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After Earth

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Submitted By cowboyup65
Words 1418
Pages 6
Scott Bushard
Nolan Belk
ENG 111-001
Movie Review
03 October 2013

After Earth
“Then it dawned on me, Fear is not real. The only place fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future, it is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist, that is near insanity. Now do not misunderstand me, Danger is very real, but fear is a choice. We are all telling ourselves a story, and that day, mine changed.”
That is a quote from Cypher (Will Smith) talking to his son Kitai (Jaden Smith) after their crash landing on the planet where the ship broke in two, leaving the only working beacon in the tail of the ship some 100 kilometers away from them, on earth 1000 years after they have left it.

"After Earth" is a lovely surprise. This film from producer-costar Will Smith and director M. Night Shyamalan, about a father and son marooned on a hostile future earth, is a moral tale disguised as a sci-fi blockbuster. It's no classic, but it's a special movie: spectacular and wise. Says Matt Zoller Sietz from RogerEbert.com If you’re looking for an action adventure, or a pure Sci-Fi you might be disappointed as the storyline isn’t after that. If you notice little backdrop details about the scenes of the movie and love an interesting storyline, that’s where this movie comes through very strong. It isn’t just about a father and son being shipwrecked on a planet, or even about them bonding together even though it does cover that pretty well. As far as movies go, it seemed to me to be a little predictable even watching it the first time, but I was still able to pick up on a little of what it was teaching me. Teaching? You ask, yes this movies is a Fable, and fables teach us. They show us how we cope with our fears and how we have preconceived ideas about our fears, whether taught to us from our parents or from life. But when you take the name of Will Smith’s character in the movie, Cypher Raige and just use one definition of cypher as I found it states; cypher - a message written in a secret code, you should start to understand what I mean about the movie. The movie even though it is Sci-Fi in nature, has a very nautical theme to it. The dwellings on Nova Prime are reminiscent of ship sails, Will Smith’s character has on what look to be navy whites when he come home to see his family after being out on tour for a long time, the weapon he uses is called a cutlass, much like the old navy swords back when they carried them, but his is really updated in the fact it is just a short staff with multiple heads stored inside of it, easily deployed by touching buttons on the handle. The multiple heads are also separated by somehow breaking the short staff in two, which as you will see and come in handy for various uses.
The story is simple as time, and about as old. This movie could have been shot in a world war scene, or even as a father-son camping trip gone bad. But the fact it is in the future and shows an earth after we have left it provided a cinematic landscape for the imagination of the directors to play with, and I thought they really did a great working with the panoramic shot of Kitai when he first got to the peak of the mountain after climbing out of the shipwreck. The scene has bird swirling in flocks, and Bison in great herds down below him; he looks almost in awe as he takes it all in too. The animals in the move and act seemingly real in nearly every aspect, even the giant condor seems to be as lifelike as can be generated in close ups, showing emotion even.
Some of the lessons this film teaches are aimed at Family, like father-son relationships. I couldn’t help but tear up when Kitai’s mom is telling Cypher about how hard the boy is struggling to be like his dad, and how he still blames himself for his sister’s death, so the father thinks it would be great to have some together time, little did he know what would happen on the trip.
Some of the scenes in After Earth are emotionally charged to a good degree; the storyline works hard at pulling you in and involving your emotions of love, frustration, and almost a spiritual bonding that happens between father and son. The frustration of the father is evident when Kitai over-reacts to his environment and situations that soon face him.
In one scene where Kitai is bedding down in a hotspot for the night due to the planets freezing temperature, he asks his father Cypher, how did you first ghost? Ghosting is the act of being in battle, but totally fearless. Cypher then talks about how he was out for a run, alone, something he knew they weren’t supposed to do, and an Ursla attacks him. He ended up in the water with the creature on top of him, realizing he was going to drown to death, he decides to take control of his present fate. Then Cypher realizes that his thinking has been flawed, he understands that fear is something in the future that may or may not be real, but it is a choice we make; however danger is very real and don’t confuse the two.
Kitai has to deal with his sister’s death, which he has blamed himself for since it happened. He gets to the edge of the waterfalls and has to deal with the fact that he doesn’t have enough time to make it to the tail of the ship without the lack of air overtaking him.
He feels he is letting down his father in much the same way he let down his sister when she was attacked at their house. You can see him wrestling with the emotions that he has pushed back for so long, the frustration of “Did I do the right thing”
Finally Kitai makes a leap of faith over the edge of the waterfall; his ever adapting survival suit unfolds as he glides, only to be hunted by a giant Condor on the way down.
One thing I would like to remind movie viewers of this generation is, I cannot imagine how hard it must be to do a lot of your acting to a green screen background. I mean were all know they use it in film now, but to have to show emotion, and feeling to basically yourself then let the editors cut and paste you in a world like in this backdrop would seem to be a daunting task to me, one I have a hard time imagining. So with that in mind, I think Will and Jaden did an outstanding job with this script, pulling the viewer into the struggle of facing your fears, life and death decisions, and beginning the bonding process between father and son. There is a couple times when they seem to leave their character and talk as father son, often with a little comedy thrown in for letting you know they are real, which needs to be played on a little more I felt.

Matt Zoller Seitz from Roger Ebert.com sums it up best I believe in his review;
All this sounds corny by current standards. But by current standards, Aesop's fables and Bible stories are corny, too. "After Earth" carries itself with confidence because it knows what it wants to say, and how to say it. The asteroid storm appears suddenly, as if willed into being by Poseidon stirring a cauldron with his trident. The design of the spaceship would make Odysseus feel at home: the ribs of its hull seem to be made of wood and bone. The skyscrapers on Nova Prime are built from triangular wedges that suggest a schooner's sails. The warriors fight with blades. Ursa is Latin for bear. Kitai's leap from a high cliff is a leap of faith. His name is Japanese for "hope." This movie is a fable. Fables teach.

Works Cited
Seitz, Mark Z. "After Earth." RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC, 13 May 2013. Web. 26 Sept. 2013.

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