What do Terminator and Matrix have in common with Hotel Rwanda?

What do Terminator and Matrix have in common with Hotel Rwanda? Namely, they all deal with power struggles. OK, it may seem rather strange that I’m drawing a correlation between these films, but bear with me for a moment while I explain my position. It seems to me that most conflicts eventually rest on one of the following two areas: Values and Resources

Value conflicts are wars and battles that spring from a clash of ethnic, ethic, or moral disagreement. While there isn’t anything particularly wrong about an individual defining themselves by their nationality, religion, or ethics, once they take a stand on these things it inevitably causes small conflicts. Even at the most basic level, when one assesses themselves by a certain criteria; he tends to assess other people by these criteria as well. So if I’m proud of my American, Christian, and Pacifist ways I may hold myself in an elevated position over someone who doesn’t share the same beliefs. Even subtle criticism like this lead to bigger conflicts as I interact with those I disagree with. The outworking of my own pride can eventually become war if it’s not tended well.

Watch the Terminator series with this sort of idea in the back of your mind, and you’ll see the direct correlation between Skynet’s decision to wipe out humanity with this value conflict. The self-aware AI, of course, makes the jump from criticism to war much faster than humans would, but the principle seen in the film is very similar to what we can read into historical events like the Inquisition, the Holocaust, and Hotel Rwanda.

Each of these are value-based conflicts where the self-proclaimed superior/powerful group does its best to eliminate or convert those who don’t meet their standard.

Resource conflicts are any kind of disagreement or battle that deals with scarcity. When resources are unlimited and there is plenty of land, food, etc to go around for everyone, competition isn’t nearly as fierce and normally doesn’t result in war or death. But as soon as there are limits in place, humans always try to get as much as they can- even at the cost of others.

When we watch ads from two politicians, trading jabs, it’s basically the same thing. There can only be one President of the United States and so anyone running who wants to win will do whatever they can to grab the most votes. Votes are the limited resource.

I used to work for Universal Orlando Resort where our theme parks were continually “at war” with Disney for market share. We wanted as many tourists as possible to visit our park- rather than Disney. Time was the resources we were fighting over.

If you read into the history of Matrix movies, they basically boil down to a war based on resource problems. Robots need power and after humans nuke the sky- crippling the machines’ ability to gather solar power- their only source of fuel is the humans themselves. Humans are only enslaved because the robots want to continue functioning.

So as we watch movies like Terminator, Matrix, and Hotel Rwanda, I think it’s important to get to the bottom of conflict if we really want to avoid the violence depicted within each film. The bottom line is, we still need to answer these questions if we’re going to do anything about wars and interpersonal conflicts:

What can we do to lessen the value and resource conflicts before they grow out of control and threaten our very lives?