Goodbye World - a review

Watched an interesting apocalyptic tale on Netflix last night.

You might call Goodbye World a prepper movie, and it does have good points in that direction.

In the story, as the country come under a massive cyber attack, a band of friends reunite at the mountain home of two members of their old college crowd who have chosen a back-to-basics life.

Theatrical poster via Wikipedia

No, this isn't a prepper manual movie, but here are some of the lessons I took away from it:

• Not all preppers are politically conservative. Nor will those be who seek out the help from prepper friends when an unraveling starts.
• You're not necessarily nuts if you have a store room full of supplies like food and medicine.
• Not all preppers are 40 or older.
• Excessive use of alcohol or recreational drugs can be detrimental to group effectiveness and cohesion. This is true if done individually, but especially so in group settings.
• The best laid plans of prepping can be quickly undone if a means of resisting those who would take your preps is not cooked into your plans. This is story where most the members seem appalled at possession of firearms, but... 

The characters here are solidly bent to the political left, know that going in. The story's set in northern California, so politically left is the norm. Adult themes of sex, drinking and smoking weed are woven into the story line, This probably isn't one to watch with the kiddies.

Not badly acted, and well produced for what it is. Critics mostly panned the film, but I'm not sure if it was the film itself they panned, or if their reception was jaded by resistance to the story line, by personal denial of what the world might quickly become if the virtual trappings of their lives were suddenly stripped away.

Any apocalyptic flick that has potential to get people 40 and younger thinking "what if" is probably a good thing. This one strikes me as better than most in being able to penetrate a scoffing youthful mindset, and sow a few mental seeds that bad things can happen on a society-wide scale, and that today's high tech society is perhaps especially vulnerable to a rapid unraveling.