Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367882/


I could identify three major predictive programming themes in this movie.

1. The Cold-War-inspired hatred for the Russians is given a good jolt once again. The Russians are the bad guys and the Americans are once again the good guys. The leader of the Russian bad guys (Cate Blanchet!) is a psychopathic individual who has a habit of stopping at nothing in order to attain what she wants. The gullible viewer is therefore helped in being persuaded to regard the Russians with scorn and contempt again. Regarding the tense and volatile situation with Iran - Russia - China, this imposition of anti-Russian sentiment on Western viewers seems rather well-timed given the state of the current geopolitical arena.
   
   
2. The movie suggests that the development of human culture, and perhaps even humanity itself, at some point in the past experienced the presence of tangible alien beings from outer space. Indeed, the shape of the unearthed crystal skull is not traditionally human (unlike the actual genuine crystal skulls: http://www.crystalskulls.com/13-crystal-skulls.html) but seems to be rather like what is commonly referred to in Sci-Fi circles as that belonging to "Grey aliens." Thus the Grey aliens have meddled in our own evolution, the movie suggests. To help the viewer get on the right propaganda feed-track even better, the movie near the end features nothing short of a rotating flying disc of which the Grey alien featured in the movie supposedly is native of. Therefore, we have a scenario that is quite popular in the alternative media wherein Grey aliens have interfered with our culture, possibly even having created us and arrived here on Earth in 'flying saucers' (or UFOs). This theme of course adds fuel to the fire to the mind of the viewer that we were created by physical alien beings who travelled here in flying saucer-like physical vehicles.
   
   There's no room given to the possibility that there might be a more etheric or untangible factor responsible for the creation of humanity. The movie leaves untouched the possibility of spiritual beings (demons) being responsible for our creation and subsequent cultural evolution. Instead it seems to exclusively support the materialistic notion that physical or tangible beings (Grey aliens) created physical beings (=us humans without spirit). The alternative to this point of view would be, for instance, the Christian Gnostic ontological explanation that etheric beings (e.g. demons) created the physical part of our beings (humans minus spirit). I do not intend to ignite a debate on the ontology of our own existence and how we came to be but this is besides the point, the movie clearly favors the former exclusively physical interpretation. Propaganda is inherently one-sided, biased and uncompromising!
   
   It's remarkable to say the least, that the Roman Catholic Church is now publicly endorsing the possibility of the existence of tangible space aliens (http://www.ufodigest.com/vaticanufos.html http://www.ufodigest.com/balducci.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7399661.stm).
   
   
3. The Russian commander is responsible for promoting the idea that the Hived Mind, a mind from a collective of interconnected beings, has a higher potency than the sum of its parts. She states that the Hived Mind defined by some group of people is "more powerful together than they [the group] can ever be apart." I expect this to be precisely consistent with the propagandistic future sales-gospel for the brain-chip. I anticipate it to be marketed as being no less than God's gift on Earth. The idea will be peddled to the public that it offers only benefits to you as you are being absorbed into a more supremely (read: divinely) intelligent collective. The viewer is thus drawn a little closer towards acceptance of the brain-chip, all the while not realizing that it will actually make him or her rather like an insignificant little workerbee, barren of any kind of mental, spiritual and physical freedom. The brain-chip is therefore nothing short of the death sentence for the individual human being. So take heed of any kind of propaganda slung in your way that would have you made believe otherwise!
   

Starship Troopers - Marauder (2008)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0844760/

This is typically a movie for young people, especially boys who still like to play around with toy guns and who are the most likely army recruits later on in life. The movie is probably a bit too childish to most adult movie veterans and although admittedly it seems to have its goofy and spoofy moments, the overall tone of the movie is quite serious as well (there are no jars of artificial blood spared in this one!). Given its possible impact on a young viewing public I decided to treat the movie as a serious work of propaganda rather than let it slip away as a harmless spoof.

"If you're against the war, you're against us...", seems to be the boring du jour slogan of The Federation (which happens to be the central type of governing body of the states at hand). False dichotomous maxims like this remind me of the one uttered by no less a person than US President George Bush himself, who said not too long after 911 that: "You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists." Again, there's little resting ground for the pacifist. Consequently, war protesters are without recourse summarily executed since they are considered to be, quite literally, enemies of the state.

