NationStates Jolt Archive

The other day I was watching "Castle in the Sky" by Hiyao Miyazaki. It's about these two kids who find a big floating castle thing called "Laputa" (Miyazaki didn't know what it means in Spanish.) Anyways, than this really awesome Zeppelin shows up and all of these awesome imperialist soldiers come out, complete with "Steampunk" stuff like steam-powered tank/trains, ornithopters, and spiky WWI helmets. Then the wonderful eco-friendly (technologically impaired) kids save the day.

My question is: Why do all movies portray technology and, to a lesser extent, imperialism, as being inherently evil? Examples include Atlantis: The Lost Empire, in which the noisy, steambelching villain's technology is overcome by weird environmentally conscious floaty crystal fish things; the Indiana Jones movies, in which Indy, riding only on a horse, overcomes the technologically superior Nazis (notthatIliketheNazistheywillforeverstainGermany'shistoryandwerepurepureevil).

So my question is, why are these completely different movies all portraying technologically advanced imperialists as inherently evil? Not that I agree with imperialism, or any of that "white man's duty" crap, but c'mon, the imperialists had pretty damn awesome uniforms and guns and stuff!

The other day I was watching "Castle in the Sky" by Hiyao Miyazaki. It's about these two kids who find a big floating castle thing called "Laputa" (Miyazaki didn't know what it means in Spanish.) Anyways, than this really awesome Zeppelin shows up and all of these awesome imperialist soldiers come out, complete with "Steampunk" stuff like steam-powered tank/trains, ornithopters, and spiky WWI helmets. Then the wonderful eco-friendly (technologically impaired) kids save the day.

My question is: Why do all movies portray technology and, to a lesser extent, imperialism, as being inherently evil? Examples include Atlantis: The Lost Empire, in which the noisy, steambelching villain's technology is overcome by weird environmentally conscious floaty crystal fish things; the Indiana Jones movies, in which Indy, riding only on a horse, overcomes the technologically superior Nazis (notthatIliketheNazistheywillforeverstainGermany'shistoryandwerepurepureevil).

So my question is, why are these completely different movies all portraying technologically advanced imperialists as inherently evil? Not that I agree with imperialism, or any of that "white man's duty" crap, but c'mon, the imperialists had pretty damn awesome uniforms and guns and stuff!


Good question! Read Tolkien? Same thing. Read Orwell? Same thing.

The industrial revolution was really, REALLY upsetting. It took the whole "social order" thing and turned it on its ear. Up was down, down was up, and everything in between was grinding, noisy machines made by mankind.

There is an inevitable backlash against all such forces of change, people are concerned the forces of change are moving to fast, that people will be dehumanized in the wake of all tha machinery. This backlash was not without some merit either; Nazi philosophy was pretty much "people as machines" no humanity meant heroes didn't really exist.

So you have a bunch of dehumanizing machines, with people who are basically faceless automatons themselves using them. The whole idea of the nation as a factory, producing things, churning out products, havning no other identity. What's the perfect foil for this? The antedote?

Heroes. Heroes who have personality and quirkiness; heroes who love the land and communicate with nature. Nature becomes the anthema of machines; nature and mechanical devices are displayed as good and evil.

Its not so much "White man's duty", as it is "anyone with machines" and, well, Europe got to the Industrial revolution first. Thus everyone associates the European imerialist with that dehumanization and industrialization message.

Hope it helps?

Everybody ought to know two things before continuing this discussion:

1) Steam is the preferred power source of futuristic totalitarian governments.

2) Accordingly, the primary home decor element of our dystopian future will be the steam duct.

But really, I think NM has a good point with the "man against society" angle. Heavy, clunky machinery makes a great metaphor for social machinery. Orwell saw it, Gilliam saw it, and from there, I think a lot of designers and moviemakers picked up on the look. It's like Brazil set a visual standard that other movies imitated. Gilliam did what he because he felt that the machinery was rich metaphoric ground. Later filmmakers did what they did because Brazil worked.

As for picking up German uniforms (Nazi-type or pointy-helmet type), they're easily recognized and they are sort of like the human side of the machinery images. Ranks of uniformed jack-booted goons marching in step are an easily identified reference to WWII newsreels. (Killzone is a good example of combined human and mechanical imagery to show regimentation.)

But I think your analysis goes too far with Indy. Yes, the germans have tanks and bikes and things, but they aren't primarily a technological foe. When Indy has to fight a tank, I think that's more about giving Indy a big foe in a climactic battle than anything else. After all, Indy gets planes and motorbikes and all kinds of stuff himself.

