Movie Review: Mad Max Fury Road - a surprisingly refreshing action movie

I'm not sure if it's very un-Australian of me to say that I have never seen any of the Mad Max movies. Actually, that may not be entirely true - there is the possibility that I watched them on television as a child, but I don't own any of them on DVD/VHS but I have absolutely no idea what they're about except that Mel Gibson was in those movies.

And I hadn't really watched many of the trailers.  I had seen one.  I knew Charlize Theron was in it, as Imperator Furiosa (the only time I had come across the term Imperator was in World of Warcraft, where the last fight was against an Imperator Mar'gok - since then I realised it's a word meaning "commander").  Nicholas Hoult was as well, and I recognised him from playing Hank "Beast" McCoy in the X-Men movies X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past.

I also heard it was an action movie which of course, is something I enjoy.

I did have concerns that I would not understand the movie if I hadn't seen the previous Mad Max installments.  However, I can safely say that you don't need to have seen any of them to understand or enjoy the movie.  I'm sure there are little easter eggs from things in the previous movies which would have gone over my head (much like how it's done in the Marvel Universe movies, if you don't know the comics, some of the subtle references would go over your head but it doesn't detract from your enjoyment or understanding of the movie).

And I will say here now, that I did not know how "feminist" this movie was before I watched it.  Feminist is probably not the word I am searching for, but how anti-misogynistic it was, with a cast of strong female characters.

*** WARNING: SPOILER ALERT ***

At the start you see Max, a little crazy from all the deaths of people in the past haunting him, and he's captured by a raiding part of War boys (who are part of Immortan Joe's dominion - a fat, deformed, oxygen dependent warlord who wears a mask and has a shock of long white hair).  They use him as a source of blood for transfusion.  The post apocalyptic world looks pretty bleak - heaps of people with deformities, no doubt from the nuclear radiation - and Immortan Joe controls his people by making them beg for water.  Joe also has women for his harem for breeding, and also milks them for "mother's milk" which is what he feeds his War Boys, apparently.  The War Boys are all indoctrinated to believe that they die to be reborn again, and die in glory to get to Valhalla, so they are relentless fighters.

Immortan Joe controls water - there are other nearby gangs that control oil, bullets etc - and he sends out Imperator Furiosa with a war part to the oil town to get supplies.  Halfway there she abandons her mission, as she has her own mission.  She has taken the breeders and is trying to make for her own homeland, "the green place", from where she was taken as a child, and provide safe haven for the breeders.   These breeders are all model perfection, which provide the eye candy for the movie, but it is not unusual as they are selected to be breeders after all.  Rosie Huntington-Whitely is one of them and even she, heavily pregnant fights hand and tooth for her freedom.

The rest of the movie is basically a long chase across the desert, with fighting almost every step of the way.  Max breaks into this picture because the War Boy who owns him, Nux, goes out on the raiding party to retrieve these "treasures" of Joe's and so Max is tied to the front of the vehicle whilst the assault on the Furiosa's vehicle occurs.

The movie, though titled Mad Max, is really about Furiosa, and Max barely speaks throughout the movie - a little reminiscent of the Terminator, but he is still an essential part of the unit trying to protect the hope and promise of freedom for these women.

Nux, becomes part of this little family after he "fails" Immortan Joe, but the wives beg to spare his life because there has been enough killing.

I was especially impressed with the one nude scene in the movie, which was tasteful, and of Megan Gale in her first acting role. You don't really see anything, but she is actually a trap for marauding groups, and the group of Vuvalini (which I hilariously misread as Vulvalini) which are the a matriarchal society that Furiosa was originally from. However, it seems their role is merely body fodder as they make their way back to Immortan Joe's citadel, as that is the only place with water where they can have some semblance of hope of returning life, as one of the old gun toting ladies has a bag full of seeds.

So this bunch of crazies heads back, with more fighting and crazy stunts (by the way the stunts were all real with very little CGI apparently) and eventually win the day. But oh what a ride!

