Ernesto D.

Gonzales V STEM 12 – Lavoisier

Movie Analysis: GEOSTORM

Geostorm is a 2017 film that involves a futuristic solution to climate change– gone
wrong, and how they seemingly stopped this catastrophe from entering full scale. Apart from
the standard movie trope of a separated family, romance, and brotherly love being able to
stop antagonism, the movie also tells the story of how a man engineered a satellite system
that aimed to control weather conditions and keep natural calamities at bay, and how he
got kicked of it, at least until someone sabotaged the whole thing with a virus and him
getting sent back to space to “fix” it (spoiler, the whole thing exploded and he lived).
The depiction of futuristic geoengineering in the film was enough to leave audiences in
awe (if they aren’t duly knowledgeable of complex earth science and technology), but still
leaves them with questions unanswered by the time the credits roll showed up.
The main scientific context tackled by the film would be more on meteorology; weather
conditions and climate change that should be an easy feat for us to mitigate. However, the
movie went to the scenario that uncontrollable natural calamities actually occurred around
the world. Due to this, nations came up with a way to control this. Enter, DUTCHBOY: a
satellite system that is able to tamper with atmospheric conditions via a central system
and a “net” that surrounds the earth’s atmosphere. How these systems actually work is not
emphasized very well in the movie, however one can concur from what the movie can give is
that the satellites can affect the atmospheric condition of a certain area depending on
what is needed to be altered. This can also be seen at the parts of the movie where the
calamities became extreme, such as: extreme freezing temperatures at an area in Pakistan
and Brazil, scalding hot temperatures in Hong Kong and Russia, and countless cyclones in
India. It implies that those that can seldom if not impossible to happen in these countries
are made possible if this satellite system is treated as a weapon. Regarding the satellite
system’s actual mechanism, not much is also said, aside from the fact that they send
separate satellites for each particular area in the world and that they are connected to
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or more commonly known as NASA. To
further dig as to the inner workings of the DUTCHBOY would be too much for high school
students to handle, so we’ll work on what we have.
Cinematography-wise, some characters fit their roles and some do not. As the movie
was viewed for a more academic analysis, the nature of the actors who were in the film was
not much given attention. In a critic’s perspective, the cast could do extremely better.
Of course, the norm of the character’s roles affected how the actors were viewed throughout
the film: the protagonist as good, the antagonist as bad, yada yada yada. The movie was
cliché on some parts, but it makes way for the movie to be more easily digested by audiences.
To say the very least, the film depicts futuristic technology in a very interesting
way. A more scientific explanation as to how the DUTCHBOY from the movie would be highly
preferred. As of this time, it all still looks like a big leap compared to the technology
we have created and is currently experienced, but who knows? Maybe in the near future, the
government may come up with a countermeasure against climate extremities, and it would
happen to be just like DUTCHBOY. Knock on wood, I hope we don’t experience, dare I say– a
geostorm, anytime soon. 6/10.