But then the sort of main force that's opposing the United States government is an alliance called

the Western forces that is just California and Texas. So they're not geographically contiguous.

And also, and I think this is quite deliberate too. This is like what's done with the Nick Offerman

president character. This is not a movie that's even willing to partake in some kind of red versus blue binary.

It has all the makings of a film animated by those concerns.

It is a film written through with fears about polarization

and how polarization and division are destroying everything and blah, blah, blah.

But this is a film that very willfully does not want the polarization to be grafted

onto present-day partisan divisions, and so thus deliberately constructs a very implausible alliance

between Texas and California. One final thing I'll say about all this, just to underscore the point,

there is very deliberately no political specificity, none, given to any of the divisions in this film.

It is not clear what this war is about.

It is not clear when the war started.

It is not clear what ideological persuasions these different factions represent.

The film has no opinion on who the good guys or the bad guys are.

It's got absolutely nothing.

So that's what we're working with here.

I'm partly saying that as a criticism.

It is a criticism because I think if the film wanted to have anything to say,

it would need to have more specificity.

But it also is very deliberate.

This is a conscious choice that Garland and the people behind this film is made.

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