Good Cinamatrography, Ignorant Message
I wish I were a better writer, but i'll just say it flat out: Munich had very stupid messages. It attempted to gain our empathy by "putting a human face" on the palestinian terrorists. We are supposed to relate to them and feel sad for them. However, I feel they deserved to die. A soldier in battle will on average be killed. Why should we expect any different for a terrorist who kills helpless hostages? The soldiers at least chose to risk their lives.
Terrorists kill civilians for a political message. We shouldn't be praising such sentiment, but trying to abolish it. Killing a soldier servers a purpose. A soldier has a gun a soldier is a threat. A bus full of people is no threat. An engineer doing his job is not a threat. A group of Israeli atheletes is not a threat!!!
Black September killed the Israeli athletes as a message to the israeli people. I feel that their response was completely justified. If they backed down it would have warranted further attacks. You can't show weakness to someone who wants to destroy you. They had to show terrorist groups that they will fight back when provoked.
This is not some sugar gum drop world. People out there want to kill you, and they will if you give them the chance. Don't think they'll see you hugging your cat and think "oh he's just like me, I don't have to kill him after all." If you think that then the streets will run red with hippie blood.
In summary Munich was stupid, Hollywood is preaching anti-war sentiments because it "feels" wrong, and people who kill civilians for a political message are the scum of the world and should be exterminated like vermin.
Terrorists kill civilians for a political message. We shouldn't be praising such sentiment, but trying to abolish it. Killing a soldier servers a purpose. A soldier has a gun a soldier is a threat. A bus full of people is no threat. An engineer doing his job is not a threat. A group of Israeli atheletes is not a threat!!!
Black September killed the Israeli athletes as a message to the israeli people. I feel that their response was completely justified. If they backed down it would have warranted further attacks. You can't show weakness to someone who wants to destroy you. They had to show terrorist groups that they will fight back when provoked.
This is not some sugar gum drop world. People out there want to kill you, and they will if you give them the chance. Don't think they'll see you hugging your cat and think "oh he's just like me, I don't have to kill him after all." If you think that then the streets will run red with hippie blood.
In summary Munich was stupid, Hollywood is preaching anti-war sentiments because it "feels" wrong, and people who kill civilians for a political message are the scum of the world and should be exterminated like vermin.
8 Comments:
Munich was not a justification for the Palestinian terrorists' actions. In no way would Spielberg support the death of innocent Israelis. Nobody in their right minds supports the death of innocent civilians. I understand vengence and part of me was definitely glad that Israel got back at the Palestinians. But the most important point of the movie was that no matter how many terrorist leaders you kill, they're always going to be replaced with people just as violent and sick.
What I took from Munich (and from the war on terror, in general) was the fact that not many people take the time and energy to figure why terrorists do what they do. It's easy for us to say, "They hate freedom" or "They hate Israel (or America)." But it's not that simple. Something drives people to blowing themselves up and that something has to be really convincing and persuasive. Suicide bombers are somehow led to believe they have nothing left to live for. Why is that? What kind of environment raises that idea? Until we figure out what makes people do what they do, we really can't secure ourselves in the long-term.
In V for Vendetta, V emphasizes the idea that people may die, but ideas can live on forever. This can be very applicable to terrorism. We can kill Osama (and we should) but will it solve much? Probably not.
By
David, at 3/20/2006 8:05 PM
I don't know, I think people preaching that type of message buy into viewing terrorists as sub-human beings. Che Guevarra and Fidel Castro were viewed as "terrorists" and that they deserved to die, but if you read their story they're just trying to fight for what they believe in, which was a very noble and selfless goal.
I liken placing the stamp "terrorist" on a violent political activist as almost being the government and media trying to brainwash us into thinking that these people deserve to die.
In Syriana, the media tried to portray Arab political activists as people who have their lives being shapen by American money-driven corporate machines. Is that so bad? To try and understand what Third World countries are going through?
Every action has a reaction, and movies like Munich (which was produced by a Jew), Syriana, and V for Vendetta try to present the other side of the story. The conservative media tries to one-side the story, like "USA IS THE BEST!" without taking into consideration the other points of views.
I'm sorry, but from what I'm getting from your post, you're trying to say "they don't deserve being treated like human beings, their side doesn't deserve to be understood or discussed". That message is really the problem with the world today, and why 9/11 happened in the first place.
Do you know the situation with the Palestinian terrorists? Right now, the Israeli military is marching into Palestinian territory, and arrested men at random, without trial, for an indefinite period of time. Because they have the backing of the United States, economically they can strong-arm the Palestinians, and conditions in the Palestinian settlements are much worse than Israeli communities.
When you have a country that was basically stolen from the Palestinians, and that is constantly raiding and threatening the Palestinians, you will see violent counterattacks. Who's to blame? It's all a vicious cycle.
The current Hamas representative (the one who they think will head the Hamas Palestinian government) is such an example. He's college educated (I believe he has a Ph.D), and was a prisoner held by the Israelis for years without trial. He has every right to want to be violent against Israel, to get back at all those years of his life that he lost. But he's considered one of the moderates of the Hamas leadership, and he wants to build peace with Israel (or so he says). People who want to build peace realize that understanding a different point of view is fundamental to peace. Who's the terrorist in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle? The one using military strength and "legality" to arrest thousands of Palestinians on shoddy basis? Or the one retaliating by the only means they can, by the horrendous bombing of civilians? I can't decide.
