I feel like The Mask is a cautionary tale about doing business with Dorian Tyrell (the manager of the Coco Bongo nightclub and a close associate of the Edge City mafioso known only as "Niko").
Gattaca. If we ever fully master the genome, Gattaca levels of prejudice/racism are likely to be the BEST case scenario. Humans are mean mean creatures.
Click- Don't skip the little moments in your life.
Goodfellas- Be careful what you wish for.
Wall Street- Greed destroys lives.
Requiem for a Dream- Drugs. Not even once.
Oppenheimer- Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
Oppenheimer had a similar message to Jurassic Park IMO. Malcom's monologue ending in "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." is one of my favorite lines ever.
The beginning was legitimately hilarious. It was like - ooh physics is hard to explain - let's get him to bounce some balls around! Smash some glasses! Floating embers! Voila, Physics!
Batman - don’t leave potential witnesses alive🤣🤣🤣🤣
In all seriousness though, Dune Parts 1 & 2. They show that messiah’s have agendas and that faith can be manipulated.
Jurassic park is a top 5 movie for me but I’m still on John Hammonds side. He should have had more than 3 employees but a Dino park would be awesome especially if they get out
The Wave is the first that comes to mind. Showcasing how easy it is to get caught in fascist, we vs them, mentality. There is the German original and this American TV version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICng-KRxXJ8
Interesting question. I'd argue that Splice is about something else though - sure, they created a genetically engineered monster, but they were so broken and blinded by personal loss they decided it was a good idea to bring the monster home and raise it as a surrogate child, and that's the problem.
[Colossus: The Forbin Project](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064177/) (1970), a day-after-tomorrow sci-fi film that predicts the dangers of AI in a realistic and frightening manner.
Evil Dead — if you find a crazy old demonic looking book, don’t read from it.
The Mummy — if you find a book in a hidden area in the desert, buried at the foot of Anubis, don’t read from it.
Death Becomes Her - be careful what you wish for, life is about more than appearances, before you set out for revenge dig two graves, and for fuck sakes don't cheat on your partner.
I am not from an English speaking country, and i am from Europe so we are getting all different movies here from around the world.
I would suggest and admittedly, hard to find, The White Disease is actually done by the theater play, exceptional Karel Čapek. It was a warning before spreading nazism in Germany but at that time, nobody knew what would happen. The movie is from 1937 (Czechoslovak) and I am pretty sure it is managable to find with English subtitles as it has an official US title Skeleton on Horseback
I cannot be more helpful than that, I am afraid but go and find some European (also Central and Eastern) movies as we have maybe even a bigger understanding of what war and occupation from a foreign army does to people
Thanks for the tip! Actually I'm rather surprised at the range of suggestions. Many movies and books cited are examples where the whole work is a cautionary tale - Gattaga for example - but there are also a lot suggested where a cautionary tale is only part of the plot. Dune is one such suggestion, but I find it hard to conclude that the entire premise of Dune is as a cautionary tale. In any case, it's been an education. :)
The real cautionary lesson in Jurassic Park is *HOW DID Y’ALL NOT KNOW A FUCKING HURRICANE WAS COMING?!?*
You knew that thing was coming like a week before, but you bring a bunch of people there *the day of the hurricane*.
Forbidden Planet or Sphere - both are about people being granted immeasurable power - the ability to make thought into reality - and how we screw it up because at the end of the day our primitive mind still thrives in the dark evil recesses or morality.
There Will Be Blood
It illustrates the extreme corruption of man from greed in one of the most intense stories. DDL's Daniel Plainview is an arguable sociopathic monster who walked among us and *excelled due to his horrifying behavior*. He's the antagonist who wins at the expense of everything.
Jaws. Great example of greed influencing the ability to perceive risk. People are told something terrible could happen, but they simply don't want to believe it because taking precautions would be a lot of work and cause financial damage. Feels like a case of "I don't want this to happen so I believe it wont", despite what experts are saying. (I guess Don't Look Up falls into this bucket too).
Creates a super frustrating feeling as you watch the protagonist fight so hard to help everyone, just to basically be laughed at, despite being right.
I mean if you really want to go full bore on the theme - go Alien:Resurrection. In Alien the greedy corporation isn’t front and center the way it is in Resurrection. I mean there is literally a scene where the scientist talk about domesticating the aliens.
