this post contains spoilers for the horror movie Nope (dir. Jordan Peele, 2022) and the fantasy novel The Dark Forest (Liu Cixin, 2008), if you care about either of those things. let’s go.
in Liu Cixin’s The Dark Forest, we are introduced to Luo Ji, a sociology professor without any career aspirations, in a scene in which he is nearly killed in a car crash. we learn later on that this crash was a deliberate attempt on his life, carried out by the Earth Trisolaris Organization (ETO), a political activist group working together with an alien civilization to invade Earth and kill its existing population to provide a new habitat for itself. a few days later, he is suddenly named a Wallfacer, one of just four people given unfettered access to resources to develop a counter-plan to defeat the alien invasion. he is stunned. why him? why, of all the people on the planet, would he be appointed to such a prestigious post? why would the ETO be trying to kill him? at first, he takes his duties lightly, using his position and newfound wealth to furnish a lavish lifestyle in a mysterious Nordic country and getting his assistant to buy him centuries-old casks of wine. he figures the aliens are still a few decades away, and they’re gonna kill us all, so we might as well try to enjoy the time we’ve got left. but eventually, he comes to realize the importance of his task and develops the dark forest theorem. basically, the universe is a “dark forest,” inhabited by dangerous lifeforms on all sides. but because the universe is so large, even the most technologically advanced alien species don’t have perfect knowledge of all life in the universe. Earth’s options, as Luo Ji sees it, are to either hide from all other civilizations or to start an arms race to wipe out any alien civilization it comes across before they develop the technology to destroy the Earth. so he gathers scientists together to rig up a bunch of bombs at strategically placed locations in the solar system, which would reveal the locations of both Earth and Trisolaris to any hypothetically onlooking alien civilization, surely resulting in their mutually-assured doom.
the reluctance of Daniel Kaluuya’s OJ in Nope reminded me of Luo Ji in The Dark Forest. they are both fish-out-of-water (OJ, a horse rancher; Luo, a sociology professor) who have suddenly been cast into a starring role in the fight against a malevolent alien force. both are laidback personality types initially without motivation or drive, but take charge of their responsibilities to the full extent of their ability once the seriousness of their situation dawns on them. unlike The Dark Forest, however, the solution is not to create a doomsday device that leads to a tenuous peace, but to kill the alien outright with a large helium balloon (?). trust me, it’s not as silly as it sounds. it works. the question that remains in my mind upon the film’s conclusion is how many more alien civilizations are out there? have they defeated the threat once and for all? or were these aliens just the documentary filmmaking crew of a larger alien civilization seeking to destroy humanity? imagine what other technological horrors lurk behind the surface. the universe is a very scary place.
anyway, that’s all. Nope may have had a larger sweeping point to make about the powerlessness of cinema to confront societal challenges, choosing instead to simply depict them, and that was very interesting, but i’m not smart enough to write in more detail about that aspect. loved it. great movie.
ruminations of a sad oaf. 