What is free will and how is it valuable? The machines that have enslaved humanity in the matrix represent the idea that free will is an illusion, while the resistance fights to free humanity from the matrix, thereby realizing their free will. The Matrix is dense with philosophical quandaries, but the biggest one underlying them all is the question of free will. But how clandestine and above the law can we accept our government being for the sake of security? Perhaps there’s a real life balance between the two concerns, but the characters in Enemy of the State tend to be almost completely on one side of this issue or the other. As technology advances faster and faster, just as Voight describes, threats become more unpredictable. Not only do we see how this constant surveillance and information gathering is invasive, we see how it can be exploited for personal agendas by both Voight and Smith’s characters. When the NSA comes after him in earnest and tries to frame him to cover up the body count, Smith tries to expose them. An average wildlife photographer inadvertently captures footage of the assassination and it ends up in the hands of innocent bystander Will Smith. Jon Voight’s NSA official goes so far as to murder a congressman who’s leading the opposition to the bill. 10 GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE – ENEMY OF THE STATEĬertainly one of the most prophetic blockbusters about this particular issue, in Tony Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer’s Enemy of the State (1998), the United States Congress is pushing a bill that will dramatically increase the domestic surveillance power of the NSA. Lumping everybody into exclusive groups may give people a sense of belonging and purpose, but those groups can easily be abused or pitted against each other. While so many others in her society suffered because they had been shoehorned into a label, Tris and her allies were able to stop the Erudite plot because their Divergence let them break the society’s means of manipulating them. She hides successfully until she discovers that the elite Erudites are planning to brainwash the Dauntless into executing the entire Abnegation faction, including her parents. To avoid being hunted or exiled, Tris decides to join the Dauntless faction, where she has to play along. She gets quite a shock when her proctor reveals in conspiratorial whispers that the results of her test indicate Tris is Divergent, exhibiting traits of multiple factions and not fitting completely into any of them. She takes her faction aptitude test like all the other 16 year olds before the Choosing Ceremony. Beatrice Prior appears to be an average soon to be 16 year old Abnegation girl. Each of the factions, Abnegation, Candor, Amity, Erudite and Dauntless have rigid guidelines for their members’ behavior and a clearly defined role in the overall society. Set in a future dystopian Chicago, society in Divergent has divided itself into 5 separate factions based on character traits. Avatar never suggests this outright, but perhaps humans wouldn’t need to plunder alien worlds for resources if they had dedicated themselves to finding sustainable ways of living off their own world. Not only is Pandora majestic and beautiful to preserve, but it sustains the Na’vi because they are so biologically interconnected. When Jake gets hooked on his abled avatar body and gets to know the Na’vi, he can’t stand idly by while their homes and world are destroyed. Humans are still recklessly collecting resources, except this time it’s somebody else’s home they’re bulldozing. It’s mentioned only sporadically in the movie, but we do learn that Earth has been completely depleted of resources by 2154. Maybe they could reach a peaceful solution with Pandora’s native sentients - the Na’vi - but the RDA is fully prepared to kick them off their land and drill away. The Resource Development Administration and their heavy military assignment considered the Avatar Program a pity project, something for their hippie scientists to busy themselves with. When Jake Sully arrived on the exotic world of Pandora, he only had the perspective of a soldier assigned to a science heavy project. Here are 12 Fictional Movies With Very Real Ideological Conflicts. Almost all of these disagreements might make us think a bit more deeply about our own world too, thereby helping ground the proceedings in reality. In this list we’re looking at movies where there are disagreements about serious issues the characters face where their differing views drive the story as much as any material interest or personal agenda. Some of our favorite nerdy/geeky movies include big ideological conflicts that pit the characters of the story against each other. At least within the context of the movie itself. It’s certainly possible to tell an entertaining story that also makes us think about serious issues and conflicting arguments. Blockbusters don’t have to be all flash and no substance.
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