Sci-fi movies

Watched two ok-ok sci-fi movies recently, therefore I might as well write about it. Finding good sci-fi movies is like searching the needles in a haystack. Sci-fi novels, easily good ones, but movies, rarely. Novels usually adopt well-thought-out theories that are backed by (futuristic) scientific facts; novels usually make painstaking efforts to map out social and cultural backgrounds before planting plots; and oftentimes, novels just need to capture a frozen moment, a slice of a complicated world, if you can explain it well, that's enough for reflecting a whole picture. On the contrary, movies have to catch common viewers' emotions and sensations in a fairly short period of time, so as to make high gross. As a result, sci-fi movies often lack scientific, social, or emotional depth.

Like "The Wandering Earth". Excuse me!? I couldn't even finish the first one third, what a piece of red propaganda. My son learned the backbone science in this movie when he was 3 years old. "Yes mommy, the gravity of bigger planets could change the course of spaceships", "Yaa mommy, oxygen and hydrogen mean explosion".  

My son even knows some basic theories about black holes that "Interstellar" adopts. "Interstellar" is one of my favorites so far besides the classic "Star Wars" (maybe I haven't watched enough?). Because in "Interstellar", the depth into science is almost as satisfying as novels and it's not shy on the emotional front. There are a few dozens more sci-fi movies I really like, but that's about it.

Authoritarianism and totalitarianism are too boring for people whose minds are constantly occupied or disturbed by trivial quarrels about rules on mask-wearing, if the right of mask-wearing or mask-no-wearing is the same right as the right of wearing-no-underwear. Movies like "1984" or "Brazil" could hardly reach mainstream because there is rarely any resonation, people can barely feel it to truly understand. There are millions of ways to the ending of the world, but dictatorship or state-sponsored censorship are unrelated. 

I mean there are a lot of depictions of dictators in sci-fi contexts, however, the dictators who are shaped based on modern Western culture are usually too democratic, lacking the authentic flavor of true dictators. Even the kings and rulers of the Darkest Age in Europe carried some form of democratic elements, better than a lot of extremist authorities in today's world, including the long-standing communist regimes. 

So, what could they know? How could they ever be interested in mass elimination and grand purges/cleansings? Hitler? Comon, Hitler didn't put any of his own, the white European Christians, in concentration camps and gas chambers. That's why all the neighboring white countries and white America turned a blind eye: "Nah, it's ok, not our problem. We can't save the whole world (Europe)! Remember all the centuries of wars among us own?" Just like the white male property owners during the founding of America and the next almost 200 years, equality and freedom pertaining to them had been the only equality and freedom that existed in that land. The Soviet communists must have been out of their wits, not able to find any darker skin who could be accumulated to critical mass to conduct execution. The mass graves of their own kind made Communism looked far worse than Fascism. 

Therefore conveniently, people who are born in a democratic society do not need to understand what true dictators look like and sound like. They can read for fun, but at the end of the day, "not my problem". Memories are always short with people anyway, because selfishness and blindness are human's no. 1 and no. 2 innate dispositions.

Yes I watched "The Congress" and "Arrival", both had good viewer ratings. For me, they were ok sci-fi movies, 4 and 6, out of 10. Pretty good I would say. 

"The Congress" (2013) was basically Robin Wright's monologue about her own state of mind. The science part of this movie made absolutely no sense, 0.5 out of 10. It just scraped a mere idea from the novel "The Futurological Congress" - people using hallucinating drugs to overcome their insecurity, low self-esteem and unmatched ego. "The Congress" had nothing to do with that Congress in the novel - mirroring a Soviet-style dystopia, where the totalitarian regime relied on all kinds of psychedelic drugs to achieve oppression and total control of people's minds. 

Do you really call that sci-fi? For me, it's more of a reality show than imagination. As I always put it, people who haven't seen the dark, lack the capability to imagine darkness. The big screen in Winston's room, releases the same chemical compound that arouses certain psychic effects on people. That big screen in Winston's room, has no difference to all the small but smart screens today, in those people's hands, except that the smart ones have become truly smarter, way smarter.

Why the "science part" made completely no sense? I thought it was very obvious, it just made no sense. No feasible logic, no cause and effect, no "where did it come from" and "where it's going". I mean if all the "crossed-over" people can just stand there like vegetables and do nothing, with absolutely no functioning social structure, how does this part of the world could even stand for an hour? Maybe the movie just didn't have time to lay out all the scenarios because the main selling point was Robin's monologues: the psychic journey of a once-charming-but-rapidly-aging-plus-unsuccessful actress' problem with her lack of self-reassurance and deep-rooted insecurity. A standard First World Problem. Nevertheless, the movie didn't even go deeper into digging out the cause of such insecurity, neither did it take the path of questioning the objectification of women, I also found the mother-and-son part incoherent and oddly out of place. The dialogues were good though, don't get me wrong. It would make you feel like you were watching something deep, and felt good about yourself. And that's probably all about it. OK, I'm lowing the rating to 3. 

"Arrival" (2016)'s imagination made much more sense: an alien species who possess alien abilities, one of the abilities is to pass the abilities to a chosen human. Because it's a movie, so we are not gonna ask why the aliens have come and what do they need help from humans in 3000 years' time. Like a lot of sci-fi movies, sci-fi is just a general background, like a desktop setting. What the movie is really about is the stories of the people in there. What's the story of "Arrival"? It's about this women's courage, the courage to choose, even when she can foresee the tragedies lying ahead. Choose what? Choose to love even when you know the loved ones are gonna leave you one day, choose to give unconditionally even when you can see how you would be left with nothing down the line. 

Ya, that's about it.