Review of "Revolution," the Peacock's post apocalyptic potboiler. It's NBC, so who are the evil bad guys? "Militia."
The good guys -- not "militia" -- who after 15 years without electricity or industrial production still wear trendy clothes that show off the secondary sexual characteristics of the females (not a good survival strategy in a world overrun with official and unofficial macho gangs.)
So, I stayed up past my bedtime last night to watch NBC's new show Revolution, set fifteen years after the lights go out all over the world in what seems to be a purposefully done EMP attack, only it isn't. The lights go out in sequence, not at once and altogether and even batteries don't work. So somehow, some evil bad guy managed to overturn the laws of physics. And of course, since it's NBC, the evil bad guys who inhabit the future are "militia," representing something called "the Monroe Republic" which seems to be set in the Midwest (they have sovereignty over Chicago -- that figures). Private possession of any firearms, for example, is a death penalty offense. General Monroe desires to get his hands on the secret of what made the lights go out so that he can turn them back on and start producing tanks, guns and planes to overrun the other "republics."
Evil bad guy militia leader just before he and his men wipe out a significant portion of the population of a small, idyllic village. (So you won't miss the point, all the militiamen wear black. Even a supposed "militia undercover agent" wears black pants and a charcoal shirt.)
I suppose it was folly on my part to think that a network like NBC, so far down in the septic tank of collectivism that you can't glimpse Matt Lauer's hairpiece, would present a vision of the militia concept more in line with that of the Founder's.
Revolution does make a great unintentional case for firearms in the hands of the citizenry, though the collectivists at NBC would hardly see the irony.
17 comments:
War is Peace. Military is Militia.
15 years of no power? No manufacturing plants? No sewing machines? Those clothes do _not_ look home spun/made to me...!
The concept was very tempting to that part of my being that enjoys stories like "Absolved".
I resisted because I figured it would be as you describe.
True, NBC and others don't like the idea of militias and this does come out in this work and many others, but it does make sense to have evil militias presented as the bad guys--choices are either that, tyrannical government "reestablishing order," or organized gangs that didn't decide to call themselves "militias" to gain some air of legitimacy.
In the event of a collapse, human nature being what it is, I expect that for every good militia there will be at least one other group, needing to be opposed, that is either thugs, KKK, CI or others calling themselves militia, or well intentioned militias that have lost their way and become autocratic through decisions based on what "needs to be done."
At least the main characters here are willing to fight and don't eschew firearms in favor of only using bows and arrows--"Posession of a firearm is a hanging offense."..."Then go hang yourself!"
This may devolve into a pile of rubbish, but maybe it will deal with good themes even if it can't figure out that the defensive response of the town was the response of the local militia. (Albeit a failed response due to under-preparation and being outgunned.)
And the MSM brainwashing of Amerika continues apace.
Somebody is getting very worried about the advent of well regulated militia's. If there is one thing I understand about how things work in this dictatorship called Amerika, when the Marxists and their legacy media puts out this kind of bullshit, it is a precursor to the very thing they themselves are about to or have done where they spin to displace their own complicity. It is an age old tried and true tactic of totalitarian regimes through all of human history.
About those white, bible, gun, tradition clinging domestic terrorists on nappy the clowns DHS list:
"...Fear is the psychological weapon of choice for totalitarian systems of power. Make the people afraid. Get them to surrender their rights in the name of national security. And then finish off the few who aren’t afraid enough. If this law is not revoked we will be no different from any sordid military dictatorship. Its implementation will be a huge leap forward for the corporate oligarchs who plan to continue to plunder the nation and use state and military security to cow the population into submission. "
Liberty or Death.
There is a reason some describe themselves as "constitutional militia". The adjective would be superfluous if there were or could be no other kind. Exactly what kind of militia do you think your old "friend" Kerodin is going to establish? One that wants to restore the founders republic or one that serves Kerodin?
I suspect if/when TSHTF, there will be more armed groups than you can shake a stick at. Just as 1930's and 1940's China has the communists and nationalists fighting each other as often as they fought the Japanese with the random warlords and wannabe's thrown into the mix, you will not be able to tell the players without a program, at least in the early days. The survivors will live by watching their 6.
“At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that 'news' is not something that happens to other people. He might learn how his ancestors lived and that he himself is no different--in the crunch his life depends on his agility, alertness, and personal resourcefulness.” -- Robert A Heinlein
I thought that they were just throwing "milita" in the way communists throw in "republic" and "democracy" when they set up a sham government.
P-R-O-P-A-G-A-N-D-A
I watched 15 minutes of it then fell down face first and shot live puppies out of my butt.
