In Defense of Disney’s Strange Solarpunk World
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- čas přidán 30. 04. 2023
- Exploring the surprisingly radical ecological messages in Disney's Strange World. The movie's visuals are borrowed from old pulp adventure magazines but its theme has much more in common with Solarpunk narratives.
PATREON
/ popdetective
PAYPAL
www.paypal.me/popdetective
WISHLIST
www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls...
RESOURCES
• Lyla June's talk "3000-Year-Old Solutions To Modern Problems:
• 3000-year-old solution...
• Decommodified version of "Dear Alice" by Waffle To The Left:
• 'Dear Alice' Decommodi...
• The Monk and Robot series by Becky Chambers
us.macmillan.com/series/monkr...
• Mock "Clean Coal" commercial by The Coen brothers
• Clean Coal Air Freshener
• Join The Sunrise Movement:
www.sunrisemovement.org
• The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
us.macmillan.com/books/978037...
• "What is Solarpunk?" by Andrewism
• What is Solarpunk?
• "Why Solarpunk is not enough" by Andrewism
• Solarpunk Is Not Enough
POP DETECTIVE PODCAST
• Apple Podcasts podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
• Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/2C6SdbT...
• Google Podcasts: podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0...
SUBTITLES
• Help translate this video over on Amara
amara.org/videos/xwJ5HzMpEIRM...
TEXT TRANSCRIPT
• Coming soon
COMMENTS
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FAIR USE
All multimedia clips included in this video constitute a 'fair use' of any copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of U.S. Copyright law, which allows for criticism, comment and scholarship. Learn more about fair use with this awesome app by New Media Rights! newmediarights.org/fairuse
VIDEO LINK FOR EDUCATORS
• Coming soon
CREDITS
Writer/Editing: Jonathan McIntosh
Outro music: Rick Lopez - Krátké a kreslené filmy
It enrages me to no end that Disney not only has the potential to make groundbreaking stories with a progressive message and lots of diversity, but ACTUALLY MAKES THEM and then???? Just says “meh” on those MILLIONS spent and just releases it with ZERO promotion??? WHY
I think they are scared of the anti-lgbt backlash honestly, the cowards.
@@PopCultureDetective as cowardly as I think it is theres merit to some fear considering how insane and desperate the conservative party has gotten. Desantis is just a single example of how dead set republicans are of not just fighting the "culture wars" but of doing everything in their power to make it a massacre.
I saw loads of advertisements on billboards here in Denmark. Did they not advertise it in other countries?
@@dingdud6602 Not in Latin America, at least. This is the first time I see anyone talking about this movie at all.
Gay
It's crazy yet sad that the Disney movies that flopped are more ahead of their time in terms of animation & themes compared their more popular counterparts, especially Atlantis & Treasure Planet.
Think it trough a little more. Why did those movies flop or are considered flops? Atlantis had a TV series after it was released. It's not simply the leaders, corporate or political, that caused them to flop, it was the people and the popular culture of the time.
Flop movies. Just say "ahead of time". Now everything is good. Animation are same old typical Disney animated movies.
I would disagree the really successful ones blew up for a reason. Encanto was only a year before this movie but the story felt more genuine and the themes were more cohesive so it was overall better received
@@lilac3266 Disney should change the animation and story style. Like Puss in Boots which deserves Academy award.
they didnt want to promote either of them just shut up their senior staff who said they'd quit if they didnt make these movies. they were take out to die horribly and shut up the staff. same thing happened to the black calduren.
Definitely agree on that we need BOTH 'excessive' optimism AND 'excessive' radical change in eco fiction - it's fiction after all, meant to evoke emotion more than anything else, and the stories that hold back on both only end up being boring and working against themselves imo, especially if aimed at children. This sounds like a surprisingly clever disney flick. Thanks for the video!
It’s not “excessive” optimism or “excessive” radical change. What is excessive is the current system we live under. The change necessary to make a better world can be radical. But it’s more about returning to the natural balance in all levels of our existence than taking excessive actions. Excessive actions are what lead us to this current situation more than anything. No more excess! What we need is to stop the excess. We need to consider this optimistic view as the normal and not as an excessive worldview.
@@jorge2060shake Do you realize that following the parallel of the movie, the "good guys" would be eco terrorist sabotaging every fossil fuel extraction facility?
I'm all for the systemic change off capitalism and fossil fuel, but the movie represents an extreme change indeed.
@@guillermorelobalopez7553that may become necessary
@@jorge2060shake what i meant by 'excessive' here is probably better expressed as 'simplistic', there's no need to jump into conclusions about a love I don't hold for exctractionist capitalism :) I really wish it would be as easy as going on a scuba dive into the core of the earth and playing a board game with my parents to topple oil giants, but it isn't - hence 'excess' of positivity and solutions.
But it is a children's movie after all.
@@undead_corsair Sure. But necessary and extreme are not mutually exclusive sadly.
Bruh I'm a Bio major and picked up so quickly **spoilers** that they were living inside an organism. It was so cool being able to recognize a lot of the processes going on at a macro level scale. They obviously did their research and consulted the right people. The eye scene at the end was phenomenal.
This is interesting! Can you share any of the clues?
@@MorganGriffithDavid
Not a bio student, but the first one for me was the sea of acid. Pretty clearly a digestive system. Then the stream of red animals started clicking and by the time they'd reached the eye I'd recognized it as the "world on the back of a turtle" trope. Not that the inclusion of the trope detracts from the film.
So it’s just Xenoblade
@BonaparteBardithion I feel like the turtle was s cool twist on the idea. They aren't just living on it, they live OFF of it
@@MorganGriffithDavid Mine was the way the splat things "scout" for the reapers. Classic immune system design. I even called the giant turtle aspect of it since it's a classic trope/mythology of a "world on the back of a turtle" especially in the area of the world the architecture and clothing of a lot of the characters seems to be hinting at.
