90s Science: Demolition Man vs. Judge Dredd

Science fiction movies in the 90s were all over the map. One year you might see gloriously well-presented dinosaur melodrama, the next year you might give up in distress and learn to appreciate art or literature. In many ways, the inconsistency of the past carried into the future. Some people talked about how the 'movies these days' were full of 'special effects', except in that time special effects were something rare and spectacular that tended to be applauded. That or they were incredibly shitty and overused. In many ways, nearly two decades later, things are similar.

90s movies had a certain quality that no longer really exists in the medium. Many of them were totally unwatchable wrecks, many of them aged horribly, and there was much lazy writing and gnashing of directorial teeth. Such is life. I post here today to summarize my experience with two Sylvester Stallone, marginal, action/sci-fi movies from the 90s. Abandon all logic and subtlety, ye who would be so foolish as to follow me. The movies are Demolition Man (1993) and Judge Dredd (1995).

Demolition Man is an insane movie. Stallone jumps out of a helicopter and explodes an entire building before the title sequence. Everything else after that is awesome, but muddled in a stupid, obtuse, poorly-written version of the future. But none of that matters because that future exists only so Wesley Snipes, playing a gleefully violent criminal, can fight Sylvester Stallone, who accidentally killed 20 children when he exploded the building from the beginning of the movie. Both of them were frozen in time because that's how sentencing worked in 1993's idea of 1996.

Demolition Man has an agenda so broad, and so stolen, that even dogs raise their eyebrows when they see it. The future is a utopia, peace and calm reign, but society atrophies because there is no aggression, no uncertainty, no explosions, and no action. Death is by natural causes, spicy foods are outlawed, and people get fined for swearing. It's the original Campy Darwinism. Sandra Bullock and company say shit in the opening half hour that sounds so hideously, hilariously, clumsily out of place that the only explanation is that a computer was given the scenario and two hours to write it. Apparently only intellectual-sounding words would make the future enough of a gutless wimp for two 90s badasses to thoroughly work it over.  "Info assimilated." "Mellow greetings."

In this future, which exists out of sheer laziness, society is childish, naive, and inherited by total fucking infantile eunuchs with too-large vocabularies. But it's still fun. Things get shot up. Wesley Snipes taunts everyone and shoots everything. The whole plot is a weird mixture of old utopia/dystopia books such as 1984, The Time Machine, and Brave New World mixed with basically every science fiction/action film up to its point. It's not particularly smart, or achingly funny, and the satire is dull, but nobody cares. Ten minutes in you know this movie doesn't care. You shouldn't, the movie told you not to. And there's just enough quality action, gun-play, and insanity that you feel okay when you watch it. This was the model for mediocrity. These days it seems awesome only because our current mediocrity is even more slick and bland than the future proposed in Demolition Man. The future-colloquial dialogue is feeble and stupid while trying to make a point about how weakness, pacifism, submission, and herd intelligence are related. Wesley Snipes' awesome action kicks, dozens of quality explosions, at least ten snappy one-liners, and all the swearing make this movie worth it. 1993 was probably just a simpler time.

Heat Waves

Well it's summer and people are surprised that it's hot. This inexplicable rise in temperatures catches people by surprise when they live in the northern hemisphere of Earth. To be fair, the weather is cold more than half of the year, so people generally work up sweat when they exercise vigorously or when they have sex. In cold weather there are few other activities worth it. What it is is effort, and with a bit of that effort people could perhaps accept that there is heat, that the heat is inescapable, and that it is going to lead to a tiny amount of discomfort and a fair amount of sweat.

But since North America is one of the world's softest places, people just sweat and complain, even when they do not have work to complete. That's right. Lazy people complain about the heat too. Mostly, I imagine, this is because of the amount of Air Conditioning that we engage in. This wasteful practice stokes a human's idea of entitlement. To be quite clear: nature owes you no comfort. AC is unnatural, and it makes you soft and weak, plus it makes it seem even hotter when you go outside. So AC makes a nation of house-bound complainers who sit in air that is far too cold (anything less than 24C is crazy overcompensation) and then wonder why it gets hot. Not only do they use energy, which is known to manifest itself as heat, but the high amount of energy they use is causing more heat, both directly and indirectly.

That's right. Humans are short-sighted to such an extent that instead of nutting up about heat, they seek to avoid it in creative ways that generate more heat. Also, in the midst of a heatwave, all the smug bastards who ask about global warming on those -22C winter days disappear and keep real quiet. But they'll open their mouths again in December, no worries. As a matter of fact, I have a theory that global warming deniers can be used to heat small spaces in winter, since they're so apt to get heated up about ridiculous shit.

And this globe's unstable dance through the solar system leads to periods of heat and cold, some cycles that we are used to: such as day/night, summer/winter; and some we are not: like 'younger dryas vs older dryas' and the orbit eccentricity cycle. But that's all stuff better documented by smarter people in less vivacious and weighted language.  I'll just go ahead and say it: if you can't stand the heat move north or go for a swim or harden up a bit. Complaining only makes you warmer because it takes up energy.

My advice about heat?
Don't sweat it!