Monday 16 July 2012

NO CHOICE BUT TO DO GOOD



Saw The Amazing Spiderman today. I had loved the 3 old Spidey movies and yet, I feel that this reboot of the franchise is a league apart from the older version and lives up to its title by truly being amazing. Beautiful cinematography and a realistic story-line take away the show, not to mention, a bolder, younger and more energetic Peter Parker who has the guts to tell his girlfriend how he spends his free time. Not like the old Spidey who took 2 complete movies to do that. The experience of the movie was only enhanced by the fact that I had for company, my class 10th buddys from Bangalore - Akash Pise and Shweta Kumari. I also got a chance to make two new friends in Manwinder Singh and Abhishek Saini. Thanks guys (and gal), for an enjoyable evening!

The movie is definitely worth a watch and all the more so if you watch it in 3D in a theatre. The film's storyline does depart from the older versions of the Spidey chronicles at many places. What interested me most was the key teaching of the movie. In the old movie, Ben Parker say to his nephew - "With great power, comes great responsibility." This statement very much defines Spiderman and his work as a superhero in the rest of the series. In The Amazing Spiderman, the teaching is similar in spirit but is worded differently. Uncle Ben says - "If you can do someone some good, you should do it. Because if you can, then it is no more a choice. It becomes a responsibility." It is not worded as poetically as the older version and yet, this wording hit me with a greater impact. I liked it a lot. What a nice thought, I said to myself. How simple a formula for being a good person! Yet in no way an easy task. It basically tells you to do all the good you can to this world.

I was also struck by the similarity of this thought with Asimov's First Law of Robotics: "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm." Asimov himself suggested that these laws of robotics are in fact the laws of ideal human behavior. An ideal human would follow this law. He will never let any harm come to another human being, even through inaction. The inaction part is crucial. That is where most of us decent folks fail. As my Dad says, most people pass by a road-side aciident in their cars without stopping and only after going a distance, think back - maybe I should have stopped, maybe I could have helped the poor man. But by then its too late and they just whizz past in thier automobile. But the ones which stop, and that too in time, reflect a hope for our society, and show their realisation of their responsibilities and are the men and women who make the difference.

-TheDreamer

3 comments:

  1. I wish I was in Pune...I want to see the movie too. Hopefully I ll be able to see Batman. The new dialogue is much better than the older one. And seriously, I couldn't think of the correlation between the robotic laws and the statement. I am a big fan of Isaac's works and I adore all his creations. The 3 laws are really work of genius and their beauty lies in the simplicity. Problem is humans cannot follow them because of our ability to think. We think and hence we can break the rules. No rules can confine us. So, doing good is an option, practically speaking. Looking morally, there would have been no need of writing this article at all if the rules were followed. Anthropic principle anyone?

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  2. Neha: U say u couldn't have thought of the correlation between the dialogue and Asimov's First Law and then you go ahead and make your own correlation of Morality with the Anthropic principle? Too good!

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