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seriousficOkay, so what the hell is up with this In Time movie? Like, not the fact that they cast Justin Timberlake as the hero and Olivia Wilde gets fridged in the trailer, I get that. But the basic premise. In the future, people can live forever, but (there's always a kicker) you have to pay for it. And just to drive the metaphor into the ground, units of time have replaced currency (I guess all over the world, since I don't know what you'd do if you had to move to England and convert your savings account into pounds instead of "things keeping me alive."). So, you work an hour and you get three hours of life, then you use two hours of life to buy a work-out machine. And if you run out of time (see the sort of puns this shit lends itself to?), you drop dead, instantly. Even if you're fifty and in perfect health, but have just happened to go bankrupt.
How would such a system ever come into being? Wouldn't it be simpler and more convenient just to keep money as money and then people who can afford it pay to stay young instead of everybody staying young and dropping dead if they run out of money? In fact, why would you even set a system up to kill someone if they run out of money? What's the point? Even in an evil dystopia, couldn't they be sent to work in the evil mines, mining evil, instead of getting fragged? And the actual staying-young mechanism? Isn't that the last thing you would want it to do? What if it glitches? What if the bank makes an error? You don't see people designing cars that will blow up because they run out of gas.
And c'mon, poor people dropping dead in the streets? I get the metaphor, evil Republicans, but that's just ridiculous. It'd be like if Rick Perry got elected President and immediately ordered social security and welfare to be shut down. And ordered all charities, homeless shelters, and soup kitchens to be shut down. And then sent soldiers roaming around to shoot everyone who doesn't have change in their pocket.
You might as well be accusing Obama of being a secret tentacle monster who devours the hearts of jazz fans. Only that concept is more cinematic and easier to explain.
ETA: Also, if you're going to do a really, really silly political wish-fulfillment movie about a charismatic newcomer who fights back against evil Republicans with metaphorical universal healthcare, maybe the hero should be a black guy? Or, if that's too obvious for a movie where the system is literally set up to kill poor people, Hispanic? Asian? Muslim? But if you're doing a "guns and fucking" version of the healthcare debate, you can at least be a little diverse.
How would such a system ever come into being? Wouldn't it be simpler and more convenient just to keep money as money and then people who can afford it pay to stay young instead of everybody staying young and dropping dead if they run out of money? In fact, why would you even set a system up to kill someone if they run out of money? What's the point? Even in an evil dystopia, couldn't they be sent to work in the evil mines, mining evil, instead of getting fragged? And the actual staying-young mechanism? Isn't that the last thing you would want it to do? What if it glitches? What if the bank makes an error? You don't see people designing cars that will blow up because they run out of gas.
And c'mon, poor people dropping dead in the streets? I get the metaphor, evil Republicans, but that's just ridiculous. It'd be like if Rick Perry got elected President and immediately ordered social security and welfare to be shut down. And ordered all charities, homeless shelters, and soup kitchens to be shut down. And then sent soldiers roaming around to shoot everyone who doesn't have change in their pocket.
You might as well be accusing Obama of being a secret tentacle monster who devours the hearts of jazz fans. Only that concept is more cinematic and easier to explain.
ETA: Also, if you're going to do a really, really silly political wish-fulfillment movie about a charismatic newcomer who fights back against evil Republicans with metaphorical universal healthcare, maybe the hero should be a black guy? Or, if that's too obvious for a movie where the system is literally set up to kill poor people, Hispanic? Asian? Muslim? But if you're doing a "guns and fucking" version of the healthcare debate, you can at least be a little diverse.
