Shoot First, Science It Later

It is the basic plot of many monster movies around. Monster attack, scientists want to capture and study them, military want to make sure monsters keep being fairy tales, scientists and soldiers clash, which allow the monsters to kill more people, scientists are either killed or have to kill the creature themselves or the military finally use their full force to bring the monster down.

The message seems to be that if anything is dangerous, it should be eliminated as fast as possible. There is no peaceful solution, no understanding each other here. Pulverize the menace first or see it causing way more damage than it would cause it if you have just killed it right away.

But a subtle message I realized yesterday, one that others likely crossed with first, is that this is a pro-war message. All the time pacifists lose with negotiations and trying to understand each other allow the 'alien creature', the foreigner entity, to cause more damage to the people, while they are keeping the military to protect them. If the pacifists allowed the military to act as fast as possible, many casualties would be avoided.

It is an interesting perspective to apply to many of those movies, I think.