Bright

The other day, I watched the movie Bright, staring Will Smith. It is a remake of Alien Nation, except with Orcs and Elves, rather than space aliens. The Elves are the Jews of this imaginary world, as they are smart and run everything. The humans are the whites, keeping society running, while the Orcs are the blacks, occupying the underclass and subjected to discrimination. As you would expect, the Orcs are the victims of human bigotry and they are kept out of jobs, for no reason other than their phenotype.

While it is primarily an action movie, the not so subtle subtext is that normal prejudice is a bad thing. Will Smith is the bigoted human cop, who is forced to work with an Orc partner. He finally learns to trust and treat Orcs as an equal. They do not over do it, but that is one of the subplots in the movie. The movie is three parts action flick, one part buddy-cop movie and one part sermon on the joys of diversity. There is also the requisite race-mixing, as they give Will Smith a white wife. The future is Orcs, Elves and Mulattoes!

Again, it is mostly a really good action movie with some novel twists and turns that make it fun, despite the moralizing. I must admit, I winced when the humans were mean to the Orcs and I was happy when Smith overcame his Orcism. The people making movies get that white audiences want to feel bad at racism and feel good at inclusiveness. They know what sells and they are good at pushing the right buttons. Our rulers have been preaching civic nationalism for generations and it has infected all of us to some degree.

That is probably one reason why audiences really liked the movie, while critics mostly thought it was stupid. It is not unusual for the opposite to be true, where critics love a movie, but audiences hate it. The movie review business is riddled with payola and pompous poseurs. Usually though, the critics will be right about a bad movie. I suspect the happy talk on overcoming prejudice works particularly well on whites, who are sick and tired of the endless griping about race. That and Will Smith is the model black guy.

The interesting thing about this movie, though, is they do not present the multicultural future as a paradise of diversity. Instead, it is more like Brazil where the underclass is huge and the middle class is small and fragile. In this context, the Elves live in beautiful, gated communities, away from everyone else. The humans and Orcs are mixed up in the squalor, with the humans having a marginally better existence. It is a future where diversity is tolerated out of necessity, but everyone dreams of their own ethnostate.

The other strangely realistic aspect is the gross inequality. The Elves live like royalty, as they are at the top of the social order. They are clean, white, and orderly. Everyone else is dirty, dark and disorderly. The implication is that the Elves pit Orcs and humans against one another, in order to exploit them. The result is the world extreme diversity is a world of poverty, for all but the elite. Imagine if the whole country was like New York City, where the elite live in penthouses and everyone else in tiny apartments.

That is the reality of multiculturalism. The hidden cost of maintaining order inevitably bankrupts the middle-class. The people at the top are always getting their beak wet first and they will do what they must to protect themselves and their position. That means the cost of maintaining order falls on the middle, which quickly disappears. University towns exist in idyllic diversity, because billions are hoovered out of the surrounding economies to support the paradise. The university town scales up to be Brazil.

The movie does not spend much time contemplating the Elf class. All we learn is they live apart, but control society, with the help of human assistants. They do give us a surprisingly frank portrayal of the Orcs. They are physically superior to humans and they have an affinity for hip-hop culture, but most are too dumb to do anything other than menial jobs. The Orcs are so obviously a deliberate analog to modern blacks that I am shocked they get away with it. I guess having Will Smith as the star is the antidote.

The strange thing about Hollywood is the future they imagine is usually rather unimaginative. It is either a hellish apocalyptic world, where order has broken down, or it is a soulless nirvana of glass and stainless steel. While the later may lack the grit and chaos of the former, it always has some malevolent force at its core. I cannot think of an example of a movie where Hollywood creates a future that is nicer than the present. The stuff might be nicer, but the people are always less happy. Hollywood is not a town of optimists.

I am as intolerant as any normal man when it comes to Hollywood proselytizing, but I had no trouble looking past it and enjoying the movie. The basic concept is clever by the standards of modern movie making and it will surely turn into a franchise, given how well it has done with audiences. I do not have Netflix, but it is available on Kodi. I am using Genesis Reborn, which is a great implementation. If you are looking for a cheap couple hours of video entertainment, Bright is a good action movie.

