The Secrets of Demolition Man Explained

hello and welcome back to an episode of generation films my name is american ben and today we are going to cover the secret messages in demolition man but first just a quick note this video is going to seem a little bit sloppy originally it was over 28 minutes long it was full of short sound bites which provided evidence for my claims if you know this channel then you know i do break down videos in this style all the time and i've never had a copyright issue film studios are happy to let you sample their content if you don't go too overboard and provide commentary on it because doing so causes tons of people to go and watch the movie being discussed however warner brothers apparently does not feel this way they were relentless in making claims on my original video even going so far as to claim sections that included stills it's their material i shouldn't complain we won't cover wb movies anymore but as you can hear in the tone of my voice i'm really bummed out because i loved the original product and it took me painstaking effort prepared for you guys i want to deliver super high quality content and now i don't feel like this meets that standard but if you want to show us some support please watch for as long as you can today i'd really appreciate it anyway thanks for listening to this sorry about this now back to the video demolition man which hit theaters in 1993 centers on the story of lapd sergeant john spartan who has been tracking an elusive violent criminal simon phoenix throughout la for two years in 1996 he finally meets him face to face in an abandoned building and they engage in a showdown which sees spartan come out on top but unfortunately not without the warehouse exploding due to a trapped phoenix set and thus killing 30 hostages spartan's reputation as an anti-by-the-book officer a reputation which has earned him the nickname demolition man finally catches up to him here and he along with phoenix is sentenced to a long prison term in california's new cryo penitentiary where convicts are cryogenically frozen and rehabilitated via software while in an unconscious state in 2032 phoenix is awakened for a parole hearing and given some new skills and information he learned while frozen he escapes from incarceration and wreaks havoc on the new city of san angelos a merger of san diego santa barbara and los angeles in order to track down phoenix once again the sapd awakened and unfreezed john spartan though i suppose not in that order they parole him and task him with the job of nabbing phoenix the movie then follows spartan's pursuit of phoenix as well as his efforts to take down dr raymond cocteau the designer of the cryo penitentiary and the so-called savior of san angelos who has masterminded phoenix's escape for the purpose of stirring fear in the citizenry that will allow him to suppress an uprising against his ordered city on the part of an underground rebel leader edgar friendly and the rest of the scraps edgar's gang of as cocktail would describe them hooligans we in san angelos have been plagued by a pack of subterranean hooligan now the reason i picked demolition man is because it's the perfect movie to follow the fifth element which is the film i covered in the first video in this series a week ago like the fifth element demolition man has a colorful futuristic world and it is a severely underrated movie to be honest both films are two of my favorite sci-fi films of all time they're fun more fun than any movie i watch nowadays but because their narratives are fairly simple i feel like movies like these you know 90s action movies have been explored and so yeah with respect to amos burton i'm that guy i'm going to give them a second look and yeah demolition man has a coherent message layered into its story the movie's plot features a bit of a tug of war between the societal thinking that was endemic to the 90s and new perspectives that were arising as the world entered into the new millennium and this tug-of-war is definitely relevant to our society today so what is the film really about well short answer it's pleasantville with guns but here's the long answer and no it has nothing to do with taco bell's ascendancy you do not realize that taco bell was the only restaurant to survive the franchise wars now the film starts out by forcing us to ask questions about police ethics a theme which does run throughout the film you are not supposed to come down here you are not supposed to attempt to arrest the phoenix singalani if you think anti-police movements are fervent today well the 90s weren't exactly void of such tension and i feel like the movie speaks to this jon spartan is the hero of the film but is he truly a hero for breaking the rules to apprehend perps and for using excessive force in doing so yeah sure it's phoenix who riggs the building to blow but if jon spartan doesn't bust in there so brashly then maybe the hostages would still be alive but the movie is really about larger ideas than just police brutality which is only a sub theme of the film inherent to these big ideas the society we arrive in in 2032 is void of violent crime and thus police brutality is an antiquated idea at least in a physical sense murder death last recorded offense september 25th 2010. it is a world in which an authoritarian