I am collecting references for a solar punk themed game for a while, and now I finally noticed something when you said it: the emphasis on individual solutions, instead of change in a system or society. For example, energy supply is always depicted as decentralized, i.e. each home has a solar panel or floating wind turbine. What I think sets it apart from other -punk depictions though is the access to these technologies. Communities are shown being able to utilize these technologies and share them. They're often low maintenance and easy to read for non-tech people. I like this idea of enabling people to be part of modern technology, instead of paying something or someone to get limited access to it.
Yes, it's all about *community based solutions* instead of individual ones. So you could have neighborhood solar networks that are linked to other neighborhoods with their own networks to make sure powers goes where it's most needed etc. Though that happens in conjunction with activist pressure to end fossil fuel production on a global scale.
This is why Right to repair is important and should be supported! Uf you can repair something than you own it.
@@PopCultureDetective Those activist are just going to cause mass suffering of the third world who need that Energy to develop into first world countries. Eco solutions aren't enough for them.
There are already Third world nations bitting Back at the UN eco goals as many see it as a hindrance to the economic develop the third world nations need to lift their populations out of Unimaginable poverty.
@@PopCultureDetective lol way to completely miss his point.
FWIW, I think decentralized solarpower *is* a sensible part (but absolutely only a part) of the solution, as those are increasingly affordable, especially while facing the current spikes in energy cost.
Not everybody can afford those. Not everybody even has their own roof to use for this. But where it's applicable, it's a good idea.
You *do* also need a battery storage which is trickier and more expensive, and even this solution *will* take more systemic changes, as the energy grid has to now deal with electricity flowing *both* ways and what not. So even here, despite useful and near-achievable (it really depends on your income and living situation, but certainly you don't have to be ultra rich) individual action, even if that alone were enough for our energy mix (which it isn't), you'd still depend on big systemic changes for all of it to work out.
Still, if you are in a position where it would be affordable to you, I personally can only recommend it: I now live in a house that, for half to three quarters of the year, produces very nearly all of its energy needs on site, and the remaining few months (the winter months) still see a significant reduction of energy needs, despite the much shallower sun angle and commonly cloudy sky.
That said, a big caveat on this is, that energy needs *are* by far the highest in winter, so the most expensive months happen to see the least reduction in costs. You definitely have to factor that in to see if it makes sense to you. Proper thermal insulation goes a long way there, but obviously doesn't stop you from needing heating.
Meanwhile, local on-site wind energy is *far* less useful:
The most efficient wind farms actually work by coordinating several very tall, very large structures. Sometimes it's best to turn off a few of those turbines in order to increase the net efficiency and such. It's tricky to calculate, but yeah, ultimately, you need coordination over quite large areas, and huge towers with huge blades. Just not practical to do locally unless you happen to own a ton of land.
The solar panels would also just simply sit on your roof which usually has very little use beyond, like, keeping you dry. They don't really take away space from you.
But a wind turbine certainly does. Even a small one. It also makes noise and, due to having moving parts, is technically more dangerous and prone to failure (although, to be clear, it's still one of the safest forms of energy we have and that shouldn't actually be a huge concern)
So yeah, I don't think most people are gonna have their private wind powerplants on site.
Most likely they are gonna use them for pumps or such, as they have been for centuries. - Those kinds of windmills look very different in design as different things matter for them.
I've always loved the aesthetic and message of solar punk, but I never knew it had a name.
I love the solarpunk genre. It was what inspired me to do my masters in solar cell technology and hopefully inspire real change with the work I do.
Dude no lie if you ever want to give a basic interview about your masters in solar cell technology to a total internet stranger, I would 100% email you some questions I have. It's part of other research for now so it won't feature anywhere but y'know, always gotta be getting those diverse perspectives
Solar cell are problems them selfs.
@@madeniquevanwyk Diverse perspective. The only diversity that matters.
@@arnowisp6244 diverse perspectives are usually derived from diverse lived experiences...
@@critiqueofthegothgf You can have an all white team and they can he diverse from coming from different walks of life. That's real diversity.
I didn't really pay attention to Strange Worlds' release because I just don't follow children's releases all that closely. I ended up watching the movie blindly and I was very pleasantly surprised with the writing and themes. Being familiar with solarpunk and degrowth ideology however, I understood Strange Worlds for what it is and ended up loving it. I wish more movies, including "adult" ones, could be this softly revolutionary.
And more related to your videos, but I would absolutely love closed captions, it's the one thing I really miss in your content. Your thesis and arguments are always a delight, but I end up having to do more effort to simply follow your words.
All or almost all of our other videos do have subtitles. And this one will too, it just takes a few days after publishing is all.
This isn't "revolutionary" in any way. It's a corporate product made by the largest entertainment conglomerate in history to capitalise on trends.
Of course, but please understand this channel is all about meeting people where the are at, and where they are at is popular culture.
@@kapitankapital6580 I absolutely agree, but also showing people a positive alternative actually changes what they can imagine. It's no direct collective action, but it's one important seed of potential change.
@@kapitankapital6580 you're technically right, but thats not a very useful way to think about media. its highly reductive
now this is a video essay, using themes of the story to educate real world problems and promote actual ways to challenge and change society, not following general consensus or use clickbaity titles and thumbnails pilling on meaningless rage wars, your work is not always well received, but they're incredibly important in help breaking barriers and sparking necessary conversations, i think you delivered it especially well this time :)
Not to mention he avoids going off on rants or complaining about [insert popular person or thing to hate on here]. While also approaching things reasonably 😎.
in addition, keeping the length to a good, well-utilized 16 minutes. my fucking goodness I'm so sick of all the 30+ minute-long video essays that have come up over the last few years. and they almost always don't need that time. this was a fantastic video!!
The "general consensus" is that climate change is an immediate threat to mankind, despite the flimsy evidence, it is everywhere in schools and pop culture. Step outside your biases and actually start to question the foundational assertions of climate change. All assumptions have been regularly proven false. The only people being hurt by climate change policy are regular folks and the rich are getting richer.
You must be new around here. 😅 All of their videos are like that, you should check them out!
this doesn't answer anything lmao. It's an aesthetic movement with zero logistical thought process behind it. Very much expected from anarchists.
