Don’t Look Up director says ‘half a billion people’ have now seen film despite critics
Posted by Portalrules123@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 70 comments
dicklaurent97@reddit
Dr. Strangelove, Wag the Dog, and Don’t Look Up are the holy trinity of political satire
DelcoPAMan@reddit
With Idiocracy added for the box set.
dicklaurent97@reddit
Wow. I actually forgot about Idiocracy. Swap DLU and Idiocracy since they’re basically the same movie.
overkill@reddit
Less Brawndo in DLU though.
dicklaurent97@reddit
DLU is Idiocracy as an Oscar Winning movie without a happy ending
brankinginthenorth@reddit
DLU is just Deep Impact with Laren Bobert as president instead of Morgan Freeman.
lufiron@reddit
Idiocracy was prophetic in its depiction of modern media consumption. Ow my balls indeed.
dicklaurent97@reddit
Idiocracy and Wall-E
dovercliff@reddit
Except that in Idiocracy they actually listened to the experts and did as advised, in the end. DLU doesn't have Idiocracy's bright, sunny, happy, optimistic outlook on humanity.
RogerStevenWhoever@reddit
Actually in DLU some individuals are caring and selfless and working to improve things (i.e. everyone at the dinner table). But the structure of society is so perverse that it makes positive changes impossible.
fortyfivesouth@reddit
The problem with Idiocracy is that it's not actually good.
iwakan@reddit
I feel like when a movie has reached the kind of cultural fame as Idiocracy has, it becomes silly to try to argue that it's bad. It's almost 20 years old, a bad movie would have been thoroughly forgotten by now. One can point out as many flaws as one likes, doesn't matter, it has that X-factor that transcends film criticism.
Brewman88@reddit
It’s fantastic and every year gets a little better as we descend into it
degeneratelunatic@reddit
I'd add God Bless America as a close runner-up to those four.
lm-hmk@reddit
I’d nominate In The Loop as a runner up contender, or Death of Stalin if we want to go international
Correctthecorrectors@reddit
the dictator is also pretty good
wackJackle@reddit
No, it is just mid and for everyone should be now clear, that Sasha Baron Cohan built almost his hole career on being rascist af. We all should forget and despise him.
lm-hmk@reddit
To be fair to SBC, he did a fine job in Disclaimer opposite Cate Blanchett.
I have not seen the Dictator and do not plan to.
Pickledsoul@reddit
Maybe he meant The Great Dictator.
ThirstyWolfSpider@reddit
I just got home from a packed screening of "Network", which is unfortunately still quite relevant.
ShaneBarnstormer@reddit
I watched this again last year and my ultra picky teen actually sat down and watched it with me. Teen doesn't really enjoy watching movies so it has to be something truly captivating.
starrlitestarrbrite@reddit
I just rewatched “Leave The Word Behind” and it sent shivers down my spine. I think people need to watch for the Easter eggs.
ShaneBarnstormer@reddit
Read the book! It's worth it
WonderIntelligent777@reddit
The Death of Stalin is better than any of them.
dicklaurent97@reddit
What’s the satire there? Wasn’t most of that true?
WonderIntelligent777@reddit
Have you seen the film? The entire cast uses their native accents. It's not a biopic, it's a farce.
Correctthecorrectors@reddit
vice and the big short and wolf of wall street are also great satires of the big club
dicklaurent97@reddit
Those are more civilian satire than government
LivefromPhoenix@reddit
Satire? Starting to look like documentaries.
lavapig_love@reddit
Throw Lord of War in there as companion viewing.
icedoutclockwatch@reddit
Wag the dog is an excellent film, really opened my eyes to considering bias and manufactured consent. Glad my teacher made us watch it in AP Gov in highschool.
mygoditsfullofstar5@reddit
Not a war - it's a pageant!
navcus@reddit
Sure, doesn't change the fact it's a terrible film about climate change. All it does is give you a congratulatory handjob for being one of the few to recognize the issue, while also telling you to just roll over and die because nothing's gonna change.
The Lorax does a way better job at covering the same themes Don't Look Up tried to tackle; mild cynicism, and none of the self-masturbatory bullshit.
creamofbunny@reddit
I've been thinking about that movie all week, it's time for a re watch
IQBoosterShot@reddit
The movie feels different if you watch it after watching Yellowjackets. I start to fear for Dr. Randall Mindy.
AlludedNuance@reddit
I never watched it because I knew it would just frustrate the hell out of me
New-Acadia-6496@reddit
I watched it about 12 times myself... so maybe it's half a billion views from the 522K members of this sub...
Texuk1@reddit
First time I watched it I was sad because I was deep into existential thinking, second time I watched it I thought some of it could have been cleverer especially around the news interview stuff which could have had a better beat, third time I watched I was like yes the tech oligarchs do have this sort of capture and I was like how did they hit the point so hard.
seefatchai@reddit
Is this going to traumatize me and send me into a spiral of despair? I would have expected to like this but I am afraid
Ghostwoods@reddit
It might, yes.
jsteed@reddit
I've only watched it twice. The second time because I just had a sudden urge to see Jennifer Lawrence thrown into a car with a bag over her head.
NyriasNeo@reddit
So what? 95% of those who have seen it just chalk it up as funny entertainment. The US just voted, in no uncertain terms, for drill baby drill.
