The Adjustment Bureau and Creationism

The Adjustment Bureau poster with Matt Damon and Emily Blunt.

A couple of weekends ago I went to see The Adjustment Bureau. I was expecting a really good science fiction romance, which I have a weak spot for, but must say I was disappointed. I liked the idea, the acting by Matt Damon and Emiliy Blunt was pretty solid and it was entertaining most of the time. Still, something disturbed me with it.

On my way home I came to the conclusion that it for one felt very flat (especially the Elise character), but also that I didn’t get what I came for; the science fiction movie. The use of genre descriptions for get an audience ain’t unheard of, e.g. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind wasn’t labelled as a SF movie when it came as the production company was afraid it would scare away the target audience.

But leaving out this kind of a fact is one thing, as no one that pays for a movie ticket will really get tricked. Lying about this kind of a fact is a whole other thing, as some member of the audience will not at all get what they came for.

The movie itself is based on a short story called Adjustment Team by Philip K. Dick, who also wrote the novel that Blade Runner is based on. This base is however very loose, in the way that it has only borrowed parts of the name and the idea that our fates are being controlled by a secret group.

Damon plays David Norris, a politician who is important for the the bureau and the world. The bureau, lead by ‘the chairman’, wants him to win an election but messes up, which leads to him becoming aware of their existence. During this time he has also fallen in love with Elise, which is not acceptable in the bureau’s plan.

The movie is very much about their forbidden love and how they relate to their destiny. It is also very much about people talking and the adjustment bureau agents running through doors. Ordinary doors, but as long as they wear special hats it makes it possible to go out through a door somewhere else

Those door portals, the agents’ maps that make it possible to see what will happen in the future and also the agents ability to move things they cannot reach are all things common to science fiction movies. Teleportation, precognition devices and telekinesis have been seen many times.

But if something is called science fiction, shouldn’t there be some kind scientific aspect to these tropes? In The Adjustment Bureau there is none. The talk about destiny in this movie and what we learn about the identities of the agents points more in the direction of God than to alien visitors (which I suppose is how people would argue that this is SF). For me it becomes obvious that the reason for this misuse of the SF label is purely economic.

Is Damon and Blunt really fleeing from the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

The reason why they can get away with it is because Philip K. Dick is known as a science fiction writer and that the book is regarded as a book of the genre. What I don’t understand is why some critics reinforce this statement.

Actually, I think I do understand why. Science fiction is a hard genre to define, as I have written about before. There is an immense number of definitions, but I believe the ones that is about rational reason, science and the scientific process is the ones that are the hardest to argue against.

This confusing world of definitions opens up for the possibility to use it like in The Adjustment Bureau. I think this is very bad for the movie going public’s odds of finding the movie they really want to see and for the serious discussion about what the genre really is.

This issue of defining things us not isolated to movie genres, but you see it everyday in political discussions and everywhere else there is possible to have more than one perspective on a subject.

One of those degenerated discussions, that concern both science and this movie, is creationism. Creationists mean the world and its inhabitants are created by some kind of supernatural being, like God. I won’t start arguing about why I think this is a bad theory, there are other forums for that, but the misuse of the scientific method and the evolutionary arguments is common in this view of religious fundamentalism.

This makes it more than a question of who’s right and wrong. Basically, it’s about believing in either the scientific method and the evolutionary theory or in that someone is behind it all, like God. The creationist world view and arguments leads to a confusion about what can be proven and not.

The evolutionary theory is based on what conclusions can be drawn from reality. The creationist (especially the young Earth creationism) view is basically based on a faith in religious texts and a forced disbelief in what science can really prove. To conquer ground an explanation that have a facade of science is created.

Nothing supernatural is explained in The Adjustment Bureau, just implied. If you, without thinking about it, interpret it as science fiction, you will go with that feeling. If you interpret it as God, you will go with that feeling. This is a great way for the producers to please everyone. But this is not science fiction if you analyse it.

In the same way it will only be science if it can be explained and reproduced with the scientific method. Otherwise it is not. But by intruding on the field of definition the religious communion or producers can advance towards another target group and earn new followers and/or more cash. But no one cares about those who just don’t want it.

Tags: religion, The Adjustment Bureau