I think the “quit cold turkey and accept a time of inconvenience” does have one major flaw people don’t talk about-the common overlap between “convenience” and “accessibility”
Yeah, it’s not just about convenience. Quality of life and life spans have drastically increased on average for people. It’s not about cold coffee in this scenario. It’s about not freezing to death and so on. And an agrarian society also wouldn’t support a population of our size. And like most things, I highly doubt that the sacrifices would be equal amongst racial and class groups
You are the carbon they want to reduce.
@@debesys6306 They say cold coffee intentionally, the IRL messaging is not that we need to pull the plug on all electricity all at once. The IRL messaging is that we will be inconvenienced by the renewable transition. Cold coffee, a metaphor for 2-day shipping, annual iphones, $5 t-shirts, etc etc etc. Hope that makes sense.
@@___.51 Exactly. The point is that the priviledges will get reduced but the critical will not. Indeed, framing it as a literal 'all or nothing' is in some ways a bad faith argument as there are ways to reduce and change without removing support from those in need. For instance, in The Netherlands, the city of Amsterdam wants to eliminate all individual cars in the city center in a decade or two while further out towards the ring road, allow electric. This sounds dramatic and there may be some initial "What about"ism. But the thing is, this is not about eliminating everything. Things required for the city to run - electric trucks for moving goods around and to /out the city - and things for residents of the city - resident cars, residential public transit, district heating and cooling, etc - will be maintained and improved. Yes, if you want your high powered sports car, you're going to be disappointed... but you can also still use that outside the city and you'll have to put up with the cost of that because the roads for cars and such aren't going to be subsidized by the people who never use them.
@@debesys6306 that's true but we already have alternative fuel sources available and in wide use. south australia regularly goes entire stretches of time entirely powered by solar and batteries, do you think there aren't people on life support in that entire state?
it's actually *_more_* possible and *_easier_* for us than it is for the people in the film
re plastic, that's more difficult but there are compostable alternatives like celophane that have seen success in replacing many forms of plastic in a number industries
From a story point of view, dystopias are so common because its easy to make conflicts out of worlds with lots problems
It's easy to make conflict in solar punk too, it's just that the bad guys often make the audience uncomfortable because it's like looking in the mirror.
In dystopias you can picture yourself as "one of the good ones" but in solar punk the villain is you and the status quo you represent.
@@strayiggytv A bit generalizing perhaps.
They are also common because they are propaganda to make us believe that's the future, instead of a utopia we can have
You could just make the environmentalists the good guys and the corporations the bad guys
I think that's an overgeneralization. I think a lack of imagination is a larger part of the trend.
My 11,10 and 9 year old absolutely loved this movie and its vision. They often tell me about how much it hurts and frustrating them to see animals dying from human activities, and global warming. Our younger generation certainly are more politically aware than my generation seemed. But i genuinely didn't mind how empty and quiet the theater was when this movie was released. I had no idea Disney never put any marketing into it. It really was a great film.
Oh wow, I had no idea what Strange World was about. I'd heard that it had diverse characters and that most people never even heard about it due to a (presumably intentional) lack of marketing, but it seems it's even more radical than that. I will definitely have to give the movie a watch now. Excellent video!
90 million dollar in advertising.
I saw a lot of advertising of it myself. Maybe it's not so much a lack of advertising, but the amount of people blocking advertising. Also, Strange worlds was hate brigaded due to is diversity. You know by who.
This is my 5 year old daughter's favourite movie and she watches it at least once a week. It's such a shame that Disney slept on the film's promotion because it's such a beautiful story.
They probably were HEAVILY lobbied not to promote it.
Made more money from BP and ExxonMobil than from anything else. 100% sure.
I’m so glad to hear your daughter loves it, it’s honestly such a great film. I went out of the theatre so excited, I love that movie on so many levels… but even outside the messaging, I just love the really sweet depictions of the relationship between Searcher and his wife Meridian! Their family interactions always made me smile, I absolutely love their dynamic, and their dynamic with their son!
Oh totally agree there.
This was the first film my kids saw in a movie theater and I'm really happy that it was as quietly but insidiously radical as this. That boardgame scene hits really hard when you watch it with your own children.
Funnily enough, my wife and, to a lesser extent, my brother in law had a harder time parsing the concept than I did. It might have to do with a higher familiarity with cli-fi and solarpunk on my part, to the point that I found the general theme of the film to be unsubtle enough for it to be grasped by the younger fraction of its intended audience, even if the real world parallel goes over their head.
no way there are cis millennials using picrew ??😭
Aww Hugo, I still remember the first movie I saw in theaters with my dad (it was Monsters Inc) and it's still a bonding activity for us, so I do love how you're happy with this movie being their theater-first. I've also never heard of the term cli-fi tho, but I can deduce its connotations. I'm glad you're more familiar with the themes bc chances are you'll be discussing the movie with your kids in future. Anyway greetings from Africa
@@metropunklitan why did you have to phrase it like that 😫
I really liked the concept and ideas of Strange World. The execution might not be perfect, but it opened up lots of possibilities to explore this world introduced by Don Hall. I wouldn’t mind a Strange World sequel and a Disney + show.
@@metropunklitan i can just see the headline in the Financial Review: “Millennials Are Ruining Picrew. Here’s What This Means For Society…” good heavens, the world really is coming apart at the seams now… /s
As much as I usually find some weird melancholic comfort and solace in dystopian, cyberpunk-esque stuff (I'm slavic, comes with the territory), I'm glad that solarpunk slowly but surely becomes more popular, it's refreshing to finally see something hopeful, looking forward to see what the future holds and not experience existentiall horror about it.
Haven't heard about Strange World before, I'll give it a watch if I'll get the chance! Seems surprisingly radical for a Disney movie, no wonder they didn't really market it.
I'm still kind of shocked that I consider myself a bit of an animation nerd and still I wasn't aware this movie was out. Scandalous. Anyway, agreed on the necessity for optimism in media, especially aimed at kids and younger audiences
I hear you on the comfort of dystopian cyberpunk stuff. To me it's less about how these stories depict a bleak future, but being extreme examples showcasing issues that are plaguing society right now, as opposed to what might happen someday if left unchecked. The unmasking of these issues and the feeling of someone else intimately understanding them and explaining them using the future as a metaphor is cathartic when so much of my everyday life is spent surrounded by people who either don't know or are in denial of the existence of these issues.