government has risen to nanny the people and deem all unsafe things to be contraband uh smoking is not good for you and has been deemed that anything not good for you is bad hence illegal alcohol caffeine contact sports meat chocolate gasoline spicy food all are banned the fear of the people engendered in them by extant risks in society and helped along by machiavellian leaders like dr cocteau has won out and resulted in a controlled society where individual rights have largely been sacrificed for safety society operates under the overwatch of an advanced security apparatus which itself functions off the mandatory microchips and salt in people's bodies that keep track of them in 2032 you even get fined for cursing where the goddamn guns and let's be clear it's not a conservative or liberal movement alone that leads to such rules the movie presents its world as a result of fear from all sides abortion is illegal but so is pregnancy if you don't have a license these are contrasting laws that are sure to upset both major political factions and at least america today everything is made to be safe in the film's version of the future people don't even have real intercourse actually they don't even swap bodily fluids of any kind yeah 2032 is a real bummer but then again motor vehicles do have this cool secure foam which prevents fatal road accidents but i digress i am the great digressor after all so we have this ultra safe society and here is where the movie presents its first real interesting idea through sapd officer lanina huxley whose name is a combination of lenina crown and aldous huxley the former is a character in the latter's world famous 1932 novel brave new world a book about a future society in which everything is controlled and predetermined for people so that no offenses are caused it's a shockingly brilliant book by the way if you haven't read it do so its story isn't entirely gripping but its ideas are more prescient in some ways than orwell's anyway at first lanina seems like just a classic sweet and charming sandra bullock character i mean she's so innocent she doesn't even get the whole cursing thing you really licked his ass but she is actually central to setting up some of the movie's most difficult questions see she's bored with her job she wants more action no police presence is requested in the city at this time oh boy how exciting however the city is a safe place there's no violent crime police officers are hardly even needed that should be a good thing right so this supposedly good character longs for there to be violence that's a dark thought especially in terms of its implications for human nature do you really long for chaos and disharmony your fascination with the vulgar 20th century seems to be affecting your better judgment lanina is portrayed by her colleagues as someone who romanticizes the brutish 1990s when people were still at risk of experiencing acts of violence and murder but lenina is just honest with herself now in this safe city without violent threats round life just isn't as exciting don't you ever want something to happen goodness no what i wouldn't give for some action and is it so crazy to think that many people wouldn't feel this way if the future really did play out like this there is a destructive quality inherent in human beings and i feel like sometimes maybe it manifests because life is kind of boring the news dramatizes the danger of the world all the time not because they have some malicious agenda born independently of the masses but because the mass is demanded and it really makes sense that the government in place and demolition man is authoritarian or i assume it must be given the laws in place because one would think in any sort of liberal democracy the people would always produce a society in which risky behavior flourishes as a marketable product but beyond boredom the film conveys other problems with the tranquility of its future society as well spartan is a legend i've been doing a historical study over 1 000 arrests over three years all authentic criminals since there's no more violent crime the police don't know how to handle violent crime when it arises thus when a violent criminal in phoenix arrives in 2032 he's empowered by the fact that no one is trained to deal with them there's always a give and take to anything in reality since there's no more violent crime violent offenders gain power and you may say well without the whole freezing people thing there wouldn't be violent offenders in such a society fair point but humans aren't perfect there always seems to be anomalies that materialize even in the most strictly ordered societies and if such anomalies do come to pass then everyone will be in danger allah the society and demolition man's future there's also the possibility of violent aliens showing up who surely won't be coded yes i'm being a bit silly with that statement but it's a point that needs to be made you never know what tomorrow's threat will be and because of this demilitarization is always a risk and this idea can be extended to the accessibility of weapons in 2032. on one hand firearms are a relic of the past in the film's future society and their illegality has helped to drop gun crime to zero however when phoenix gets his hands on a gun from a museum exhibit all of a sudden he becomes even