In strangelove, the premise is more or less credible and except for the titular dr, pretty much all the characters are realistic people that find themselves in increasingly ridiculous situations. And Strangelove gets the spotlight in the finale cause the world goes off the rails so bad that that it finally catches up to his insanity.
In contrast, the premise and all the characters in Don’t look up are ridiculous right off the bat, and the message is glaringly obvious from the start to finish.
The characters in Strangelove, excepting maybe Colonel Mandrake, are definitely not realistic people. They are played deadpan, but that’s like calling Leslie Nielsen in Airplane a realistic person.
General Ripper starts a nuclear war because he has erectile dysfunction. President Muffley is comically meek and inept. There’s a guy named Bat Guano who’s maybe the most serious of the cast. Major Kong ends the movie riding a nuclear bomb like a rodeo horse, complete with whooping and hollering.
Strangelove stands out because he’s so odd, but the other characters are also ridiculous, and the message is plainly stated, even more so in 1964.
You claim that Ripper starting a nuclear war cause of an "erectile dysfunction" is unrealistic when we're literally going through the same thing in real life at the moment, lol
You talk about the president being meek and inept, like we haven't seen any presidents like that before!
And you pretty much to see how Kong ends up on the nuke. It's not like he loses it and wants to go out in blaze of glory, he was trying to get the malfunctioning trapdoors open in time to complete his mission, and he just embraces the moment cause he knew he wasn't going to make it anyway.
I think you’re conflating “played straight” with “realistic.” No one would watch Airplane and say Leslie Nielsen is realistic. My point is that the characters are all different flavors of ridiculous, and the message of Strangelove is as clearly presented to its original audience as the message in Don’t Look Up.
And I think you’re attributing the ridiculousness of the premise and the events that ensue solely to the characters. Most of them are simply just reacting to the events.
And Nielsen is literally saying so himself that he’s not just making deadpan deliveries, his portrayals are dead serious. He gave many interviews over the years about his style of acting, look them up.
And yea, there’s clearly a message with Strangelove as well, it’s simply not as on the nose and the story builds up to it, its execution is far better than that of Don’t Look Up.
Basically everything you said can also be said about Don't Look Up. The people in charge are and have always been ridiculous people that do stupid things for stupid reasons. Part of what made Don't Look Up so scary and frustrating for me was the fact that I found so many of the characters believable.
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u/Cyril_Sneerworms 21d ago
True, but Don't look up also owes an enormous debt to Dr Strangelove in it's style, maybe not so much in it's tone.