The Purge: How Stupid Is This Premise?

[Zzzptm]

Basic idea... crazy political party takes over in the USA, passes law that permits near total lawlessness for a 12-hour period annually. Ostensibly, this is to either lower the crime rate or to wipe out the poorer classes, presumably those on federal aid.

I was thinking about that premise today and tried to think of as many ways that premise was totally stupid.

First thought that came to mind was that any premeditation prior to the purge could itself be prosecutable as racketeering. And though emergency services would be suspended for 12 hours, what about the calls immediately following the event? The emergency systems would be swamped.

Then I thought, "What about someone calling in the police to deal with a domestic dispute with the idea of having them arrive just before the purge thing starts?" Now I'm thinking, "Why not just drive up to a military base for a tour just before the purge?" But, according to the premise, only the politicians are exempt from being killed. So, someone could still attack a military base...

... or a base commander could order his forces out of barracks to do whatever. That could be a mess. What if a commander authorized the use of nuclear weapons due to a breakdown of the chain of command? Technically, that's cool under the premise of the film. Anything is legal, right?

That would also include insider trading: time to fire up those after-market trading programs!

And what would stop the thing from going over the 12-hour period?

But then, the legal questions began to come to mind... could civil actions still result from injuries sustained during a purge? Nothing in the premise spoke to suspension of liability, even if there was a suspension of illegality.

And regarding that suspension of illegality, that's just a federal thing. State laws would still be in effect unless the state governments decided to join in on the purge. State and local emergency and police services would still be under state and local control, not federal.

This premise is getting stupider the more I think about it. 

[Billy Underdog]

Dude; it's a movie...

[Thelemech]

^^^ ...and a shitty one at that!! 

[Zzzptm]

Dude; it's a movie...

This is why my family won't take me along to most sci-fi films. I will start to pick away at the premise. If anybody explains anything in the movie, it's *on*.

If it's silly or doesn't waste time explaining or the explanation is vague enough, I can have fun.

For example, the first Star Wars just says The Force flows through everything, it's just one of those things you take on faith. In Phantom Menace, it's a measurable quantity. This is one of the reasons I hate Phantom Menace.

Fifth Element has loads of cool things going on. It wastes zero time explaining how stuff works. I have tons of fun with that.

Bill 'n' Ted's Excellent Adventure has time travel. How does it work? Just push buttons, dude! Now on with the story...

Battlefield: Earth is positively burdened with explanations. It's so epically bad, it's good.

[Axefiend]

Basic idea... crazy political party takes over in the USA, passes law that permits near total lawlessness for a 12-hour period annually. Ostensibly, this is to either lower the crime rate or to wipe out the poorer classes, presumably those on federal aid.

Sounds like the will of Landru:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao9Wxov9lQM

[Typhon]

Dude; it's a movie...

This is why my family won't take me along to most sci-fi films. I will start to pick away at the premise. If anybody explains anything in the movie, it's *on*.

If it's silly or doesn't waste time explaining or the explanation is vague enough, I can have fun.

For example, the first Star Wars just says The Force flows through everything, it's just one of those things you take on faith. In Phantom Menace, it's a measurable quantity. This is one of the reasons I hate Phantom Menace.

I could never get into Star Wars because of the silly way in which they operate in the vacuum of outer space.  Because there is no friction, there in no advantage to having your spacecraft aerodynamically built.  If you fire a shot in one direction, your craft would be propelled in the opposite direction.  Any explosions would be dead silent because sound waves require an atmosphere to travel to your ears.  It's a joke.

[Billy Underdog]

I do agree very much with your way of thinking there, Z, and when you throw in Bill & Ted as an example too, we're on! Excellent! 

[Billy Underdog]

I could never get into Star Wars because of the silly way in which they operate in the vacuum of outer space.  Because there is no friction, there in no advantage to having your spacecraft aerodynamically built.  If you fire a shot in one direction, your craft would be propelled in the opposite direction.  Any explosions would be dead silent because sound waves require an atmosphere to travel to your ears.

Let's not forget no fire in the explotions because of the lack of oxygen. But, hey, leaving all that out, that would make for a kinda boring space movie, wouldn't it?

[Typhon]

I could never get into Star Wars because of the silly way in which they operate in the vacuum of outer space.  Because there is no friction, there in no advantage to having your spacecraft aerodynamically built.  If you fire a shot in one direction, your craft would be propelled in the opposite direction.  Any explosions would be dead silent because sound waves require an atmosphere to travel to your ears.

Let's not forget no fire in the explotions because of the lack of oxygen. But, hey, leaving all that out, that would make for a kinda boring space movie, wouldn't it?

Perhaps so, but having known these facts, it always seemed like a kids movie to me.  I was not bored with "2001".

[Billy Underdog]

Well, hard to compare (to me atleast). Star Wars are great movies for entertainment, 2001 is great on every level.

[Zzzptm]

Star Wars works because pew pew pew pew. It's a great kids' movie that should have been just the one and done.

2001 absolutely blows the mind. I remember learning so much about physics because of the questions I asked about that movie. 2010 got messed up with too much pew pew pew pew stuff, though. It's not the same hard science that 2001 is.

2001 also has Gyorgy Ligeti's work, such a powerful modern composer.

[Typhon]

2001 - #24 of my 50 greatest movies.