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Only Hollywood could satirize a wealthy man who wants to do good to repay a society that has done so much to help him. Indeed, the movie makes Batman seem demented to the extreme! Hollywood is so full of the ultra rich hoarding their slick wealth - how else can they protect their ill gotten gains?
Marlon Brando's portrayal of the renegade Special Forces hero turned jungle mystic is a haunting question mark. How can we as a nation now accept this nemesis as evil personified when during the Viet Nam war itself, that is exactly how the vast majority of the American people felt. The evil Colonel is symbolically - us!
Do most people really think of professionals and academics as dark angels lurking just beyond our consciousness - having ultimate power, but craving their lost humanity in a vicarious, stealthy lust? Would these self styled angels really castigate any of their own who dared to be human?
There is no safer place to hide than in the truth. This movie satirizes the grandiose opulence of the hyper wealthy so expertly, we leave the theatre shaking our heads to think anyone could behave like that. The fact of the matter is, they're the rule rather than the exception! Have you ever heard of a billionaire taking the fall for any major crime - much less one upon the poor? Things like that only happen in Hollywood - not in reality.
The most popular future vision of them all is technology becoming more powerful than man - threatening our very survival. I hate to burst your bubble, but the process is well underway already. There is no such thing as pure theoretical work anymore, in any of the major scientific fields - quantum physics, celestial mechanics, experimental biology or clinical psychology - you name it, all we do any more is based on huge computer simulations. Our Nobel Laureate scientists don't think any longer; they're little more than glorified data entry operators.
This movie is not too spectacular in its own right, but it does give visual depth and perspective to the classic science fiction series of novels by Frank Herbert. It's one of the few movies I've seen that shows a technological landscape that's not all steel and glitter - but with ancient oak paneling, restored castles, and with at least a few machines less intelligent than their human "masters."
I think the symbolism here is not the story of a woman making first contact with an alien intelligence - only to be castigated by everyone in the whole world but a sensitive cleric (who lusts for her). No, it's the rejection of a woman's contact with her inner self, and thus making contact with the divine. All that trillion dollars of equipment can be replaced by a carefully designed meditation scheme.
The huge beast from the depths of the sea symbolizes the suppressed survival instincts of nature itself. That Hollywood could package the awesome beauty of nature into such an ugly, malicious monster - then to sell the package wholesale at huge profit; well… I think Hollywood is the Godzilla of western civilization, having far, far more power over our collective consciousness than any mere institution has the right to have.
This classic satire of the military is not a satire at all any more! I have experience in all branches of the military and, without exception, am disgusted. Men of honor are castigated. Honesty is a crime. Courage is squelched as deviant. Drugs are commonplace. Discipline is a joke. Technology is built for Hollywood's special effects scenes, not the battlefield. Leaders are so ineffectual at commanding their men they must rule by fear and intimidation.
The Jews have managed to make us all believe that they were the only victims of the Holocaust, when in fact they were only a majority of the victims. Homosexuals, gypsies, pagans, wiccans, political dissidents, disabled people, the mentally ill - why weren't any of them on Schindler's List? In their own way the Jews have become as elitist as the Nazis were.
This is not the story of some sensational bloodthirsty being with supernatural powers. It's the story of the science of psychology slowly sublimating all the "supernatural" powers inherent in the species human. It terrifies me to imagine the depth of rage and abomination that people have against those who would plumb their inner depths to renew what is human within us all.
© 2005 ntx books
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