The cinematography is awesome, the landscape bleak yet beautiful in a empty yet wild way, the stunts mind blowing, the cars are Frankenstein-like in nature. The world really is crazy in Miller's post war era.

But this movie's real triumph to me is the strong female characters which don't seem out of place in this world.  In a genre that is mostly male driven and dominated, and even in this world which is also male dominated, it is the women who come out with the strength and hope of the movie.  Fighting for life.  Fighting for freedom.  Fighting against oppression.  And they do so without ridiculously sexy costumes which are totally impractical for what they're doing.  Only the wives are scantily clad but they would have had very little in the way of practical clothes, serving only as objects of desire, breeding - a favourite pet or toy perhaps - but the rest of them, especially Theron's character with her missing arm, and shaven head, are not beauty showcases.  It seems real, and believable in this unbelievable world.

And this movie passes the Bechdel test in leaps and bounds, with flying colours.  It is interesting to note that a Men's Rights Activist blogger has called for men to boycott the movie because  he is concerned "men in America and around the world are going to be duped by explosions, fire tornadoes, and desert raiders into seeing what is guaranteed to be nothing more than feminist propaganda, while at the same time being insulted AND tricked into viewing a piece of American culture ruined and rewritten right in front of their very eyes."  (I don't want to link to that article because I refuse to let my site increase any traffic to his, so you can find it on google).

Well. Considering that this is an AUSTRALIAN movie, originally filmed in Australia (but this time filmed in Namibia because it was too WET here in Australi) with an Australian director, I find his comments amusing.  Fortunately it seems to have had the opposite effect with some people, who after hearing about the boycott became more intrigued. Considering the movie has rave reviews from many sources, including a 98% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, I think that the movie is a success, and George Miller should be proud for another fine piece of cinema history in the making. I would highly recommend you see this movie - for even I was skeptic, but I left feeling a sense of awe after this movie.

Oh, and here's a picture from the promo that they did last week for the movie in Sydney, where they caused mayhem with closure of a major road in peak hour on a weekday.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 - A Parent's review (SPOILER ALERT)

For those who know the first movie, it's about a boy who was different from the others in his village, more of a pacifist than an aggressor, who went against the way of thinking and befriended, rather than slaughtered a dragon.  In the second movie, Hiccup is 5 years older and dragons are now a way of life on the far flung island of Berk. In this movie we find that there are many others out there interested in dragons, but in different ways.

There are pirates who capture dragons to take back to Drago, the villain in this movie, who is amassing a dragon army.  Stoick, Hiccup's father and chief of the village of Berk, tells him that Drago is a madman, bent on conquest.  There is also a Dragon Rider, who has been releasing captured dragons with whom Hiccup meets, and it turns out it is his own mother, Valka (voiced by Cate Blanchett).  She tells Hiccup that dragons are controlled by an Alpha dragon, who protects them all.

Drago comes with his own Alpha dragon, and the two Alphas fight, with Drago's coming out victorious, taking control of ALL the dragons.  Toothless comes under the control of Drago's Alpha, and turns on Hiccup, but Stoick leaps in to save Hiccup, and gets killed in the process.  Hiccup is devastated, and when Toothless regains control of his senses, Hiccup pushes him away, and Toothless leaves with Drago, who takes his army to conquer Berk.

Hiccup, having now to assume the mantle of chief, takes his friends to ride baby dragons (who are immune to the mind control of the alpha, because babies don't listen to anyone), and head to Berk.  Hiccup's friends distract the Alpha, whilst Hiccup tries to break through the mind control with love and kindness to his dear friend Toothless.  Toothless eventually overcomes the mind control and challenges the Alpha, and the distraction breaks the mind control the Alpha had on the other dragons, and all the dragons of Berk turn on the Alpha and he is defeated.

My thoughts:

As a parent who has children of both sexes, I have been trying to ensure my children grow up self confident, emotionally astute young people, and I have spent my time looking at movies they watch with a more critical eye.

People often talk about the Bechdel test, which was named after Alison Bechdel, a cartoonist, which evaluated gender bias in works of fiction (eg movies).