@@gwen9939 There's just something so familiar about it. Sure, it's dialed up to eleven, but the core idea is very... mundane, I guess? The core principal of "High tech; Low life" applies to plenty of countries already, mine being no exception. I absolutely agree on media like this being cathartic, a good outlet to pour this dread into and a good lense to examine the world. But this is also why I'm happy that solarpunk is a thing and it's gaining popularity, somehow it doesn't strike me as naive as the hopeful science fiction of, say, 50-60 years ago.
I personally recommend to watch Strange World. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s pretty interesting. It has cool visuals and intriguing ideas.
@@gwen9939 It's just that it's so oversaturated that people are like "Sure, we know the problem, but how do we solve it?" Raising awareness to societal problems means showing both sides of the coin, what we are headed towards and what we could be
There's something puritanical in obliterated post-apocalyptic worlds. Something about punishment, about the wrath of an offended god, about how we are not good, we are doing wrong, we must repent, abstain, and atone for our sins.
Solarpunk is a very healthy alternative to that message.
Precisely
I would love to see more animated Solarpunk stories. Strange World was a pretty good one imo.
Yes and it's absurdly pessimistic when stuff stays "post apocalyptic" for an extended period of time rather than people just rebuilding.
I never saw it that way, maybe because I'm not a religious person, but I can see where you're coming from. Dystopian/post-apocalyptic always read to me as anti technology. Making it seem as if technology itself was bad, not the way we use it. Solarpunk on the other hand shows that technology can be rewarding if we use it right.
Thank you for including the Monk and Robot series! Everyone, literally EVERYONE, needs to read them!
I didn’t know exactly what to expect after the Wayfarer series but the novellas are so good!
I have been SO EXCITED to start reading "Psalms for the Wind-built" I just got it recently from the library after having to wait for it to be ready for about a week
I just finished the first monk and robot and it was outstanding, so hoping we see more like this and it grows in popularity ❤
It's pretty interesting that they included the collaborative board game as a way of explaining the difficulty in explaining that competition or defeating a villain isn't the only way of interacting with other humans. I bet they had to fight to keep that in the movie.
I'm sure Disney doesn't care about the fictional board game. That scene screams of some frustration in the process of making the movie. Probably something like Disney was reluctant to approve a movie that had no villain.
I liked that scene imo because it shows that not everything that’s happening will have a villain.
I totally disagree, there's a lot of online discourse pushing disney to make animated movies with traditional villains again and I think that was a little shout at the audience saying they don't want to, and then the oldest generation, the dad/grampa, responds "that's just bad story telling"
Finally, somebody who didn't absolutely hate this movie
Honestly. It's got potential
Wait! People hated it!? I mean I like the scenery and the story is kinda generic but it was fun lol
@Al7249 Why do I have feeling that most people who hate movie didn't actually watched it and hate it mostly because they heard that it have gay characters?
@@ExtremeMadnessX That's likely probably, having watched the film there's really nothing to hate film-wise, it's just a pretty normal Disney animated flick.
All I've seen is people saying it's ok or meh. With the amount of content available, it might as well be bad. But the popular consensus is that it's just a mediocre movie.
One pitfall of the burgeoning genre is to depict the solutions in overly simplistic terms or as easy achievements when we know that to be far from the truth. To effectively convey hope, we need to see the complexities and nuances involved. It sounds like Strange World is at least attempting to depict that as a broad theme, so I'm interested to give it a watch now.
anyone who has read anything around dismantling capitalism knows it is as simple as giving people money and autonomy over their lives. socialised housing, healthcare and education have been shown time and again to benefit everyone. capitalism cant exist without the poor and disenfranchised. solve that problem (which has been done and proven since the 1970s - a ubi-) and capitalism cant sustain it and people can actually safely resist capitalism as individuals which is impossible right now. i think we need more optimistic utopian media like film and books because until someone imagines it how can we collectively work towards it.
@@rebeccagibbs4128 I agree ✌ there is so much talk about how we are past the point of no return in regards to climate change which I appreciate we need more awareness but people also act like we can actually take any strides to mitigate our mistakes under the current system. we need dismantle capitalism first to be able to do anything substantial that benefits the planet and us
@@rebeccagibbs4128 it feels like any activism I take part in never really goes anywhere and falls on deaf ears and i think it's because people cannot safely resist capitalism so most things don't really go anywhere and the really big and potentially substantial things like carbon taxing don't have an effect as big as they could because we still have so many supporting the harmful industrial systems out of necessity it's not even a moral judgement here people who are disenfranchised will WANT to fight back against the system but can't it's not their faults individually cause it's either fall in line and submit to capitalism or be severly neglected
Well, I do not think it will be that simple - because even if we ignore for a moment problem of re-concentration of money/power into same wrong type of humans they have it today - how humans de-program themselves from decade(s) of capitalust realities, where money was everything? How they overcome disconnectedness between their actions and how they affect "the world", including non-immediate future? Psychological resistance to one's own past and self-critical life is not something we can just assume to emerge ... at least fast enough.
We haven’t even installed enough wind turbines to do anything and conservatives turned a Texas cold snap into 2 weeks of blaming windmills.
The struggles have not even started and their ready to burn the capital down if their bud light gets touched by a woman they don’t agree exists.
I'm really pissed that Disney didn't properly promote this movie. It deserved better.
First time I've even heard of it.
Totally agree with you. Strange World has suffered the same fate as Atlantis and Treasure Planet unfortunately. All 3 are animated sci-fi adventures with unique animation, ideas and worldbuilding that Disney didn’t bothered to make a competent marketing. With that, they became box office flops.
@@onepresence9460 except strange world wasn’t good.
Compared to all the live action 'movies' they release strange world is way better
@@BabyGirlTinyyeah and the new Snow White is the greatest Disney has made in history
My son and I really enjoyed this movie, and it's nice to get some of the context around it. I wasn't aware of solar punk before.
