Freedomain Radio

This is just referring to the movies, not the books:

I just saw The Bourne Ultimatum for the first time, and when it ended, I had a strong feeling that it ended with a conspicuously anti-war tone. I'm going to provide all of the evidence I can for the three movies being anti-war:

First of all, the reason he didn't kill that black president on the boat, which was the mission he failed which started the whole mess, was because the guy had children, a wife, a life, and Bourne didn't want to take that away. I can explain why this is anti-war, but it's pretty obvious, yes?

Second of all, innocent people are getting killed or badly hurt throughout the movie...Yes? Specifically his girlfriend in The Bourne Supremacy.

Thirdly, before he jumps off of the roof at the end of The Bourne Ultimatum, he asks the assassin, "Do you even know why you're supposed to kill me?" That hints at the fact that they are just hired killers, not heroes of any sort.

And then, of course, there's the fact that he willingly submitted himself to being brainwashed in the first place, and later found out that the people brainwashing him had not even close to the best intentions. Is this not parallel to every soldier who serves out of patriotism?

To me, the dots connect.
The trilogy is (even if mildly) an anti-war trilogy.
Of course, it glorifies violence in the fight scences.
That's just for box-office hits though.

Does anybody agree?

I haven't read your post because I have Ultimatum coming in Netflix tomorrow. I've been in the queue for nearing 70 hours now and I didn't want to trip over any spoilers in your post. But I will read it tomorrow and comment.

Alright! I'm looking forward to it.

I actually felt the movie echoed the sentiments that Stef expressed in his recent movie review on Freedom Writers.

The bad guys (including Bourne, Pamela Landy [the blonde CIA director lady], and Nicky [the young woman]) all switched sides and tirelessly worked to reform the system, risking their lives. At the end, Landy testified before Congress about reforming the CIA. The new CIA director Ezra Kramer was appointed at the beginning of the movie to reform the system. Reform, reform, reform, the bloodiest refrain in history.

However, the action sequences were still way cool. I especially liked the bits in London.

I think the ending with Bourne asking, "Do you even know why you're supposed to kill me?" was a good jab. But then he tergiversated and made it about them instead of about morality or ethics. "Ooh, lookit all we've had to give up. We've had to become monsters. Ooh, poor us." Please. And then more reform talk. And they apologized for the CIA when the deputy director ("Noah" was his name?) talked about how dangerous the world was and all. They never countered it with anything about how it was them making the world dangerous.

A fun movie, but a pretty weak message, and not really anti-statist.

YouTube video Movie Review: The Freedom Writers:

DanielOR:

fun movie, but a pretty weak message, and not really anti-statist.

The message was very mildly stated, no doubt.
It could be that, in the books, the message was more prominent, and the movie kind of dumbed it down.
That's what they did with The Golden Compass, and almost every other movie made from a book.

But I still felt the message was there.
It just wouldn't have been caught by the average, non-philosophical movie watcher.