I struggled to see if this movie would pass!  There were 3 female characters in the movie - Valka, Astrid (Hiccup's girlfriend) and Ruffnut, one of the twins who was part of Hiccup's group of friends.  Though all had speaking roles, I can't quite recall if they spoke to each other!  They MAY have - the girls during the dragon games - but because I can't really remember it, it means it fails the Bechdel test!

Also, because I went with young children, I watched it in 2D.  I hear the 3D was amazing, and I would probably have to watch it again on 3D Blu-Ray to get the experience.

Another thing that I found irritating, was Valka became a little bit wimpy after Stoick found her.  She was knowledgeable and formidable when Hiccup first met her but once Stoick arrived, she did not seem to participate much - which was unusual considering she had been aggressive previously, freeing captured dragons from dragon capturers. Perhaps it was because she was grieving for the fallen Alpha, or perhaps because she had lost ALL her dragons to Drago's Alpha that she was lost for ideas.

However, I have always found Hiccup inspiring.  Hiccup, who says that fighting and killing is not necessary to be great (Astrid is the fighter, Hiccup's strength is in compassion).  Hiccup is also on the slight, smaller side, which also shows that being physically strong is NOT what makes a man.  He's also lost a foot, which shows he has a handicap, but that it doesn't hinder him in any way.  Hiccup was aiming for peace, and he won the day through love and trust of his dragon, Toothless. At the end of the day, loyalty and love and kindness won the day, though the dragons did almost all of the fighting.

The movie overall was excellent, which was surprising for a sequel.  The emotions were real, the dialogue fresh and the characters engaging. Naturally the dragons were a great attraction and the death of his father a necessary tragedy to allow Hiccup the room to grow into the leader he was supposed to be. Astrid and Hiccup had a very mature relationship, and even Fishlegs and Snotlout competing for Ruffnut's affections were hilarious (even though she did the stereotypical thing and fell head over heals for the good looking dragon pirate Eret).  It's aimed at an older audience, I think, but still retains the charm that will interest the younger ones - I certainly enjoyed it, it was as good as the first one!  It's like Toy Story - where the characters and voices are all the same, but it's a different story yet still as engrossing as the first.

I hope that in the next film, part of Hiccup remains that awkward and slight young man, whose leadership comes from the ability to see what is right no matter what the old habits may be, in that Toy Story tradition (though this movie is Dreamworks, not Pixar)  It's a movie that I think teaches some great values to my children and I can't wait to get it on Blu-Ray so I can watch it again!

Transcendence - WARNING SPOILERS!

I had watched the trailer for Transcendence and it looked interesting and had a good cast - but the internet reviews I had glanced at had abyssmal reviews, so despite those reviews, I went to see it and felt that I had to write about it.

I don't know what debuting director Wally Pfister, a gifted cinematographer in his films with Christopher Nolan, was hoping to extract from the surprise-free script by Jack Paglen. But all I can cull is: don't mess with Mother Nature and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Fortune-cookie stuff. Erase All.
- Peter Traves, Rolling Stone

After a cool, subdued, intellectually stimulating first act, the film offers an idea so impossible to digest, a concept that so obviously should have been poisoned at the script stage, that it beggars belief (literally) – and then bases the rest of the film around it. It doesn’t recover.
- CJ Johnson, ABC radio Australia

This is like a heavy-handed and humourless version of Spike Jonze's postmodern comedy Her, mulched in with the old sci-fi novel Donovan's Brain, about keeping someone's brain alive in a tank. We are invited to believe in Johnny Depp as a mathematical genius in the field of artificial intelligence.
- Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Yet there were also some positive reviews

TRANSCENDENCE, scripted by Jack Paglen, isn't your average sci-fi thriller, but a terrifically exciting exploration into the corruption of total power. The plotting is clever if, at times, not easy to follow, and the characters are given more complex motives than you find in lesser sci-fi movies. Johnny Depp is impressive as the quiet but increasingly fanatical genius whose evolution is the film's core, and the strong supporting cast includes Morgan Freeman as a more sceptical scientist, Kate Mara as the leader of the violent resistance, and Cillian Murphy as a CIA agent. Visually and dramatically, TRANSCENDENCE is a cut above the average, a film of ideas as well as thrills.
- At the Movies with Margaret and David

For the moment, anyone with a fondness for broad canvas, ideas-heavy sci-fi should ignore the negative scuttle and give Transcendence the benefit of the doubt. It may not be perfect, but it's a sincerely ambitious first feature from a film-maker who has both the technical skill and artistic vision to aim for the stars.
- Mark Kermode, The Observer

So what did I think?