The short speech by Lyla June quoted in this video essay is worth watching in full. Her talk is called "3000-year-old solutions to modern problems" - czcams.com/video/eH5zJxQETl4/video.html
Speaking of "old solutions", there has always been a compositional place for "a story without a villain": a villain is just one kind of antagonist, there's also "the environment as the antagonist". But "the environment" doesn't refer to the ecology, but the entire situation in which everything is occurring. Not the natural environment, but the SOCIAL environment. Their social environment was the villain. (which is still a difficult story structure to create a modern movie from)
Why did you have to draw the connection that because they used people of color they are referencing indigenous culture. Couldn't it be just what you said about queer people? "no big deal" Seeing brown skin and thinking "indigenous" is racist. Also please stop coding "European" as white. The video was so good except for this dip into Hegel's worldview.
sadly, it won't work on a planet with 8 billion people. Most of it is naturalistic fallacy.
Thank you. This essay/review is once again superb. I can't get enough of this channel's videos.
This film so clearly took direct inspiration from Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis. This essentially states that the ecological interactions on the planet ultimately function as a self-regulating complex system in a similar way to an organism. Unfortunately it feels like they didn't quite stick the landing but I am very interested in seeing more films explore this premise, especially in a more metaphorical way.
It makes for a nice story, but the Gaia hypothesis was never more than that. Reality seems quite the opposite: The planet is far from self-regulating, and on a long enough time scale experiences constant shifts in weather and ecosystems.
@@vylbird8014 I am not sure what this comment was intended to achieve. I did not state that I believed the hypothesis true or false merely that it makes an interesting basis for a science fiction story...
@@vylbird8014 Life begets life. We would not exist if not for the web of living things producing compounds that we need to survive. Ecosystems are interconnected webs that self-regulate, this is known. Ecosystems can fail, yes, but so can our own bodies; and ecosystems are not wholly divorced from the abiotic conditions of Earth. Still, living things regulate so much! Even bringing rain, preventing erosion, etc. Doing their utmost to maintain an environment conducive to them. Does the abiotic Earth always play nice? Of course not.
You simply just haven't paid attention, if you think the biosphere does not uphold its own existence.
There is this game that I play, and in this game there is a faction called, "Gaia's Stepdaughters" which is literally the most enviromentally best faction in the game.
Mark of a good video is that I didn't see the movie, never even heard of it, but was completely engrossed into what narrator was saying.
PLEASE do one on colonialism in board games! I've always thought it was so weird how the basic premise of so many games is conquering land lmao
Working on it now actually!
all human groups conquer land. Expansion is human. No surprise that it happens in games humans play.
English and Japanese subtitles are now available. You can help by adding more language translations. It's easy on Amara: amara.org/videos/xwJ5HzMpEIRM/info/in-defense-of-disneys-strange-solarpunk-world/
this is the first piece of media that's made me cry in probably 2 or 3 years.
for so long i've held such a deep lack of hope for our future, a dark fucking *_pit_* of climate dispair.
even though i know it's possible to fix and i understand what we need to do to get there, i also understand that the overwhelming forefront of pro-environment rhetoric is just propaganda to shift public attention and awareness away from real solutions and away from the real crimes against life.
the fact that, for the past 50+ years, the average climate conscious person has been used as a sociopolitical human shield for fossil fuel corporations sickens me to the core, and makes it so, *_so_* hard to believe that the really important messages can get out there and spread as far as is needed.
your breakdown of this film ... how you leaned into real solutions like permaculture, regenerative agriculture, and radical fossil fuel abolition ... your breakdown - your voice on this as a public figure and well-respected media analyst - is the most gratifying, confirming, restorative, and reassuring piece of media i've experienced in a long time.
i feel seen, in regards to climate dispair, for perhaps the first time since I saw behind the curtain; and i feel hope that we can be heard, and maybe even finally listened to.
from the bottom of my pit; thank you.
Look up works by Hannah Ritchie at Our World in Data. She also has a TED Talk.
Strange World felt like its parts were greater than the sum. The ingredients were there for something bette, but it was hampered by so-so execution. Less time building up the titular world (which was obvious as to what the reveal was going to be from very near the outset), and more time world-building with dramatic stakes for the human civilization.
It's a small thing, also, but I have a feeling that some backstory as to how humans arrived at this place and set up Avalonia was removed for time, but also because it would have been too similar to what Lightyear set up with its narrative.
PCD is the perfect example of "quality over quantity"! Great video as always. 🙏
I really liked the aethetics, the message, and the "twist" of Strange Worlds.
If only the dialogue and characters weren't so terribly written it coud've been a film to rival WALL-E.
There’s an argument to be made that what we see in films like Strange World are less “punk” given the beautiful, clean environs, especially the city - one might expect solar “punk” style to be odorous and grimy - while it doesn’t seem to be straight “fantasy”, the optimism, lack of down trodden underclasses and focus on aesthetic beauty seem to push it away from punk - I see the argument that rebelling against standard “cyber punk” aesthetics may make it punk in its own right, but other punk genres, for example diesel punk, differentiate without losing features of grunge, subjugation and dystopia
Glad that this is getting talked about by a bigger channel because I really do feel like nobody gave this movie a chance. I'm not going to say it's Disney's strongest entry over the last few years, but it's definitely worth the watch and people dismissing it so quickly has been confusing.
a lot of channels make me feel smarter from watching them, but very few make me feel wiser.
It might be harder to summarize briefly for a video like this, but the story and messaging in the Horizon games is great solarpunk.
Granted, this is a family friendly Disney movie, so I'm not certain how much we can expect from them, but the weakest/unrealistic part of the movie is where the authorities are easily convinced to change their way of life and spend no effort to cling to power. That's where it fails as an allegory for the real world.
Whether that's because the writers thought that was too complex for the family friendly target audience or if the Disney executives thought that was too radical, it is a blindspot.
I would love to see a solarpunk movie that adeptly handles this problem inherent in the topic of systemic change.
I really enjoyed the worldbuilding and the overall message of this movie, and I'm glad to see Pop Culture Detective back to cover it!
I love how after the Clades resolve to change Avalonian society on a fundamental level, we jump a year ahead since that campaign’d need a whole nother movie to depict THAT.