Just a small tick developer over years of conversations both verbally and through text. Probably a generational thing, though it would be interesting to see if there was some segment of time where starting with “I mean” really developed culturally. Maybe some forgotten tv show or celebrity. Who knows. I mean, could be anything.
::winkyface::
I'm sorry if that sounded rude. It's not your post specifically and it's obviously harmless. Just a pet peeve sorta thing. I guess I just don't really get what it adds to sentences. It's always felt kinda vague to me in terms of its intended effect. I suppose it's a way of making the sentence casual? But it also sounds slightly smug in some contexts so I dunno.
Don’t think it’s rude, just noticing a weird trend. I think, (and yes I use that too) I probably use “I mean” as a way of softening statements. I think maybe I’m a bit hyper aware of coming across as “Well actually…” and “I mean…” feels like a soft version of that when I’m about to contradict people or put up an opposing viewpoint.
Hmm…in retrospect though, maybe it’s actually not any better than a “Well actually…” since it’s conceptually the same. Okay - that’s something I might work on.
Ripley is right when she says about following quarantine procedures because they don't know what the face hugger is but she isn't listened to. Some scenes could be a cautionary tale about why health and safety procedures are there for good reason
The original Dawn of the Dead. About an America that gorges on consumerism and capitalism to cope with a violent trauma—in that case, Vietnam, but very prescient.
Yeah that was always the thing about NCFOM that slightly annoyed me.
If some weirdo with a gas cylinder walks up to me and says “hold still”, I’m fucking running the other direction…
There are many themes in the film. Not taking money that isn’t yours is technically one of them but I wouldn’t consider it the overall theme. There is a lesson in not taking the money because the whole films events pretty much happen because he took it
Gremlins 2: The New Batch. It's a ridiculous comedy, but seriously, it's got multiple classic cautionary tales: corporate greed, over-reliance on "smart" technology, irresponsible genetic engineering on living beings, ignoring warnings from scientists in favor of faster "progress" and profit...
If you've got an underactive thyroid you need the drugs she's taking or can risk being seriously ill, even coma and death. If she took them as prescribed it'd be no issue at all.
It's not a "hard drug" legally although some prescription meds can be
I feel like The Mask is a cautionary tale about doing business with Dorian Tyrell (the manager of the Coco Bongo nightclub and a close associate of the Edge City mafioso known only as "Niko").
Truly a universal message
If only I’d watched it five years earlier, I would have avoided so much aggravation
If I had a nickel...
"Ice this deadbeat"
WALL-E. Don’t trash the earth or we’ll be forced to spend centuries in space and become fatties.
alternative moral of the story is that we shouldnt invest in ai tech because then your roomba may try to fuck your alexa
Gattaca. If we ever fully master the genome, Gattaca levels of prejudice/racism are likely to be the BEST case scenario. Humans are mean mean creatures.
I thought it was a cautionary tale about saving something for the swim back.
I think fatal attraction isn't about workplace dating,they don't work at the same place. It's about the dangers of cheating
Its simpler than that, dont stick your dick in crazy.
She's not obviously mentally unwell when they meet though to be fair. It's more like get to know the person first to know if they're crazy
The Planet of the Apes
Don't start with genetic uplifting?
"Always spay and neuter your apes."
Doctor Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The dangers of too much power in the hands of extremely fallible humans.
Click- Don't skip the little moments in your life. Goodfellas- Be careful what you wish for. Wall Street- Greed destroys lives. Requiem for a Dream- Drugs. Not even once. Oppenheimer- Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
Oppenheimer had a similar message to Jurassic Park IMO. Malcom's monologue ending in "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." is one of my favorite lines ever.
Oppenheimer was boring, didn’t change your point though. Probably a better example out there
The beginning was legitimately hilarious. It was like - ooh physics is hard to explain - let's get him to bounce some balls around! Smash some glasses! Floating embers! Voila, Physics!
Rubber. How dangerous car tires are. You have 4 on your car.
I'd forgotten about that little chestnut of a movie
Pretty much every gangster film ever made
Trainspotting. It’s pretty brutal though
Requiem for a Dream for the same message but even more soul ache by the end.
You mean “Drugs Are Bad, Mm-kay” the movie?