Scathing reviews always prepare you for disappointment, so it was a pleasant surprise to see that I actually ENJOYED the film.  It is not an action packed techno-thriller, but a science fiction and love story.

Dr Will Caster (Depp) is an inspirational researcher into Artificial Intelligence, and his wife Evelyn Caster is a researcher in her own right.  Their good friend Max Waters (Paul Bettany), who is another scientist with a basis in programming ad philosophy joins with them to do a presentation on Artificial Intelligence in the hope they will be given a grant to continue their research.  The presentation appears to be a success, but Will is shot by anti-technology terrorists with a bullet that leaves him with radiation poisoning, and he is given a month to live.  These terrorists had also simultaneously hit AI labs across the globe, bringing their agenda to the forefront.

One lab had successfully managed to upload a Rhesus monkey's consciousness into a computer, and Evelyn decides she wants to do this for Will.  He agrees, and in his dying days Will is hooked up to the machines and the electrical data from his brain is uploaded to the giant mega computer that Will had built as part of his AI project.

Eventually Will dies and Evelyn and is consumed with trying to make the AI work.  She's about to throw it all in when there is a response and they realise that the transfer worked.  Will wants more knowledge, he needs access to the internet, be global.  Max has his hesitations, but he seems happy at the time that the procedure was a success.

As he leaves and having a drink, the anti-technology group approaches him, appealing to him to see what an abomination he has made, and how it is a threat to them all.  He tries to leave, but they kidnap him.  They initiate an attack to try to stop Will's upload into the internet, but were unsuccessful.  Now he is out there, global, in every system, all over the world.

Will and Evelyn need more power.  So they move to desert town and build up a massive underground server complex and massive solar farm to power it.  Will begins to use nanotechnology to heal human diseases, revive dead plants - in fact, to change the world.  The technology is amazing and a little scary.

As the movie moves on Max converts to the terrorists way of thinking and designs a virus to bring Will down.  This would mean that technology all over the world would be affected, shutting down technology would set civilisation back a century.

Evelyn begins to believe Max and offers herself as the carrier of the virus.  But at the end, you see that Will sees that everyone is afraid of him, though that was not the intention and he uploads the virus into himself via Evelyn and essentially kills himself.

I really enjoyed this film. The concept is not new - of a human-like AI - but the exploration of how we humans think how a machine would behave and how they would think.  The fear of how we, as less intellectual and less than perfect beings would exist in a world where a logical sentient being has the ability to run our existence like a god - it was entertaining, and thought provoking.  There was criticism that the end of the film, that an omnipotent computer brain was able to be undone by a simple virus that it knew about and did not undertake measures to preserve itself.  That however, was the clutch of the story - throughout the whole movie there was a fear that the new AI was going to destroy mankind and turn everyone into networked slaves (I'm thinking Star Trek Borg), but in the end, the AI was still the essence of the human, who loved his wife, and was trying to make her dream come true (which was to heal the world, eradicate disease) and he accepted that humanity was not ready for the revolution that he was bringing, and so accepted his death.  Much more human than computer.  I found that really evocative.  As expected with an academy award winner for cinematography, the movie is beautiful.

Another criticism is that the storyline was not believable.  I think they're referring to the nanotechnology. I admit that nanotech scares me because if they are like programs, or a virus, then they can mutate into something else, divert from their purpose.  The nanites were reapiring everything from the materials in the ground, using organic matter to reconstruct organic matter (like dead leaves or damaged eyes).  It may sound outrageous now but in the future that may really be how technology works.