more of a danger because no one else has a gun obviously this debate can be applied to today's society in new york city it's really hard to get a gun really hard and that includes for criminals and as a resident of the city it's nice to know that the ill people walking around can't procure firearms very easily it's unlikely one will be lying around their house because of a family member's negligence however in the rare case that some unwell person who intends to commit an act of violence has a gun in the city there's not a great chance that someone else in that person's vicinity of attack will have a firearm of their own to fight back with and that's also an unsettling feeling for me i'm not really taking a position or offering an answer here because i don't have a great one i'm just trying to emphasize how complex the issue is and how the future in demolition man has created new wrongs out of its new rights but let's step back to the more general problem of phoenix being a violent person in a world void of violence this problem begs the question is there a need for the state to use violence in order to stop and deter violent actors under its charge and thus protect the people who would be victim to them enter john spartan the sapd aka the state paroles spartan because he's the demolition man he's an old-fashioned cop who maybe uses excessive force at times and breaks the rules officers are required to follow even in his own time i'm not sure he's any different than simon phoenix himself in 2032 this state says yes we need violence in this anomalous case but if there's one anomalous case then shouldn't it stand to reason that they always need to have a john spartan at the ready maybe not i don't know that's for y'all to debate but john spartan sure is one hell of an antiquated guy or better yet an anachronism in 2032. thanks a lot you shh he will not acquiesce to the nanny state he may still be a policeman but he does not abide by the laws he's the type of officer who enforces what he thinks is right according to his own senses not according to what some rule book says as fascist crap makes me want to puke here we have this guy entered into a world he is diametrically opposed to philosophically speaking he thinks for himself he's anti-authority and he doesn't care about rules why don't you just shove a leash up my ass and listen spartan i know you're upset about the whole microchip being implanted in you without your consent thing but not sure that inserting said leash into your rectum logically follows the chip being implanted into use subcutaneously nonetheless yeah john spartan is profanity personified in 2032. he's a quote-unquote old-fashioned cantankerous individualistic toxic brute entered into a futuristic pacifistic progressive society overrun by a hive-minded mob operating on a by-the-book mentality access and correlate procedure establish communication with maniac intruders wrong the cops now make the decisions that machines tell them to something that's not too far off from modern day proposals and you know what it's not clear that john's in the right i mean he's definitely not in the right by taking a glow rod to an innocent pedestrian but in more general terms while i don't have statistics on hand and nor would i trust any produced by the government in demolition man's version of the future police violence in 2032 seems to be rather unnecessary and non-existent that seems to be a desirable outcome though yes as we explained before the bad comes with the good and yet john still says nah hard pass i'm not really sure how the movie wants us to feel about jon's philosophy at certain points in some ways it seems like it wants us to lionize him for refusing to follow procedures but i more feel that it does want us to question his actions it's hard to tell because i'm presenting this video from the perspective of someone in 2021 who's been exposed to a national or even worldwide education about police corruption and brutality i certainly support the existence of police but i can't help but feel a little icky when john disregards the rules or perpetrates unnecessary violence despite what the filmmaker might have intended i imagine a lot more people back in 1993 would have readily celebrated jon's defiance of the rules and harsh methods of dealing with lawbreakers the movie does still paint jon as a hero regardless of his handful of indiscretions and it does so by positing him as someone that is aware of the judgment and restraint that police officers should demonstrate hurting people's not a good thing well sometimes it is but not when it's a bunch of people looking for something to eat he does believe that violence is needed at times to balance out other violence but he also sees himself as a protector of the people and thinks that violence should only be employed by officers when absolutely necessary this is actually kind of profound it speaks to the difference between people's talk and actions in casual conversation and their talk and actions in the heat of battle there's a lot of people who get riled up online and advocate for the police to use excessive force against lawbreakers and on the contrary there's a lot of people who via electronic means express support for dissolving the police entirely or letting lawbreakers go unpunished but when confronted