[graposaymaname]

Strongly recommend watching ‘Metropolis (1927)’ if you’re into film history. It’s one of the oldest science fiction movies ever, and is still a good watch. It’s about a humanoid robot and an authoritarian government.

I saw it this week and was baffled by the insight and the scale of it.

[a-dub]

> It’s about a humanoid robot and an authoritarian government.

you really think so? it's true that the government in the film was authoritarian, but the plight of the workers seemed far more salient than the structure of power that was keeping them in their place.

[Fissionary]

Spoilers: I found the movie's portrayal of a social conflict quite disappointing.

The movie goes as far as showing that oppressed workers will lash out in a violent protest, but then it deflects this anger towards the mad scientist, and the conflict kind of fizzles out? And I think it ends with the owner of the factory promising not to oppress them as much, and the owner's privileged son promising to upkeep this, basically reinforcing the existing social order.

Doing anything else would stray dangerously towards socialism, though, so as a product of its time it's understandable.

[pram]

I found the conclusion closer to the 'class collaboration' ideology of Fascism.

Capital and labor are both dysfunctional in the movie, and this is portrayed in a typical socialist way: The upper classes are libertine, corrupt, inattentive, immoral. Labor is overworked, unrepresented, exploited.

However when labor tries to emancipate themselves from the oppressive and rigid order imposed, chaos ensues. They can't manage themselves correctly! So the ultimate solution is a synthesis. The classes stay in their positions (because this is the natural order) but conditions will be improved and so on

[d0mine]

"natural order" argument reminds me how Aristotle describes a natural slave as "anyone who, while being human, is by nature not his own but of someone else" and further states "he is of someone else when, while being human, he is a piece of property; and a piece of property is a tool for action separate from its owner." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_slavery

"natural" does NOT mean good or that it is worth preserving.

[MichaelMoser123]

there was the play R.U.R by Karel Čapek. The play is from 1921, and it coined the word 'Robot'.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R.

Now in the plot "the robots revolt and cause the extinction of the human race".

Also there is his older brother, the Golem. He has his own movie from 1915.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golem_(1915_film)

[peoplefromibiza]

Metropolis is actually about the fear of the mass industrialization and the class struggle. Fritz Lang was Austrian, but the movie was produced in Germany in a period were things were quite grim there.

The protagonist of Metropolis is in the title: Metropolis, the city, from the greek μητρόπολις, meter = mother, polis = city (or state).

[msla]

Metropolis is proof that big, unsubtle Special Effects Pictures go back to the silent era.

The movie's Big Philosophical Statement is people should be nice to each other, but the visual effects were unmatched at the time and hold up well even now, assuming you find a good restoration. It's truly a marvel of its era, in every possible sense.

[somedude895]

Always blows my mind that the film is from 1927. The definition of avant-garde.

[herodoturtle]

+1 would recommend.

Stumbled across this movie as a youngster, very much thanks to a certain iconic scene:

“Burn’s wetware matches her software.”