This is a work of science fiction.  It's not meant to be a blockbuster.  I think it left a lot of food for thought especially in the post apocalyptic period.  I felt that the scathing reviews did the movie no justice.  But I recommend that you see it for yourself and decide - it's not the bitter disappointment that everyone has made it out to be.

Frozen - WARNING Spoilers!

When I went to Disneyland in California in November, there was a lot of hype about Frozen there - without giving away any storyline.  So I didn't know anything about it except there were two princess sisters, one of whom had the power of ice.  And that, was probably a good thing.

So our family outing included a movie, and people had who had seen Frozen had good things to say.  I purposely didn't read any reviews, and wanted to see if I would be pleasantly surprised.

In fact, I was more than pleasantly surprised.  I was amazed, and thrilled that this movie shows that Disney can move away from the classic princess storyline and give this amazing tale that appeals to children and adults.

I went to read about Frozen after I watched it, and found that it was co-written and co-directed by Jennifer Lee who also worked on Wreck-it Ralph.  I am not sure if that is why this movie is more feminine in its ideas and dialogue but it really shows and it is a REALLY good change.

Essentially the story is about two sister princesses - Elsa, the elder, has powers to control and create ice, and the younger, Anna is injured by Elsa in an accident when they were playing with her powers of ice.  The King and Queen rush to see the mountain trolls whom by magical means erase the memory from Anna's memory and cure the cold injury and the King and Queen decide to deal with the problem by hiding from the world and trying to get Elsa to control and conceal her powers.  A few years later, the King and Queen die in a sailing accident, and the two girls whom were very close as children are no longer as close, as Elsa hides on her own in her room in isolation to avoid hurting anyone else, much to Anna's dismay, as she attempts to engage her elder sister in games and play.

The day of coronation comes, and as feared, Elsa's powers are revealed leading her kingdom's followers and neighbouring kingdoms to fear her and she runs away.  The incident is precipitated by the sheltered Anna declaring her love to a neighbouring prince and they seek marriage after knowing each other less than a day, which Elsa tells her sister is foolish.  Elsa heads to the far north snowy mountains, not realising she has plunged her kingdom into an eternal winter.

Anna now understands why her sister has been so isolated and with an ice farmer, Kristoff, she goes to find her sister, leaving her fiance, Prince Hans, to run the kingdom, which he does rather admirably in her absence.  They meet a magical snowman, Olaf, who was created from Elsa's magic, a throwback to their younger days when they were the best of friends, building snowmen together.

As she confronts her sister and urges her to return with her, Elsa's powers explode in an emotional outburst, and Anna is struck in the chest with an ice bolt, which Elsa does not realise she has done. Kristoff takes her to see the mountain trolls, and they tell her that her heart is now frozen and without an act of true love, it cannot be melted.

Meanwhile, Prince Hans sets off to find Anna and Queen Elsa and they manage to subdue Elsa and return her to the kingdom with her hands enchained to attempt to contain her.

Anna and Kristoff think this means that she needs Prince Hans to kiss her, as he is her true love. But it is evident that Kristoff also loves Anna, and when Anna returns to kiss Hans, he reveals that he is only after the kingdom as being the 13th son, he would have never had a kingdom to rule.  His plan was to leave Anna to die a frozen death, and kill Queen Elsa for treason against her people.

Kristoff realises that he loves Anna and returns to try to save her.  Anna is looking for Kristoff, realising she loves him and he loves her.  Elsa escapes and is escaping along the ice and Hans is out hunting Elsa to kill her.  Anna suddenly sees Kristoff and they try to reach each other, and then Anna turns and sees Hans about to kill Elsa who is absorbed in her fear and grief from the powers she cannot control.  She runs to her sister, and shields her sister with her body as she is turned to a glittering statue of ice, and Hans' sword breaks as it strikes her statue.  Elsa and Kristoff are distraught as they realise what has happened.

That is the moment I realised what a tremendous film this was.  Because, that moment, I realised that for the first time, neither a prince nor a male hero, had saved the day.  Anna, when she went to sacrifice herself for her sister, in an act of pure love, melted her frozen heart.

