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NBC's Revolution discussion *SPOILERS*
I watched NBC's new show Revolution earlier tonight and there are a few open questions I'd like to discuss. This will be a spoiler-filled post, so if you haven't seen the show and are going to, please skip to the next post....!
*BEGIN SPOILERS*
Ok, as we start, it's the day of the blackout which is the backdrop of the overall series. We see Katniss's, sorry, I mean Charlie's, father knows it's coming. Not only does he know it's coming, but he knows it's going to be world-wide and he knows it can't be stopped. He's seen downloading a file to a flash drive and put the flash drive into a locket. They seem to make a meal out of this sequence, as if to show that the file and the locket are going to important later on in the show.
Cut to: 15 years later and nothing is working. Anything that runs on electricity does not work.
Open question 1: What caused the blackout? A computer virus? (No, because how would a virus affect batteries?) An EMP? (Well, maybe. But why are the effects still being felt 15 years later? Isn't an EMP a specific event? Can an EMP last for 15 years?)
Open question 2: Why, after 15 years do no new devices work? (Back to the EMP theory, but the question becomes more pronounced: Would an EMP's effects last for 15 years, or is it something else? If it is something else, what is it?)
To continue: Charlie is approximately 20 or so and a militia comes looking for dear ol' dad. Dad gives the locket with the flash drive to a friend in the village where they have settled after the blackout as the militia gets closer. Dad gets ready to go peaceably, but Charlie's brother objects, pulls a crossbow and a standoff ensues. In the intervening tension and chaos, dad gets shot and little brother gets taken by the militia. Dad, dying, tells Charlie she needs to go to Chicago to find her uncle. The uncle was seen in the early scenes as being on the phone with dad as the blackout was hitting, so, it is assumed, that the uncle may know something about what's going on. So she, the friend with the locket, and the step-mom start off on the quest to find the uncle.
On the way, they meet hunky rouge guy and he, just so happens, to be heading in the same direction as they are. So, conveniently, he tags along. As this is going on, we find out that little brother is being held as bait for the uncle, should he be found. Soon after we learn this, little brother escapes. We learn little brother has asthma earlier on and, during his escape, he has an attack and is taken in by a seemingly random stranger.
Charlie, the Tin-Man, the Lion, and Scarecrow find themselves in Chicago where they meet a "bartender" who, again conveniently, turns out to be the uncle they're looking for. Charlie wants him to join her motley crew to find little brother and he says "no". He wants to stay anonymous and "off the grid" because he doesn't want to be a target of militias who think he knows what's going on, what caused it and how to stop it. He sends Charlie and her group on their way, but not before exposing hunky rouge guy as a militia spy.
Now newly exposed, the uncle decides he's going to send Charlie away anyway and drink himself to death. Charlie and the militia have other plans, however. When hunky rouge guy returns with backup we find out that the uncle is a Jedi master in disguise, as he begins to dispatch a cadre of armed thugs with a sword, hidden crossbows and other miscellaneous weapons. Charlie intervenes, along with the others, to help the uncle in his fight, and even hunky rouge guy turns on his fellows to save Charlie.
While this is going on, little brother wakes up alive after his asthma attack in the home of the "random stranger". She tells little brother that her son had asthma and she gives him her son's inhaler. Not long after, the militia shows up at her home looking for little brother, find him, and take him prisoner once again.
In the ending sequences, we see the uncle deciding to join the search for little brother not long after the fight ends. We also learn that the "random stranger" has a locket exactly like the one dad gave the best friend. The locket is "activated" and it seems to have the ability to either allow electricity to flow or, at least, inhibit what's preventing electricity to flow, because she turns on a computer and sends and receives a series of text messages.
Open question 3: What is the purpose of the information in the lockets? How do they work & what is the range of the lockets?
*END SPOILERS*
Ok, now after summarizing the 1st episode, what do you guys think? Anyone have any questions of their own?
Discuss.....
