This film is preachy anti-drug garbage.
Were we supposed to be honestly scared of these little red pills?
It was reminded me of watching a *beep* "Uh Drugs are Bad M-kay" Captain Planet "Mind Pollution" episode: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0893716/
You're not familiar with the concept of "cautionary tale" are you...
Also: scared of the pills? No. Scared of the pills' effects? Absolutely. But that whistling sound you hear is this film flying way over your head.
You should stick to South Park: sounds about your speed.
"I can't be the first person to have difficulty taking you seriously, can I?" - Arvin Sloane
I was disappointed about the anti drug message.
Not all drugs are bad and some street drugs are even safer than Alcohol and Tobacco.
It was still an entertaining film though.
Perhaps my initial message would have been more accurate to say "i was disappointed by the anti-drug message".
For me it rather ruined a movie that already had very little going for it.
It seems that the whole premise for the movie was based around all of these vague fears and hearsay about Substance D and what it may or may not do to it's users.
These types of vague fears may be perfectly believable to the ordinary media consumer, but to an old media cynic whom has made a study of moral panics in the media in reaction to drugs - it's just not good enough.
The movie seemed to operate on the very strange assumption that all rumour about the detremental effects of drugs is entirely accurate. Indeed, i noticed no-one in the movie with anything to say about Substance D - who wasn't telling the truth. Strangely everyone in the movie who had an opinion, was a veritable cornucopia of referenced facts and expert knowledge. What odd universe is this set in? Certainly not ours.
In OUR reality - there are sizable numbers of people who think hilariously WRONG things like Cannabis makes men grow tits, LSD makes people crazy, Esctacy gives you brain damage, and Meth gives straight people "the gay".
In OUR reality - the media is TERRIBLE at reporting on drugs. The opt for sensationalist moral panic pieces, with no appolgies after the fact when it's later proven that cocaine doesn't actually make black people impervious to bullets, marijuana doesn't actually cause cancer, heroin doesn't actually hook you on the first use, "crack babies" don't exist, and etc, etc, etc. They also routinely disseminate press-releases by socially conservative anti-drug lobby groups, as "news", without fact checking them. Which is honestly the source of most of this garbage reporting.
Just as an example, afaik the DEA in America still routinely refuses to admit that Cannabis has any medicinal uses. Even when there are prescription drugs based on them.
The book this film is based on is written by Philip K Dick, who was a regular drug user, A Scanner Darkly was the first book he wrote while not on drugs. So I do think he knew what he was writing about. And this book/film is about a drug that does have very bad effects. Such drugs do exist I suppose, and no, I don't think the film is about Cannabis.
shareI just finished the book. I've never tried any hard drugs in my life. So I was very dissappointed that this book revolves around something I have zero knowledge and interest of and subsequently don't feel any connection to the characters, who the reader's supposed to sympathize with, although they're written as just a bunch of white trash that I wouldn't want to get to know in real life. Phil wrote about his friends, so naturally he knew why he liked them, and didn't feel the need to elaborate on that in the book, this was very personal to him, unfortunately to him only. Still a good book, has it's moments. Glad I read it.
my friends enjoy rides
charade social improves the quality of life
charade social is good for you
BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
There is no drug even remotely like substance D. There are dangerous and highly addictive drugs out there, and I have done all of them with little or no repercussions. Much like Philip K Dick, I probably lost a few years off of my life due to stressing my cardiovascular system to such a degree, but I didn't want to live to 70 anyway.
I have lost my mind into insanity, but like any responsible drug user, I planned for that ahead of time and had me some good ole times. Then, I went to work or school the next day like nothing ever happened.
I love A Scanner Darkly! It was a fantastic book and a fantastic movie. However, Philip K Dick was an irresponsible user. If you can't handle your substances, you shouldn't do substances. That is wisdom that carries over to anything you do in your life. Let's also not forget that this story would not have been possible without drugs.
We can thank drugs for all of the kickass art we enjoy. Whether you are talking about Pink Floyd or Edgar Allan Poe, it exist because people took drugs. The best memories of my life were had on drugs. *beep* on ecstasy and laughing with my friends on a head full of psilocybin are worth losing a few years for. *beep* it! I say it is worth risking death for. I see it as risking my life to live my life. I think the people too afraid to take risk will exist for a long time, but they never were alive.
