Movie Reaction 1: Lord of the Flies (1990)

The movie is titled "The Lord of the flies" directed by Harry Hook under the production of Castle Rock Entertainment it is a movie based on William Goldings novel of the same title. It is also the second movie adaptation following Peter Brooks 1963's Lord of the Flies screenplayed by Goldings himself. The movie features young cadet teenage boys from a military school whose plane crashes at a remote island in the Pacific. It revolves around the boys creating a small civilize band under the leadership of a kid named Ralph. 

The movie emphasizes how human nature, fear, and greed for power dismantles a civil society and ultimately destroys humanity itself. It tries to deliver the fact that humans are the beasts that they themselves fears alot. When order and leadership dwindled humans turn into the physical embodiment of their dark thoughts, violence ensues as one group veers into savagery and seeks to destroy the other in a competition for dominance.

The group of stranded boys came up with an idea to survive, they must unite as a single faction to remain alive in that remote island somewhere in the Pacific. The fat boy with glasses found a conch seashell and takes it to the grouped cadets, who adopt it to signal the right to speak and be heard by the group. At first they we're civilized, fully adhering to liberal democracy and even initiated an election to vote for a leader, which is soon turned to be Ralph. But as time pass by Jack and Ralphs relationship begun to develop tension, Jack wants power which he don't have in the beginning and subconsciously wishes to be the the leader of the band. A heated argument due to Jack's failure became the reason of a major conflict and this is all where it started. The feud between this two opposing powers became one of the major downfall of their little civilization. This forced Jack to fulfill his inner wish—to create his own government which soon prioritized foraging rather than being saved and rescued. His militaristic leadership somewhat reflects the current society we face nowadays. Nations focuses on amassing arms for warfare rather than spending resources on major priorities. It is his greed for power that turned them into savages who commits barbaric acts.

Their human nature kicked in at that very moment, they were lawless, a beast feasting on false glory and strength. Because that is how we human act, when we constraint away from reason we lead ourselves towards savagery. Human beings are savage by nature, and are moved by primal urges toward selfishness, brutality, and dominance over others. We are molded in a capitalistic society where greed thrives so much that people even started to turn against each other, betray one another and aim higher orbits at the expense of someones life. Greed is the defining feature of this era, greed for power to remain in the status qou spawned several wars that claimed the life of many, greed for money caused exploitation of labor and death due to corporations prioritizing profits rather than the consumers well being. But this doesn't mean that we are essentially evil, we are sometimes pushed by something— an external reason, an idea or something that pushes us to our limits. Jack was a reasonable person once, but something pushed him to the limits of his humane senses, greed and fear pushed him to turn into the embodiment of all the factors that make societies fall apart. Greed is part of human nature but the dark thoughts lingering deep in our consciousness can only come out when fear takes over.

The fall of rule of law wasn't just caused by Jack's fear of loosing power over his hunters, but it is due to more complicated kind of fear. At the beginning they fear something sinister in the forest, they fear "the beast" that they believe roams in the deep and dark jungle. Their fear was bolstered when one of the boys mistakenly stabbed the pilot believing that he is a monster or the beast and mistook his groans as the monsters voice. Apparently one of Ralphs allies named Simon discovered that there's no real beast, he then proceed to exit at the cave but the hunter boys where frightened and mistook Simon as the beast (probably because of the light which I think is very stupid). That same exact fear on something that they can't see blocked their ability to rationalize and forced them to abandon reason itself ultimately turning into savages. That is the same fear that nation's carry in this society, the fear of something that doesn't really exist. The beast is within them lingering deep beneath their troubled hearts, this fear makes them unable to trust one another. This nations are like Jack's Hunter gatherer group they their let fear take over their society of law and reason and when they were able to find the truth that the real enemy is the distrusts that lies within themselves and found a chance to let go of this fear, they will choose not to so they can keep their power. 

Humans biggest enemy is humanity itself. 

Because we humans are nothing but animals that needs to be tamed. Without law, ethics and morality to guide us we will be nothing but a race of savages like our old primitive ancestors long ago. Lord of the Flies gives an intriguing view of human behavior when people are in a society where rules of a civilized society are no longer existent. It alerts us of our potential to descend from order to chaos when the time is right. In a situation, when a society is unable to control a man's behavior, the man's sense of cruelty increases therefore leading to violence and savage behavior. The idea of the dark side of human nature appears very accurate as one man's act of violence against another is seen every day whether on a small individual scale or big global war. This movie delivers an important message to all; man's hope to recognize and control the monster within man himself is with a civilized society. 

Thank you for reading ❤️❤️

Written by: Mr. Zeus R. Gongob