*BEGIN SPOILERS*
Ok, as we start, it's the day of the blackout which is the backdrop of the overall series. We see Katniss's, sorry, I mean Charlie's, father knows it's coming. Not only does he know it's coming, but he knows it's going to be world-wide and he knows it can't be stopped. He's seen downloading a file to a flash drive and put the flash drive into a locket. They seem to make a meal out of this sequence, as if to show that the file and the locket are going to important later on in the show.
Cut to: 15 years later and nothing is working. Anything that runs on electricity does not work.
Open question 1: What caused the blackout? A computer virus? (No, because how would a virus affect batteries?) An EMP? (Well, maybe. But why are the effects still being felt 15 years later? Isn't an EMP a specific event? Can an EMP last for 15 years?)
Open question 2: Why, after 15 years do no new devices work? (Back to the EMP theory, but the question becomes more pronounced: Would an EMP's effects last for 15 years, or is it something else? If it is something else, what is it?)
To continue: Charlie is approximately 20 or so and a militia comes looking for dear ol' dad. Dad gives the locket with the flash drive to a friend in the village where they have settled after the blackout as the militia gets closer. Dad gets ready to go peaceably, but Charlie's brother objects, pulls a crossbow and a standoff ensues. In the intervening tension and chaos, dad gets shot and little brother gets taken by the militia. Dad, dying, tells Charlie she needs to go to Chicago to find her uncle. The uncle was seen in the early scenes as being on the phone with dad as the blackout was hitting, so, it is assumed, that the uncle may know something about what's going on. So she, the friend with the locket, and the step-mom start off on the quest to find the uncle.
On the way, they meet hunky rouge guy and he, just so happens, to be heading in the same direction as they are. So, conveniently, he tags along. As this is going on, we find out that little brother is being held as bait for the uncle, should he be found. Soon after we learn this, little brother escapes. We learn little brother has asthma earlier on and, during his escape, he has an attack and is taken in by a seemingly random stranger.
Charlie, the Tin-Man, the Lion, and Scarecrow find themselves in Chicago where they meet a "bartender" who, again conveniently, turns out to be the uncle they're looking for. Charlie wants him to join her motley crew to find little brother and he says "no". He wants to stay anonymous and "off the grid" because he doesn't want to be a target of militias who think he knows what's going on, what caused it and how to stop it. He sends Charlie and her group on their way, but not before exposing hunky rouge guy as a militia spy.
Now newly exposed, the uncle decides he's going to send Charlie away anyway and drink himself to death. Charlie and the militia have other plans, however. When hunky rouge guy returns with backup we find out that the uncle is a Jedi master in disguise, as he begins to dispatch a cadre of armed thugs with a sword, hidden crossbows and other miscellaneous weapons. Charlie intervenes, along with the others, to help the uncle in his fight, and even hunky rouge guy turns on his fellows to save Charlie.
While this is going on, little brother wakes up alive after his asthma attack in the home of the "random stranger". She tells little brother that her son had asthma and she gives him her son's inhaler. Not long after, the militia shows up at her home looking for little brother, find him, and take him prisoner once again.
In the ending sequences, we see the uncle deciding to join the search for little brother not long after the fight ends. We also learn that the "random stranger" has a locket exactly like the one dad gave the best friend. The locket is "activated" and it seems to have the ability to either allow electricity to flow or, at least, inhibit what's preventing electricity to flow, because she turns on a computer and sends and receives a series of text messages.
Open question 3: What is the purpose of the information in the lockets? How do they work & what is the range of the lockets?
*END SPOILERS*
Ok, now after summarizing the 1st episode, what do you guys think? Anyone have any questions of their own?
Discuss.....
Comments
I'll throw out some uneducated guesses. Could something happened that caused the earth's own magnetic field to somehow cause this? An EMP shouldn't affect new devices, especially after its been used up, unless there is perpetual electromagentetic wave of some kind that is being generated on earth or coming from the upper atmosphere, in orbit or from space. My last guess, which comes from my ten year old daughter, her answer for everything unexplained...it's maaaaagic.
