Reply #23: I liked the movie but you're not an asshole for not liking it [View All]

[skygazer]

I was struck by the same thing that XemaSab was - namely that people have this naive belief, fostered by so many years of technological innovation and living so far away from nature that they have no real comprehension of it, that they can survive on their own.

And while people do, in limited ways, at various times, people in general survive (and survived in the past) because of community.

But you know, he was a kid. I'm not sure why people expect so much sense and maturity from a kid who, from what I could see, lived a fairly privileged life and learned what he did from the people he met along the way once he was in his adulthood. I mean, some people grow up living closer to the land, hunting and so forth and so have more resources at their disposal than this kid did.

I think he did pretty well for himself considering all that. And I also think it was more a string of bad luck that did him in, rather than any particular stupidity on his part. That's usually the case - a poor decision combined with poor luck. Which can happen to anyone.

He was a kid.

What did sort of make me chuckle wryly though was the fact that throughout the movie, a point was hammered home about how awful his parents were and yet they were looking for him and worried sick about him. I disappeared for weeks or even months at a time starting when I was 15 and no one in my family ever even noticed I was gone, let alone looked for me.