Analysis of Geostorm by Carter Messner.
This weekend when I went back to my home in Blue Springs, I watched a movie that came out last summer called Geostorm. This movie is about how humanity built a system of satellites the call "Dutch Boy" to protect the planet from catastrophic weather events like Hurricanes and Tornados. Dutch Boy starts to malfunction, we later find that the malfunctions are actually planned by a group revealed later in the movie. Dutch Boy was designed the movies lead character played by Gerald Bulter, and he is tasked with finding out what is happening to Dutch Boy before is malfunctions again killing more people.
The thing I want to talk about, are the scenes that show people running away from the weather events that Dutch Boy creates around the world. These scenes are relatively short, and the people in the scenes narrowly escape death multiple times and are surrounded by chaos. Scenes like this are found in many films and they can add suspense, or comedy, but I believe they could hold deeper meaning. I believe they are aimed at our fear of the weather and what we are doing to the global climate, and seeing weather disasters of biblical proportions might be to make the viewer ask "What would I do in a situation like this?".
The first scene starts in Hong Kong in a store, a man is shown opening a door to the milk when a random cat jumps in the fridge because it is warm outside (this is foreshadowing the future events in the scene). The scene then follows the man to his car, and as he starts driving the ground under him starts the heat up and melt. He then is racing the heat wave for a few minutes while buildings are crumbling around him and destruction is ensuing all around him, but against the odds this man makes it out of the city before it is destroyed.
What I found interesting about this scene, and this is why I decided to do this topic, is that this man is later introduced as Cheong Long who works on Dutch Boys team in Hong Kong. This is the first time in an action film I have seen that they introduced a character with some importance in a scene where he nearly dies 20 plus times. The rest of the scenes don’t introduce any main characters but I thought that this was something I haven’t experienced before.
Another one of these scenes happens in Brazil on the beach, where instead of a heat wave happening it is an ice wave. The scene has the same type of feel as the last one, but it focuses on a woman who starts running from this wave at the beach with some friends. She also escapes death on a multiple time's while the scene goes on, the ice is chasing her down while everything around her is freezing. When the scene is about to end and she thinks she is out of the way, a plane starts to fall from the sky towards her, but luckily the plane falls right in front of her feet and she is completely unharmed. This scene I believe was drawn out more than the rest to add comedy in this movie where there isn't much room for comedy.
These scenes that seem to have no real context to the story because most of the time the lead characters were never involved, but they give us a look at a pretty horrific scene that can be scary to think about. Another movie like this was 2012, where the whole world was coming to an end like the 'Mayan Prophecy' said, which at the time many people were afraid something might actually happen. Likewise, Geostorm was made because of the fear of what we are doing to our planet, and if we are going to destroy ourselves with the changes we are causing.
Alan Donoho:
ReplyDeleteI have only ever watched the preview for Geostorm, but from your description of the scenes I think I have developed an understanding of what you are trying to say. I think that these scene are vital in cinema production especially in this genre. Through these scenes multiple concepts are made possible. Main characters are either introduced to the audience or a connection is built between the audience and the character as they just went through this heart-racing event. Another purpose of these scenes is to help an audience develop an understanding of what is actually happening or in this case how extremely and differently the changes in the weather affecting people across the globe.
Kendra ZeMenye:
ReplyDeleteI never saw the movie Geostorm before. But it seems interesting, and I’m cool with a film full of suspense. I know what you’re trying to say, about how much the weathers had been changing like crazy. You know, it’s like the weather you were describing were full of mood swings, as the global warming. You reminded me when I was in elementary school when we learn about how much the climate changes during the dinosaur times and how much all the extinct mammals appear in the earth right after the dinosaurs died.
Sam Urueta:
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of this movie but from your descriptions it sounds like any other natural catastrophe movie in the film industry. These movies tend to focus on shorter scenes to exaggerate the number of incidences happening around the world. In addition, it mirrors the force of mass destruction mother nature has over mankind. The suspense is a great way to keep the viewer on their toes and interested all through out the movie. It also helps rule out future predictions while watching the movie because the weather and its effects are extreme. It is all up to luck and destiny when it comes to mother nature! Overall, I believe these scenes are essential to make important statements and connections with the characters and film set up.
I have never seen this movie. This may just be my paranoia or distrust in governments in general, but I wonder if the group causing the 'Dutch Boy' to "malfunction" was a government or political group (either United States or international), using it as a way to implement fear in the people of the world. But I suppose you didn't want to give away too much of the movie.
ReplyDeleteAs for how you described the scenes depicting the destruction, the only movie that comes to mind for me to compare it to is 2012. I feel that this movie's destruction scenes where not short as you mentioned Geostorm's to be. 2012 heavily relied on the CGI end of the world type scenes, in fact, they make up most of the movie. But it sounds like Geostorm has more of a plot than the movie 2012 did.
Riley Stephens
Sup Carter,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, we're both Blue Springs buds and that's dope. I hope you didn't go to south or else that's double plus ungood. Wildcat pride, baby. - That hurt just a little bit to type. Anyway, we're both from Blue Springs, so good job.
Onto your post, I empathize with your disgruntlement in this pointless Hollywood hokum. But at the same time, the way you describe them I can't help but feel a little charmed by the whole superfluousness of it all. I can totally see how one can become annoyed by the needlessness of these scenes inter-spliced between segments of real development and plot, but it's also kind of funny. It is as if the director or producer or whoever was not confident that the actual content of the movie would hold people's attention or not so they decided they HAD to throw in these hyper visually stimulating scenes to try and stop us from getting bored. It's disrespectful to the audience, wreaks of insecurity, and that is very funny to me. I guess if you'd ask why, I would say it's cute that they think they have to do that. The shot caller has got to be pretty optimistic to think that would solve the issue. Whoa. I'm being wayyy too mean here, I haven't even seen this movie and I'm acting like it's fundamentally borked. The rest of the movie could be pretty good! I should give it a shot!
Brandon Ince