“Civil War” movie trailer about Second American Civil War

[Middle-aged Europe]

Considering that the federal government is fighting California and Texas in the movie I suppose this is an attempt to be as politically neutral as possible (unless Texas turned blue in that near-future scenario).

[Middle-aged Europe]

This is apparently the map of aligned states in this civil war story:



That about says it all imo

"Florida Alliance" might be as bad as the Axis.

But for real, some of those "loyalist states" and "western forces" states would not be working together in reality.

It's quite possible that the Western Forces+TX+CA represent some form of regime headed by the Dear Leader Elon Musk, considering that Twitter/X and SpaceX are headquarted in California and Tesla is headquartered in Texas.

There also seems to have been some sort of falling out between him and DeSantis, hence the Florida Alliance.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Honestly, the TV show Jericho seemed to have a more realistic near-future civil war scenario back in the 2000s than this boondoggle:



In the wake of devastating nuclear attacks there is no consensus who the legitimate successor entity to the federal government is, with the country eventually splitting into an Eastern and a Western half, with Texas deciding to stay neutral (and hence remaining independent) for the time being.

The Western half is eventually revealed to have been evil all along, an attempt to form an authoritarian neo-con corporatocracy in the mold of Dick Cheney's wet dreams. And the main reason why there is a civil war in the first place is because the military-industrial conspiracy had actually been less successful in subuing the entire nation in a single stroke than orginally anticipated by the coup leaders. Which is also why Texas quickly decides to side with East as soon all of this becomes public.

It was also a very mid-2000ish scenario, with 9/11 as well as the then-recent Halliburton and Blackwater scandals clearly serving as inspiration.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Any "modern civil war" scenario that uses primarily state lines is simply dumb.

*IF* there is ever a conventional civil war in the US, it would be primarily a conflict between the major cities and the rural areas.

Well, perhaps. It could certainly hold true in larger or more evenly split states. Then again, any U.S. state will still have a majority population with a majority opinion which in turn would determine the political composition of the state government. And the state government still controls institutions like the National Guard and the State Police. I mean there were Unionist loyalists in southern states during the first civil war, but barring places like West Virginia, Missouri, or the enclave of the "Free State of Jones" in Mississippi they couldn't actually do jack sh**t without being in control of the government institutions in their respective state.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Saw it yesterday... English-language version with someone who seemed to be an American expat in the seat right next to me.

I certainly get the criticism that it while depicts how a civil war in America would look like, it shies away from really adressing any of the possible causes. Therefore it almost comes across as apolitical as the journalists in the movies. It doesn't even do the most general "increasing partisan polarization divides the nation and is therefore bad" message.

Instead the President is implied to be some sort of universally hated Hitler/Mussolini/Gaddafi/Ceaușescu-like figure which apparently caused state governments to rebel against him, which seems like a foregone conclusion with a commander-in-chief like that. Again, the movie dodges te question how the President ended up in office or became such an authoritarian in the first place.

Where the movies excels is creating the visuals of a civil war in America and building up the eerie, unsettling atmosphere associated with it. Its strength lies in its cinematography.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I mostly agree with BRTD's points below - this is a movie about war journalism, not politics, and the odd alliances are not the point of the movie.

Honestly the movie would have been better off not having any map, and just calling them only "Western Forces" with no mention of states.

Director Alex Garland implied in an interview that the President's regime in the movie is so bad that even such diametrically opposed states like California and Texas had to cooperate with each other.

This is, I think, alluded to in the film when a character compares current events to the "Race to Berlin" back in 1945. This means that a California-Texas alliance could essentially be analogous to the American-Soviet alliance during World War II (I leave it up to you to decide who constitutes the "Soviet" part in a CA-TX alliance ).

One thing that did bother me, weirdly, was how empty the movie's scenes are. Washington DC is entirely empty at the end, which makes sense given that there's a battle, but were did the 700,000 Washingtonians go? Were did the 3 million NOVA residents go? Is Philadelphia, Baltimore, etc still populated? Even the "riot" in New York had maybe 20 people there.

Is is estimated that up to one-third of the pre-2022 Ukrainian population has become refugees, either by fleeing the country entirely or by having been displaced within Ukraine.

So, where are the residents of D.C.? Considering that the civil war seemed to have gone on for a couple of years in the movie, my guess would be... in Canada, maybe?
(Ok, I stole that answer from The Handmaid's Tale where many Americans have indeed fled to the relative safety of Canada.)

[Middle-aged Europe]

I mostly agree with BRTD's points below - this is a movie about war journalism, not politics, and the odd alliances are not the point of the movie.

Honestly the movie would have been better off not having any map, and just calling them only "Western Forces" with no mention of states.

Director Alex Garland implied in an interview that the President's regime in the movie is so bad that even such diametrically opposed states like California and Texas had to cooperate with each other.

This is, I think, alluded to in the film when a character compares current events to the "Race to Berlin" back in 1945. This means that a California-Texas alliance could essentially be analogous to the American-Soviet alliance during World War II (I leave it up to you to decide who constitutes the "Soviet" part in a CA-TX alliance ).

One thing that did bother me, weirdly, was how empty the movie's scenes are. Washington DC is entirely empty at the end, which makes sense given that there's a battle, but were did the 700,000 Washingtonians go? Were did the 3 million NOVA residents go? Is Philadelphia, Baltimore, etc still populated? Even the "riot" in New York had maybe 20 people there.

Is is estimated that up to one-third of the pre-2022 Ukrainian population has become refugees, either by fleeing the country entirely or by having been displaced within Ukraine.

So, where are the residents of D.C.? Considering that the civil war seemed to have gone on for a couple of years in the movie, my guess would be... in Canada, maybe?
(Ok, I stole that answer from The Handmaid's Tale where many Americans have indeed fled to the relative safety of Canada.)

These are valid points. Though I truly can't imagine how destabilizing an American refugee crisis of that magnitude would be.

one third of 330 million Americans is still 110 million people fleeing elsewhere - three times the population of Canada!

There's also a lot of room (for refugees) in the Western half of the United States. Missouri and Colorado are specifically mentioned as homestates of the characters' families where their respective parents "pretend that nothing of this happens", indicating that those place might be relatively safe.

Fighting seemed to be largely concentrated on the Eastern Seaboard in the movie due to the ongoing "Race to Washington, D.C.".