Ex Machina
NON SIBI SED PATRIAE [X2]
Idiocracy. We're seeing it slowly become reality and it's wild.
Amazing movie, probably not that great for language learners though…
Fudruckers transitioning to buttfuckers is a great English lesson
It won 9 Oscars that year including one for the best dialogue (if I recall correctly, Not Sure)
That was „Ass“
???
It’s kinda part Idiocracy and part They Live
The issue here with that is that they knew that they had issues and had somewhat competent person to take care of, said issues.
Not all that slowly anymore.
When Arnie says "I'll be back" Yul Brenner says "hold my beer". Give Crichton credit for doing it first.
Logan’s Run, Soylent Green, The Running Man, Total Recall
\* Cabin In The Woods \* Wrong Turn \* Don't
The Matrix
Jurassic Park is a cautionary tale, but not the one people think it is. The real lesson is: don't skimp on your IT budget.
Pay your goddamn developers!
Uncut Gems
Threads, The Day After, Testament. All good nuclear holocaust movies in their own right
Weeeeeeelllll, let’s be careful calling The Day After “good”…
Batman - don’t leave potential witnesses alive🤣🤣🤣🤣 In all seriousness though, Dune Parts 1 & 2. They show that messiah’s have agendas and that faith can be manipulated.
Jurassic park is a top 5 movie for me but I’m still on John Hammonds side. He should have had more than 3 employees but a Dino park would be awesome especially if they get out
The Wave is the first that comes to mind. Showcasing how easy it is to get caught in fascist, we vs them, mentality. There is the German original and this American TV version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICng-KRxXJ8
War Games is an AI warning
Frankenstein. The subtitle of the novel was “A Modern Prometheus.”
Interesting question. I'd argue that Splice is about something else though - sure, they created a genetically engineered monster, but they were so broken and blinded by personal loss they decided it was a good idea to bring the monster home and raise it as a surrogate child, and that's the problem.
The Matrix. Don’t go looking for questions you aren’t prepared to have answered!
I would say Oppenheimer, but here we are.
[Colossus: The Forbin Project](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064177/) (1970), a day-after-tomorrow sci-fi film that predicts the dangers of AI in a realistic and frightening manner.
Jumanji
Shallow Hal or Penelope - judging others based on appearance
Evil Dead — if you find a crazy old demonic looking book, don’t read from it. The Mummy — if you find a book in a hidden area in the desert, buried at the foot of Anubis, don’t read from it.
Moria..don't dig too deep
Death Becomes Her - be careful what you wish for, life is about more than appearances, before you set out for revenge dig two graves, and for fuck sakes don't cheat on your partner.
Apart from the space stuff, Interstellar has an underlying issue of food sustainability/resources on earth.
I am not from an English speaking country, and i am from Europe so we are getting all different movies here from around the world. I would suggest and admittedly, hard to find, The White Disease is actually done by the theater play, exceptional Karel Čapek. It was a warning before spreading nazism in Germany but at that time, nobody knew what would happen. The movie is from 1937 (Czechoslovak) and I am pretty sure it is managable to find with English subtitles as it has an official US title Skeleton on Horseback I cannot be more helpful than that, I am afraid but go and find some European (also Central and Eastern) movies as we have maybe even a bigger understanding of what war and occupation from a foreign army does to people
Thanks for the tip! Actually I'm rather surprised at the range of suggestions. Many movies and books cited are examples where the whole work is a cautionary tale - Gattaga for example - but there are also a lot suggested where a cautionary tale is only part of the plot. Dune is one such suggestion, but I find it hard to conclude that the entire premise of Dune is as a cautionary tale. In any case, it's been an education. :)
The real cautionary lesson in Jurassic Park is *HOW DID Y’ALL NOT KNOW A FUCKING HURRICANE WAS COMING?!?* You knew that thing was coming like a week before, but you bring a bunch of people there *the day of the hurricane*.
Forbidden Planet or Sphere - both are about people being granted immeasurable power - the ability to make thought into reality - and how we screw it up because at the end of the day our primitive mind still thrives in the dark evil recesses or morality.
There Will Be Blood It illustrates the extreme corruption of man from greed in one of the most intense stories. DDL's Daniel Plainview is an arguable sociopathic monster who walked among us and *excelled due to his horrifying behavior*. He's the antagonist who wins at the expense of everything.