Okay, I agree with you lot there- man against society, and so on. But the other thing I really object to is not so much that, but the whole aesthetic- heroes and everything- are always portrayed as being "natural," while machinery either comedic or bad. I don't know enough about the Tolkien books to say anything (I stopped reading once I reached that rather pointless bit about John Bombbadill, or whatever he's called,) but in the movies, the technologicaly advanced Dwaves are portrayed as comedic, yet bad-tempered (and stupid.) The elves, who by comparason are decidedly low-tech, are portrayed as wise and noble.

It's also like this in less philosphic works- the Jedi in Star Wars, for example, are seen as being low-tech and basicaly good, while the Seperatists, and later, the Empire is seen as bad.

I guess that what I object to is a sort of near-unconcious dislike of machines, what I call Technophobia. Even those whose lifes were unafected by the industrial revolution seem to suffer from technophobia.

There are only two ways that we can see the man-against-society theme play out. 1) The individual can fight against the masses themselves. 2) The individual can fight against the resources of the masses. This can either play out as the bureaucracy of Brazil or as the superior technology of Star Wars (though Star Wars had the numbers thing going also). Also, I got to add that I always thought that the light saber was kind of the highest technology around and that the Jedi just subscribed to an Ikea-type minimalist aesthetic. They didn't have lots of gadgets, just the best ones.

You're right about Tolkien though. That's tough to explain. I'd suspect that that runs back to the "noble savage" image or to a nostalgia for simpler times (whether or not times were ever simpler is questionable).

"Laputa" (Miyazaki didn't know what it means in Spanish.)

Or more probably he's read Swift's Gulliver's Travels. :rolleyes:

Or more probably he's read Swift's Gulliver's Travels. :rolleyes:

Is Laputa Spanish for "The Puta," or does it mean something else?

Is Laputa Spanish for "The Puta," or does it mean something else?

Puta, in Portuguese means prostitute/whore, it is probably the same in Spanish

Puta, in Portuguese means prostitute/whore, it is probably the same in Spanish

I saw on Urban Dictionary that "Puto" means a guy who buys a router at CompUSA but finds a bag of dirt in the box. :D

"La Puta" means whore, but its a weawwy naughty wowd. "Disease-Ridden Sluty Bitch" just starts to come close.

"La Puta" means whore, but its a weawwy naughty wowd. "Disease-Ridden Sluty Bitch" just starts to come close.

The portuguese has this type of connotation, just that everyone here swears nearly all the time. The best colloquial translation of Puta to English would probably be somewhere between Bitch and Slut.

So my question is, why are these completely different movies all portraying technologically advanced imperialists as inherently evil? Not that I agree with imperialism, or any of that "white man's duty" crap, but c'mon, the imperialists had pretty damn awesome uniforms and guns and stuff!

Because people grow up with this bias that imperialism is always bad, and that cutting down some trees to make progress is bad as well. You see it too in "The Last Samurai": the "noble savages" fight the good fight against the "evil industrialists" with their machine-made weaponry (it also doesn't help that, of the only two American characters, one's an evil heartless bastard and the other one is saved through the teachings of Eastern mysticism)

As I get older and learn more about *real* history (past and present) I start to understand more and more why and how empires come about. It is from a desire to resolve fights using a trump card. Picture a place like Somalia or Chechnya or Colombia... hard to find food, warlords set checkpoints, raid villages, and rape/rob/kill whenever they think you're against them, or just whenever they feel like it... a government army which is little different... ethnic/religious/political groups who live side by side but hate each other... and this goes on and on and on for decades, no end in sight. Eventually, everyone just wants it to end - they don't care who wins, they hate the people with guns on both sides. Along come your Imperial Troops with overwhelming force, make a deal with some of the people on one side, then kill all the holdouts and everyone on the other side who wants to fight. Peace ensues. And - surprise - people give them flowers and cheer. That's how it works.

The big story of WW2 that everyone likes to forget is exactly how much support the Nazis had in the countries they occupied... they took half of Europe with hardly a shot because a number of people in each country wanted them there. And then many, many people from occupied territories willingly joined the fight on their side. Only when they started to have to fight to conquer territory did they run out of steam. That is particularly amazing given how insane and xenophobic the Nazis were, and how the only motivation for suporting them was class resentment and nationalism, relatively weak motivators compared to ethnic or religious hatreds for example.