[Rod_Cloutier]

I saw the film 'The Hunger Games' last night, excellect post peak doomer porn.

A brief synopsis:

After a period of revolution, social, and economic collapse a 'Ecotechic' society reemerges from the ashes of the old civilization. 12 zones each specialized in one area of economic production; ie, mining, farming, fishing, ect; feed a wealth pump to a decadent police state at the core of this new society. The decadent core retains modern technology, minus cars, and uses that technology to suppress the 12 productive zones to keep the wealth pump flowing for them. Presented 75 years into this 'new era society', the future it presented as a possible, if bleak, post oil world.

It was amazing and heartbreaking at the same time; one could not help comparing the film to the issues of today; millions of near starving oppressed people supporting a corrupt central core; but caught in a technology trap where there is no escape. Young people sent yearly as 'tribute' to the police state to compete in a 'to the death' gladiator game for the purposes of oppression, gambling and sport for the 'elite' of the decadent core.

Similar to the police totatalitarian state of Orwell's '1984', the film speaks to courage in the face of disaster, collapse, and oppression. All doomers and preppers should see this film!

Trailer link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... fmrPu43DF8

[americandream]

The post peak world will have few choices....either co-operation...communism basically, or barbarism and a slide into brute decline. There simply wont be the surplus value left for any form of accumulation, from the feudal landowning type to that available in capitalism with its multi-tiered forms of intangible wealth extraction. This is basically what Karl Marx was alluding to in the dialectic quality of social-economy.

This is an objective working out of material tendencies as they are at a point in time.

[Sixstrings]

The movie made $150 million dollars in its first two opening days. That's the 4th biggest movie open of all time. Ironic, you could feed a lot of hungry folks for $150 million.

Apparently, from what I read, "dystopic" is the new "vampire." Kunstler should write a doomy young adult novel so he can cash in on that market (maybe he has, maybe he is).

Lot of dystopia books coming out are "young adult" level. Which means 5th grade reading level. I don't know about this movie, if it's a teenager Twilight type of thing it's not going to interest me.

While it's a fad these books could do some good if they would educate young readers a bit about resource contstraints, limits to growth, and environmental damage.

Having said that, I don't think this dystopia craze is a new interest among young people of these issues, this could just be dark fantasy for its own sake -- the fantasy is about living in that world, not doing something to prevent it. Dystopia may be popular now because the younger generation is so spoiled and *comfortable*; it's the same reason people watch horror movies, because they have nothing scary in their reality.

When times get really hard, people will want to go see happy movies -- just like in the Great Depression.

[Sixstrings]

Just read an article on this. She says basically the same thing I just did, but then goes on to posit a larger meaning to the movie. I wonder though, will the popcorn eating masses "get it?" Or is it just escapist gothic dark fantasy, message not important? I remember when I was a kid, I liked post-apocalyptic movies just because I liked them, I saw them as fantasy, a "what if" thing I never connected it with real issues.

From the article:

Since she wrote it, Americans have risen up in widespread protest of bank bailouts, foreclosures and mass unemployment. Coupled with horrific scenes of police violence against Occupy Wall Street protesters, it’s started to come into focus: America has never been hungrier for a popular entertainment that excoriates the ultra-rich.

“The Hunger Games” is, at its core, a critique of winner-take-all capitalism — a writ-large version of the same struggle that’s given us the Occupy movement and the idea that America’s top 1% is ruling badly and unjustly, with disastrous consequences. Again and again, the books contrast Katniss’s poor but noble hometown, full of dying miners and starving children, with her country’s corrupt Capitol, a fortress city where overdressed aristocrats vomit during banquets in order to stuff themselves again.

Is it right for a small percentage of the population to utterly control access to wealth and power? Is it exploitative when we watch as members of a lower socioeconomic class scramble and fight over scraps of money and potential fame, as they do on many real reality shows and, indeed, in many real televised sports? The gladiatorial Games are a metaphor for the high-stakes games that poor people must play in America to merely survive.

And these days, they’re also not a metaphor. They’re just a mild exaggeration of a culture where one of the only ways for its least privileged citizens to escape their circumstances seems to be risking public pain and humiliation as cameras record their every move.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/real ... 025?pgno=1

On the other hand.. think about it.. privileged first worlders watching this movie, iPhone and other Apple products in their pockets, aren't they the "Capitol" and the Chinese slave laborers making all these things the "districts?" Lot of food for thought here. The Hunger Games is fantasy, but hungry workers making 24 cents per hour, fed a ration of rice without meat, all to provide us in "the Capitol" with our iStuff -- that's reality.

Comparing this to the Hunger Games world, I would imagine "the Capitol" would have its own elites and lower classes. Lower classes in the capitol would feel they are the oppressed, while ignorant of / not giving a damn about the even more oppressed out in the districts.

If we play this whole thought experiment out, you wind up with an argument for communism or socialism at the minimum but this book trilogy just isn't nuanced to that level -- ultimately Hunger Games is just dark escapist fantasy. Nobody watching this movie will feel moved to send a few bucks to the impoverished worker who made their iPad.