The key is education. Understanding both sides of the story to solve a problem. And basically by your post, you're saying the opposite of that.
I'm sorry, but I have to strongly disagree. Movies like Munich are good because they try to bring people to understand each other better, which is what we all need to do.
By
Tony, at 3/20/2006 8:25 PM
And also, I didn't think Munich was that well made. In fact, I'd rate it about average, or slightly above. Spielberg needs to know when to stop a movie!
By
Tony, at 3/20/2006 8:26 PM
I'm going to comment on this a little bit. I don't want to sound combative or anything, but I will just say I disagree with your review, though personally, I didn't think Munich was that great either. I think the high-point for me was the exceptional audio reproduction for the gun battles.
But after seeing Munich, I don't think the objective of the movie was to create sympathy for Black September. It's been awhile since I last saw the movie, but from what I recall, the Israeli strike team only started having doubts when bystander-casualties became a concern, for example, the daughter who answered the phone, or the couple having sex in the next room. At least for Eric Bana's character. There was that other guy who found assassination distasteful in general, of course.
If anything, I think the movie highlighted the humanity of the Israeli strike team, moreso than the terrorists. The movie did put a face on the terrorists, but I have no qualms with that. I'm not interested in watching another movie about 2-dimensional terrorists who are attacking the free-world for no reasons at all except that they found an AK-47 in the bushes one day while taking a whiz, and the Good Guys have to come in and kick their asses while chewing bubble gum. There's the Rambo DVD for that.
If you really want to get down to it, they didn't even bother putting a face on the actual Palestinian strike team, but rather on their supporters. It doesn't make them any less of a terrorist though, but what I thnk the movie was trying to show was that they have grievances, too. That doesn't mean that the movie condones civilian murder though. I in no way got the impression that the movie was praising that sentiment. I think it's pretty simple: the terrorists have grievances, they broadcast that fact in a bastardly manner. The movie tells portrays that.
I'd also like to point out that, as you said, Israel didn't back down, otherwise it would have warranted more attacks. But there've been plenty of attacks against Israel since 1972. I'm not saying they shouldn't have countered. But I am saying that the problem is a little bit more complicated and requires a solution a bit more thought-out and long-term than just blasting each other away repeatedly.
And ultimately, I think that was the message of the movie: the cycle of revenge doesn't really do anything. It's been 34 years since the events of Munich. Israel's policy has always been "counter-strike" as far as I remember. Again, that's fine in the short-run. You can't roll over and just take it. But if you want long-term results, you're gonna need to do something else in conjunction.
Anyway this is a pretty complicated issue, and I glossed over some things, but I think there are a few things more upsetting than the movie. Like Germany letting Black September members go free. Or how Munich isn't really that accurate (but an accurate portrayal would've just been another dumb action movie).
By
Ron, at 3/20/2006 8:49 PM
I should probably wait for you to finish your message, but I have to go soon.
"How is a sane person persuaded that killing themselves and innocent people is justified?"
A. The same way that countless figures in history found civilian casualties acceptable when they gave the order.
Dresden, Hiroshima, Vietnam, "collateral damage." That's a miniscule scratch of all the civilian deaths that were written off as acceptable in the name of the respective nation's greater good. That the executor happens to die in the case of terrorists doesn't really change much. You could make the argument that each of those in the past had a legitimate military target nestled inside somewhere, but I think it'd be a weak one. Why are expected, but unintended civilian deaths morally superior from expected, intended civilian deaths?
B. It's a bit easy to sit back in America of all places and think it's absolutely preposterous to drop to that mental state. No power, no job, and getting accidentally bombed gets annoying.
As for your list, right now I think e, f, and g apply to the insurgency in Iraq. There's not really an effective government in place, so that rules out d. Not to mention with Saddam's government, terrorists were quashed just like everyone else in Iraq. E is the big one with Islamic terrorists, and yes, usually religions tell you that killing is bad, except there apparently is a clause or two in the koran allowing the deaths of non-believers. Combine that with f, religious teachers, and g, and badda-boom!
Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if we got into a major scuffle with Islamic nations in the future, and I mean major. Iraq I think was pretty mild. ARgh gg.
By
Ron, at 3/20/2006 9:09 PM
I'd also like to point out that in the presence of a vacuum devoid of (d) government, religion likes to swoop in. In America, they're still trying to swoop in.
By
Ron, at 3/20/2006 9:11 PM
What justifies the Iraq war then?
By your definition, we are justifying the killing of people to prove a political point. More civilians have died than in 9/11.
Inadvertantly, yes, but the numbers speak more.
By
Tony, at 3/20/2006 10:05 PM
Also, you can't break down somebody's actions into A, B, C, D, E, etc.
If somebody sacrifices his life, for something he so desperately believes in, we must try to understand it... which is what you're doing when you blame it on teachers or the government or media.
That's why movies like Munich, which portray the other side as something more than a demented killer, are good for society. I think ALL killing is undeserved.
The only way to stop it is to understand the reasoning behind it, see what emotions and what situations are driving these people. If you say "kill them all" without considering the reasons behind it, then you're blindly killing people. Their sons and daughters will remember it and harbor hate against you. Hate begets hate.
By
Tony, at 3/20/2006 10:13 PM
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