Thank you Pop Culture Detective. Your videos and essays are always a breath of fresh air (thematic pun intended). Your videos always give me hope. I’m super excited for all of the upcoming videos you mentioned at the end of this one - thanks for all the hard work!
Your videos are always the best video essays CZcams has to offer. 🙌🏻 I have shown your WALL-E video to so many people over the years, I've lost count. I didn't know this movie existed, but i will definitely watch it now. Thank you for creating the most thoughtful, well-constructed, insightful video essays for so many years now. Your dedication and hard work are much appreciated. 🙏🏻
I do find it a bit grating whenever the sudden absence of power is portrayed as cold coffee and lack of comfort rather than a sudden absence of necessary things like heating, water, sanitation, functioning medical equipment, transport to hospital or to loved ones who are in need etcetera. You turn off the power for a big company, it's going to hurt their ability to operate. You turn off the power for vulnerable individuals, people will die.
Obviously you can't just shut off the power in real-life. That's why I made a point of saying they give up "comforts and conveniences," not necessities. The point of the Pando metaphor is that the whole society needs to shift away from fossil fuels rapidly but we are instead increasing our production on all fronts.
@Zandalorscat I'd also argue people will still die in mass numbers in the dead world dystopia too if we keep on the path we are on. Why would current people harmed by a sudden loss in power put weigh people 20 years down the line who will die in mass famine from climate change? From constant natural disasters?
Yeah, I had this thought, too. Fortunately, the real world situation is less "we need to turn everything off until we invent wind farms or something" & more "we already have a number of technologies that we should be using more." Unfortunately, I would argue that reality actually is full of unironic Captain Planet villains.
It's not a good look for 'self-proclaimed environmentalists' when they made everybody buy Teslas, and then made it illegal to charge them because the "renewable energy" power grid couldn't handle it causing blackouts.
Convincing people that your ideas will work is alot easier than doing the hard groundwork of making ideas that work. The world needs less convincers, and more DO-ers.
I agree with everything said. When you talked about the uncomfortable times ahead though, I immediately thought of the people who will be most affected. It’s not lost on me that the aesthetics of solar punk has so much representation. Yet the people most likely to not make it to the new world that is promised, are the people depicted.
Solarpunk asthetics are more aspirational than realistic. Lots of plants everywhere, yes - but also plenty of nice, big houses. Even if they have plants on them. While any really sustainable future would probably have to be built around much denser housing - apartment blocks rather than single-family detached homes - because it's just so much more efficient. Not just in space usage, but infrastructure as well, and construction materials.
@@vylbird8014 Most people I've encountered deep in the genre acknowledge this, so you're a little late to the curve.
I'm so happy I saw this video 😭😭😭 I knew that this movie is a thing because I've seen one or two pictures alluding to its existence, but I had no idea it's out right now for the world to watch!! I think this movie was made specifically for me, and I don't care much if other people like it or not. I've been a fan of solarpunk for years, I grew up a little rebellious eco-warrior who dreamt big dreams of the inventions I saw in National Geographic Kids, and I'm so ready to dedicate all my mental capacity to this movie once I see it. I've also got the game Terra Nil on my list, but it seems that it's still working through some bugs and it eats up battery, so for now I'll chill with that one.
Also, one last thing, idk what dreadlocks and beanie's name is, but he is now my new favorite character of all time. Baby boy, little angel. 😊😂
Lol, are you referring to Ethan? The son?
Thank you for this video! I really like Strange World and it's sad that very few people talk about its environmental message.
I enjoyed this movie and i still do. It’s not my favorite Disney movie or anything, but i don’t think it’s terrible like many people said. I think it’s an underrated animated sci-fi adventure, just like Atlantis and Treasure Planet.
I liked the animation art style and i really like the worldbuilding. It’s so interesting that it could be explored in the future with a sequel and a Disney + show.
Through the first half of this video I kept thinking “ooh like the Monk and Robot books!” And then you brought them up and I got SO excited. So glad someone else loves them too!
I think one area that gets overlooked though is disability and how for many people with disabilities, losing power, even temporarily, would be more than just an inconvenience. It could be life threatening. We already have quite a few alternatives for fossil fuels, but in many areas they are not set up. We have to set up new systems first. We have to find alternatives to some much needed plastics. Because humans aren’t just saving nature, we are nature and we’re saving ourselves as well. And that has to include everyone! (I really recommend All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. It completely made me rethink the false dichotomy of people vs nature.)
How inconvenient will it be when the world isn't habitable? Are well all stopped to die becasue we can't maintain optimum accessibility for some?
Of course, that's not the literal point in the movie. The point in the movie is that it will be hard.
The funny thing is, we have the tech to transition away from fossil fuels as a method of creating energy right now.
This video was amazing and I'm so happy you mentioned Becky Chambers, as her stories (all of them, not only Monk & Robot) are in my ip, so far the best executed Solar Punk narratives😊. And thanks for pointing out the irony of Disney being the company behind a Solar Punk movie.
Love this! I started out with the podcast episode, then watched the movie and finished out with this video essay and it was the perfect combo! Thank you so much for shining a light on Solarpunk and the monumental worth of utopias and hope ❤
I love the point of the change being mass scale and not focused on individual change. I used to work retail and was quickly disillusioned at plastic recycling because the mass of plastic packaging that each item came in was insane and we do not have plastic recycling locally as well as it being film plastics which are rarely accepted anywhere. Like my personal habits could not offset the impact of one tiny boutique in my town.
A new Pop Culture Detective video!! Great stuff!
You convinced me to watch the movie, I just finished it and I LOVED IT
Another great essay from Pop Culture Detective. I have found myself borrowing ideas and observations for my students consumption and this is no exception. Thanks for making my job easier.
Really a beautiful video essay. ❤ you hit a lot of great notes that needed to be addressed.
Solarpunk is a genre of speculative fiction that imagines a future where renewable energy, social justice, and ecological harmony prevail. It is a vision of hope and optimism, where humanity overcomes the challenges of climate change, inequality, and oppression, and creates a more sustainable and harmonious society. Solarpunk is not naive or utopian; it acknowledges the difficulties and complexities of the present and the future, but it also proposes creative and realistic solutions that can inspire us to act for positive change.
