The first trailer for Ex Machina writer and director, Alex Garland’s upcoming film Civil War just landed, and it’s filled with tense action and plenty of big question marks.
The film takes place in a near-future in which the United States once again faces civil war. This time, the Western Forces (rather than the Confederate South) have seceded from the Union. 19 states have broken off from the USA, including Texas and California—strange bedfellows that remind us that this is, indeed, fiction. This also raises some questions: Why did these states band together to break apart from the union? Who are the bad guys? Or perhaps there aren’t bad guys, just different sides.
We see the heroes of our story trekking across the country, headed toward the White House. The group is led by a war journalist played by Kirsten Dunst.
Nick Offerman plays the US president. Dunst’s husband, Jesse Plemons, appears in the trailer as a menacing soldier holding an assault rifle. When one of the characters tells him they’re Americans he says, “Okay, what kind of Americans are you?” Yikes.
Here’s the trailer:
The bit where Offerman says “With liberty and justice for a—” and it’s cut off is pretty pitch perfect for this kind of trailer.
Civil War is clearly playing into our current existential societal crisis. The pandemic, the Trump presidency, the many riots and protests including the January 6th riot at the capitol, all of this has fed a very specific fear that our nation could once again fall apart and devolve into violence. After all, we seem so terribly fractured and divided.
While I think this sort of dystopian “what if” type of film is great for entertainment purposes—and perhaps even worthwhile as a kind of morality tale and warning about civilization’s collapse—I do think these fears are generally overblown. Garland says the film is “set at an indeterminate point in the future – just far enough ahead for me to add a conceit – and serves as a sci-fi allegory for our currently polarised predicament”.
Three observations:
- When you turn off the 24/7 stream of political commentary and constant rancor that involves, you slowly awaken to a new awareness of the world. In this reality, people aren’t so terribly different from one another regardless of political affiliation and while we have our many differences, we have even more in common. It’s just less likely to win votes or get clicks if we talk about our common values rather than what divides us. The two minutes hate is better for business than the mild admission that we all mostly agree on the basics and want many of the same things like a roof over our heads, a warm meal on the table, enough money to get by and not stress out constantly, and friends and family to fill our lives with joy and distraction.
- As compelling as this kind of future civil war drama is, I think that there are many obstacles between us and a full-fledged ground war between secessionists and the US government. For one thing, we are very lazy! I find it very unlikely that we’ll have the time or energy to get off TikTok and turn off our television sets in order to form any kind of anti-government military force. It sounds like a lot of work and we’re already working long hours and just want to Netflix and chill after we get home. Crack a cold one, etc.
- The US, for all its flaws and divisions, is still very strong when it comes to civil institutions and rule of law. We have the largest and most professional military that has ever existed in the history of the world. When Hitler rose to power in Germany, it was largely because there was so much division and strife within the German military, and so many fractious paramilitary groups held sway over various regions. The US military is another matter entirely, and no state has its own standing army (governors can call in the aid of the National Guard but that’s still a national military force, not a state militia).
I ramble on about this not to necessarily assuage anyone’s fears—though hey, perhaps we’d all be better off with less fear, it being the mind killer and all that—but because while I do think this looks like a fun and frightening film, I simply don’t think this is a near future scenario at all. I hope I’m right.
Alongside Dunst, Offerman and Plemons, Civil War stars Wagner Moura, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Cailee Spaeny. Garland’s other films include Annihilation, Men, and 28 Days Later.
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