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Essays
Mar 6, 2017 8:14:32 GMT
Post by [CHIMERA]Antioxos III Megas on Mar 6, 2017 8:14:32 GMT
FOR INTELLECTUAL MATERIALS.
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Post by [CHIMERA]Antioxos III Megas on Apr 6, 2017 18:53:48 GMT
MAD MAX 2 AND THE COLD WAR ****SPOILERS******
Mad Max 2’s plot begins after a period in the world’s history wherein civilization withstood an energy crisis and, subsequently, a global-nuclear conflict. The energy crisis and nuclear war lead to the collapse of civilization and its replacement by a world in which gangs with modified muscle cars and powerful motorcycles vie for control over the last dregs of fuel and other resources throughout the wasted world. The movie plot sees similar violence on a smaller and a more primal post-apocalyptic scale. The central character, Max, portrayed by Mel Gibson, finds himself attacked by a detachment of a gang lead by a sociopathic warlord. He is driving a beaten up V8 Ford Pursuit special, powered by a modified V8 engine which gives it an extraordinary performance edge over other contemporary vehicles. However, after the events which lead to the collapse of society, the car is found to be severely damage, with the backside of the interior having been entirely replaced for use as a massive fuel container. Max is able to use his vehicle to eliminate the bandits assailing him on a highway, but damages the front end of his car in the process. He was, however, able to salvage fuel from his vanquished assailants’ smashed vehicles. Further down the road, Max is ambushed by a helicopter pilot, working alone, seeking to steal all of Max’s fuel. Just when thinks are looking dire, Max’s faithful dog-companion attacks the helicopter pilot who had max stared down with a cross bow, allowing the tides to reverse. Max appears to be on the brink of killing his attacker, but the Pilot reveals the locale of a fortified oil rig down the highway that is controlled by a group of people as a city state. However, it is under siege by the aforementioned warlord. On the unremitting quest for fuel and survival, Max travels there with the guidance of the pilot. At the oil plant, there is indeed a fortified city state which is under siege by the warlord and his gang, armed to the teeth and brandishing an assortment of modified car chimeras. The entirety of this plot therefrom reveals itself to be filled with the notion that war over resources is a natural and inescapable part of human nature; this siege is merely a parallel of the world that was destroyed in the final phases of an alternate cold war. Max recognizes this and it forces him into a state of apathy towards the woes of others, at least by the time of the events of the beginning of the film where we first meet him. Max only gets involved with other people if he has something to gain directly from them, such as his pilot-sidekick whom he basically captures as a prisoner. There is a small hint that Max retains his humanity in a limited way; he has a pet dog companion which he is repeatedly seen showing affection for and giving up food to. The dog, without command, repeatedly reciprocates that love with loyalty and by saving max during several scenarios. Max is really changed when he bears witness to two citizens trying to escape the siege. The gang captures them, rapes and kills a woman and almost kills a man with her. Max comes to the scene quickly and kills the bandits. The woman is dead but he may still be able to save the man who survived. Out of a renewed sense of empathy, Max risks all for someone else for the first time in years, and penetrates the siege to get into the settlement. But the citizens of the oil settlement were no less pragmatic than Max once was; they seize from Max everything he had nearly died to keep. The only way anything benefitting either side was effected was through transactions amounting to business deals and bartering. Max enters the settlement in the first place because of what he saw the raiders do to a couple of comrades of theirs, and only entered it at the risk of his life to save the man who survived that attack The man saved by Max died of his wounds and the citizens simply view Max as a lamentable foreigner with no good will, only sparing Max when he comes up with a plan that could save the settlement. Self-serving behavior is a commonality that Max must endure in his travels. Max reverts back to pragmatism because of the maltreatment he receives, and it almost destroys all involved: as a bartering chip to save himself from execution and get his things back, he will only let them in on a path to escape using a large mobile rig he knows the location of. He will also get them what they need for it if they return to him all his possessions they seized when he visited them. He does this successfully, but the rig is damaged while he penetrates the bandit siege, and several important citizens who were to pilot the rig are wounded