Recently viewed Alien: Romulus It was released in theaters and I won’t give away any spoilers here, but I enjoyed it a lot more than the recent entries in the series. Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. original alien and its sequels alien This was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. Romulus captures the spirit and atmosphere of those films extremely well, but it also left me with a question: Why is Hollywood so bad at writing stories about believably evil corporations?
Story Alien: Romulus The story revolves around the efforts of Weyland-Yutani to capture aliens for criminally unsatisfactory reasons and then “use” them in some way. (No spoilers. Basically.) every In the movie alien Franchise.) First Alien vs. Predator While the film is set in the present day, the original film is set hundreds of years in the future, meaning Weyland-Yutani has literally spent centuries working on this challenge, with 100% failure. The Xenomorphs are incredibly dangerous creatures that are unstoppable, killing everyone around them, harvesting humans as hosts to reproduce, and killing them in the process. Every time the company has attempted this project, the end result has been “basically everyone dies and pretty much everything is destroyed.” The company has incurred huge costs in lost personnel and equipment while getting nothing of value in return, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying the same thing over and over again.
This movie series is nothing special either. Robocop was one of my favorite movies of my childhood, and the film series also revolves around the actions of evil and greedy corporations. Robocop The film in particular has been praised as a brilliant form of social commentary on corporate greed. alien Franchises, evil companies Robocop The film depicts Omni Consumer Products as nothing more than a series of catastrophically stupid and extremely expensive decisions that make absolutely no business sense and cost huge amounts of money and resources while adding no value to the company. Robocop After the film, the OCP decided to make another Robocop, but instead of using a very dedicated law enforcement officer who recently died like in the first film, they decided it would be a good idea to center the new Robocop around a very dangerous drug lord, cult leader, and career criminal. In addition to making this guy a nearly indestructible walking tank, they decided it would also be a good idea to have him operate on mind-altering drugs at the same time. Surprise! The plan somehow backfires! However, this doesn’t seem like something someone would be motivated to do because it seems like a viable money-making strategy, it seems more like something they would do out of pure determination to make the most cartoonishly evil decisions possible, profit be damned.
Another example is Tyrell Blade RunnerAgain, I love this movie, but the “evil and greedy corporation” angle of this movie makes absolutely no sense. The Tyrell Corporation sells “replicants,” which are basically cultured humans who are used for short-term labor. I say short-term because replicants are programmed to have a four-year lifespan. Also, replicants frequently go on the run because they feel pain, emotions, and have independent wills. This happens so often that a division of the police force, the Blade Runners, is dedicated to tracking down fugitive replicants. This is terrible Business model. If I offered you the chance to invest in a business that sells tractors, and told you that every tractor I make is guaranteed to break down within a few years, can actually feel pain and emotion (including the resentment of those who operate them), has flight capabilities, and does so frequently that it blends into society so well that it would take an entire department of highly trained professionals to find and identify them, you would turn down the investment opportunity. The greedier you are, the less likely you are to want to be a part of such a ridiculously terrible business strategy.
In all these films, the only thing keeping these companies from self-destructing through incompetent business choices is that the screenwriters want to make a point, and somehow these companies continue to make a profit despite their incompetence because the screenwriter’s point demands it. I’m not opposed to using fiction to make a point that relates to the real world, but if you have to throw away even the tiniest bit of verisimilitude to make a point, it’s probably a sign that your point isn’t as strong as you think it is.
Of course, not all of my childhood was spent watching violent movies aimed primarily at adults, I actually watched some kid-friendly programming as well. Captain PlanetI loved that show when I was in grade school, but looking back, the villains on that show just didn’t make sense. Captain Planet does not portray pollution as an inevitable side effect of the productive activities that have made modern human civilization possible and have vastly increased the length and quality of human life. Captain PlanetThe pollution occurs because morally evil people with names like “Looten Plunder” and “Hoggishly Greedy” (or some toxic radioactive sludge monster like “Duke Nukem”) decide to hijack an oil tanker and deliberately crash it into the shore because it’s purely entertaining to watch baby seals suffer?
It’s not impossible to write characters with compelling motivations. For example, I once Written About the show House, Maryland It’s a realistic portrayal of Bryan Caplan’s model of rational irrationality, and what makes it so compelling is that the characters’ motivations are believable.
Like all good works of fiction, it’s entirely believable. No one watches this episode and thinks, “Foreman’s actions are unrealistic.” We all know that those actions make sense, and that we would almost certainly do the same thing if we were in a similar position.
Which is why it seems so puzzling that a film that’s often billed as a scathing critique of corporate greed fails so woefully to present a story in which greed is actually a believable justification for corporate behavior. Instead, these corporations seem driven by a mandate to be as evil as possible, no matter how wasteful, expensive or unprofitable it may be.