And they lived happily ever after.

I doubt that children will realise this step from Disney.  I am truly impressed that finally, Disney is moving away from the females need men to save the day - and that females on their own can be heroines, in their own right.  If the feminists of the world are not celebrating this movie for not only flawlessly incorporating this into mainstream animation and a popular movie, then they really need their heads screwed on.  As a parent with a daughter, she enjoyed this film and begged to see it agian, and much to my relief, there was no mention of her needing a prince to save her.  I hope that she will grow to be a young lady who believes in herself, not one who grows up believing she needs to find a man (to marry) to solve her problems, as I think THAT is the message that I want her to grow up with.  And to value friendship, and ask for help when needed (after trying by yourself), no matter whether the friend be male, female, animal or inanimate.

I didn't watch this in 3D and I am not sure it needed to be.  It still plays very well in 2D and the ice is so beautiful and believable in all its shapes and forms, including the amazing castle on the mountain that Elsa created as her fortress of solitude.

The music has a more Broadway feel about it than previous Disney films - especially the song "Love is an Open Door".  I like musicals, and so does my daughter and husband, so everyone was running around the house singing "Do you want to build a snowman?" right after we watched the movie.  The words are engaging and the tunes catchy, and though at first I thought the bursts into song were too frequent, as the movie progressed I hardly noticed them amongst the dialogue.

9/10 in my opinion!

World War Z - how I liked the movie AND the book, and how it COULD happen

*** WARNING: SPOILERS! ***

When World War Z was advertised, I had no idea what it was about.  It didn't even occur to me that Z stood for Zombie until somebody told me.  It's not even that obvious from the trailers.  I do like seeing the major cities though in the posters that were out.  Of course, I like the Sydney one best.

Sydney, Australia

Berlin, Germany

Rome, Italy

Barcelona, Spain

Paris, France

Mexico City, Mexico

New York, USA

London, UK

Rio, Brazil

Moscow, Soviet Union

In the movie, the human race is infected by a saliva/blood borne virus that kills the host and animates it into a zombie. United Nations representative, Gerry Lane, has been asked by the government to try to track down the origin of the infection, and thus help find a vaccine to save the remaining population, and the rest of it plays out like Dawn of the Dead or Resident Evil or any of those other zombie movies with your fill of zombie action and scary moments.  Ultimately the solution lies in the zombies only attacking healthy people, so Gerry innoculates himself with a deadly virus and finds that the zombies largely ignore him.  There are some aspects from the book in it, but really, it's quite dissimilar.

There are some moments in the movie which I thought were great insights into human nature.  Jerusalem, Israel, was free from infection and when Gerry goes to investigate, they had early warning and their walls which were already high, were built even higher.  The whole city was built to repel attacks and so it survived quite well.  They also let in all refugees and Gerry found this a surprise, but they said "For every person we save, it's one less zombie to fight."  A really great sentiment, in my opinion.  Very different from the other perspective of saving a few people and then shutting out the rest so that they don't possibly contaminate the healthy population.

It's not a wonderful movie, but it's not bad for a zombie movie.  Entertaining, eye candy (in the form of Brad Pitt) and a bit of token science thrown in for an attempt at reality.

The book on the other hand (by Max Brooks), is a collection of war stories, collected 10 years after the Zombie war.  The interviewer is a United Nations agent, and the book is a wonderful insight into humanity in different cultures, as well as the different political methods which are unique to each country.  Zombies in the book walk, and don't run, and are relentless in their assault (unlike the movie where they chase you down).  They are also mindless in that they can't open doors, undo seatbelts - they are just automatons without reasoning, logic or learning who just seek and bite.  Zombies freeze in the cold, so many people went to the snow, but they reanimate when the snows melt.   They also are found in the ocean, walking along the ocean floor and can pop up on beaches after walking for long distances.  It is the brain which has to be destroyed for the zombie to stop, for even dismemebered, they will still come at a victim.

