Greetings, and welcome to Earthling Cinema.
I am your host, Garyx Wormuloid.
This week's artifact is Doctor Strange, starring
patron saint of cheekbones and Revolutionary
War scapegoat Benedict Arnoldbatch.
The film follows an Earthling doctor named
Stevie Strange who thinks he's all that and
a bag of starch wafers.
But then a car crashes into his hands and
he can't be doctor no more.
He tries everything to fix them, including
whining, but nothing works.
Then he learns that there's such a thing as
Eastern medicine, so he travels to Asia to
meet a middle-aged white lady with a British
accent who agrees to teach him fireworks.
Strange studies super hard and reads a whole
bunch of library books, almost as if he's
never heard of Thug Notes.
He even reads stuff from the secret, off-limits
section labeled "time control powers that
might come in handy later."
The librarian tells him not to be such a nerd
or he'll end up like Kaecilius, a former student
who liked spells so much he joined the Dark
Side of the Force in an entirely different
Disney franchise.
Kaecilius's ears are burning, so he shows
up to see who's talking smack.
And this time he's joined by his new squeeze,
an evil space cloud named Dormammu.
Kaecilius kills the Middle-Aged British One
and destroys two of the three magic buildings
that protect Earth, but not before revealing
the Middle-Aged One's darkest secret: she's
bald.
Strange stops off for a quick makeover montage,
then meanders over to Hong Kong to protect
the final magic building before tea.
The only problem is that tea is almost over
and Dormammu is already slurping down Planet
Earth like it's his job, which it isn't, because
clouds can't have jobs.
Strange uses his illegal time powers to trap
Dormammu with him in a single moment forever,
a.k.a. my wife's signature move.
Finally they strike a deal, and Strange sets
Dormammu free on the condition that he go
bother some other planet full of innocent
people that's out of his jurisdiction.
Doctor Strange explores the nature of human
consciousness, especially if you watch it
high as shit.
In the beginning, Strange views the world
as a materialist and a reductionist, as evidenced
by his lack of facial hair.
He's a basic bitch, so he believes any phenomenon,
no matter how complex, can be reduced to its
most basic physical mechanisms.
That and he loves pumpkin spice lattes.
This ideology contributes to Strange's lack
of empathy.
Since to him people are just masses of cells,
he can ignore intangibles like emotion or
human decency and freely behave like a sweaty
little plasma-sack.
He feels no particular inclination to help
people in need unless one or more of those
people are him.
But Strange adopts a more metaphysical perspective
when the Middle-Aged One grants him his holy
goatee and opens his "eye".
The film draws from religions such as Hinduism
in its use of the eye to represent a tiny,
near-sighted gateway to higher consciousness.
The eyes of Kaecilius and the zealots are
blackened and oozing, reflecting their abuse
of this gateway, not to mention their punk
rock lifestyle.
Another prevalent theme in the movie is time,
which Kaecilius views as not being on his
side, no it isn't.
Doctor Strange is similarly fixated with the
hands of time, despite the fact that hands
are a sore subject for him.
Medicine is a battle against the clock, all
in the hopes of fending off death as long
as possible.
But as he learns from his culturally-appropriating,
snow white guru, life is meaningful only insofar
as it is finite.
Strange embraces this wisdom when he demonstrates
his willingness to sacrifice his life over
and over to save the ones he loves and also
the ones he only likes as a friend.
Whereas Strangehe once collected expensive watches
that reflected his cavalier attitude toward
time, in the end, Strange wears only a broken
keepsake as a reminder that his life will
someday end, and that he must value his life
and the people in it.
At least until he can make a trip to the watch store.
For Earthling Cinema, I'm Garyx Wormuloid.
Time...
to go.
