The new Kathryn Bigelow film, “A House of Dynamite,” depicts a lone nuclear missile streaking toward Chicago while senior officials, faced with minutes to spare and little information, contemplate catastrophic choices.
So very well said. Thank you so much for this essay - I was never military and know nothing about missile defense and the like but even I found this movie increasingly frustrating and clearly dishonest.
It was also stunning to see character after character in this drama (the soldiers, the politicians) etc tremble and fall apart, as if they hadn't considered this scenario and other similar ones many times, and practiced responding.
It's as if the writers and filmmakers could only imagine the fear and paralysis they expected they'd feel, never having contemplated or practiced responding; it's as if they couldn't imagine that other people - people who do this for a living ie the military and politicians - would have given THEIR JOBS a lot of thought and practiced responding to likely scenarios.
Do these filmmakers and writers, who go through multiple drafts and shoot countless scenes, think other people aren't smart enough to do their jobs as carefully?
This fantasy explains to me that ‘us minions’ don’t matter. The powerful will always look after themselves and even the obvious absent analysis relies on electronic devices which we know can be hacked, there was no physical evidence of the impending doom and the failure of interventions can support that it was a ghost. No outcome was a disappointment a good cast but a faulty storyline. As always a good reflection Amuse.
"It matters because a public that believes the odds are fifty fifty after two shots may understandably conclude that missile defense is theater for anxious voters."
It also matters because "public" includes the public of our adversaries, who may not see a reason for their governments to be deterred by our defensive capabilities, and they have been taught that "effete Western nations" do not have the spine to use the offensive ones (possibly accurately, but that's another rant).
So very well said. Thank you so much for this essay - I was never military and know nothing about missile defense and the like but even I found this movie increasingly frustrating and clearly dishonest.
It was also stunning to see character after character in this drama (the soldiers, the politicians) etc tremble and fall apart, as if they hadn't considered this scenario and other similar ones many times, and practiced responding.
It's as if the writers and filmmakers could only imagine the fear and paralysis they expected they'd feel, never having contemplated or practiced responding; it's as if they couldn't imagine that other people - people who do this for a living ie the military and politicians - would have given THEIR JOBS a lot of thought and practiced responding to likely scenarios.
Do these filmmakers and writers, who go through multiple drafts and shoot countless scenes, think other people aren't smart enough to do their jobs as carefully?
This fantasy explains to me that ‘us minions’ don’t matter. The powerful will always look after themselves and even the obvious absent analysis relies on electronic devices which we know can be hacked, there was no physical evidence of the impending doom and the failure of interventions can support that it was a ghost. No outcome was a disappointment a good cast but a faulty storyline. As always a good reflection Amuse.
"It matters because a public that believes the odds are fifty fifty after two shots may understandably conclude that missile defense is theater for anxious voters."
It also matters because "public" includes the public of our adversaries, who may not see a reason for their governments to be deterred by our defensive capabilities, and they have been taught that "effete Western nations" do not have the spine to use the offensive ones (possibly accurately, but that's another rant).