[Revi]

I started reading the books and couldn't put them down. It is an engaging story about a time not that different from our own. I agree that the districts are like the former third world feeding us here in techno-utopia. We are even more decadent than the citizens of the capitol, in that we have cars and vacations to divert us.

This is the first dystopia movie to hit the big screen. I suppose Avatar was another that was saying something similar, but this movie was touted as a teenager movie. I would say it was a bit too brutal to take an elementary class to see. The idea of having 24 teenagers fight to the death is a little heavy for most kids. They seem to like it, but it's not a good thing to have in their heads, in my opinion. I think it's okay for older teenagers, but not for really young kids.

[rangerone314]

The thing I thought when I heard the premise of the "Hunger Games", was that it was a shame someone couldn't find a nuclear bomb stashed somewhere and detonate it on the Capitol District in Panem.

[careinke]

I've read the trilogy and found them excellent. An easy, if not light, read. But I've always been a sucker for dystopic books. I'm certainly going to watch the movie as the previews suggest the movie holds true to the book.

There have always been dystopic movies. Solyent Green, Mad Max, Lord of the Flies, Clockwork Orange to name a few.

[rangerone314]

I've read the trilogy and found them excellent. An easy, if not light, read. But I've always been a sucker for dystopic books. I'm certainly going to watch the movie as the previews suggest the movie holds true to the book.

There have always been dystopic movies. Solyent Green, Mad Max, Lord of the Flies, Clockwork Orange to name a few.

Rotten Tomatoes critics give it 88% and the audiences liked it 95%... looks good. I'm going to go see it next weekend.

[Plantagenet]

REALITY: 50 states each specialized in local economic production; ie, mining, farming, fishing, ect; feed a wealth pump to a decadent central state at the core of the society. The decadent core ...[ the Capitol District]... suppress the 50 productive states to keep the wealth pump flowing for them.

FICTION: 12 zones each specialized in one area of economic production; ie, mining, farming, fishing, ect; feed a wealth pump to a decadent police state at the core of this new society. The decadent core ...[ the Capitol District]... suppress the 12 productive zones to keep the wealth pump flowing for them.


The idea of young people taken as tribute and forced to perform in dangerous games for their masters comes straight from the story of Theseus and Minotaur, when legend holds that the Minoans on Crete required human tribute from Athens. Putting that basic story into a modern post-modern setting is brilliant.

[Shaved Monkey]

Me too. But of all the dystopic books/movies "1984" has been my least favorite--too contrived. I am more of a 'Road Warrier' fan because I believe the future is chaos, not control. I'm not sure of this movie; the setup and previews I saw seem kind a cheesy.

you have probably seen this but its worth posting
http://ela40sliteraryfocus.wikispaces.c ... orwell.jpg

[radon]

We are living in dystopia. Had someone described our present life to us 20 years ago, we would probably have considered it as a dystopian story. Prevailing views of the future were a bit different.

[Beery1]

I read the book 'Hunger Games' - it's teen fiction, with all the worst elements of the genre - poorly written pulp garbage. From what I've heard, the movie is much the same.

[rangerone314]

I read the book 'Hunger Games' - it's teen fiction, with all the worst elements of the genre - poorly written pulp garbage. From what I've heard, the movie is much the same.

Some considered in his time Charles Dickens to be not much more than a hack writer, and ditto on Stephen King today. I think history will see Stephen King differently. I cannot speak to the Hunger Games, as I have not read the trilogy.

[ralfy]

Try The Road, which was probably mentioned in the past in this forum.

[careinke]

I read the book 'Hunger Games' - it's teen fiction, with all the worst elements of the genre - poorly written pulp garbage. From what I've heard, the movie is much the same.

Some considered in his time Charles Dickens to be not much more than a hack writer, and ditto on Stephen King today. I think history will see Stephen King differently. I cannot speak to the Hunger Games, as I have not read the trilogy.

Just because something is written at a sixth grade level does not make it bad. Orwell spent a great deal of effort simplifying his stories so they could be enjoyed on many different levels. Animal Farm is a case in point. When I first read it in the fourth grade, it had a completely different meaning to me than it did when I read it in college.

[Revi]

When I was a kid I loved Sci-fi, and particularly liked dystopic novels, set in a future where things had gone wrong. I think the Hunger Games is set in a time not that different from today. Where starvation is a real possibility for a family if a worker gets sick or dies. Where an oppressive government panders to the whims of a rich, bored populace. We live in an empire that is constantly fighting, but almost none of it is in this country. Eventually the repression we use in other countries will come back here, like when Ceasar's army crossed the rubicon. Then we'll be living in District 12. Some of us already are.

[The Practician]

My girlfriend wanted to read the book before she saw the movie, so I picked up a copy this weekend. I am only a few chapters in so I don't know exactly how everything in the society is supposed to work, but so far the people in the capitol are described as looking like dead ringers for extras in Fellini's Satyricon, and they tend to have fake Latin sounding names to really drive home the whole "Roman" parallel. The energy-nerd in me finds the level of technology posessed by the capitol to be just a little far fetched considering their energy base seems to consist entirely of the dregs of Appalachian coal. I'm with Beery on the quality of the writing, but that's what I was expecting from a pulp page turner aimed at young adults.