Why do there appear to be higher water levels everywhere, everything is flooded for no apparent reason.
Why is everyone fighting with swords? There are millions of guns in the US that would still function fine with no electricity and presumably there aren't many swords in good condition in the US so how come everyone has cutlasses?
Why is everyone so sexy? If conditions are so poor how come everyone has access to clean, well fitting clothes, showers
Most of all, why does this sociecty not just resemble everyday life 100 years ago before electricity was prominent. Why can't they still drive cars, fly primitive planes, shoot guns etc and do anything else we did in 1900?
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Why do there appear to be higher water levels everywhere, everything is flooded for no apparent reason.
No pumps work..no waste water systems work..city storm water removal systems are down, etc. Any major storm that has hit a low lying area will be flooded with no relief. Dams could be failing with no maintenance..all sorts of reasons........Plus it looks good on TV.
Why is everyone fighting with swords? There are millions of guns in the US that would still function fine with no electricity and presumably there aren't many swords in good condition in the US so how come everyone has cutlasses?
As a resident of northern Minnesota I was thinking the same thing. Everyone has guns here...everyone. I would have a lot harder of a time finding a good sword than finding a decent gun. Then I had to remind myself that this is 15 years after the blackout. Years of fighting, hoarding, and militia bans on guns have probably made the weapons and ammo rare.
Why is everyone so sexy? If conditions are so poor how come everyone has access to clean, well fitting clothes, showers
Yup, and their clothes are so clean!
Most of all, why does this sociecty not just resemble everyday life 100 years ago before electricity was prominent. Why can't they still drive cars, fly primitive planes, shoot guns etc and do anything else we did in 1900?
A few things. One, the militia controls what people can do. They already banned guns why would they allow them to drive, fly, etc. Two, what would they drive? Any car they find wouldn't work and creating something like a Model T still takes power and resources..which they don't have. Lastly, who has the skills to do these things? We live in a society where nobody remembers how to create, manufacture, and produce goods on their own. I was blown away that the little village they showed knew how to grow corn. Most people today would be lost without access to Wikipedia to show them how. It has only been 15 years...getting to the point where society was in the 1900s will take time as people have to discover and learn new skills.
I wouldn't be surprised if certain areas of the country aren't better off. I have a hard time thinking that people in Alaska aren't better off than people in Orange Country, CA. Or, people in mountains of Arkansas aren't better off than the suburbs of Chicago. I think people who lived a hardier life before the blackout would be better off after the event...but that's just my opinion.
Certainly you guys have the right to not like a show but isn't quitting 1/4 of the way through the pilot a little early to give up?
I suppose I am not the right audience, or maybe just too picky of an audience, for these sorts of "asks" by the show, as I seem to read a LOT of apocalyptic style fiction, in comics and prose, from zombie stories to plague stories, to even some (I think better done) stories about all the electricity disappearing. I just didn't buy it. I think the show gave itself a tough difference to split, as they clearly wanted to tell a story that involved people who were alive at the time of the outage... but they also want to try to have a kind of Mad Max world to play in. And I think they would have been better off committing to one or the other. If they went for the latter, then going generations further into the future can make all the asks around those changes easier. An amazing novel, sort of this genre (though more of a virus/monster outbreak) is Justin Cronin's The Passage. At one point it makes a jump of, I think it is, more than a century. And that leaves him a lot of room to build a changed world.
Or, if they went with just 15 years later, that's fine, but I think they could have hired some real survivalist nerd types as writers or consultants to really get specific (and more restrained) about what would change. And what the workarounds would be in a world that somehow (magically?) has combustion but no longer allows electricity. I think that could be fascinating, if you didn't do broad exaggerations and try to make it seem like it would all become Planet of the Apes in 15 years, but instead got really specific and clever about what that changed world would be. A hybrid sort of drama and Discovery show at the same time.