46 thoughts on “Bright

  1. Just watched it. You over-analyzed it and filled in the blanks in a way that I would’ve liked, but the show was still mostly blanks. Any subtext was very sub. I see the writer Matt Landis (John’s son) just got busted by the MeToos.

  2. My observation was that the orcs, being the only group that EVERYBODY could shit on (black gang-bangers, mexicans, asians, goodwhite, wanna-be badcops), with ancient, mystic beliefs (they even had priests and monks in their lair), listening to hardcore punk, seemed more like Deplorables than blacks.

  3. While that strange screeching noise you hear was credibility being stretched, I have to say Bright was — Alien Nation reboot notwithstanding — a decent movie. There was some interesting symbolism, apart from the painful SJW-designed ‘Orcs are going to be our new friends now that one of their outcast is a sainted one’ and it was fun to see Will trying to bat down a fairy. Pests that they are — and no, it wasn’t a reference to the irritability of some gays buzzing around, so stop thinking that now! The Centaur in the cop uniform was a brief but pleasant sight (you know, cop on horseback in one handy package)

    But for those who’ve played Warcraft and similar games, the Orcs were a bit too westernised when given the chance to get away from the squalor they normally live in. The problem in the movie for me is the usual one that the bad guys are virtually indestructible (and the cops facing them nothing more than target practice) and incredibly clever, yet not quite clever enough to win despite kicking seven bells out of Will and new friend. Just Hollyweird being its usual self.

  4. I disagree. Orcs are badwhites. They listen to heavymetal not gangsta rap. They followed the dark lord. The (((elfs))) are fighting amongst themselves = the elites bickering.

    The main girl’s name was Tikka, as in Tikkun Olam. She comes alive in the roots of the tree… tons of elite symbolism.

    The movie wasn’t bad. It fell apart about halfway through but still wasn’t bad.

  5. Don’t know if you notice but they tried to make a comparison between Orcs and “white trash” right at the start when Will Smith whined about the “Orc Death Metal.” Sheeeit.

  6. They did a great job of packaging the SJW narrative with that movie. (Compared, say to the schlock of something like Star Wars or Star Trek). That is about as good as it gets for Hollywood SJW message fiction.

    Like others have said, though – I have a hard time with movies and have pretty much stopped buying books. I will not buy a book written by a woman anymore. If it’s SF and has won a Hugo – ditto. Most of the male authors aren’t any better. They seem hellbent on rubbing my nose in creepy characters that are feminists, Marxists and queers. It throws me out of the story when the author interrupts it for a scene of gratuitous sex… between a couple fudge packing butt blasters.

    I would love it if the dissident right produced some talented fiction writers too.

  7. After the first 10-minutes I though “Alien Nation” too. Frankly, I’m tired of Will Smith movies where he can only play once character – Will Smith.

    I’d be the first to agree American films are generally much better, but they always have a happy ending. Watch “Das Boot”, one of our better war movies, to see what I mean. Jürgen Prochnow and Herbert Grönemeyer were excellent. If you can find it, I recommend Die Brücke (The Bridge) a 1959 German, black & white classic anti-war movie.

    We have been watching “Billions” which is very good. I’m sorry Kevin Spacey’s career is over, as I was looking forward to the next season of “House of Cards”.

    “Homeland” Season 5 was very interesting since it was set in Berlin and focused on do-gooders who are doing everything to make life good for immigrants (invaders), while putting the rest of us at risk.

    • Hey, Will smith made a couple of expressions I have never seen before. They looked stupid, especially during the ‘resurrection’ scene, but he literally doubled his acting range.

    • What about the Netflix series “Dark”. German made but if it wasn’t for the dubbing and occasional German sign or message ,one wouldn’t know the difference from an American based series.

    • American films always have a happy ending, even when it makes much more sense to do it otherwise. It’s important to remember that the target audience for almost all films is about two clicks to the left of where you are on the curve.