I am a huge fan of the promise of Solarpunk because I believe it offers a refreshing and empowering alternative to the dominant narratives of dystopia and apocalypse that pervade our culture. I am tired of stories that depict the future as bleak, hopeless, and violent, where humanity is doomed to suffer and destroy itself. I am also dissatisfied with stories that rely on techno-optimism or escapism, where humanity is saved by a miraculous invention or a benevolent alien intervention, or where humanity abandons the Earth for a new planet. These stories do not challenge us to confront the root causes of our problems, nor do they encourage us to take responsibility for our actions and their consequences.
Solarpunk, on the other hand, invites us to imagine a future that is both desirable and attainable, where humanity lives in harmony with itself and with nature, where technology is used for good and not for evil, where diversity and creativity are celebrated and not suppressed, where cooperation and solidarity are valued and not exploited. Solarpunk is not only a genre of fiction, but also a movement of art, culture, and activism that seeks to make this future a reality. Solarpunk is a way of thinking, living, and dreaming that can inspire us to create a better world for ourselves and for future generations.
I agree completely on the ecological message of the movie, and the larger real-world concerns. I also really wish they would consider publishing the Primal Outpost game - apparently the creators of the movie developed the concept to the point of being a real, workable product.
On the other hand, I felt that the diversity element was actually cynical and manipulative. It really felt to me like the film was checking off boxes on a list of groups. I don't know if you noticed, but the dog only has three legs, so we've even checked off the physical disability box! The problem with having a diverse cast of characters with ethnicities identifiable from the real world is that Strange World is not the real world. Ethnic groups exist because populations of human beings were reproductively separated from each other for thousands of years, long enough for unique phenotypes to develop in those populations. Strange World's Avalonia apparently only supports one major city, and the people there have been stuck inside since time immemorial, so presumably thousands of years. Why haven't they all turned an even shade of brown by now? Let alone wondering how a civilization using animals for power suddenly jumped to antigravity in less than twenty years.
It's probably a lot to demand more internal scientific rigor from a Disney animated fantasy film. However, having some familiarity with Hayao Miyazaki's work, I don't think the same criticism can be leveled at, for example, Nausicaa. That film was an abbreviation of a larger work, but even so, the film reflects a deeper, more thought-out world, and the courage to face the grim consequences as well as the lighter moments. This is why Nausicaa is powerful and inspirational, whereas Strange World is a far more transitory creation.
I love your content so much. I can actually always count on it to make me think, and I am eternally grateful for how much it has impacted me. Thx!
I like how, where cyberpunk functions as a warning alongside postapocalyptic stories, solarpunk brings a warm feeling of hope.
One is showing you the nightmare you're going towards and can give a feeling of hopelessness, while the other takes your hand and shows you the endless possibilities of the future, the potential that we have for beauty and harmony.
It's a great genre and I find it so inspiring, it makes me want to go and change the world for the better.
Solarpunk has such a soothing and pretty aesthetic to it, it might be the over saturation of cyberpunk or my own overexposure to it.
But damn i wanna see more solar punk media now
It's not just the fossil fuel industry. Research by Oxford Universitry has shown that even if we stopped all fossil fuel emissions right now, temperatures will keep rising if we don't change our diets. The animal agriculture and fishing industries are decimating the mechanisms that allow the planet to deal with excess CO2. They're the leading causes of deforestation and biodiversity loss, which sequester carbon. We need to adopt a plant-based food system.
I always look forward to your videos! They are truly insightful, educational, and eye opening. Thank you for posting 💖
Always such a delight to see a new video from you. Fantastic as always
Its wild that Im now coming across entire video essays about Disney movies Ive never heard of.
That's not a comment on the quality of the video, or of the movie (obviously I have no opinion at all of the movie, having never heard of it before), but its a weird experience
I actually just finished reading Prayer for the Crown Shy yesterday! What a great novella, I particularly loved the description of the currency/exchange system in that world.
I can't thank you enough for your videos! Every single one of them is awesome and makes me discover new movies/ideologies/concepts. Thanks for what you do and who you are
why am I crying after watching this video.. your words and how you breakdown the point of view was informative, easy to understand, and moving. I haven't watched this movie and now I am curious.. thank you
i really like this perspective on strange world, even if it wasn't mine or a lot of other people's favourite film, great video!!!!!!
I'm repeatedly blown away by the excellent use of visuals and references to other works on this channel. It's not just having something to look at while the essay is happening, but is just as much a part of what is being said as the voiceover. It's "show, don't tell" in a format that is usually all about telling you how things are. It's brilliant.
This is a great video, and I appreciate you making it. I really look forward to your video about redemption in death character arcs. I haven't seen a lot of thoughtful takes on that topic, something which I'm certain you'll be able to provide.
Thanks for all the food for thought!
The scene where the whole town gathers to see the first wind powered lights go on makes me cry, almost as much as when they zoom out and realize they are seeing an eye. It's not a perfect movie, but it may be the best disney movie
I have known and been worried about climate change since I was a young child, thanks to my obsession with biology. I have only recently came to realise that how much it has affected me when nearly no one around me, especially adults, just didn't really understand my worry. Being a child and carrying such worry alone sucks, I don't wish that for anyone. Luckily people start to be more aware but I am still worried if we can make the change in time, tho as an adult the worry is easier to handle. I would have loved to see a movie like Strange world when I was young. Thank you for making this video.
This is a fantastic analysis on how media portrays and mirrors our concerns for the environment in the forseeable future. I've watched most movies you've included in this video, but I have not seen Strange World yet. Too often we see the future where no sacrifices were taken or even necessary, so it's good to see a more down-to-earth plot to this theme, where a society decides to overcome hardships for a better future rather than sitting it out or getting it handed on a silver platter. Maybe it's still a little bit too optimistic for me, but I'll have to watch the movie for myself first. Again, fantastic video essay that shines a needed light on the complexity of the biggest challenge of our time.
I genuinely enjoy all of your videos and essays
I admire your work and try to recommend this channel to every person I can.