One recount of an organ transplant causing a zombie to rise was interesting - no doubt because of the organ trafficking that comes from China.  Another account by the someone in Tibet smuggling people out of China and how families would take their infected out seeking a cure was also quite interesting - it showed how the infection broke out in other places.  Another account of the Americans using chemical warfare in attempt to kill the healthy AND the undead merely provided more hosts for zombies - disastrous!  The Jerusalem story was very similar to the movie (obviously in a culture that had been constantly attacked for genocide multiple times), and in India, a place where people would make a pilgrimage to die became a zombie hot zone because people kept going there to die and then becoming zombies.  Another interesting facet of human behaviour was seen in a Palestinian refugee who was heading to Jerusalem, being dragged their by his father, thought that the zombie infection was some kind of cover-up or ruse, and even when inside the safety of Jerusalem, when he saw Israeli's fighting other Israeli's, he thought that it was a civil war and actually rejoiced for a moment before he saw the zombies for himself.

I really enjoyed the book.  I never thought war recounts could be interesting, but in this war story it was fighting an enemy that was relentless and unstoppable, with no agenda except human decimation.  It also dealt with the aftermath and rebuilding of civilisation.  How useful professions such health, farming, construction, engineering became the cornerstones for rebuilding society - and other professions which we value so highly in the current era such as banking, finance, and information technology suddenly became redundant.  Even the psychological aspect was dealt with in a really interesting manner - people were dying from "giving up" or "lack of hope" and someone went out and made movies of stories of hope which reduced the number of those sorts of deaths.

But the scary thing is that this COULD become possible - if mother nature decided to make it that way.  There are a number of mind controlling mechanisms between other species in nature that sound quite terrifying if they occurred in vertebrates or humans (information taken from io9).

The wasp Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga preys on the spider Plesiometa argyra in an Alien-like manner.  The female wasp stings the spider to paralyse it then lays an egg in its abdomen.  When the larva hatches, it feeds upon its host and the spider continues to go about its business as if nothing is wrong.  After a few weeks, the larva releases a chemical to build a web totally different from its normal web - basically just threads bonded together and the spider sits there waiting to die.  When the larva emerges, it kills its host with poison and sucks it dry, and then makes a cocoon which hangs from the web and the wasp will eventually emerge.  That the parasite can emit chemicals that can control the host's mind... creepy!

The Cordyceps family of fungi are all endoparasitic on insects and spiders.  The Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus attacks ants of the Camponotus leonardi species.  Once infected, the ant is compelled to go away from the nest to an area with specific types of conditions for the fungus to grow - and then clamps down with its jaws to the leaf to die there.  The fungus consumes all the ants tissues (except the muscles for clamping down with its mandibles) fortifying it structurally and once the fungus is ready to reproduce, the fruiting bodies erupt from the ant's head.  These ants when infected are commonly known as "zombie ants".  You can see an example of Cordyceps attacking ants on BBC here.  The Last of Us, a FPS game about zombies, the zombie infection is based upon Cordyceps.

Destroying the reproductive capabilities of its host is another nasty way for parasites to work.  The female larvae of the barnacle Sacculina carcini seek out crabs as their host.  They attach to the underside of her shell, creating a bulge which eventually becomes a knot.  Tendrils are then spread inside the host to draw nutrients.  A male Sacculina comes along and implants inside the female barnacle, and they continually reproduce.  The crab is now infertile and its behaviour is also modified by them - it stops growing and moulting and even cares for the barnacles' eggs.  If the crab infected was a male, the barnacle sterilises it and then causes changes in the crab to make it more like a female crab's body by widening and flattening the abdomen.  It forces hormone changes in the crab so that it acts more like a female, and also takes care of the barnacle's eggs.

The article details a great number of other interesting parasitic mind controlling infections - if you're into that kind of thing, I recommend reading it.

So my mind has been turning over these things since I watched the movie and read the book.  What if this happened?  What if I was a survivor?  What are the REALLY important things in life?  How can I be make my life a more productive and useful one?  I wonder if everyone who read the book ended up thinking these things - maybe not - but it is a really good example of how decadent and self indulgent our society has become, and maybe a good war would bring us back to the values which truly define the human spirit.