But, in the couple acts I got through, all I saw was an overly broad, not thought through network pilot. And I'd rather save my time for great shows I am behind on.
It wasn't a great story but it wasn't bad. I'll give it at least 2 or 3 more episodes before giving up.
And one more reason behind things going a little weird. People are crazy, if everyone suddenly didn't have electricity and everything that entails people would be going nuts. I've been without home internet for 3 years now (see Kentucky, and add extremely rural area) and it almost drives me insane still.
No pumps work..no waste water systems work..city storm water removal systems are down, etc. Any major storm that has hit a low lying area will be flooded with no relief. Dams could be failing with no maintenance..all sorts of reasons........Plus it looks good on TV.
We had no electricity for the majority of civilization and this wasn't a problem. 1800's Chicago wasn't constantly flooding the way it appeared to be flooded here.
A few things. One, the militia controls what people can do. They already banned guns why would they allow them to drive, fly, etc. Two, what would they drive? Any car they find wouldn't work and creating something like a Model T still takes power and resources..which they don't have. Lastly, who has the skills to do these things? We live in a society where nobody remembers how to create, manufacture, and produce goods on their own. I was blown away that the little village they showed knew how to grow corn. Most people today would be lost without access to Wikipedia to show them how. It has only been 15 years...getting to the point where society was in the 1900s will take time as people have to discover and learn new skills.
I don't think the militia would have the capacity to ban guns, there a just so many guns in America that people would have no problems getting them, also these people should have no trouble manufacturing new guns as people were perfectly capable of doing it before electricity. As for cars, I think it wouldn't be a problem to find cars that would run fine with no electricity, I am sure most cars from the middle of the century would run just fine. I also think you are underestimating people, I think sociecity would react really well to this especially people in rural parts of the country who already have more experience with agriculture, weapons etc.
The other thing that bothers me now is that all the planes just fell out of the sky. If all a planes electronics failed they wouldnt just drop like stones, once they are up there they are perfectly capable of gliding for a decent period of time and some of the ones who were already low to the ground probably could have landed safely.
Automobiles apparently don't work at all in the Blackout; we have yet to find out why. (Even a gas guzzler still needs electricity from the battery to ignite the spark in the spark plug to combust that engine.)
To be fair, we really don't know how well society did or didn't react to the Blackout -- we only saw one or two communities, and we don't have a solid idea of the rest of the country -- or the world -- yet. My impression (and I may be mistaken) was that there was more than one militia or government in the country? A plane with no power means controls that are frozen and will not respond. A small plane might be able to land, I sincerely doubt that the big jets could. I take the scene of the planes dropping as just a matter of artistic license. True, a jet would likely to continue on like a missile until its thrust petered out and gravity took over, but the visual scene of planes dropping like stones does more to get the idea across that they, like everything else, were in grave trouble.
I think one of the most important things to remember is that this is only the first episode, and it mainly painted a lot of broad strokes here; they only had an hour Any specific details need to be delivered in future episodes, and they likely won't all be doled out at once.
Flooding along major waterways, where most cities are located, isn't that big a stretch. Low lying areas would definitely flood, even within a city. And whatever conditions might have been used in the 1800's likely were replaced by more modern methods, which were rendered useless in the Blackout. Remember, also, that it's been fifteen years, and who knows what weather conditions were prevalent during that period?
I am not entirely sure that is accurate. I live in New York City, to the best of my understanding there is nothing electronic that is preventing the Hudson River from spilling over. An extreme example might be New Orleans, even there the levees are still made of concrete and assorted building materials. While modern electronics might be used in the upkeep or monitoring of them, they should still hold with no power and theoretically should be designed too since there likely would not be power during a hurricane.
But people in the 21st century don't (for the largest part) have access to the tools, methods or knowledge of 19th century gunsmithing. Those who do would be small in number and probably clustered in specific regions, and much in demand. They may even be part of the militia. People have farmed before adopting modern methods for thousands of years; even so, I couldn't do it to save my life. Modern farmers would be at a loss as well, though they would be in better straits than I'd be. And a lack of power has further complications for any endeavor, such as obtaining materials needed for the making of anything. Build an outhouse? You need nails, lumber, shovels, etc. If you don't have a shovel, you need to buy, steal or build one. Etc.
