this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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I just finished rewatching this yesterday. It's on Prime by the way. And as the show continued I was like "Wait, am I siding with Liber8"? The terrorist group in the show. Seriously there are so many parallels to real life. This was made in 2012. A bit ahead of its time.
The people with the money making our laws. Our presidential cabinet is about to be made up of billions of dollars. Other corporations (Piron) buying the government so they can have political power. Lobbying.
The first episode when we saw the first grassroots support of Liber8 trying to take down a corporation using violence I thought of Luigi and his overwhelming support by the public. And the followers of Theseus that kept saying ideas are more powerful than violence.
The Theseus followers have a peaceful protest on a college campus, and they are arrested because their ideas align with Liber8 and therefore are "supporting terrorists". But really they are just supporting the cause, not the few violent people. Which is exactly like supporting the Palestinians. The police consider every Palestinian a terrorist even though it's only a few who did the atrocities.
In 2077 everyone is being tracked by their gadgets and your worth is dependent on your actual net worth. Everything is privatized. Firefighters actually chose to save a couple of board execs in a building over two kids because they "contribute more". History is banned. Anything that reports on history like VHS, DVD, books is considered contraband. We already are trying to censor slavery in Florida schools. Misinformation runs wild and the public just believe what the corporations tell them. Anyone against them is evil or a terrorist. See: FOX news today.
The time travel gets a little wonky at times but damn was it a fascinating show of the gray area. I kept flipping back and forth on who was right. And shit, the twist in season 3 I didn't see coming and basically upended the entire series. The future cop having her tech gadgets in 2012 working with the very same person who caused the future as an 18 year old kid is a fun concept. Making him an enemy of his future self. Definitely worth a quick watch. 4 short seasons.
Yeah, the overall plot of the show is that people who are perceived as terrorists are often liberation fighters with a nasty edge, and it’s hard tell the difference between evil and righteousness sometimes. The narrative perspective shifts and changes and so do your sympathies with the characters. It is a harsh critique of runaway, capitalism, but not necessarily fully anti-capitalist or pro communist anything. It ends up with a pretty centrist message in some ways.
It’s great to see Vancouver acting as Vancouver, both future and present, pretty rare considering how much is being shot there.
The scariest part about this comment that it barely sounds like fiction.
Like with most movies and books that seem ahead of their time because they 'predict the future', the show was based on an existing trend that was happening and they accurately predicted the obvious outcome. That isn't a criticism of their artistic ability, just pointing out that we were well on this path back in 2012 and the show happened to highlight that trend.
It was a pretty good show that sadly got forgotten. But yes, on my second rewatch recently (In Canada at least it's also on Tubi for free...) I was immediately with Liber8. They are the protagonists. And I think that was kind of the point of the show by the end.
By episode 6 I was on their side lol. When they steered away from violence and won over the public I was like ok I can get on board with this.
In some ways I think they always were about non-violence. Kagami clearly only resorted to the bombing when they had nothing else to lose. The female leader (Sonia I think her name was) was on that side of things as well, while Roger Cross' character (I think his name was Travis?) was the militaristic one.
Yeah, and I hate to say it but in some cases you need violence to make any change. You can protest the companies all you want 24/7 but they'll just ignore you and keep doing what they want. They'll out lobby you to prevent any political change. The BLM protests resorted to this because "no one was listening to us and we keep dying". It's not the best solution but what else is there.
Sonya definitely had the biggest moral compass of the group being a doctor. Travis was built to be emotionless.
I realize I'll get downvoted to hell for saying it, but IMO anyone who says that non-violence works every time is naive.
The French didn't gain anything until the guillotines started rolling. America didn't get their freedom until they started fighting back. British/Portuguese/French Colonialism in Africa didn't come to an end until the locals started rioting and in some cases flat out starting revolutions.
Anyone who says violence never solved anything hasn't been paying attention to ANYTHING in history EVER.
As Gramsci pointed out you need broad coalitions between key groups like educators and bureaucrats, but it has to also extend to radical action groups as allies with some social insulation between them to manage public morale and maintain an alliance.
It’s interesting what is going on in Syria right now.
Anyone who thinks violence never changes anything has never opened a history text.
Nah people like to rewrite history in a better image to feel better. The down votes already prove that. Violence should not be the first option but when exhausted of all other options and people are still literally dying it shouldn't be overlooked. CEOs will just laugh from their ivory towers at "all the peasants whining" and then go right back to killing more people.
you see all these trends... and are still paying for Prime?
Actually I'm using my dad's account. But yeah I still pay for Netflix and Hulu. Anything that isn't available anywhere though I'll go to the seas. I've been moving myself in a self hosted direction but it's hard to break off from everything. It's all so deeply entrenched in our lives.