Okay, this tiny screen cap from that new civil war movie is enough to confirm that the filmmakers have got no fucking clue what they're talking about and I'm pretty doubtful they've ever been to any of flyover America, at all.
I'm saying this as a professional speculative fiction writer/editor AND one of those knuckle dragging wild red state gun nuts who is surely on several government To Do lists in case of Civil War 2.0.
So, if I was getting paid to write this story-
A. All those nice arbitrary state lines on the map? Horseshit. That's all going out the window day 1. It's gonna be regional and cultural balkanization. Period.
B. The biggest cultural divide in America is assholes who want to meddle in everyone else's business vs. people who want to be left alone. Every other hot button topic we have is related to that. Pick one to be the flash point, but it's all gonna come back to that.
C. The clearest divide between those two groups is rural vs. urban. There are no "blue states" or "red states". There are blue cities who out vote all the red country around them. This is true across most of the country.
D. Some people are saying California and Texas could theoretically team up, because the Ds are trying to turn Texas blue... Yeah, big difference between voting and civil war, because when the apocalypse rolls around regular old Remember the Alamo well-armed Texans would happily shut off all the water and power into Austin, say "lol good luck with that commies" and then shoot anybody who came out. It ain't about counting votes now, it's about counting bullets.
E. See D get repeated in every state to varying degree. There is a LOT of built up anger out there, the likes of which I don't think our elite urban betters even sorta comprehend.
E2. Like I can't accentuate this one enough. The only reason a lot more assholes don't just get shot in America is decent people don't want to serve time.
F. Like look at this dumb shit. Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, being together. Yeah sure. I live here. Makes sense. Us being allied with Portland or Seattle? Lol. The rest of Washington and Oregon DESPISE Portland and Seattle.
G. Even in the super red/blue states, opening day of Civil War Season means law has basically gone out the window, so there's a whole bunch of really useless and annoying people who get put with in these places by the locals, where suddenly, it no longer behooves the local population to do so anymore. So right out the gate it is score settling and blood grudge time. We aren't talking about North v. South now. We are talking Rwandan machete party.
H. Look at Nevada. Have these people ever been to Nevada? Nevada is not a lib state. Nevada is a zillion miles of desert and bitter cowboys with one liberal city that exists to take Californian's money. This is a city which literally should not exist according to the basic laws of nature, and once the water infrastructure is threatened, it's nothing but a source of refugees.
I. California is not a unified state either. I grew up there. The rest of California hates the two coastal cities which rule over them and treat them as serfs. Same with New York State, despising New York City, (and hell, half of New York City hates New York City)
K. Not related to the map, but apparently the heroes of this story are NEWS REPORTERS. :D Holy shit. Read the room, Hollywood.
I could write the shit out of a Civil War 2.0 screenplay, and unlike my lefty Hollywood counterparts, I can actually write about characters who aren't shallow versions of myself and still make them believable, but I won't hold my breathe about any studios calling me anytime soon. :D
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Okay, I'm gonna expound on this with a thread about my experiences with Hollywood, as limited as those may be. As a working novelist and red state American I'm like an outsider barbarian there.
First, I'm not exaggerating about them being illiterate, let me tell you a story-
Back when I was first getting started, Monster Hunter International had just blown up. I got contacted by my first movie producer. Nice guy. Had a made a bunch of movies I'd heard of in the 90s and early 2000s.
This guy actually read books. Little did I know just how odd that was at the time-
3- So this producer read MHI, loved it, showed it to his friend who was the #2 person at a major movie studio, who also read books. And he was literally like the only guy at the entire movie studio who actually READ BOOKS.
I wish I was exaggerating. I'm not.
The A-Z guide to anti-gun vulture talking points on Twitter-
A. Gun owners are never trained enough so are dangerous and shouldn't be armed at all.
B. Gun owners who do train are crazy psychos living out their wannabe fantasies itching to shoot someone.
C. Even though it takes orders of magnitude more effort to become marginally effective with martial arts than a gun, you are better off using martial arts and not having a gun.
D. *Real Men* use their hands. This is why your mom and grandma shouldn't have guns either.
E. Twitter randos who have never been punched in the face are experts on real life violence, and whatever you have personally experienced doesn't count.
Notice that there's nothing about the planet they are going to, the challenges they will face there, or what pertinent skills or knowledge any of these people possess to help the mission.
Just shallow shit.
Which is kind of the whole issue with all this in a nutshell.
If anybody did populate a colony ship this way, they deserve to die.
Like the student. She's Muslim. Okay. But WHAT is she a student of?
Gender studies? Get the fuck off my ship.
Spaceship engineering? Welcome aboard!
I'm a little biased toward accountants and novelists for obvious reasons, but what kind of novelist are we talking about?
Say we are going to nightmare hellscape planet populated with monsters set to the Doom Music soundtrack and the choices are me or John Scalzi. :D
I know, company whose stock has tanked over the last year, let's pick up and move our facility that's twice the size of Manhattan to some other place that's got a spare 25,000 acres where we can build hundreds of unique buildings with super intricate infrastructure.
BRILLIANT.
How fucking stupid is @KeithOlbermann?
I'm serious. There's got to be some kind of scientific measurement.
A couple years ago they invited one of the most respected editors in the business to be guest of honor, then revoked it because this Jewish single mom made them feel "unsafe" because they said she was responsible for every rando comment on a web forum her company owned.
Now their guest of honor is a huge cheer leader for Russian war crimes and literal fucking genocide, and they ain't saying shit. Because they can't upset the Chinese communists who are hosting them.
I've actually got a chapter In Defense of the Second Amendment where I break down this stupid shit. It's the southern states, each with a big blue city that hasn't elected a republican to office in generations, with some neighborhoods that are murder central.
Leftists love this bullshit.
Like Tennessee? Alabama? High murder rate.
Outside places like Memphis or Birmingham? Rates plummet.
Guess where all the red and blue parts are?