Automobiles apparently don't work at all in the Blackout; we have yet to find out why. (Even a gas guzzler still needs electricity from the battery to ignite the spark in the spark plug to combust that engine.)
I don't think that is true. I think any gunsmith could be probably pretty well describe the process of gunsmithing before electronics and certainly the knowledge isnt lost. Libraries are full of manuals and history books and documents that theoretically anyone who is mechanically inclined could figure out. I also don't think modern farmers would be so baffled. Modern farming equipment makes farming easier and more efficient but the it's still the same basic steps, they could be out there with hoes and water jugs, it would just be smaller scale. I think your average person has some experience with the outdoors and building things, repairs etc. and isn't just inside playing on his ipad. People would be able to figure this out.
A plane with no power means controls that are frozen and will not respond. A small plane might be able to land, I sincerely doubt that the big jets could. I take the scene of the planes dropping as just a matter of artistic license. True, a jet would likely to continue on like a missile until its thrust petered out and gravity took over, but the visual scene of planes dropping like stones does more to get the idea across that they, like everything else, were in grave trouble.
They arent as powerless as you might think. If a 747 was below 10k feet and had a place to put the plane down they could probably do it.
I think one of the most important things to remember is that this is only the first episode, and it mainly painted a lot of broad strokes here; they only had an hour Any specific details need to be delivered in future episodes, and they likely won't all be doled out at once.
Agreed.
Me and the girlfriend gave the show a half hour, and were done with it.
Gunsmithing would take time. You'd only have whatever guns are still in existence, and, given that this is the US, there should be tons of them. But there won't be a lot of new ones made, outside of handcrafted pieces, because there's no mass-production anymore. And I think the ratio of actual gunsmiths (or anyone with a working knowledge of such) would be small compared to the number of people needing guns. I think a lot of gunsmithing at the onset would be largely a concern of maintainance and simple repair. It isn't just equipment, it's other things as well: chemical fertilizers would no longer be available, for instance; you have whatever you had on hand. If you have an open well, you're not too bad off, but if you have an acqueduct system that depends on pumps, you have a problem. Any modern farm would have to restructure itself in order to adapt: all of the shortcuts are gone, and a whole lot more time is going to be spent out in the field. And you're going to need a lot of extra hands in order to keep it running. (That might not be too hard -- a lot of computer jockeys will be looking for some form of employment.)
Initially, the farmers are going to have it rough: they have to harvest and store as much food as they can, tend the livestock, etc, without the aid of refrigeration (expect a high degree of spoilage and pest infestation), without hope the vet can make any prompt calls (expect a culling of animals, if only to bring down the numbers to something manageable) , store up new seed for the next crop. At the same time, they're going to have to fight off a lot of invaders, because every farm on the map is going to be a target for people worrying about where their next meal is going to come from.
Oh, and they need to find some time to make ammo for their guns -- provided they have the necessary materials at hand. Their ammo will only last so long, no matter how much they have stored, and they can't depend on ready or affordable replenishment anymore. If there are lights to guide it in.
Even in daylight, it depends on the terrain. Mountains, water, cities... they would need a flat and unobscured landscape. A highway might work if they could maneuver into place, but it would have to be a major highway -- with no stranded vehicles in the way.
In the event of a Blackout such as the one in Revolution, what would be an individual's priorities -- provided he survived a plane falling on him? Light and heat (candles and fuel), food (raid the Supermarket before everyone else does), defense (guns and whatever else you can find to use as a weapon), shelter (hopefully you have your own house), water (could be a problem, unless you have a water barrel). Transportation and communication would fall in line next.
One part I didn't like was the scene where the girl is telling her uncle "my mother died... my dad died... blah blah blah...". Horrible acting.