with these issues in situations where they could have direct effect on them oft such people come to their senses and voice more reasonable opinions still online advocacy can produce real effects but that's beside the point for now which is that while john spartan does make some mistakes in the line of duty perhaps even does some bad things overall he seems to show more restraint than his demolition man moniker might suggest simon phoenix is a dangerous guy after all and so john is quick to use force with him but when it comes to the scraps he's much more controlled now this all said this is another digression because john spartan is out of place in 2032 and non-compliant with its rules and norms in this way though he provides some balance to an unbalanced society he comes from a world that was out of tilt in favor of lawlessness and individualism well in the new world order and collectivism reign you really think we'd let you go without control your code was implanted the second you thought the rulers have few visible critics most everyone has acquiesced to this new order and as a result we get a population rife with people conditioned to self-righteously defend and praise the government's policies as we saw in that last clip as we said in the beginning of this video fear won out in society the city degenerated into a total fear zone this allowed for the balance to shift in favor of authoritarianism as dr cocteau triumphed or the day and enforced his tyrannical vision on society and in this next clip the movie basically tells us it wants us to ask ourselves which world is better the one of the 90s or that which we see in 2032 the radiance of san angelos would not be here just your rotting cesspool of hate and suffering which would you prefer it's really a great time to re-examine this film because we're in the latter portion of the mid-section of those two times and fittingly there's a mix of aspects of both the 90s and demolition man's future in our present day reality but certainly the world we see in 2032 is way more authoritarian than the one we live in today dr cocteau has mastered fear as a tool to move society in the way he wishes all those who oppose his vision he casts as enemies of peace and society has entrenched his modus operandi systemically maniac is imminent request advice we hear this maniac term used numerous times by agents of the state a label i take to be a euphemism for heretic and a word that can be easily used to justify state abuses of individuals deemed to be maniacs and cocteau is able to advance his plans to eliminate the scraps by doing unethical and corrupt things because there's no one to check him again balance and criticism is lacking he can literally order the police to do whatever is necessary to eliminate someone that he wants out of the way i want you to do everything in your power to snare this agent of distraction he exercises absolute control over the police and yeah this implies that police brutality probably does still exist when he wants it to in other words it's rare because of the oppressive nature of the state which keeps the people behaved which is great if the state is benevolent but if the state falls to corruption which unchecked it inevitably will then all of a sudden the people will be defenseless against the violence it perpetuates on them the cryo incarceration dynamic is most reflective of the state's lack of checks and balances and the resultant dissolution of individual rights prisoners are frozen and then mentally manipulated against their will they are rehabbed as the state sees fit look i don't know what you guys put into my cryo slush but when i thought out the first thing i wanted to do is knit and the state can also wake up prisoners as it pleases in order to force them to act as agents on its behalf no one in 2032 has unalienable rights the conditions of your parole are full reinstatement into the sapd an immediate assignment to the apprehension of simon phoenix and where there may be a slight choice here between being re-frozen and carrying out the mission to apprehend phoenix it's a cruel and unusual one additionally in this society ruled over by an at least mostly authoritarian government the lack of checks has led to faulty and inhumane policies and procedures as well but my cryo sentence was no sweet lullaby i had feelings and i had thoughts the cryo penitentiary's freezing process is far from error-free and causes those who undergo it intense suffering but it doesn't matter nothing needs to be amended because there's no process in society by which governmental policies can be challenged or put to a halt unless the government itself wills it without empowered lawyers running around able to make a buck off of victims of malpractice the policies which cause harm can stay in place and continue to victimize people society in 2032 doesn't condone criticism or the anger and passion that engenders it it's quite horrific murder death kills all categories of chaos enhance your car stay calm that's what the arbiters of society encourage people to do because when people are calm they don't typically rise up the movie forces us to think about the externalities that are born out of a populist devoid of emotion and it seems to conclude that what we get is government overreach and abuse murder death kill explosives