I recently watched Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (let's skip why) and normally this event would not be blog worthy. After all, it is a rather intolerable film, with a mediocre script, so-so voice acting, and absurdly long animated action sequences that made little sense. But if you are looking for a movie for a child the age to enjoy such things it is on watch now for netflix. But here is the thing, the main villain is inspired by some sort of existentialist/nihilistic philosophy. The rest of this post is going to contain spoilers, such as they are. You might, possibly, want to stop reading.
The movie makes use of a strong version of multiple worlds theory (the second laziest and most incoherent sci-fi device, lead only by time travel), the sort that claims that every little action produces several different worlds. So, in this story a villain known as Owlman (a evil version of Batman), is part of a gang of superpowered thugs who have developed a doomsday device called the Quantum Eigenstate Device (or as it is always referred to, The QED). The supervillain gang thinks this device is going to be used to blackmail their world, but really Owlman has a different plan. He is haunted by some trauma from his past, and broods on the fact that the notion of the multiverse means no action can ever have any sort of meaning. Because no matter what happens, everything happens. But, somewhere exists an Earth Prime, and if that planet is destroyed, then the entire multiverse can be destroyed. So, Owlman is possessed by the desire to commit the only action that can possibly have any meaning, the destruction of the whole multiverse. I have to admit, I really enjoyed the philosophical justification for his villainy. That part was pretty good for a direct to DVD kids movie.
The agony of the rat or the slaughter of a calf remains present in thought not through pity but as the zone of exchange between man and animal in which something of one passes into the other. - Deleuze and Guattari, What Is Philosophy?