or killed when the bandits almost get into the city as a result of opening the doors for the rig to come through. The citizens now need an able driver, but Max sees himself as upholding his end of the bargain and demands to be allowed to leave as promised, greatly perturbed that his kindness was punished with disdain and the confiscation of his property. A message stated here is essentially that selfishness begets selfishness; the good in people can only be expressed by being good to others, and the evil is unleashed when evil is committed. That theme is realized in the following events: Max leaves the oil-city’s citizens to their fate, but is ambushed and nearly killed by the bandit. His dog is killed and his car and fuel are also blown up in the process. His helicopter-friend, who decided to stay within the oil-city state out of his own new sense of altruism (an altruism developed because Max had not killed him and instead let him go after upholding a deal) when he sees the smoke from Max’s blow up car. Max, after being saved by the pilot, decides, finally, to risk his life piloting the rig for the oil-city dwellers, having nothing left. The citizens take separate vehicles in one direction while Max, the helicopter pilot, and some soldiers from the city drive the rig in another direction, forcing the bandits follow the fuel instead of the civilians. The rig is eventually destroyed, but most of the bandits and their leader are killed in the process, effectively ending the bitter conflict. Max discovers that the oil rig had been filled entirely with sand; the civilians took most of the fuel in their buses and cars which were not pursued. Thus, in the end, the peaceful inhabitants survive with their fuel and the aggressive, totally amoral and psychotic bandits are destroyed in their unlimited pursuit of resources. Max, the hero, sacrificed everything he possessed to save everybody. No side in this story is ethically perfect, but Max does successfully achieve a character arch which sees him to the revival of his altruism, even in spite of how unforgiving the world and the people in it are. Selflessness is what saves every character when they need help later on. Oppression and amoral pursuit of resources kills everyone else because, in their time of need, the ones they wronged will forget about them, or seek their destruction, defeating the purpose of their behavior. The movie thus evokes a sense that the cold war, still going on during the time in which Max Max 2 was made, was a process between two pragmatic factions fighting over land or resources that would ultimately culminate in the destruction of all, constantly wronging others in this process (i.e exploiting nations, supporting coups and revolutions, ect.). Loose references to it are made in the beginning of the film which explain why society collapses; a struggle for scarce resources and massive nuclear conflict. The plot of the movie follows this progression and process well, putting a fully humanized character who is given a convincing character arch and compelling motives right into the thick of it all; he is the only character who seems to change his ways and not merely act upon his pragmatic ambitions in the second half of the film where he enters the besieged oil encampment. The film seems to be stating that this sort of quality that humans are capable of achieving is what can ultimately save humanity, as Max’s risky and self-sacrificing actions save countless people while eliminating aggressors who were seeking murder, rape, and the theft of resources from others. Defenseless though the oil-settlers were, they were still amoral outside of their miniature world. Even Max’s selfless empathy was viewed as nothing more than a trick. Desperation and war seem to deprive all people of their recognition of the goodness in the human soul, and even Max for a time loses this quality he gained after being treated so harshly by those he was trying to help. The film makes a statement about the condition of humans in the paranoid atmosphere of the Cold War of this kind. The philosophical question raised and answered is whether anyone is capable, in large numbers, of appreciating good deeds and whither it’s worth the effort, if those who behave in a pragmatic fashion will only seize what they can at all costs. Max’s breaking of the cold war trend of paranoia and readiness to merely self-serve is what saves the side he was on, and annihilates the psychotic side led only by a murderous tyrant. The oil rig in the end, being filled with sand, may well have been a clever metaphor for the cold war world. The pursuit of these resources at the cost of killing all is a pointless and self-defeating endeavor. It’s helping, cooperating, and empathizing, not destroying and conquering, which will benefit all people’s interests in the end. The good foster the good and send a domino effect of selfless deeds that preserve human life.
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