Thus it will comes as little surprise to the viewer that the movie portrays a society in which Martial Law is in full swing. Seemingly every government official is wearing an army uniform, a type of which is strongly reminiscent of wartime Nazi Germany indeed. Coincidence? I think not.

In the early moments of the movie, some of the main characters, who are military men and women from the Federation, have to defend themselves against hostile farmers. Since sympathy is granted to the military at the expense of the farmers, the movie makes it look as if the military also have the default moral upper hand. This condition is further accentuated when one of the main characters (the General) gets a serious ass-whooping from those wretched and immoral farmers.

In the eyes of the viewer, given the movie's unconditional moral preference for the military, the most ferocious kind of Fascism - Nazism - gets a huge endorsement by the movie.

In order to successfully fight the enemies of the Federation (mind you, I'm talking about the bugs now rather than the peaceful war-protesters) a crack military team is outfitted with an impressive type of high-tech exoskeletal robotic armour, of which the following is said in the movie: "The hardwire interfaces directly with your nervous-system." This suggests, at least in the military, that once a trooper gets his or her brain wired onto (external) hardware, nothing but good and prosper comes out of it. Of course, to stress viewer attraction towards (brain-)implants a bit more, imagery of nudity are joyously blent in with the movie scenery. This way, the attractiveness of the idea of future implants is boosted with sexual excitement.

It's quite remarkable that the movie portrays a society in which an almost perfect balance exists between male and female soldiers, even in the crack outfit. The movie makers seemingly went out of their way to avoid sexism at all costs. The feminists may be pleased with the outcome and the army recruiters may perhaps look towards times of welcoming more female recruits.

In one of the final scenes there's a remarkable confluence of two sequences: you see two women praying out loud and you see the hardware amped-up crack rescue team very effectively shooting away at the enemy bugs with "everything they got."

It is thus suggested that the gunslinger amped-up crack-team saviours are envoys of God himself as they respond to the prayers of the women. The viewer is left with the impression that military intervention sometimes earns no less a blessing than from God himself, especially if there are people praying hard enough for it. The salutation to God in the movie together with the Nazi character of the good-guys combined with its success in conquering evil suggests to the viewer that a Nazi kind of society is indeed sanctioned by God. And what an insane notion that is, but the naive viewer may be unlikely to notice this.

Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113481/


Synopsis:

Quote

In the 21st century, information is the ultimate commodity. The most valuable of information is transported in mnemonic implants in the heads of professional mnemonic couriers like Johnny (Keanu Reeves - Speed) who offer both security and confidentiality for the right price. But Johnny has paid a heavy price of his own - He's dumped his own memories to make room for the programmes he smuggles. To buy them back he agrees to deliver priceless data, the most important data of the 21st century, data that has already set an army of professional killers on his trail. but the massive upload is too much for his brain and johnny must find the secret codes to download the information - or die.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113481/synopsis

The movie welcomes the viewer with the following scrolling message:

Quote
"The most valuable information must sometimes be entrusted to mnemonic couriers, elite agents, who smuggle data in WET-WIRED BRAIN IMPLANTS".

Thus already leaving the viewer with an impression that those people who have "wet-wired" brain implants have some kind of elevated status of speciality compared to those who don't.

Thematic PP elements:

1. There's an all around police state "doom and gloom" kind of setting in a littery kind of environment. Throughout the entire duration of the movie the atmosphere is dark and dreary and moments with daylight are only experienced when the main character reminisces about times gone past, way gone past. This may familiarize the viewer with the depressing nature of the times that lay ahead of us.
   
   
2. The moments of Johnny doing his downloading/uploading routine through his brain implant, are accompanied by flashy, colorful and cartoon-like computer generated images and graphics. This impresses the viewer with the obvious notion that brain implants are cool, trendy and flashy. There's also a sense or suggestion of excitement transmitted by the straining JM character to the viewer. The more excitement experienced by the JM character the more the viewer, typically craving for more excitement, will be attracted to its perceived cause, i.e. the brain chip.
   
   As an aside, this is also the reason why Hollywood tries to "up the sales" of violence by blending images of violence with that of sex, IMO.
   

Then there were a couple of interesting suggestive phrases uttered in the movie:

1. At one time JM goes: "I want to get online, I need a computer". Since the sympathy of movie lies with JM this helps to communicate a sense of urgency for the viewer to do the same, and that is precisely what they want.
   
2. There's a reference to a one Dr. Alcom, "All computer". Thus wedding the association of man and computer even more.