Biological warfare in media

91 quotes found

""X-Men" is at least not a manic editing frenzy for atrophied attention spans. It's restrained and introspective for a superhero epic, and fans of the comic books may like that. Graphic novels (as they sometimes deserve to be called) take themselves as seriously as the ones without pictures, and you can tell that here when the opening scene shows Jews being forced into death camps in Poland in 1944. One could argue that the Holocaust is not appropriate subject matter for an action movie based on a comic book, but having talked to some "X-Men" fans I believe that in their minds the medium is as deep and portentous as, say, "Sophie's Choice." The Holocaust scene introduces Magneto (Ian McKellen) as a child; his mental powers twist iron gates out of shape. The narrator informs us that "evolution takes thousands and thousands of years," which is putting it mildly, and that we live in an age of great evolutionary leaps forward. Some of the X-Men develop paranormal powers which cannot be accounted for by the strictly physical mutations which form the basis of Darwinian theory; I get restless when real science is evoked in the name of pseudoscience, but, hey, that's just me. Magneto's opponent in "X-Men" is Xavier (Patrick Stewart), another mutant of the same generation. They aren't enemies so much as ideological opposites. Magneto, having seen the Holocaust, has a deep pessimism about human nature. Xavier, who runs a school for mutants in Westchester County, where it doubtless seems no stranger than the other private schools, hopes these new powers can be used for good. Bruce Davison plays the McCarthy-like senator who waves a list of "known mutants" during a congressional hearing and wants them all registered—no doubt for dire purposes. Magneto wants to counter by using a device which can convert world leaders to mutants. (The world leaders are conveniently meeting on an island near Ellis Island, so the Statue of Liberty can be a prop.) How a machine could create a desired mutation within a generation is not much explored by the movie, which also eludes the question of why you would want to invest your enemies with your powers. No matter; Xavier, who can read minds, leads his good mutants in a battle to foil Magneto, and that's the plot, or most of it."

- X-Men (film)

0 likesPolitical drama filmsPolitical thriller filmsX-Men filmsFilms about genetic engineeringBiological warfare in media
"To be sure, the Fallout games have never had an explicitly anti-nuclear stance; they have never come across as an after-school special. But the satirical humor of the series has frequently targeted the hubris of mid-20th century science, politics, society, and industry. The alternative universe created by the game developers diverges from our own timeline after World War II, imagining a world where dreams of robots and nuclear-powered cars came true. Far from ushering in a utopia, however, in Fallout, nuclear technologies led to a nightmarish collapse of organized human civilization in the United States and the rest of the globe. The Bomb is only the most obvious cause. Before the war, nuclear-fueled consumerism and unchecked mega-corporations pillaged the natural resources of the continent and poisoned the environment. (The series has never been content to poke fun at the past, but often draws unflattering comparisons to our world today.) A rampant military-industrial complex led to a garrison state, social unrest, and international tension. In short, the setting of Fallout is hardly an endorsement of the nuclear age. As players move through the hellscape of post-nuclear war America, they are confronted by jarring relicts of the pro-nuclear age. Advertisements for the best-selling soda before the war, Nuka-cola, are everywhere. One variant of this soda was even sold with the exciting inclusion of real radioactive isotopes. All the while, players struggle to deal with finding food and water that isn’t dangerously irradiated. Take too many doses of radiation, or “rads,” and the player’s character will die. The nuclear utopianism of the past is made to look preposterous next to its horrific consequences."

- Fallout

0 likesBiological warfare in mediaNuclear weapons in mediaScience fiction video gamesPost-apocalyptic video gamesDystopian video games