So before some of you make an assumption that I'm some druggie, I take great pride to inform you that I am quite successful. Or at least as successful as one could hope to be in an economy like this. My friends that I did massive amounts of meth, coke, lsd, mdma, and any other thing we could get our hands on are successful too. We are engineers, teachers, project managers, business owners, and hospital operators. We partied our asses off, and we lived to tell about it. I am the voice for the unspoken majority of drug users that did just fine, but we don't stop every moron preaching the evils of drugs to say "hey I did drugs and nothing bad happened"!
Let me know when you run for office and you may very well have my vote!! Seriously. You make a very good point, and as a "successful" person with successful friends, what are you doing to end this asinine war on drugs??
I did notice you didn't mention heroin in there. IV drugs???
Are you afraid of big brother or just not that commited to experiencing the best highs in life??
I'm assuming you're over 50. Quite possible over 60?
Regardless, thank you for being a good example..................that someone can do drugs and still be a responsible, contributing member of society.
No one should be able to tell an adult what they can or can't put in their own body. (so long as they harm no one else) I obviously don't mean the ebola virus...that would be BAAAADDDDDD!!!!!
This film was targeted against hard drugs like cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. They could have mentioned that marijuana isn't really harmful, but it'd probably screw up the narrative consistency.
shareMeth give straight people "the gay"?
Lay off the Roids roid they're melting your brain.
no i said:
there are sizable numbers of people who think hilariously WRONG things like ... Meth gives straight people "the gay"
learn to read.
If something alters your mind in any way that isn't normal behavior there must be a damaging affect on the brain.
this movie, as above poster said, clearly is not targetting something as simple as Cannabis, it is targetting the higher level psychoactive drugs, things that are dangerous such as Cocaine, Heroin, Meth, LSD.
>If something alters your mind in any way that isn't normal behavior there must be a damaging affect on the brain.
Yeah that's why anti-depressants and cups of coffee cause "brain damage".
Oh wait, they don't.
they dont?
that's news to me.
They do.
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All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for enough good men to do nothing.
>Cocaine, Heroin, Meth, LSD.
Murder, arson, armed robbery and jaywalking. LSD is a soft drug for sure. It has one of the lowest toxicity rates of any drug and has had 0 long term side effects on regular users. So...
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Think about the people in the movie you hear talking about Substance D though. They're either scientists who have been studying it or junkies who have been doing it. So, to put this into a real world scenario like you want not taking the information given to you about the drug in the movie would be like you calling *beep* when a scientist says that LSD increases dopamine levels causing hallucinations or calling *beep* when a junkie tells you what he's seen while on LSD. We didn't see a ton of newscasts or anything like that. The only thing close was Reeves' press conference, which as they pointed out WAS full of *beep*
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Whereas alcohol is one of the most dangerous drugs and is the most dangerous legal drug, that does not make other drugs any better.
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All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for enough good men to do nothing.
As i understand it, Phillip K Dick wrote the book as preachy anti-drug garbage.
Both the book and movie listed a bunch of people Phil knew whom had been effected by drugs, including himself.
Although the list says they were all effected by mysterious dangerous fictional Substance D.
Woo~~~ooo~~~
...and what about the idea that family, police, corporations and other institutions are just as corrupt (if not WORSE) than drug culture?.....
Sure drugs are bad, but it wasn't even a message. It more like, "This is the way it is", that vicious circle everyone lives in.
Here are the highlights....
-Family unit has become such a pain in the butt, people doing drugs is an alternative for stress relief......remember the flashback, of KEanu bumping his head and freaking out on his kids?
-Generally drug users are "good humble people". But yes, there are morons who corrupt the culture like Downey Jr.'s character.
-then police are willing to sacrifice one of their own members without their knowledge, in order the stop those evil drug users....
- then the manufacturer of the "d" drug.....it's funny that they also sponsor re-hab clincs, then train the residence to be farmers to harvest the plant that creates the drug. Get more people hooked, and the circle goes around and round.
...and yes, there were those who were punished for doing something that made them feel good....dead or peramently damaged (there is your anti-drug message), but there were those who were sent to jail; this story was written in the 1960s the drug culture of the hippies weren't very threatening other than the idealism of peace and love....yet they were punished regardless...and to Dick, those punishment did not fit the crime.
I'm not smart, but I look better against the next guy typing dumb things.
The movie gave me the impression that the sacrifice of Keanu's character to the drug was entirely justified, in fighting the war against this horrible drug.
(Indeed at the end it all seemed to be going according to plan, Keanu's character discovered the flowers and was going to show his friends - and this would have likely lead to a large bust of a major Substance D supplier.)
