Control: Killing In Movies

I, Dalton Lewis, love movies. I watch a couple movies a week at least. I love going to the theater and buying a ridiculously oversized soda and some snacks — usually sugary ones. I love sitting around watching previews for the movies coming out in a few months. I love hanging out somewhere that isn’t home. Sometimes I go alone, but sometimes I take a friend or my dad to the movies. We really enjoy it. I have noticed something, though: in movies now there’s a lot of killing.

In the Star Wars movies entire planets are destroyed. Think about that. Billions of people die because of a plot point. This is terrible. Someone should do something about these Sith people if they are behind this. In the new sequels star systems are destroyed — because let’s escalate of course. That’s even stupider. What happens to all those people? Their families? The galaxy long, long ago in a place far, far away is a really dangerous place. I’d just hide out in the outer rim, writing a blog and listening to that band from Jabba’s palace.

Batman is a shining example of good in the Dark Knight trilogy. He doesn’t kill anyone. He gives them trials and arrests them and works with the authorities. I approve. He believes that killing is wrong. He won’t kill the Joker in The Dark Knight because he believes in something. That is an inspiration. I approve of Batman. Then Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice happened, and Batman started to kill people. Then Justice League happened, and Batman continued his slide into moral depravity, becoming a murder hobo who just kills people at his whim.

Bad Boys for Life kills a lot of people, too. Most cop movies involve several major shootouts. These kill people and wreck places. Who pays for all this carnage? I mean, skyscrapers are destroyed in some movies. Who pays for all that? How many jobs are lost? I mean, who has to tell Joe Smith that he’s fired because Superman wrecked his office fighting Zod again?

I am guilty of this, too. I have a lot of killing in my novels. I know of several scenes in which people kill people ridiculously and outrageously. I know that I should have every person matter. I know that every dead person should matter. I don’t want thousands to die for a plot point and not have it addressed sometime later in the story.

Marvel addressed this. General Ross yelled at the Avengers for killing so many civilians while saving the planet, and I agree with him. Then Cap said, no, we don’t work for the government, and I agreed with him, but I felt badly. Without a government most people slide into anarchy. I can think of a dozen heroes who would kill a lot of people — a huge number of people — if the government wasn’t holding them back. That’s a problem for me.

I don’t know what the solution is. I think that we need to be more careful when making movies — to understand that killing people matters. Each dead person was an important, real character. They aren’t disposable. The characters who don’t fight a hundred battles still matter. Their deaths still matter. Killing countless people matters. Those people should have had trials. Some were confused or scared or had few economic options. I just think that movies should value everyone — not just the superheroes.

Thanks, and take care, friends.