Blatant Reality

I mentioned in a post a couple days ago that President Obama is named in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and there was a particular scene where his foreign policy seemed to be bashed. Well, I got the transcript to this particular scene for you to enjoy:

[As armed troops in Hummers surround Autobots and Major Lennox’s men, Lennox starts to yell at those surrounding his men to stand down.]

 

Major Lennox: Drop your weapons! Drop your weapons! Tell them to lower their weapons. Tell them to lower their weapons now!

 

Army Officer: Major, there is nothing I can do. Talk to him.

 

[Galloway, special envoy from President Obama, steps out of a Hummer]

 

Galloway: Your NEST team has been deactivated. You are to cease anti-Decepticon operations and return to Diego Garcia pending further orders.

 

Major Lennox: No, we take our orders directly from chairman Morshower.

 

Galloway: I will see your chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and raise you a President of the United States.

 

[Galloway shows Major Lennox papers from the President]

 

Galloway: I have operational command now.

 

Galloway: An alien blood feud has been brought to our shores for which our soldiers are paying the price.

 

[Galloway looks towards the Autobots]

 

Galloway: The secret is out! This is our war now and we will win it as we’ve always have… with a coordinated military strategy.

 

One of the Autobots: This fool is terribly misinformed.

 

Major Lennox: You’re going to need every asset we’ve got…

 

Galloway: What we need is to draw battle plans as we explore every possible diplomatic solution.

 

Major Lennox: Like what? Handing over the kid?

 

[Pause before Galloway answers]

 

Galloway: All options are being considered.

 

[Galloway turns and walks away]

 

Random foreign military personnel: Whatever the Decepticons are after, this is just the start.

 

Major Lennox: There is no negotiating with them…

 

Galloway: I am ordering you to stand down. You won’t be needing this anymore.

 

[Galloway rips on insignia patch off of Major Lennox’s uniform]

 

Galloway: Get your assets back to base. Take that pile of scrap metal back to Diego Garcia too. Let’s go!

 

[Major Lennox stands by USAF Master Sergeant Epps as Galloway drives away]

 

Master Sergeant Epps: I really don’t like that guy. A$$…hole.

If you haven’t watched the movie or don’t know you the characters are, click here for a list of the cast.

As I stated in my previous article, Galloway is ultimately proven wrong and the military saves the day, seemingly without the approval of the president. If that isn’t a slight against the president I really don’t know what is.

In “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”, there is a scene where the Obama Administration is portrayed as weak and, well, a modern day Chamberlain. I Twittered about this two days ago when I watched it and now it seems the media is picking up on it.

I suppose in my driveway antics, I’d run the risk of squashing an Autobot, one of the good robot aliens, as well. If either Mudflap or Skids, a pair of new characters who speak in an appallingly offensive ghetto patois, were my victims, I could live with myself. The world doesn’t need more versions of Jar Jar Binks. But what if it were the Autobot leader, Optimus Prime? Optimus truly cares about the future of the human race, unlike the Obama Administration, which Bay represents as so prissy and antiwar it just wants the alien robots off the planet. Bay’s Obama would probably drive his Prius over Optimus if he had the chance. But no problem; if you still had your hearing in the deafening home stretch of Revenge of the Fallen, you’d know that just about any chunk of metal can be brought back to life by merging the Matrix with its Spark. (I’m fairly sure this process has nothing to do with Keanu Reeves. As for the Spark, without benefit of the Hasbro manual, it’s impossible to say whether it is of the plug family or something more ephemeral like Chi.)

What the article fails to mention is that the movie clearly went out of its way to mention Obama. Here is where they scene happened:

**Warning: This is not spoiler, but will definitely reveal some of the plot**

In the movie, the Decepticons are invading the planet in Mass and the President Obama’s liaison to NEST (military group that works with the friendly Autobots to protect world) orders the group to stand down and not fight the invasion. Instead President wants to look into all options including diplomacy. They even are considering giving Sam (Shia LaBeouf’s character) to the Decepticons (which means certain death) in order to appease them.

Without giving too much away, let’s just say the “Obama way” isn’t followed and the day is saved.

The funny thing is that they don’t just make vague references to some nameless president like in most movies; they actually reference President Obama by name in at least one scene if not more.

Even though the critics are already saying this movie was a dud, I would recommend going to see it if not just for this part.