When you tell yourself in war that you are fighting for the moral side, the right side - how far is too far? You can kill, maim, turn your country into an authoritarian dictatorship with ubiquitous surveillance and prisons overpacked with drug users (more than the current figure of 1% of USA's adult population anyway, which is itself already amazing).
All as long as it's for the cause.
I really didn't know howto take it in the movie - because these authoritarian ideals are held by a lot of people in our societies. I found it to be illustrative of "Poes law": a situation so inherently rediculous that it is impossible to tell a serious depiction of it from a parody depiction of it. I couldn't tell if the movie arguing for, or against, the situations depicted in the movie.
How many times have you heard people in real life say "they should lock all those people up", "they should give all drug users/dealers the death sentence - that'll stop em", or people calling for more authoritarian laws, more police powers, more surveillance and less civil liberties.
I wonder if those types of people watched this movie and saw nothing wrong with it. Maybe they thought it was a utopia.
(These types of people typically ARE in denial about how anti-drug laws feed the black market - keeping the costs and thus profits of drug trafficking artificially high, thus further encouraging the profession. So it wouldn't surprise me if they completely ignored/missed that connection in the movie (the very same anti-Substance-D laws that are supposed to be reducing the amount of Substance D in soceity, were actually increasing the use of Substance D instead!
The movie gave me the impression that the sacrifice of Keanu's character to the drug was entirely justified, in fighting the war against this horrible drug.
(Indeed at the end it all seemed to be going according to plan, Keanu's character discovered the flowers and was going to show his friends - and this would have likely lead to a large bust of a major Substance D supplier.)
I thought it was a bit more twisted than that. Its a society that encourages drug use, while also victimizing those that become addicted to the drug; a neverending cycle. The police (who are fighting against using the drug) got the main character to a state where he needed the drug in order to have the proper brain functionality, and eventually they sent him to rehab when he was no longer in use. Once in rehab, he became a veggie, and was sent to a farm where they produced the drug. That's the vicious cycle.
You can go the whole population control route with all of this, but I'm sure the movie was going for the whole 'everyone's a victim of consequence'.
You pretty much got it. And adding extra layers to this, the drug producers benefited even more because they were also the rehab. They farmed the drug and supplied the people who would end up in their clinic. They produce their own rehab clients. Then, yet another level, they have these doped out users, that they are creating, as workers harvesting the drug, speeding the cycle. They profit in so many different ways.
And even though this drug industry is twisted and bad in the way it uses people, the cops are doing the very same thing. Producing their own (essentially brainwashed, doped out, unwitting) workers - using people to serve their version of the 'greater good' - using human beings and destroying their lives simply as a means to an end. They have similarly complicated layers of deception and guises.
Not sure what you mean by the 'everyone's a victim of consequence' message, I saw it more as how morally gray the good side and bad side can be, the (quite literally portrayed) many faces people or organisations can show. The thin line between help and hurt.
I'm not going to read further through the comment's so I don't know if someone will say the same as I'm going to say... about whether the message is really against drugs and for the mainstream view point and the "leaders" of the "free world's" (Big brother's) wet dreams for the future or is it cynic; I heard about this movie from one of Alex Jones's films, and he was really promoting it as his kind of a message to the world, AND!... he was in the movie too, so... I believe it's more cynical.
BTW I stile don't fully get the movie.
If you weren't paying attention to the film's ending in particular I can imagine someone misinterpreting this as a straight up and down anti-drug movie. it's not, though. It's about failed generation throwing their lives away buy overindulgence.
Try reading a good biography on Philip K Dick (I forget the author's name on the one I read; I think he was French) and the litany of friends and acqaintances he saw piss their lives and talent away on speed benders and acid and obscene amounts of dope. They pickled their brains. And if you think you can just bang that *beep* all day every day for the rest of your life without paying some kind of price, you're deluded. I know plenty of people that smoke weed everyday and they're fine. THat's not what Dick was talking about. If you can't differentiate those two messages from the one you thought you saw because for half a second it had the gall to criticise drugs, then you're too deluded to understand this poignant, beautiful film.
Wasn't Philip K. Dick mental and physical health issues related in part to his use of methamphetamines?
shareWasn't Philip K. Dick mental and physical health issues related in part to his use of methamphetamines?Most likely. He'd been doing speed since the early '60s when he was a pulp writer and had looming deadlines.
