MovieChat Forums > Children of Men (2007) Discussion > The refugee theme did not seem to gibe w...

The refugee theme did not seem to gibe with the infertility theme.

posted 8 years ago by whynotwriteme
5 replies | jump to latest

I think Cuaron was mainly interested in doing a refugee themed film and the infertility angle was something he just had to deal with as it was the plot of the original novel.

I don't think refugees would have been such a huge problem in a world that had seen 18 years with no children and a constant death rate. Supposedly 155,000 people a day die globally. That means that the world had lost 1018350000 people since the beginning of the infertility crisis. In THIS world, likely more due to the global violence. SO with over a billion less people in the world, would refugees really have been a problem on that scale?

[–] tenantennae 8 years ago

It's implied that Britain is the only state on Earth that hasn't completely fallen apart, so definitely there would be tons of refugees.

[–] Royalcourtier 8 years ago

It actually would be logical that Britain and European states would be the last to collapse. But the absence of births might cause economic problems (think of all the unemployed teachers, and the empty maternity hospitals), but would not cause the collapse of society. If anything the absence of young hotheads would stabilise many societies.

[–] tenantennae 8 years ago

If there are no children, there's no future. Long-term investment, long-term debt, growth, etc. become things of the past. All economic order would collapse, along with the world order as we know it, inevitably leading to war and chaos.

It is logical Britain would survive due to its strong defenses and relative geographic isolation.

[–] KingCobra686 7 years ago

It would absolutely cause the collapse of society. Teachers and maternity wards would be directly out of a job, like you mentioned, but most jobs in general would start to lose their value. The economy would collapse once people realized and withdrew all their money and stopped investing. Any job that works towards progress and improving society would be pointless with that upcoming expiration date on humanity, and most people working random minimum wage jobs would quit and try and live out their lives more enjoyably.

The only job that wouldnt collapse would be scientific research into infertility.

[–] liambean 8 years ago

I don't think refugees would have been such a huge problem in a world that had seen 18 years with no children and a constant death rate.

Well, it is science fiction after all. In this case, what has been called "social science fiction," where how people react to an unexpected event is played out in story form. Sci-Fi often gets this wrong, but hey, that's why it's fiction.

It really is hard to say how the entire world would react to zero birth rate.I think you bring up a valid point, but since this is fiction who can really say what might happen.