La Ron S. Readus
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The True Plot of Raised by Wolves (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2020-09-07 20:00:05 +0000 UTC
Oh, you best believe Im gonna be making the most out of this stream subscription
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Readers, HBO Max released the first 3 episodes of their new original science fiction series, Raised By Wolves
It’s a very interesting show in its own right, along with the fact that it’s produced and its first two episodes are directed by on again off again decent human being Ridley Scott.
/But out of all of the projects I’ve seen at this magnitude, I must say that one of the main things that impresses me is the fact that out of the HBO Max original live-action series we’ve received so far, this is one of the first that I’ve seen that is 100% a completely original intellectual property; IP for short/
That means it’s not a remake of a past movie or TV show, it’s not an adaptation from a single novel or a series of novels, it’s a wholly original idea
Which, even still, is technically to a certain extent a contradiction, because ideas aren’t original. At least not anymore
What do I mean by that? Well, I mean that there’s no such thing as an original idea, even if one claims to be
Those that claim to be are usually the offspring of an amalgamated melting pot of influences in order to establish things like lore, backstory, characters and plot. Hopefully in a way that uses the combination of said influences, references and tropes either in a way that we haven’t seen them play out before or executes the ideals and themes the combination of said influences better than the way a similar piece of work did in the past.
It’s usually why whenever I review movies, I don’t really give it any negative points when I watch an IP thats new to me and compare elements of the story to others I’ve seen before.
It would be absolutely unfair for me to say something like James Cameron’s Avatar sucks just on the merit of it being a sci-fi retelling of Dances With Wolves, when the ACTUAL reason James Cameron’s Avatar sucks is because it’s just so fucking BORING
And there were definitely a few influences from other works that I noticed throughout the first 3 episodes of Raised By Wolves. The most obvious one being the white-colored blood that androids produce being a nod to the blood that androids have in Ridley Scott’s most notable sci-fi film Alien.
But what intrigued me about the first three episodes was what I was able to piece together about the show’s overall story, which admittedly was a slow burn at first. But once it started to reveal itself, I was pretty much invested in seeing how this modern take on a cinematic classic was going to be handled.
Don’t know what I’m talking about? Don’t worry, I’ll explain
Let’s start with the setup. Basically Earth is either destroyed or uninhabitable thanks to -- go figure -- a worldwide civil war.
However, and I kinda blame Ridley Scott for this despite the show being created by Aaron Guzikowski, the factions in this war are the religious vs atheists.
/The religious sect called the Mithrai worship Sol; a god that’s a mix of the Judeau-Christian god and Pelor from Dungeons and Dragons./
They’re like if science and technology fell into the lap of the Crusaders from Kingdom of Heaven -- another movie directed by Ridley Scott.
/Meanwhile atheists don’t believe in Sol or any god, while the higher-ups rely on science and science alone./
The Mithrai WON the civil war, but at the cost of the human race nearly going extinct. So the atheist higher-ups program androids as caregivers and send them to distant worlds capable of sustaining life along with a dozen or so human embryos in order to raise them and repopulate the species under the scientific doctrine of atheism.
We see all of this in the first 3 episodes, and more.
/Atheist members of the military undergoing plastic surgery and assuming new identities to assimilate with the Mithrai in an attempt at survival, showing off the hypocrisies and zealousness of the Mithraic order when it comes to rank and power/
/And how the conflict and its aftermath is affecting Campion; the youngest of the 12 children raised by the Mother and Father androids and also the last survivor of the attempted colonization of the planet -- who is constantly conflicted between science and faith after watching all of his siblings die and the Mother unit revealing herself to be a Necromancer; a wartime android that was created to destroy human life./
But what made me realize what the theme and plot Raised By Wolves was going to form into was when I heard about the Mithraic prophecy in two out of the three episodes
/That an orphaned child would be found and lead the people to a land where they can build a city of peace and live in harmony/
And after piecing together the themes that the three episodes revealed itself, and ESPECIALLY after seeing Mother enter her Necromancer form, I realized what piece of work is the main inspiration for this show.
Raised By Wolves...is Metropolis.
More specifically, the black and white silent film Metropolis.
For those unfamiliar, Metropolis is a German film that was made in 1927 and was one of the first feature-length science fiction films made in the world.
/It takes place in a dystopian future where the rich and the working class are pretty much at war with each other because the working class realizes that the elite need them in order for the city to function. Through the deceptive tactic of the industrialists creating a robot to take on the guise of Maria -- the face of the worker rebellion -- in order to sway them away, Metropolis quickly dives into chaos, its up to Freder Fredersen, son of the city’s master Joh to rescue the real Maria after learning about the damage that the divide has done, and become the mediator between his father and Grot the guardian of the heart machine in order to save the city./
It’s a very beautiful film with a surprisingly very Communist message behind it, considering it was made in the 1920’s.
And nowadays, it can EASILY be adapted to the more democratic socialist ideologies a lot of people are trying to steer America in. And that’s mostly due to the films message and its slogan:
/The mediator between the head and the hands is the heart/
In the case of Metropolis, the head are the rich and those who reap the rewards of high society; the Rockerfellers, the Carnegies, the Trumps. They’re the ones who design the planes and the cars and live lavish lifestyles after selling the blueprints.
The hands are the workers, the ones who not only keep the city working, but also keep the coppers of the rich filled as a result. Unlike the ones who design the planes and the cars, they actually know how and what it takes to FIX them when they break down.
And in order for these two to work together, there must be a mediator in order to get them both to see that there must be an understanding between the two in order for the whole to thrive.
Considering everything the first three episodes revealed us, this is the direction that I believe Raised By Wolves is going to go in. But instead of it being about mending the relationship between the working and upper classes, it's going to be an attempt at mending the relationship between religion and science.
/We already have our Freder in the form of Campion, who’s lived his entire life learning about the importance of facts and science in comparison to faith, and entertains the idea of faith despite it because of how bleak his upbringing is./
/And then there’s Paul, the child of two Mithraic soldiers who’ve been replaced with Atheist refugees that may be our Maria./
Both of these children meet the qualifications of the individual talked about in the prophecy, which I won’t spoil if you’re interested in watching this show for yourself.
But seeing that the plot for Raised By Wolves is a more faith-based retelling of the 1927 movie Metropolis has me VERY interested in which direction the remaining 7 episodes of the season is going to take.
/And more importantly, who is going to end up being the Heart that mediates the head with the hands; Campion, or Paul./
But, I digress, Readers. Your homework assignment for the day:
Write in the comment section below what you think about Raised By Wolves so far if you’ve seen it
Or if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class, what YOU think is the inspiration for the plot of Raised By Wolves.
Whichever you decide to answer, I’d love to know your thoughts.