      And I have Das Boot and I agree. It is a great movie.

      You might like the series Fortitude. It’s sci-fi meets Scandi Noir.

      • True but a lot of low budget or independent films don’t do this as often
        With some of them, I wish they had an ending.

      • first half season of Fortitude was great. Then it became and remained terrible until merciful cancellation.

    • Karl;
      Al from da Nort here. I second your recommendations for Die Brueke und Das Boot. AFIK, they are both like Saving Private Ryan in that they are historically accurate, given a bit of license in specific details.

      Besides this, both are instructive for understanding military leadership. Indeed, they can serve as a Rorschach Test, regardless of one’s politics or even national rooting interest.

      IIRC, The Bridge centers on a squad of poorly trained, newly conscripted 15 year old kids very late in the WWII battle for Germany itself on the W Front. Their assignment is to use guerrilla delaying tactics in defense of said bridge and they get cut down for naught because of bad leadership and bad luck.

      Since the attack is expected tomorrow, their NCOIC wanders off to the local tavern for a beer, leaving his kids posted alone at the bridge. Because he was not with his command, he gets picked up and shot as a deserter by the Nazi ‘field gendarmes’.

      Left unsupervised, his kids bravely die pointlessly for lack of any real understanding of their mission, their commander’s intent or proper tactics. Their mission really was to retard the enemy advance by letting the enemy spearhead cross, *then* blow up the bridge so the lead tanks couldn’t be resupplied and possibly might be stopped further on.

      After blowing it they should then immediately beat it to live to fight another day. Instead they mentally lock in on the bridge itself, going so far as to run off the ‘pioneers’ (combat engineers) who were sent forward to set the explosive charges. A competent officer or NCO ‘might’ have prevented this outcome but that would have spoiled the plot. In any event the tactical lessons stand to this day and are now in use in SW Asia.

      The action in Das Boot is too complex to describe here. But to illustrate my point about Rorschach Tests, I recall a couple of metrosexual movie critics (Syskal & Ebert_?) who described the plot as ‘What it was like to serve under a monster (the U Boat Commander).’ By contrast, anyone who’s been an officer in any branch of service, much less a commander of anything, on reading this review immediately thought, ‘WTF, this guy was a warship commander, in wartime, in desperate circumstances, not the cruise director on some damn love boat or other. He has to suck it all up himself, show no fear or indecision, solve the human issues and direct the solution of the technical problems all at the same time. His leadership was the *only* reason *any* of them came back alive from the patrol.’ Prochnow conveyed all this without any of the histrionics common in current Marvel Comics movies.

  8. I thought the movie was at least two parts moralizing. With or without that it was decent, serial quality, less than really good. Smith is a really good charismatic actor, holding up a decent pilot. Whatever his idiotic public opinions he made one on a Parisian tv show that will excuse many bad ones–when the new French socialist party tax rate was explained to him he looked shocked and exclaimed “God bless America!”.

  9. I was wondering if you were going to tie this into Oprah’s presumptive presidential run, though that probably deserves its own post (and its own psychiatric wing). I’m seeing the usual airheads talking about her being the glue that could motivate the KKKrazy Glue Coalition, but I’m hearing the same from people who should know better, which makes me think her run and her win are a fait accompli.

    Anyway, I think orcs/kobolds as blacks has been coded in fiction at least since the Weird Tales days, and Robert Howard and H.P. Lovecraft were pretty open about their racism. Look on YouTube for Ralph Bakshi’s “Fire and Ice” or at a lot of Frank Frazetta artwork and you’ll see white guys with rough sinewy muscle in loin-cloths defending white women in cheetah cloths from dusky primates. I remember Roger Ebert bitching that the only black character in the John Milius version of “Conan” was a baddie played by James Earl Jones. Ditto for “Star Wars” (at least the first one) in which a black man’s voice represented, “The Dark Side.”

    • Joey Junger, Robert E. Howard is a tremendous adrenaline writer. I can’t think of a writer who stirs the blood of masculine white men like REH. “Beyond The Black River,” a Conan story, is incredible. His dismissal of negroes as alien and toxic to White life is obvious.