RogerStevenWhoever@reddit
Both parties are pro drilling. So, as the movie points out, it's really the structure of society, not the everyday people, who are at fault.
throwawaya6661@reddit
tbh (and no offense) i find it funny that the election results are brought up as an indicator of how ppl are dumb/misled/etc. making that quite meaningless ritual look like it's a matter of life and death (yea, dems would certainly save the world 🙃) and also it kinda makes the other option (dems) look way better than they are in reality due to that juxstaposition,
ofc and obv not defending republicans (why would anyone? 😅), but let's not forget that it still was/is a choice of lesser evil
Thor4269@reddit
We've already been producing oil at record breaking levels
"Drill baby drill" = continuing to do what we already are...
SolidStranger13@reddit
we literally can’t drill any more lol
Wild-Lengthiness2695@reddit
And a good portion of those who do at least understand it’s about more than the story in the film don’t realise we’re already past the point of sitting around the table at the end.
It’s hard , probably impossible , to pinpoint the “we had it all” point but the late 90s feels like the point where we could have really changed things but didn’t.
Going off topic but I often think of a point in Apple TV’s “for all mankind” show. It’s an alternate history of the space race. In their timeline the Gulf War still happens, but by 1990 both the US and USSR don’t rely on oil. Neither cares. As the series progresses through the decades there is no environmental crisis , because history was changed.
TotalSanity@reddit
You know I was watching Carl Sagan's testimony to Congress about climate change and he mentioned how Egypt used to be the breadbasket of Rome, kind of like the Midwest is to the US today. He said maybe it was desertified due to heavy grazing, although I'd argue that the bigger culprit was the iron-age heavy plow.
Anyway, the Romans and Egyptians were doing heavy-till agriculture which leads to erosion and land degradation and turned Egypt from a breadbasket into a dead desert. There's no real evidence that these giant human anthills that we build are sustainable and there's plenty of evidence that many iterations have failed throughout the Holocene.
Civilization collapse is the rule of history, not the exception, which is another reason why it is surprising that such a concept blows people's minds today.
Lastbalmain@reddit
Too many people that did not watch it, are the same people swayed by critics/media that derided it from the start. My son said he wouldn't watch it because it's just another "woke " movie. Eventually, he did watch it, and said it was just an attack on Trump? He watched it again recently, and NOW he gets it.
When the majority of our tv/news/streaming/media in general, are too busy selling advertising for shit no-one needs, we are fucked. When the public keep believing the conmen of the world, we are fucked. When country's keep voting for rightwing "hard men", we are fucked.
I could post graph after graph, showing the factual numbers that show our climate is warming at a dangerous rate, but most people will declare "fake news". When a few multi billionaires own the global media, the truth dies.....and we are fucked!
ShaneBarnstormer@reddit
Vendettaforhumanity@reddit
I had a fun collapse talk with my intelligent though politically opposite family over the homidays and I'm not sure who was more shocked when I brought up that this movie was about climate change. Them because it wasn't about at asteroid? Or me because they didn't know? Lol
Playongo@reddit
When I realized there are fans out there who don't understand the politics of Rage Against the Machine the extent to which people are able to miss the point started to dawn on me.
throwawaya6661@reddit
wish they wouldnt push bullshit commie/leftist propaganda, it kinda ruins their music for me
(sarcasm ofc, but yea - imo some ppl can just read/listen to stuff directed 100% at them, and be adamant that it's not about them)
imminentjogger5@reddit
and nothing will change lmfao
immersive-matthew@reddit
For now
imperfectprep@reddit
Just comfortable enough.
That and the raw milk, anti vax, butt hole sunning weirdos have the biggest megaphones right now.
Sufficient_Muscle670@reddit
Whoever shot Brian Thompson demonstrated that a gun can double as a megaphone in a pinch.
psychetropica1@reddit
Chad got me into butt home sunning… have you tried it though? s/
Ching-Dai@reddit
Quote of the day. Amazing
Top_Hair_8984@reddit
So far..
MidianFootbridge69@reddit
I have been wanting to see it, but I don't have Netflix 😭
ShareholderDemands@reddit
Half a billion people paid to see it in some recordable fashion.
I guarantee you many more have seen it than that.
forthewatch39@reddit
Well 8 billion+ are living it right now.
lavapig_love@reddit
Don't Look Up was one of the reasons I kept paying Netflix for half a year. Highly recommended to all Collapseniks, since it's both a dark comedy and a demonstration of the horribleness of modern politics and media.
mygoditsfullofstar5@reddit
Half a billion have seen it? Shoot, 8 billion are living it.
TheHistorian2@reddit
Not me. I stopped as soon as I saw Don't Look.
StatementBot@reddit
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Portalrules123:
SS: Related to collapse as ‘Don’t Look Up’ was a film that really resonated with a lot of people who know the dire truth behind climate change. Some critics have attacked the film for being too blunt in its messaging, but I think they are missing the point due to not understanding how much climate change threatens us. Besides, despite the film being not that subtle a lot of people missed the point of the message anyways. But if you are on r/collapse you likely understood the message perfectly, and it is clear the director understands the mass deception that is being fed to us in our neoliberal system, as he states in the article.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1i3ocda/dont_look_up_director_says_half_a_billion_people/m7ogffl/
Interwebzking@reddit
There’s 8+ billion people on the planet. Half a billion doesn’t seem very significant when the topic at hand is global collapse.
Portalrules123@reddit (OP)
SS: Related to collapse as ‘Don’t Look Up’ was a film that really resonated with a lot of people who know the dire truth behind climate change. Some critics have attacked the film for being too blunt in its messaging, but I think they are missing the point due to not understanding how much climate change threatens us. Besides, despite the film being not that subtle a lot of people missed the point of the message anyways. But if you are on r/collapse you likely understood the message perfectly, and it is clear the director understands the mass deception that is being fed to us in our neoliberal system, as he states in the article.
XI_Vanquish_IX@reddit
I’m living it I don’t need to see it although I have