Thank you saint 665 I always wondered if his use of drugs hastened his death, and one of my reasons for liking him is was because of his mental health issues. Having had some issues myself, I find his work to personally resonate.
share[deleted]
I agree Spliter, however I think the book was written in the 1970s around the genesis of the drug wars.
sharechronic use of marijuana potentially causes gynecomastia in males and chronic use of ecstasy definitely causes brain damage. lsd can uncover underlying conditions such as schizophrenia. although, you're right-- there is no strong evidence indicating it makes people the broad umbrella term 'crazy'. stop acting like you have a grasp on this movie and drugs in general. as for meth, plz get addicted to it :)
shareNo
Cannabis does not cause gynecomastia, and Ecstacy does not cause brain damage.
Although it wouldn't surprise if LSD can uncover already existing underlying mental disorders. Better out than in.
ecstasy doesn't cause brain damage? oh well thank god! i was sure it did! i feel much better now, thank you.
shareI have heard from some sources that it can. Does anyone have a firm grasp of the science behind it?
shareThis should be a good start.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA#Health_concerns
MDMA use, like prettymuch all psychoactive drug/medicine use (including normal medical use of anti-depressant medicines) causes "Receptor Downregulation".
Quick summary: You build up a tolerance to the drug. Since the drug's effects rely on temporarily tweaking of your natural neurochemical systems - levels of these neurochemicals (or more accurately - your sensitivity to these neurochemicals) will be temporarily lowered after the effects of the drug wears off. This is why the day after MDMA use, people are typically subdued.
Longterm use can make it worse, and requiring a longer abstainance to recover.
This is why most people who wish to avoid these hangovers - try to use MDMA sparingly.
In relation to brain damage, you may remember news headlines such as "Ecstacy Causes Holes in the Brain".
Of course, the retractions got scant publicity compared to the original hype and sensational headlines. So it's no surprise most people have it all wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retracted_article_on_dopaminergic_neurotoxicity_of_MDMA
Thank you, this is very informative.
sharehttp://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mdma/mdma_neurotoxicity.shtml
Here are multiple reasons and multiple doctor reports as to why mdma is a nuerotoxin. A nuerotoxin is, as expected BAD FOR YOU. Do your research, wikipedia doesn't count. Furthermore, seeing as MDMA is not the only ingredient in Ecstasy, seeing as it is cut along with other drugs ranging from meth to k to coke, etc, to say that it cannot cause any harm would also be to say that most all other drugs, soft or hard, are harmless.
youre an idiot. did you hate requiem for a dream too because of the message? if anything it should more appreciated by drug users.
shareit's been on my to-watch list for a while, is it good?
shareit's been on my to-watch list for a while, is it good?
What is funny is I've been around a fair amount of drug users in my life, despite not having every used 'em. Though this movie is talking about a fictional drug set sometime in the future, the way the drug users react... It is the truth. I'm sure that when you are using you may not see it the same way, but being a sober man among a bunch of people that aren't? I've seen them act like the people in this movie.
The scene with the 12 speed bicycle is classic; it reminded me of a time or two in real life. You just sit back and kind of scratch your head wondering what is going through their mind.
I am not sure this is meant to be an "anti drug" movie as much as it is meant to be a tale that shows "This is what I went through and these are the people that I have lost because of it."
Even if you don't believe it, drugs do wreck the lives of many many people and always has an a ripple effect. It isn't just the user that is harmed, but his friends and family in the process.
That is what this movie shows, the reality of the drug culture wrapped up in a sci fi shell.
"God is Dead" Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is dead" God
Woooooooooooooooowie. As a staunch opponent to prohibition, I must tell you... I don't think you interpreted the film as the writers meant to.
share"Woooooooooooooooowie. As a staunch opponent to prohibition, I must tell you... I don't think you interpreted the film as the writers meant to. "
How did the writers mean for the movie to be interpreted?
"I've seen things that would make you want to write a book on how to puke."
i think you'll find this is a movie more about control than an ''anti-drug message'' but i'll leave it to somebody else to write a self-indulgent essay about it.
sharePKD's works tend to be about "what is reality" and he doesn't always tilt his hand as a writer to answer the questions raised in his books. So, different readers (or in the movies' cases, viewers) can get different things out of them, and who is "right" becomes very subjective.
I'd always viewed Scanner Darkly as more of an "cautionary tale" about drug addiction than an overtly anti-drug message. Sure, Substance D is bad medicine -- 100% addictive, and 100% guaranteed to mess you up -- but it's not a "real" drug. Besides, I view it as more of a flavor setting: the real story is about Arctor's destruction and redemption.
With Scanner Darkly, it's important to understand the context in which he wrote it: he'd just come out of rehab for a decade-plus of amphetamine addiction, and writing this was part of the healing process.
Honey tastes sweeter when you anger the bees.