people not having any notion of where their food comes from. You know, like today. I think even the fall of society depicted in the movie is mostly a plot device. For instance, in much of the developed world, trash is simply thrown on a big pile (generally a special, well managed pile, but nonetheless a big pile). The movie isn't a warning where we are headed, it is a withering criticism of where we are.
  - tossacct 14y ago
return0 14y ago
I dont care what critics say, i love that movie. Unfortunately its frighteningly close to reality

I consider Idiocracy to be the greatest satirical film post WWII.

lobster_johnson 14y ago

Greater than Dr. Strangelove?

ojbyrne 14y ago
I had the same thought, and my personal opinion is "not even close." Idiocracy was good, but very much "one note." I can think of other better films - MAS*H comes to mind, not to mention Catch-22 (though somewhat uneven, still better). Even Mel Brook's movies - Young Frankenstein, and The Producers, especially. Nothing in Idiocracy matches "Springtime for Hitler."
rsheridan6 14y ago
Maybe not, but Dr Strangelove is extremely dated, and the people and issues it satirized are mostly dead now.
- mechanical_fish 14y ago
  The question was "Is Idiocracy the greatest satirical film since World War Two?" not "Is Idiocracy the greatest satirical film since the end of the Cold War?" Now, it's true that many aspects of the Cold War feel like really old news. Thank god. (Though at this point, as (arguably!) a former colleague of Hans Bethe [1], I'm professionally obligated to deliver this public-service announcement: Nuclear arsenals are way out of fashion these days, and are never talked about outside of defense procurement committee meetings, but that doesn't mean they're gone. Nuclear weapons still exist and could blow you up today.) However, even apart from the nuclear angle, Dr. Strangelove continues to be a movie about a big war that is secretly planned in advance by cabinet-level executives working with the military-industrial complex. Then the war gets kicked off by a very small cabal which engineers a highly visible attack on a handful of targets by a few rogue aircraft. Can anyone else see how this story might have remained relevant in the twenty-first century? --- [1] I was a grad student in his department. It's a bit tenuous, really. But, for better and for worse, I consider myself inducted into the guild of people that build doom devices and later come to regret them. Sigh.
- forensic 14y ago
  What a lot of computer scientists don't know is that Dr. Strangelove was DIRECTLY modelled on John von Neumann. They don't talk about this in CS departments. Your hero was Dr. Evil.
  - lobster_johnson 14y ago
    Inspired, not directly modeled, I think. Dr. Strangelove was in part based on Edward Teller. Unlike von Neumann, Teller actually a bit bonkers in many ways; he was a deeply jealous and vindictive person who was directly responsible for destroying the career (and likely shortening the life of) J. Robert Oppenheimer, and he tried to convince people that Stanislaw Ulam did not contribute to the Manhattan Project. Teller wanted to use hydrogen bombs to dig deep-water harbours, and to extract oil by blowing up underground oil deposits with nuclear weapons, and lobbied to create what became known as Reagan's failed "Star Wars" project. He also tried to get the US to build a network of underground shelters similar to the scenario that Dr. Strangelove outlines at the end of the film.
    - forensic 14y ago
      It's very direct. 1. Von Neumann was biggest proponent of first strike 2. Was in a wheelchair 3. Wanted to create a doomsday machine that would destroy the worlds crops with intentional global warming. By destroying Russia's crops USA would end up ahead by better agricultural tech 4. Time magazine and others have acknowledged that it was directly based on Von Neumann. Also Von neumann was way more important. He was easily the most important intellectual of his time. Without him there might have been no nuke at all--it was his design that finally suceeded.
  - taejo 14y ago
    Perhaps partially, but John von Neumann was Jewish and left Europe for America before WWII, while Dr Strangelove is a former Nazi... the references to Operation Paperclip seem clear.
    - forensic 14y ago
      This is literally the only part of Dr. Strangelove that doesn't fit Von Neumann. Everything else including the accet is a dead ringer.
- lobster_johnson 14y ago
  I hope you're kidding. Dated? It satirizes the cold war, the elements of which — deterrence, mutual assured destruction, espionage, minority factions which desire to provoke war, etc. — are still relevant, if in a modified form. (USA and Russia are no longer in a cold war, but there are plenty of nukes, and plenty of countries who desire them.) It's still consistently and widely considered a masterpiece of political satire.

MiguelHudnandez 14y ago

It's the only comedy which is slowly transforming into a documentary.

tossacct 14y ago

That's an opinion(so of course it can't be wrong) that I have heard, it is being debated fairly intelligently downthread along with a debate about the fantastic King of the Hill and Office Space. Here is a list of movies that critics and non-critics consider to be much better post WWII satires than Idiocracy, according to internet ratings of these movies. Note: many of these are more humorous and brutal while being less crude and light-hearted than Idiocracy. Also many have plot, emotion, and deep characterization. Films: American Psycho, A Clockwork Orange, Fahrenheit 451, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Dr. Strangelove, Office Space(also Mike Judge) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire My main problem with Idiocracy as a satire is that the message it sends is flatly incorrect, because the rules of their world are not the same as ours. It is a satire of some alternate universe in which we are not living, it has no applicability for the world we live in. Film's message: "If our societies ever end up giving a competitive advantage to low IQ people, time travel will be necessary to correct society's decline." The truth:"If our societies ever end up giving a competitive advantage to low IQ people, natural selection will take care of it, since intelligence seems to be a competitive advantage for apes." I think the true message is also a better call to arms for both intelligent people and unintelligent people. The movie Idiocracy seemed like it was made to be consumed by the citizens of the low-IQ world, in both plot and acting. I do enjoy its light-heartedness. Much more realistic are the famous dystopian texts, especially Harrison Bergeron: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron

maxerickson 14y ago
The time travel is a plot device. It exists only to set the stage for the story. The satire is the stuff like politics being an obvious (blatant?) popularity contest and people not having any notion of where their food comes from. You know, like today. I think even the fall of society depicted in the movie is mostly a plot device. For instance, in much of the developed world, trash is simply thrown on a big pile (generally a special, well managed pile, but nonetheless a big pile). The movie isn't a warning where we are headed, it is a withering criticism of where we are.
- tossacct 14y ago

return0 14y ago

I dont care what critics say, i love that movie. Unfortunately its frighteningly close to reality