Thoughts on 'Don't Look Up' (Film)

All in all an apocalyptic Christmas eve, after watching 'Don't look up': a satire on the media and its reception of impending extinction level comet impact. Its always sobering to watch films where civilization/humanity is under threat of extinction. Especially poignant are the last moments before the end. The thought of being on a one-way course to death is depressing and terrifying, such as the last moment before your plane crashes or you hit the ground when your parachute doesn't open or the 1km high tidal wave hits you. The irony is that we are all going to die, its just that we are good at ignoring it, or at least we try our best to act immortal. The story was a bit ridiculous, especially in its attempt to frame the catastrophe through a political lens. The president and her son were portrayed as corrupt overly media savvy posturers, only interested in their ratings and popularity. The most interesting character was the tech CEO which was a stab at Bezos and Musk. like them the character believed he was a modern day messiah and could save the world but was more obsessed with profits then assessing real science. In the end it was his plan to break up the comet into smaller pieces to be mined for rare minerals, that caused the end of the world (they diverted the initial mission to nuke the comet, which would have been successful). Even the characters' soft spoken way and nerdiness was a parody of Musk and Bezos. The film was made for young people, and didn't show what a horrific experience it would be for all people. As a middle aged, bachelor with no job and no significance, the idea of apocalypse doesn't seem so bad. But of course you have to imagine a woman who recently gave birth cradling their baby, futilely, in the face of the oncoming tidal wave. It reminds me  of Pompeii in a sense. What was the key takeaway from the film? The main philosophical message? I think it was a satire on politics and misinformation - the idea that a incontrovertible scientific fact and what eventually becomes a truth staring us in the face (a comet in the sky) can still be discredited by politicians and the media.

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