technician violent behavior this isn't a proper rehabilitation program simon phoenix himself is a victim of this abuse yes he gains cooler skills while frozen than john did but still he is a tragic figure because he isn't really that powerful and though he is a violent maniacal villain he's the type of person who those in power are prone to see as expendable and usable for their own malevolent ambitions isn't there a thought repeating in that barbaric brain of yours i can't help but recognize that demolition man came out at a time in which trust between minority communities and the state was at a low point simon phoenix's mind is put under dr cocktoe's control and he's forced to do his cocktail commands to me this mind control dynamic is the classic tale of a rich and powerful guy attempting to force some low-level criminal from unprivileged beginnings carry out his dirty deeds and take the fall for them while the rich and powerful guy is held as a hero for cleaning up the city people are terrified of you what's new good or evil phoenix is still a pawn who is used by powerful people instead of helped and it is darkly beautiful that the psychotic but tragic phoenix is the one who gets to take down dr cocteau while perhaps making the most succinct philosophical statement in the entire movie look you can't take away people's right to be [ __ ] phoenix took back control of the world he has never been afforded any control over at least none that he didn't have to seize in order to get it phoenix in his own murderous way makes his choice about 2032 society he doesn't like it and like john spartan isn't going to play by its rules however he isn't the only one to make this decision the scraps those people who live underground in the sewers in the movie also reject dr cocteau's vision and i suppose in this way i can say that there is no extant criticism of the government and demolition man's version of the future just none that is given a public platform those who choose to pit themselves against cocto's world are made out to be crazy and violent by the state and maybe they are they did choose to live in the sewer instead of above ground in the thriving metropolis but maybe crazy and violent is what it takes to overcome a violent government bureaucracy surely even in reality most people would acquiesce to a doctor cocktail-like figure most people fall in line those who are actually willing to risk their lives for the sake of high principles may actually be a little insane and perhaps violence is the only way to establish a credible threat of force and thus force compromise and change i'm into freedom of speech and freedom of choice i want high cholesterol i want to eat bacon and butter and buckets of cheese okay yeah edgar is a little out there but he's also the only guy standing against the tyrannical government that said i'm not sure what he's advocating is so great either bad dietary habits kill a lot of people to me edgar represents the extreme of the other side complete libertarianism or maybe i'll just say fanatical anti-establishmentarians and we thus arrive back at john spartan as our balance though not exclusively as the anti-authoritarian balance to the tyrannical state that turns out to be more of an edgar thing instead jon is the universal balance he balances cocktail this is good right cocktail can't control him and this spells the beginning of the end of his rule it's noteworthy that jon calls him a maniac you do what you gotta do i know what i gotta do i gotta nail that meaning i can put on my knife that's where i'm gonna be this is the very word that's used by state sanctioned agents to discredit and slander enemies of dr cocteau's vision by using this word john counter balances the state's behavior and john also brings la nina into balance i now understand that under certain circumstances that violence is necessary and at the end of the movie when chief earl despairs about the collapse of order and edgar responds by suggesting a night of debauchery as a remedy jon comes in to balance both of them why don't you get a little dirty you elect clean and somewhere in the middle i don't know you'll figure it out now if everyone is in the middle of society just for the sake of middle then as my personal philosophy goes corruption would probably prosper once again you need two poles acting on each other to achieve actual balance but that's a deeper and even longer philosophical conversation that i'm ready to get into right now because i'm tired as hell and i'm going to balance myself with some sleep the point though is that demolition man raises questions about how best to form a society and seems to conclude that neither big or small government is the answer rather a sweet spot between the two is necessary along with checks and balances to keep it all working smoothly anyway that is the video i hope you enjoyed it if you did please do give it a big thumbs up comment down below do subscribe to this channel hit that notification bell so you don't miss a damn thing for now my name is american ben i'll catch you next time generation films peace

Channel: Generation Films

Views: 153,196

Rating: 4.8025146 out of 5

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Id: T0UTTwmrKek

Length: 25min 43sec (1543 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 01 2021