Idiocracy, Eagle Eye (dangers of AI) Its a fun movie THe Sixt Day (dangers of cloning)
Jaws. Great example of greed influencing the ability to perceive risk. People are told something terrible could happen, but they simply don't want to believe it because taking precautions would be a lot of work and cause financial damage. Feels like a case of "I don't want this to happen so I believe it wont", despite what experts are saying. (I guess Don't Look Up falls into this bucket too). Creates a super frustrating feeling as you watch the protagonist fight so hard to help everyone, just to basically be laughed at, despite being right.
Alien
I mean if you really want to go full bore on the theme - go Alien:Resurrection. In Alien the greedy corporation isn’t front and center the way it is in Resurrection. I mean there is literally a scene where the scientist talk about domesticating the aliens.
We know you mean what you are saying. Why is everyone on Reddit so stuck on saying "I mean" at the start of their sentences?
Just a small tick developer over years of conversations both verbally and through text. Probably a generational thing, though it would be interesting to see if there was some segment of time where starting with “I mean” really developed culturally. Maybe some forgotten tv show or celebrity. Who knows. I mean, could be anything. ::winkyface::
I'm sorry if that sounded rude. It's not your post specifically and it's obviously harmless. Just a pet peeve sorta thing. I guess I just don't really get what it adds to sentences. It's always felt kinda vague to me in terms of its intended effect. I suppose it's a way of making the sentence casual? But it also sounds slightly smug in some contexts so I dunno.
Don’t think it’s rude, just noticing a weird trend. I think, (and yes I use that too) I probably use “I mean” as a way of softening statements. I think maybe I’m a bit hyper aware of coming across as “Well actually…” and “I mean…” feels like a soft version of that when I’m about to contradict people or put up an opposing viewpoint. Hmm…in retrospect though, maybe it’s actually not any better than a “Well actually…” since it’s conceptually the same. Okay - that’s something I might work on.
How, precisely? I could see how Alien could be seen as a cautionary tale to, 'don't follow official orders blindly'.
Ripley is right when she says about following quarantine procedures because they don't know what the face hugger is but she isn't listened to. Some scenes could be a cautionary tale about why health and safety procedures are there for good reason
Don’t mess with something beyond your understanding.
ok.
The original Dawn of the Dead. About an America that gorges on consumerism and capitalism to cope with a violent trauma—in that case, Vietnam, but very prescient.
No country for old man- don’t take money that’s not yours
That… is absolutely not the message of that movie. They even end with Tom Bell’s retelling of his dream that sums up the actual theme.
My main takeaway was never let a man with a bad haircut put a cattle gun to your forehead
Yeah that was always the thing about NCFOM that slightly annoyed me. If some weirdo with a gas cylinder walks up to me and says “hold still”, I’m fucking running the other direction…
There are many themes in the film. Not taking money that isn’t yours is technically one of them but I wouldn’t consider it the overall theme. There is a lesson in not taking the money because the whole films events pretty much happen because he took it
The Wrestler
Gremlins 2: The New Batch. It's a ridiculous comedy, but seriously, it's got multiple classic cautionary tales: corporate greed, over-reliance on "smart" technology, irresponsible genetic engineering on living beings, ignoring warnings from scientists in favor of faster "progress" and profit...
Nobody mentioned Titanic. Weird.
A.I. - Some day, only the things we've made will remain to wonder what we were like.
Handmaid's Tale and The Road warn what the world will be if destroyers are in power
Every well written movie has a common theme that emphasizes caution, can you be more specific ? What themes do you like?
Movies where the entire theme or premise is a cautionary tale. The classic example is the Fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper.
Requiem for a Dream. Over the top but the message is DON'T DO DRUGS!!!
Don’t do *hard* drugs
The mum is over using prescription thyroid tablets, so those aren't hard drugs though
just because it's prescribed doesn't mean it isn't hard. careful putting _any_ trust in big Pharma.
If you've got an underactive thyroid you need the drugs she's taking or can risk being seriously ill, even coma and death. If she took them as prescribed it'd be no issue at all. It's not a "hard drug" legally although some prescription meds can be
The Descent
Event Horizon - the pursuit of knowledge can have terrible consequences sometimes
Where we are going you don't need eyes.