      • Robert E Howard took people as they were. Not as we wished they were. That’s why his Hyborian age was so perfect.

  10. Don’t really watch movies or television but the wife nagged me about renting something and sitting on the couch for the night.

    We settled on Central Intelligence with “The Rock” . Saw one of his movies before so it seemed like if safe bet.

    Boy was I wrong. It centered around the noble negro and all the evil white people surrounding them. It was ridiculous !!! All the white people were evil racists. Pointed this out to the wife and she just rolled her eyes.

    Sorry Z ,but will take your word on this movie. Just can’t watch this stupid propaganda nonsense anymore.

  11. Hollywood and other sources give us various hellscapes because it’s impossible to conceive of Heaven. Try it. You may come up with something but if you follow it long enough it won’t work. Strange huh

    • Impossible using the current models, only.

      Heaven itself is surprisingly easy to understand. The future of the human world is a bit murky on the details, but who doesn’t love a good Apocalypse?

  12. Will Smith, along with a multitude of Hollywood personalities, are on my “Not entertaining” list because of their expressed idiot opinions. I can’t believe Disney risks offending the people their franchise was based on, by including transgenders – who are also not entertaining. Lately I’ve been watching TMC, no commercials, very few blacks, no queers, most of the old movies actually have plots. What a concept. The main distraction are the huge billows of smoke issuing from the movie “stars”, a reminder of the hypocrisy of the time, when Phillip Morris paid the studios.

    • I’ve come to expect carny folk to day idiotic things. If I allowed that to effect my entertainment choices, I’d never watch anything.

  13. I’m so out of touch I have never heard of this movie. Will Smith is a closet homo and Jada Pinkett is his bearded clam munching beard. Together they have spawned two absolutely useless bipeds who regurgitate the boilerplate PC nonsense as creatively as a toy soldier that marches clumsily about when you wind its key.

    I saw Dennis Miller last night live. He is old and lost a step, but he is still at the top of his brand of comedy, if you like that sort of thing.

    My wife and I finished the series “Godless” produced by Netflix. It’s mostly terrible. It’s a western set in 1880’s Colorado. EVERY. SINGLE. BROAD. on the show is a Marysue. Based on it’s plot (which revolves around a town consisting almost exclusively of widowed women, who have managed for 2 years to survive without being overrrun by any assortment of bandits, injuns, desperados, etc.) the series should have been called “Directionless”. It touches on all of the standard SJW topics, though. Evil white men. The ones who aren’t evil are incompetent or drunks. Greedy mining outfit run by greedy Jews. There is a nearby town of blacks who are full of magic negros, who get slaughtered by badwhites. There is a lesbian love story. One of the lesbians is a former whore who is now the town school teacher and teaches class in her old whorehouse that still has (for the period) pornographic paintings on the walls.

    I agree that some of this stuff can be observed and then overlooked in the efforts to enjoy a good show. But it seems to me the ax grinding is ubiquitous, and i find it nearly impossible to ignore it anymore.

    • I really got into “Narcos” on Netflix. There’s no SJW virtue signaling in Pablo Escobar’s Colombia.
      Basically, it’s a Western, with all the classic themes, set in the wildest town in that era, Medellin, instead of Deadwood or Tombstone.

      • You’re right Narcos was good. We watched all three seasons. I remember a little bit of ax grinding in the narration in the first season, aimed at the Reagan administration, but other than that, it was well done. The actor who played Pablo Escobar was outstanding.

        • I’ve always thought the gangs of today will be the westerns of tomorrow.

          The stories that could be written!
          They’ll never be as stylish as the age of Prohibition, though.

        • Cocaine Cowboys and Square Grouper. Uplifting documentaries of real men who carved a place for themselves in spite of monumental restrictions and meddling by those who would enslave them.

      • It’s the best thing I’ve seen on Netflix so far.
        BTW, just watched Bloodline. Who would have guessed it was all about global warming??