Thanks for all your effort. I'll try become a Patreon as soon as I can!
Thanks for making this wonderful video! I watched this with my roommate and loved it! Such a cool animation, fun characters, and as much as a dystopian film can be fun to watch and explore, having a movie with such a nice message that felt optimistic but with some realistic elements. Love to see you talk about it and thanks for bringing Terra Nil to my awareness cause it's now on my wishlist and I can't to try it!
Honestly, this movie is GORGEOUS ❤ how they display the need to care for our environment, to care for nature (cuz you can't eat or drink money). A thing that is also refreshing is that just like in arcane, there is no such thing as labels in this movie ❤ the movie in general is just REFRESHING ❤
As much as we need realistic criticism and solutions for saving the planet, we also need optimistic and hopeful depictions too. I feel alot more motivated to rally for change after seeing that there could be a bright future then a pessimistic apocalypse where I just feel depressed and apathetic.
This was a lovely video. Thank you for putting this together and for emphasizing such a great message.
I've seen a few cast interviews popped up on my recommendations, thinking it's not released in my country yet and had forgotten about it, until this video. went to search and was surprised to see it already released on disney+. Thanks to a great video essay as always!
Oh my gosh. I kinda passed on this movie due to drama and it looking a bit bland, but you've created a new passion for me. Solarpunk. What a palate cleanser.
And of course Ghibli essentially created the genre -- that's so typical of them 🥰
One of my passions, all my life has been farming/farm life. And as any other kid who grew up surrounded by warnings of how our current world isn't sustainable in the long term, I've thought a lot about sustainable living could it look like. How either by preemptive choice or having no other choice, we'll have to go a bit "retro" with how we once lived pre-hyper-industrialization. Until, like you said, we create and innovate.
Thanks for this video, PCD. Your content is always great. Thought provoking, instilling a new kind of appreciation for things I may have missed otherwise. Also your video quality is amazing, as usual. Keep up the good work.
I am sad to say, I nearly forgot this movie existed. I didn't know it had this kind of amazing message.
I can't express how grateful I am that you put your video sources on the actual video while the clip plays. I was raised in the kkkult, my media knowledge is sorely lacking. I added three movies to my list from this video alone.
Thank you for spreading good, thought-provoking content! Never heard "solarpunk" before this, but my goodness, is that fascinating!
People like to say this movie is just another generational trauma plot done more blandly but I have my own read; the pulp comic style is a nod to the fact that the 3 generations of men in this movie are 3 like different eras of protagonist! Jaeger is the macho adventure man archetype common in such comics during the 20th century, Searcher is a protagonist of the aughts/2010s, being the seemingly weak/ordinary everyman who’s story would’ve ended with the discovery of pando if this were only his movie, and Ethan reflects the kind of hero that this generation of kids watching Disney movies want to see; someone who cares about important issues, the world around him, and is a reflection of real kids who can see themselves in him. I dunno if I’m being coherent here, I just have a lot of thoughts 😅
Anyway, I’m so glad you gave this movie the coverage it deserves! I certainly think it’s better than a lot of people make it out to be (Although the cold coffee line always bothered me. Like, iced coffee isn’t a thing in their world? 😂)
Thank you for making this video! I'm tired of people criticizing it at face value. Sure the movie isn't perfect, but the themes and messages really resonated with me. I wish it was marketed better because it's a nice movie!
I've been waiting for a video on Solarpunk like this for so long! Amazing video!
Solarpunk is the future we deserve, and that we should cherish!
I hope this video will spark a lot of ideas in the mind of all the viewers! 🌎
First time you post a video since I subscribed to your channel, this notification made my day!
Man, this might be the first movie I've watched in years, it actually seems really interesting and actually trying to push us in a good direction
I love your videos, thanks for giving me another reason to see Strange Worlds, and thank you also for flagging up new Becky Chambers novels!! She's in my top three authors.
Amazing! Thanks for this video 😊 Will watch the movie now and I hope it becomes a bigger theme in media!
Love that you made a video on this. Thank you!! Message received.
I loved this! Never heared of solarpunk. I'll check out more of it!
Just a few errant frames of Illumination's Lorax are enough to make my skin crawl.. I can't imagine sitting through the whole feature
It’s mind-numbingly bad. The original animated short from 1972 is good though.
I personally enjoyed Illumination’s The Lorax, but i completely why that movie is hated. I really liked it for the animation art style 😅
I've heard from multiple sources that I should be watching Strange World and this video is adds yet more fuel to that fire - jet fuel. This review was very solid and I am glad to have watched it. Thank you for this content!
This video made me cry more than once. Thank you for this
The issue with Strange world's ending, and I know its for kids but just stopping power production without the infrastructure to replace it would be a lot more than just an "uncomfortable period" it would result in deaths and many other issues if modern technology was cut off from major sources of power. Whole cities themselves would be worthless and abandoned as well.
Simply stopping all production and replacing it with the green sources of energy that are underfunded and underdeveloped would cause more harm. We need to use what we have now to create the renewable energy infrastructure before replacing it, something that does sadly take time. Much of it would not be enough to stop bad things from happening but we have to do it NOW and create a replacement for fossil fuels so we can, in the future, leave it for good.
Yeah, not completely, but a lot of infrastructure can actually be put on pause or reduced without that kind of harm. And a lot of it HAS to be put down. Renewable energy has to be part of the solution, but just replacing all carbon sources with it won‘t change anything on the long run. There also has to be a fundamental change in economy that mustn‘t be oriented to growth in the future.
@@Alina_Schmidt absolutely
@@Alina_Schmidt Nuclear power. It's more energy-efficient than fossil fuels, its exhaust is just water vapor, it won't be interrupted on cloudy or calm days, we don't have to transport power from far away (losing energy in the process), & radioactive waste is fairly easy to store securely.
Awesome video! Yes, we need more healthy optimistix visions of the future :)
well you’ve convinced me to watch this movie! great video essay as always!
I'm currently watching this movie with my family (we watch 20 m during every shared meal), so I won't watch it now bc of spoilers, BUT I'M SO GLAD YOU UPLOADED!! EVEN MORE THAT IS SOMETHING I WATCH!