MovieChat Forums > After the Dark (2013) Discussion > Profoundly Unrealistic About Nuclear War...

Profoundly Unrealistic About Nuclear War, Informative About Behavior


The basic premise of the thought experiment in this film is ridiculous in the extreme. There are no survivors of a nuclear war on Earth. It's sad to watch this film pretend otherwise. As such, this is a fantasy.

Setting aside the fantasy foundation of the film, the thought experiment is well worth watching and enjoying. It begins on a superficial level to face what I call 'Desperation Mode' in human beings. The human subjects of the experiment are extremely exceptional from among the whole of humanity. But it's extremely useful to watch the NOISE as well as required insight and judgement of human behavior within such a scenario.

Therefore, I enjoyed it as a fantasy film that explores a few aspects of the psychology of people when placed in a desperate situation, two desperate situations actually (without giving spoilers).

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The simple point of the film is to think. I would have hoped this movie provoked more internal questions about ourselves, our lives, our planet and how most people really are oblivious. Even if it has technical plot holes, the exercise is something that the sheep-mentality do not even want to entertain.

Delinquent Nancy*
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!

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On the contrary, it's precisely THIS kind of scenario that sheep-mentality think and worry about CONSTANTLY.

This is why they are desperate to put up walls, restrict memberships, voting, benefits, healthcare, etc., to almost everyone under the sun but their own kids. This is why they make laws prohibiting stuff that's never happened.

It's the very core of bigotry and assumed priviledge.

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Yes, and I think the director/screenwriter of this movie is completely aware of that; and that that was exactly one of the major points that the movie wants to address. That's also why the director wrote and incorporated Toby's poem into the movie:

Junk the ancient rules of thought
by which our predecessors fought
Their clashing minds did throw a spark
that scorched the world and wreaked the dark

Let no science fix our path
if only numbers make its math
Our brains will run, we'll surely see,
on some sweeter philosophy

Until beneath a quiet sky
atop the rubble we will stand
and finally demystify
the message in fate's reprimand:

Even an atomic blast
can't rub the future from the past
If with incinerated grace
we still become the human race.
The "ancient rules of thought" being the traditional, competitive, binary "scientific" thinking that Mr. Zimit represented.

Notice how in the first two experiments, where the focus lied on competition, on "Us vs. Them" and on producing the best offspring, the tables and chairs in the classroom were positioned opposite eachother (bunker selection vs. non-bunker selection); but in the third experiment, where the focus lied on including everybody, because "nobody is better than anybody else", the tables and chairs were positioned inside one "all-encompassing" circle (and everybody contributed to a livable post-apocalyptical society, not just the ones with the best technical qualifications or the ones who are fertile/procreative or the ones who were inside the bunker), and the bombs didn't fall.

What the movie tries to accomplish, is challenging the viewer to think and to look for a different kind of solution (one that deviates from/transcends the traditional binary, scapegoat-searching, "us vs. them" sheep-mentality approaches) for a crisis scenario in which people are prone to fall in the trap of being pitted against eachother.


______
Joe Satriani - "Always With Me, Always With You"
http://youtu.be/VI57QHL6ge0

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The basic premise of the thought experiment in this film is ridiculous in the extreme. There are no survivors of a nuclear war on Earth. It's sad to watch this film pretend otherwise. As such, this is a fantasy.


In fact, the fantasy is that no one on Earth would survive a nuclear war. I don't know where you got that idea, but it's completely untrue.

Besides, the nuclear war scenario was chosen because it's familiar and because it allowed Zimit to create the bunker scenario. It's not meant to be a realistic depiction.

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Yeah, I don't get that comment either. Even if it were a fact that the detonation of every nuke on earth would destroy the biosphere (I don't necessarily agree that it IS true, but let's assume for argument's sake it is) nowhere in this movie did it say it was a complete 100% exchange. Hell, in one scenario they questioned why attacks kept coming, so clearly it wasn't at the onset a complete exchange!

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Also they were being launched at places WAY out in the middle of no where which wouldn't happen.

I don't love her.. She kicked me in the face!!

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