Bunch of contrived garbage.
Being a sci-fi geek, I watched Revolution because I thought the concept was interesting (power out world-wide). But, as the saying goes, "God is in the planning & the devil is in the details."
And here are some devilish details I noticed:
As has been already mentioned, the clothes - you'd think that after 15 years, all the pre-lights-out clothes would be worn through. "Homespun" would be worn.
The Fat Guy Teacher(the Google ex-exec) would be a lot skinnier, with a restricted diet & a WHOLE lot more physical labor.
With law & order almost non-existent, and roaming bands of who-knows-who widespread, you'd think that the neighborhood/ village would have guards and OPs to warn when anyone (including the villainous black-robed militia) comes near. To be caught unawares would be unconscionable.
And the Monroe Militia leader (Mr Insurance Adjuster)? He'd have been the FIRST asshat I'd have taken out in the initial confrontation. But that would shorten the series to nothing.
Already I can see this series devolving into an MST3K parody. Who wants to join me?
Maybe not as bad as the (thankfully) short-lived series "Terra Nova", but we'll see.
B Woodman
III-per
Damn, Mike, you actually watched something on Lame Stream Media??? Shame on you! Please don't tell me you expected something different...
This is an unsettling turn of events, so...
Quick, Domino, the Bushmills!
Bill
III
Anon @ 1043AM
You may be right about the media intending this to scare people away from the militia concept, but I think that it could have the opposite effect when done this way. If you show any collapse when people are fearing realistic collapse, and you show people being preyed on by armed gangs calling themselves militias, many people who are waking up will start thinking of how to protect themselves from such predators. It won't necessarily drive them to constitutional militias, but it can push them toward self protection and self reliance, which starts them down the road.
Granted I don't expect NBC to have this as a goal--I would expect them to have a goal more like you described, but I think that bad goal would be more effectively served by tv shows like we saw in the 90's. I can remember growing up watching the Pretender, Walker, JAG, etc. and all of them had "militia" episodes. JAG was the most fair, but still fell into the narrative some of the time.
After the 90's and the dawn of the War on Terror, such plotlines disappeared for the most part. There were even positive portrayals--e.g. CBS's Jericho which I love in spite of its flaws (it had bad criminal "survivalists" but also a town sponsored militia, and brought in the idea of fighting a tyrannical, usurping government by the end of it).
Today, the crazy militia plotlines are coming back into vogue in cop shows and others. Revolution's biggest flaw so far is it's unrealistic blackout--We can still use it to point out the dangers of men like Kerodin and the necessity to prepare to defend one's self since the government can't be counted on. The other type of shows are more insidious. People watch them and get a double whammy: 1. Militia=Crazy murderous nutjobs 2. All is well, just trust the government to protect you from the nuts.
BTW, on a related note, has anyone watched Falling Skies? More of a Sci-Fi story with the fact that you are following a militia and the civilians they protect simply part of the setting.
I bring it up because it bucked the usual trend, not just with it's choice to follow an organized militia in a post apocalyptic world, but because it went further at the end of the last season.
The Militia made its way to an enclave where a new US government was being reinstated. Because the government was hidden from the aliens and safe, the militia was made to disarm and place their guns in the armory. I was screaming "Don't do it!" at the TV. Eventually, they discover corruption brewing in the nascent government, and by the end of the season, after avoiding liquidation, they determine that they will leave the "safety" of their new home and will return to fighting the aliens because they'll be free and away from the political fighting that led to their disarmament, disbanding, being rounded up, and then being freed after a coup that released them, but which threatens a different flavor of fascism.
Shockingly good for a TNT production. Best summary I can give in one sentence is War of the Worlds meets One Second After.
The evil bad guy militia leader could be Zero's brother. Art imitates life apparently although it had to be purely unintentional from the peacock crowd.
It's obvious by their shit-flinging that they know that Militias rule by Law. Constitutional as well as natural law. Every family will be a militia if you come fuck with them or their neighbor. Not the family of liberals of course. They are what's for dinner.
And I frankly don't give a damn about what they think or what they do. My job is the same.
I agree with a previous poster- this was so disappointing- no explanation of how the EMP came about, or any realistic notion of what life would be like 15 yrs after.
B - grade soap opera level script and characters eerily ripped off from Hunger Games, Indiana Jones, and does that young guy with a bow look like a Obama/Spock clone or what!
S.M. Stirling did it better with his Dies the Fire series (although Dies the Fire is EXTREMELY depressing when you grasp the scale of the disaster the human race gets hit with).
Post a Comment