Sadly, I fear that none of the editor, writer or producer etc will make it pass the thinning, as they are no doubt failing their social study and/or math class.
The movie is, at the very least, entertaining. The acting is pretty good and it attempted to paint a complete world picture of how and why things are happening. If we were to disregard certain details, the story could be believable, there are always last resort measures when we are faced with potential extinction should we choose not to act. The elements of politics, special interest, and others makes the movie mirror our own world, making it more believable.
But unfortunately, they didn't think things through and tried too hard on certain aspects, and the illusion fell apart.
The premise, or rather concept of the back story, that the world requires de-population, is a reasonable one. In fact, one of the suggested method of limiting birth have been practiced by, most famously, China for quite a long time. Unfortunately, the goal was set at an unreasonable high point of 5% annually. This will be explained at the of the review for those who care for numbers.
The setting and content of the movie also contains some paradoxes. While morally speaking, culling of the inferior is always questionable at best, there are many examples of how it can be done. Objectively speaking, if someone has to die, it "should" be those who cannot contribute to society. For example, the old and infirm like Hitler did, he's not a good guy by any stretch of the term but the choice was logical. Now, age does carry with it wisdom, so outright killing people based on age would make no sense, thou was presented as an option in the movie. However, with the contrast of killing the young generation of the future, somehow the main character's mother, someone who is I believe terminally ill and appear quite useless did not make it onto any form of culling list makes no sense. Given the premise of the "world" in the story, it felt like a rather forced sob story that is completely unrealistic in-universe.
Another character of interest is Mr.Football star. In the real worlds, colleges and universities accept people on a variety of criteria, not all academic, because society needs different types of people. While I can't say I like the character as a person, it doesn't make any sense that someone with special talents of any form, even if one that is useless in terms of "production and innovation", would be judged strictly the same way in a standardized test. That said, this could be a result of political compromise. The matter of life and death is serious business, so the allowance of special talent leads to potential of abuse so laws were made rigid in order to prevent them. Unfortunately, that didn't quite go as planned. If that is the case however, then there is the problem of what if there are genius students who excel in one or few subject matter and would have contributed greatly to society but was unfortunately culled due to failing every other subject? Standardized testing have never been and never will be a perfect form of measurement. This is more of a food for thought than anything else.
Now, the numbers I promised. 5% annually might not seem much at a glance, but the fact is, if the goal is reached, global population will be halved in 13 years, so within one generation, we will be left with only 25% of the population that we started with. Even if we assume that there is over 10 billion people at the start, reducing to 2.5 billion is rather extreme. Therefore, it is not likely for it to be a long term project and thus making the content of the story unlikely, the institution and legislation appears to be for more of a long term project. It's also extremely unfair to just one generation if culling is only done to them and only lasted for their generation. Furthermore, if we consider our current demographics, 5% of the population is more than 10th, 11th and 12th graders combined. That means even if every single student is culled, the project will grind to a halt after a mere 5 years--there will be no more students, this is taking into consideration of new enrollment and no graduates-- that is all student are culled, specifically, the sum of 1 to 18 years old(existing and future student) is not enough for 25% of the population. Similarly, "no birth" is not enough to achieve the rate of decline required, as children born within a year does not constitute 5% of the population Realistically speaking, 0.5 to 1% will be a more suitable number, this will allow roughly half of all student to graduate. Also, this would mean that it will be a long term project, thus not drastically unfair to just one or two generation.
Frankly speaking, this number problem is what prompted me to write this review. How does such a elem... OK, freshman high school level matter get missed in a movie about education, even if the education is merely a setting?
The movie is, at the very least, entertaining. The acting is pretty good and it attempted to paint a complete world picture of how and why things are happening. If we were to disregard certain details, the story could be believable, there are always last resort measures when we are faced with potential extinction should we choose not to act. The elements of politics, special interest, and others makes the movie mirror our own world, making it more believable.
But unfortunately, they didn't think things through and tried too hard on certain aspects, and the illusion fell apart.
The premise, or rather concept of the back story, that the world requires de-population, is a reasonable one. In fact, one of the suggested method of limiting birth have been practiced by, most famously, China for quite a long time. Unfortunately, the goal was set at an unreasonable high point of 5% annually. This will be explained at the of the review for those who care for numbers.
The setting and content of the movie also contains some paradoxes. While morally speaking, culling of the inferior is always questionable at best, there are many examples of how it can be done. Objectively speaking, if someone has to die, it "should" be those who cannot contribute to society. For example, the old and infirm like Hitler did, he's not a good guy by any stretch of the term but the choice was logical. Now, age does carry with it wisdom, so outright killing people based on age would make no sense, thou was presented as an option in the movie. However, with the contrast of killing the young generation of the future, somehow the main character's mother, someone who is I believe terminally ill and appear quite useless did not make it onto any form of culling list makes no sense. Given the premise of the "world" in the story, it felt like a rather forced sob story that is completely unrealistic in-universe.
Another character of interest is Mr.Football star. In the real worlds, colleges and universities accept people on a variety of criteria, not all academic, because society needs different types of people. While I can't say I like the character as a person, it doesn't make any sense that someone with special talents of any form, even if one that is useless in terms of "production and innovation", would be judged strictly the same way in a standardized test. That said, this could be a result of political compromise. The matter of life and death is serious business, so the allowance of special talent leads to potential of abuse so laws were made rigid in order to prevent them. Unfortunately, that didn't quite go as planned. If that is the case however, then there is the problem of what if there are genius students who excel in one or few subject matter and would have contributed greatly to society but was unfortunately culled due to failing every other subject? Standardized testing have never been and never will be a perfect form of measurement. This is more of a food for thought than anything else.
Now, the numbers I promised. 5% annually might not seem much at a glance, but the fact is, if the goal is reached, global population will be halved in 13 years, so within one generation, we will be left with only 25% of the population that we started with. Even if we assume that there is over 10 billion people at the start, reducing to 2.5 billion is rather extreme. Therefore, it is not likely for it to be a long term project and thus making the content of the story unlikely, the institution and legislation appears to be for more of a long term project. It's also extremely unfair to just one generation if culling is only done to them and only lasted for their generation. Furthermore, if we consider our current demographics, 5% of the population is more than 10th, 11th and 12th graders combined. That means even if every single student is culled, the project will grind to a halt after a mere 5 years--there will be no more students, this is taking into consideration of new enrollment and no graduates-- that is all student are culled, specifically, the sum of 1 to 18 years old(existing and future student) is not enough for 25% of the population. Similarly, "no birth" is not enough to achieve the rate of decline required, as children born within a year does not constitute 5% of the population Realistically speaking, 0.5 to 1% will be a more suitable number, this will allow roughly half of all student to graduate. Also, this would mean that it will be a long term project, thus not drastically unfair to just one or two generation.
Frankly speaking, this number problem is what prompted me to write this review. How does such a elem... OK, freshman high school level matter get missed in a movie about education, even if the education is merely a setting?