  14. I thought you were kidding about these characters being called “Orcs,” so I Googled it. Oh, my.
    I don’t know how it works in the Bright world, but in real life, the “Elves,” like hip-hop culture, as well. The ones that get rich promoting it to the goyim children and the ones who like to virtue-signal how non-racist they are by being part of that culture.
    I just read a preening mainstream media article this morning about how rap/hip-hop has become the monster that has swallowed all other music genres, & all the media companies the blacks have formed, blah blah blah. Very discouraging stuff for those of us who actually enjoy a little Top 40 radio now and again.

  15. I turned it off after about 10 minutes because it had already met my quota of “diversity is our strength” product placement. You have the mixed raced marriage, you have black dialog and (c)rap soundtrack, and you have the magic negro, I mean mulatto, hero that shows all the mayonnaise people the right way to live. Plus, Will Smith is just a Morgan Freeman or Denzel Washington SWPL negro, one that make certain Whites feel better about selling their birthright for a bowl of pottage. “See, Will Smith is a likable negro. I can ignore the blacks in Baltimore because muh well-spoken credit to his race.” But if “the Orcs are the blacks, occupying the underclass and subjected to discrimination”, what are the human blacks? Are Whites dumbed down enough so that there is no fundamental difference between Whites and blacks in this glorious dystopia?

  16. “the implication is that the Elves pit Orcs and humans against one another, in order to exploit them. The result is the world extreme diversity is a world of poverty, for all but the elite. Imagine if the whole country was like New York City, where the elite live in penthouses and everyone else in tiny apartments.”

    Hollywood has showed us the reality in fictional form quite a few times:

    https://darkreformation101.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/demolition-man-and-the-patron-theory-of-politics/

  17. You missed the part about how it was Elves (Jews) that were attempting to bring back the Dark Lord.

    Another subtext in the movie is that the Orcs supposedly were cursed because they “made the wrong choice” – at some indeterminant point in the past. Since then they were apparently condemned to act like ghetto trash.

    The Orc that is partner to the Will Smith character (can’t remember the name) – decides to go against his own kind – and do the right thing (in movie terms – act more like a human). The Orc that is partner to Smith – is also described as having his teeth cut (no fang type lower canines) . Apparently having no fang lower canines is like being an Uncle Tom in Orc world.

    I enjoyed the movie – and didn’t miss the proselytizing that you mention. I just think there was more subtexts in there than maybe you caught on to.

    My takeaway in short: The elves aren’t all lightness and good , some of them (at least) wanted to bring back some sort of ultimate evil. The Orcs needed to get their shit together and move forward instead of wallowing in whatever screwed up shit they did in the past as an excuse for their Orcishness.

    • Orc with Will Smith was called Jacoby. Fantastic acting by Joel Edgerton. So interesting that he died and was brought back to life.

      And, “Fairy lives don’t matter today” was such a funny idea.

      I agree with you that there were pretty complicated ideas floating under the surface for a lot of the movie.

  18. Orcs have been a stand-in for blacks in alt right meme culture for years. That the writers and producers followed that–or even better, came up with it in parallel without knowledge of the memery–is hilarious. SWPLs and Klansmen think the same thing, the difference is only one group is honest about it.

    • I’d be willing to bet that the writers and producers probably ARE fully aware of the Orc meme that is out there.

      I’ve been somewhat amazed over the last couple of years of the types of things I’ve seen show up in some relatively popular shows. The Blacklist – which is a popular show on one of the big three networks, has brought up all sorts of conspiracy type stuff that previously was only the purvue of sites like Infowars.

      • The writer, Max Landis, is famous in YouTube circles. He’s typical of Hollywood: a flaming metrosexual, who’s been accused sexual assault, all the while tweeting far left talking points. His only redeeming quality is that he called the Star Wars chick a Mary-Sue and defended the Ghost in the Shell casting.

        It’s like reality keeps seeping into his writing despite his degeneracy.

    • I was laughing throughout the movie, thinking of the many twitter gags featuring Orcs. I suspect some you subversive writers pulled a fast one on their older bosses at NetFlix.

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