So I just got back from seeing the movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and I was far from impressed. In fact, I was downright disappointed. I mean, I thought it would be a better choice than “Role Models” but now I feel that I might have been wrong.

Anyways, before I get into the main point of the article, let me explain the movie a bit to you. The whole premise of this flick is that aliens have come to earth to exterminate the human race in order to save the place from us. So apart from being a massively environmental propaganda piece, it also took the time to take jabs at the Iraq war and the US military in general (no pun intended). In fact, the only bright spot in the whole movie was the fact that Keanu Reeves got a role where his emotionless acting style was actually put to good use.

Alright, so before I explain the economic lessons we may be able to learn from this horrible movie, let me set up the scene. At about halfway through the movie, the alien (Keanu Reeves) ends up at a Nobel Prize winner’s house and they are discussing the impending doom of the human race. Reeves’ character mentions that his own race had to band together in order to save their planet when it was on the brink of destruction. To this, the Nobel Prize winner replies that the human race should have the same right to change and save their planet (not from the aliens, mind you, but from ourselves). If the aliens destroy the human race, they will never have the chance to excel and save themselves.

Obviously, I’m paraphrasing but the basic gist of this whole conversation is that the most innovation, change, and action take place when a civilization is on the brink of destruction (Pop Culture Reference: This is why people like Al Gore are saying we only have five years to fix things).

So what’s the economic lesson? Think about it this way. If we look at the recent mortgage crisis, and the economy as the whole, one could compare it to the earth in the movie: there’s been some bad decisions made that have been detrimental to its health so something needs to be done. Obviously, the stock market tumble and business bankruptcies are comparable to the tipping point the aliens mention in the movie: choices need to be made now that will affect how things play out in the end.

Now the next comparison is where I will probably get some people mad at me. I think that the US Federal Government is like the aliens in the movie. These aliens come to earth wanting to save it just like the federal government did with its bailouts. And just like the aliens want to destroy the human race in an effort to save the world, the government bailouts greatly damaged our country’s free market and principles.

So instead of letting the threat of impending financial disaster beget innovation and change that would ultimately be beneficial, the government, just like the aliens in the movie, wanted a quick fix to the problem. By bailing out the market, the government has removed any need for businesses to innovate and change in order to stay alive. Instead, all will be able to continue their old (failing) practices which will most likely lead to market stagnation (Case in point: Just watch and see how much the Big Three actually change).

Now does Neo… err…I mean Keanu Reeves’ character decide to save the human race or just the world? Well this isn’t a spoiler blog so I guess you will just have to suffer through the movie to find out. However, I will say that, in relationship with my elaborate comparison above, I did like his choice a lot better than the US government’s.

Last night, I saw the midnight showing of the new movie titled “Cloverfield.” The premise behind this movie is that there is a giant monster attacking Manhattan. If you have seen the new movie version of Godzilla, its kind of like that. The only difference is that this movie has a different monster and a much better story line.

Oh, did I mention that the whole movie is shot from a “Handycam’s” perspective? Yep, you read that right. The whole entire movie is shown through the viewpoint of several survivors running around Manhattan with a video camera “documenting” this event. If you have seen “The Blair Witch Project” its reminiscent of that kind of cinematography. What this means is that if you had problems watching “The Bourne Supremacy” because you got nauseous, this is not the movie for you. In many scene, the picture is going every which way because they are running from one thing or another. Now, even though it is supposed to be shot from a hand held camera, don’t think the production team skimped out on any of the special affects or picture quality. The movie looks really good so don’t let that fear deter you from seeing it.

The movie itself was pretty good with a fairly simple yet realistic story line. You follow these survivors from a party through their harrowing seven hour adventure through Manhattan. However, the whole movie is very short with roughly a hour and 20 minute playing time. The main reason I think I liked the movie was probably the cinematography just because it was so new a way to view a story. The movie also throws in a few twists that keep you interested in the story line so my overall opinion would be this:

If you like monster movies and want to see one shot in a new way, go see Cloverfield. I don’t think you will be disappointed.

Gateway Pundit just posted stating how wonderful the movie “Kite Runner” is and I agree wholeheartedly. I saw it over winter break and thought that is was an awesome movie. I haven’t read the book, but its a pretty good bet that the movie is a poor reflection of just how good the book is. Therefore, from this reasoning we can assume that the book is absolutely spectacular. I plan on buying the book soon (aka whenever my poor college student bank account can afford it) but for you who have the money, Amazon.com has it for a great price.