On 17th April 2020, the BBC website published this article:
"Why does cinema ignore climate change?"
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200416-why-does-cinema-ignore-climate-change
Climate change drama makes a welcome brief appearance in
"Loki", a big budget fantasy+scifi TV-web series. The protagonists do
time travel visiting apocalypses. One of these is a near future climate-change-induced catastrophic hurricane destroying an entire corporate town owned by the
"Roxxcart" superstore, which looks
like a parody of "Walmart". Message: hey corporate America, take responsibility
for dealing with Climate Change else this is what will happen to you.
Link to the "Loki"
trailer which includes a very brief clip of the Roxxcart scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW948Va-l10
"Loki" is good enough to rate as alternative indie. Is this because the creative principals are women? It has
remarkable layers of allegory and satire with the villains being a satirical
take on authoritarian regimes. A big influence is "The Trial" by Franz
Kafka. We can see that in the beginning of the trailer. The "Time Variance
Authority" is a high tech setup with a 1970s retro design look to its
layout, equipment and gadgets. And a lot of clumsy bureaucratic paperwork that
moves inexorably to doom for its victims as in "The Trial". My
following description may or may not be a spoiler - this is my guess as to
where this is going after seeing the first 3 episodes. The Authority's mission
to bring order to the "Sacred Timeline" threatens to remove free will
from the universe. An unlikely flawed antihero, Loki the Norse God of Mischief, Marvel
comics version, must step up and save us all.
Congratulations to director Kate Herron, writer Elissa
Karasik and their team for going above and beyond the expectations and formulas
of this genre. It appears that Marvel Studios is giving its creatives freedom
to play variations on their fictional universe in a way that the "Star
Wars" franchise is failing to do. "Loki" succeeds where
"Rogue One" disappoints.
No comments:
Post a Comment