If you did not pick up on it the whole movie is really about how chains, superstores, and just people in general are ruining the natural beauty of nature and the treasure that is nature is buried underneath all of the chains and superstores.
Discuss.
Maybe...
Actually, I'm not buying it. You give no examples. I can see how CostCo being built upon a river is an example, but I don't think there was a big theme (i.e. more than one or two examples) apparent. The comment about Applebee's was funny, though that gets at a more psychological/human theme for comfort and sameness, not necessarily about how the developed world is ruining nature. And the McDonald's aspect of the movie doesn't really add to your hypothesis.
And how does the idea of the developed world ruining the natural world relate to anti-consumerism?
No one is building a CostCo 6 feet above an underground river. It doesn't happen that way.
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I felt this theme throughout the movie as well.
*Spoilers Below* (I'm not sure what the rules around here are like about spoilers so this warning is just in case.)
Charlie and Miranda follow a path described in an old diary and while the diary's description of the surroundings are so very beautiful, the surroundings you see on the screen in Charlie's time are very much different, now, the area is widely covered with buildings, construction, golf courses.
In one scene we hear Miranda narrating part of the diary which talks about the disgusting local women while on screen Miranda is watching an overweight woman eating what I assume was fast food as she is in a parking lot.
During one scene, in the dark, inside of Costco I felt a strong yet subtle "jungle" theme as if the tall aisles were trees in a large forest which I felt was influenced partly by the music as well as the visual style. This was further enhanced when Charlie broke into the underground river beneath the floor.
It felt like the movie was joking or hinting about how while they were actually in a modern day store, they were also where people had been hundreds of years before in a much more unknown and mysterious land.
In some of the earliest scenes in the movie we see how Charlie and Miranda's house is falling apart with age while it is surrounded by fresh, new, and sold houses, some of which are still being built. Later Charlie talks about how their house used to be in the middle of nowhere with only a few lights around to be seen. Miranda replies by saying something about how they're still in the middle of nowhere, there's just a lot more people there now.
One scene I feel people will likely just laugh at and perhaps miss the point that I found it had, was the part where Charlie rants about the police officer and then flirts with her and gives her his number.
I feel he is expressing his view that people take on their work or jobs as who they are, when really it has nothing to do with who they are as people.
Then later when you see that he has fooled around with the officer I feel like it is meant to further push that sense that your job does not define you. Having sex with a younger police officer as an old man? Outrageous!
Having sex with a younger women as an older man? Pretty normal.
I feel that the film tries to express this opinion and viewpoint to the viewer a number of times.
There was faaaarrrr too much Product Placement for this to be a viable thesis for you. Although elements of it were in the film, it's not the central theme of the movie.
shareIt would be nice if you listed the product placements that made you disagree... There are some points where I may agree with you, Canada, i.e. the Milky Way product placement toward the end, perhaps even the Radio Flyer placement as the skid he moves to mark his "x" and later dig, seem unrelated to the anti-consumerism theme. But others, including the two main placements of McDonald's and CostCo., definitely agree with this thesis. The scenes of: overweight people devouring the food, Evan Rachel Wood's character monotonously preparing the hamburger (two pickles, one slice of "cheddar," one squirt of special sauce), the manager "overseeing" her mopping and food prep, all point to the emptiness of both the worker and the consumer of McDonald's. Really, no one is winning in those situations except the corporation, which makes the overwhelming majority of the profit for the very slim minority running the company. The consumer may feel a certain mental happiness by buying a feeling of conformity and comfort through the branding, not too mention the many created and inherent happinesses of the food itself, but in reality, the "outsider" who, for whatever reason (confidence, mental acuity)does not need to buy into that feeling can realize its many emptinesses, its lack of true (deep) happiness.
I think CostCo. is almost as easy to argue in this manner as Micky D's. There is a difference, though, that you may have picked up on. I would assume that the "You can find everything here" comments made by Douglas' character are indeed placations necessitated by Costco. Obviously, McDonald's and CostCo. are painted in an unfavorable light, it just seems that CostCo.'s lawayers or PR people picked up on this moreso than McD's and asked for more concessions by the writers. I think the writer made these concessions because he knew that a generic CostCo or McD's would not have had the same effect. We can relate to these known entities and, in my opinion, these concessions, paradoxically, strengthened the movie's anti-consumerism message.
That being said, the movie is very smart and very well done because it does not paint an idyllic picture of the past, either. Douglas' character, and the movie, both recognized the harrassed minority that was excluded, the native Americans and Mexicans persecuted by the Europeans. Reductio ad absurdum, the native Americans are another group that did not need all of the advances of modern life (they were, I think importantly, called Savages by the diarist in the movie - harking on the modernized/savage false dichotomy created by the Europeans/West) just as Douglas' character does not. Of course, and this is what makes the prblem so interesting, one cannot complete remove oneself from such a society, or it is very difficult to once one has been socialized in said society. And the modern advances were not the only part of life Douglas' character could not participate in: he seemed to clash with the entire ideology of work and reward perpetuated by capitalist society. I think it is tricky, then, that he is dreaming about gold, treasure, but I can concede this as both somewhat incomplete writing and necessary for an interesting narrative. Overall, though, I think Douglas' character was more entranced by that idea of the imagined "California" than of the gold itself. He was fascinated that these explorers were coming upon pieces of imaginary land actualized, of dreams turned into the real, natural beauty of California.