2 minute 46 seconds of the trailer of Netflix’s original movie; Don’t Look Up, might’ve caught us by the jugular. Especially the ones more aware of the climate and fed up with human stupidity. And this is only about the ones who watched the trailer beforehand. People who got this movie recommended by a friend, or it just sort of popped up on Netflix, have whole other experiences with their expectations.
For me, I watched the trailer on Instagram first, since I have followed the Netflix account of India and it is a hassle searching and staying updated for a new movie. So, through Instagram, I see the trailers of new movies while scrolling. Pretty convenient I must say.
The thrill I had watching the trailer as a climate change-aware individual was extraordinary. My hopes got so high and I thought to myself “Finally! They’re talking about it.” And the star-studded cast with Leonardo di Caprio – who already happens to be a climate change activist got me even more excited.
Leo started his campaign in 1998 of preserving the natural climate and helping soothe the coexistence of humans and nature. Humans by instinct are not peacemakers, this is why they seek peace in every part of history. A human brain is a problem solver, if it doesn’t find a problem, it will create one.
The Reason Why Nobody Cared: Movie and Reality
If you step back from the reality for a moment and just gaze at the timeline of how the shift from the early 90’s to the 2000s subjected the gains and freedom to acquire, accomplish, scale the wealth from the biggest businessmen and women to indigenous people – you’d be able to see it as instead of an organized set of organizations paving the way of history with the carriage of and horses – is history itself.
As in 2022, every person has their horse, and they’re flogging it as hard as they can because they know that every extra minute, they put in will help them fill their belly – as opposed to what previously was done where the organization had the larger gains. These horses are the resources and these floggings end up as wealth in their pockets. And by no means I’m stating that these organizations did justice to people, it only forced these indigenous brains to come up with a solution and after a couple of hundred years of monopolization and industrialization, here we are with Entrepreneurship, NFTs, Crypto, Metaverse, etc. the list goes on and on.
Back to the Critics
Back to our movie! I’m trying to imagine the moment when Leo was first pitched this movie. An actor by profession, who’s also an environmentalist finally gets the chance to show the world through his art – of a subject he sweats on when he’s not getting paid for it. Anyways this got me excited thinking that it was him who got the role amongst others.
I have some critics about the start of the movie though. The starting was shown as you would think of Interstellar movie’s theme. And I’d be okay with that but it transcended into what would seem more real of a story and THAT was very confusing to what they are trying to do with the theme of this movie.
The Theme
The theme is one of the biggest problems I saw in the movie. This isn’t something that I would ask someone who’s making a movie to do but something that I as a viewer would feel and then see what the other person does with that information. If it’s a little complicated, when stated in words, then I’d give the example of two movies and how the theme (for me) shifted.
I’d assume that you have watched the movie; The Purge. If you have, this is the movie that I imagined the chaos would look like. It didn’t actually and then I thought the attention-grabbing with the issue would somehow portray as it was in the movie, Evan Almighty when Evan (the protagonist) exposed the corrupt government officials. Or maybe the best option would’ve been to keep the theme of interstellar, The Voyage, or Lost in Space from the beginning where they edged it a bit.
The Humor
The humor is never bad when you have people like Jennifer Lawrence, Jonah Hill, and Ariana Grande type of caste on set. Even though Jennifer Lawrence never seems like she’s putting in an effort on the humor part. It appears when she wants it to appear – works like magic NGL.
The humor was great, it was carried out the best as it might’ve been expected by the crew and cast. The thing here is, there is this disbalance that would’ve made this humor fit with the rest of the theme – only if the rest of the theme was balanced. The disbalance didn’t affect the humor of the story but the lack of supporting elements did cause the disbalance to expand further. Apart from that, laughing out loud was the best part of this movie.
The Intent and the Setting
If there’s anything to blame for the disbalance of the story and the poor transition of the movie other than the aim to go for all. The target of the story was EVERYONE and for all the right reasons. The focus of this storyline was not directed to a particular subject but the same idea I talked about earlier. The mentality to not be bothered by a cause unless it affects our interests.
The movie intended to enlighten the realization of this self-indulging and destructive behavior of humans. That intent did not get destructed terribly. I have no idea what happened with the fragments of the part of the story for some people it appeared the world-is-ending thing and for some it was hilarious, others quit watching midway because it became boring.
The randomness of events played a large role, even though it is true that if that was the real thing…there would be a ton of random chaos going on in the world. But everything that is ever documented by the media in a chaotic situation – follows a smoother path. And to be honest that is how we are programmed to give our attention to the news or a documentary.
Although this was a movie and not a documentary or news, it appeared way too contradictory for us to absorb the facts that we would other experience as if we are in the movie, keeping an eye for the news and whatever is going on. Take, for example, the ending of the movie where the three scientists are in a bar and Dr. Randall breaks the news of the government letting the comet hit the Earth. The public that stood up hearing that already knew there was a comet on its way and the scene showed them to be completely calm and congregated in a bar. Although they did break into a riot later if that was the actual case, in my opinion, the setting of the place and scene would’ve been different from what we saw. If that clears the point.
Scientific Setting in the Movie
The only scientists we see working and rushing all over are professor Randall, his student; Kate, and the planetary defense coordination office head; Dr. Teddy. As much as it was a matter of humankind, the top class of humanity should’ve been seen as the ones coordinating and rushing the most.
Even when the planetary defense rockets were launched, it showed no planning and formation of the prelaunch. Even though in reality if we go on to do this launch of dozens of rockets, this could be one of the most nerve-wracking projects in human history. Not only was this project successfully launched but it was called out on short notice with no hassle or opposition from the scientists working on it.
