Tag: socio political
1201 – Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
timespace coordinates: equatorial South America – Iron City – 2563, 300 years after Earth is devastated by a catastrophic interplanetary war known as “The Fall”
Alita: Battle Angel is a 2019 American cyberpunk science fiction action film based on the 1990s Japanese manga series Gunnm (known as Battle Angel Alita in the English translation) by Yukito Kishiro. Directed by Robert Rodriguez, the film is co-produced by James Cameron and written by Cameron and Laeta Kalogridis. Rosa Salazar stars as the titular heroine Alita, an amnesiac cyborg girl who sets out to learn about her destiny after she awakens in a new body with no past memory of who she is. Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley and Keean Johnson also star in supporting roles. \scored by Junkie XL\ (wiki)
The post-apocalyptic architecture in sci-fi blockbuster Alita: Battle Angel is a diverse fusion of Panama’s vibrant ruins and Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City, say its creators. (dezeen)
City of Imagination: Kowloon Walled City 20 Years Later
1185 – Serenity (2005)
timespace coordinates: In the 26th century, humanity has left an overpopulated Earth to colonize a new solar system. The central planets formed the Alliance and won a war against the outer planet Independents—those who resisted joining the Alliance.
Serenity is a 2005 American science fiction action film written and directed by Joss Whedon and stars Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Adam Baldwin, Summer Glau and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
It is a continuation of Whedon’s short-lived 2002 Fox television series Firefly and stars the same cast, taking place after the events of the final episode. Set in 2517, Serenity is the story of the captain and crew of Serenity, a “Firefly-class” spaceship. The captain and first mate are veterans of the Unification War, having fought on the losing Independent side against the Alliance. Their lives of smuggling and cargo-running are interrupted by a psychic passenger who harbors a dangerous secret. (wiki)
Session 416 / Cultural impact / Themes and cultural allusions / Cancelled sequel
Fruity Oaty Bar! Commercial
1179 – The Atomic Cafe (1982)
timespace coordinates: 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s United States, the Marshall Islands
The Atomic Cafe is a 1982 American documentary film produced and directed by Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty and Pierce Rafferty. In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States’ National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
The film covers the beginnings of the era of nuclear warfare, created from a broad range of archival material from the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s including newsreel clips, television news footage, U.S. government-produced films (including military training films), advertisements, television and radio programs. News footage reflected the prevailing understanding of the media and public.
Though the topic of atomic holocaust is a grave matter, The Atomic Cafe approaches it with black humor. Much of the humor derives from the modern audience’s reaction to the old training films, such as the Duck and Cover film shown in schools.
The Atomic Cafe was released at the height of nostalgia and cynicism in America. By 1982, Americans lost much of their faith in their government following the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and the seemingly never-ending arms race with the Soviet Union. The Atomic Cafe reflects and reinforces this idea as it exposes how the atomic bomb’s dangers were downplayed and how the government used films to shape public opinion.
Bob Mielke, in “Rhetoric and Ideology in the Nuclear Test Documentary” (Film Quarterly) discusses the release of The Atomic Cafe: “This satire feature was released at the height of the nuclear freeze movement (which was in turn responding to the Reagan administration’s surreal handling of the arms race.)”
Patricia Aufderheide, in Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction touches on the significance of The Atomic Cafe as a window into the past of government propaganda and disinformation during the years following the advent of the Atomic Bomb. “Propaganda, also known as disinformation, public diplomacy, and strategic communication, continues to be an important tool for governments. But stand-alone documentary is no longer an important part of public relations campaigns aimed at the general public.” (wiki)
Bikini Atoll
Because the site bears direct tangible evidence of the nuclear tests conducted there amid the paradoxical tropical location, UNESCO determined that the atoll symbolizes the dawn of the nuclear age and named it a World Heritage Site on 3 August 2010.
Bikini Atoll has conserved direct tangible evidence … conveying the power of … nuclear tests, i.e. the sunken ships sent to the bottom of the lagoon by the tests in 1946 and the gigantic Bravo crater. Equivalent to 7,000 times the force of the Hiroshima bomb, the tests had major consequences on the geology and natural environment of Bikini Atoll and on the health of those who were exposed to radiation. Through its history, the atoll symbolises the dawn of the nuclear age, despite its paradoxical image of peace and of earthly paradise.
1178 – Pandora’s Promise (2013 documentary)
Pandora’s Promise is a 2013 documentary film about the nuclear power debate, directed by Robert Stone. Its central argument is that nuclear power, which still faces historical opposition from environmentalists, is a relatively safe and clean energy source which can help mitigate the serious problem of anthropogenic global warming. Richard Branson is credited as an executive producer, as are Paul and Jody Allen, whose production company, Vulcan Productions, helped provide financial support. A total of $1.2 million (US) was raised to finance the film, “particularly through Impact Partners, which provides documentary financing from individual investors. Mr. Stone said the money came mainly from wealthy “tech heads” who have worked in Silicon Valley.”
The title is derived from the ancient Greek myth of Pandora, who released numerous evils into the world, yet as the movie’s tagline recalls: “At the bottom of the box she found hope.” (wiki)
The New York Times: “You need to make an argument. A parade of like-minded nuclear-power advocates who assure us that everything will be all right just doesn’t cut it.” > Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: “In the end, by dismissing the protesters and failing to engage them in significant debate about the pros and cons of nuclear energy, the film undermined its own message.” > Seattle Weekly: “But the doc’s bigger flaw is that no one is allowed to make a reasoned anti-nuclear argument. To the well-made film’s many statistics, graphics, and common-sense assertions, the lack of a rebuttal is deafening.”
1177 – Fukushima: A Nuclear Story (2015 Documentary, News)
“A four-year long journey in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and twofold tragedy that befell Japan in the March 2011, directed by Matteo Gagliardi, written by Christine Reinhold, Matteo Gagliardi e Pio d’Emilia. (…) “Fukushima: A Nuclear Story” offers a completely original point of view on the tragedy, narrated by the actor Willem Dafoe in the English version.
Christine Reinhold and Matteo Gagliardi combine different elements in the film: The story of a journalist, Pio d’Emilia, who refused to abandon his job even when the nuclear danger was at its greatest; the doubts and fears of man in the days following the threefold tragedy; the search for the truth regarding what really happened inside the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The former prime minister Naoto Kan, in a previously unreleased interview, will reveal how Tokyo, and probably the whole of Japan, avoided a much bigger tragedy thanks to sheer luck.
The director describes the tragic events using Manga Drawings, to make them more comprehensible to our perception (…)” – vimeo
see also https://timespacewarps.wordpress.com/2018/11/29/868-william-t-vollmann/
1176 – The Battle of Chernobyl (2006 documentary)
On April 26, 1986, at 1:24am, a rainbow-colored flame shot 1,000 meters high into the Ukrainian sky. The fourth reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant just exploded. A battle begins in which 500,000 men are engaged throughout the Soviet Union to “liquidate” the radioactivity, build the “sarcophagus“ of the damaged reactor and save the world from a second explosion that would have destroyed half of Europe.
This documentary combines testimonials, unseen original footage and documents to recreate the events of the great battle of Chernobyl day-by-day, as each development unfolded. imdb
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