Ed Snowden, A Whistle Blower to Remember

            Snowden, this movie in particular was about a man named Ed Snowden; and his real life events that happened between 2004 and 2014. The movie starts out in 2004 when Ed is in basic training for the military, you can see his struggle with the obstacles that are set before him, but he doesn’t give up. Ed’s time in basic training is cut short when he falls out of the top bunk of his bead and breaks one of his legs, he later learns that his bones are very fragile and he can no long take part in this type of military activity, and is told to serve his country in other ways. Ed turns to the CIA and the NSA for employment, and they gladly accept him after they see his expert computer skills. He falls in love with a girl named Lyndsey on his travels as a cyber terrorist specialist, but it’s a very rocky relationship. As the movie progresses we see how his relationship progresses and digresses, but we also see Ed’s paranoia soar as he learns that the U.S. government is secretly spying on the entire population of America. Together he and a team of reporters that he personally has put together try and expose the U.S. for what it’s been doing behind the backs of their citizens for several years, and they succeed greatly. To find out what happens next, watch the trailer!

This movie was unique in the way that it was a biography about a little known subject, also known as whistle blowers. Whistle blowers are people who tell the secrets of the government to the public and are immediately exiled from the U.S. for committing the crime of treason. In this case, Ed Snowden was able to escape the U.S. government by going to Russia and getting a full pardon by Vladimir Putin. This allows him to live in Russia without the U.S. interfering in his everyday life. This movie is more of a biography than anything else, a movie that focuses on Ed Snowden’s life as a cyber terrorist specialist in the NSA and the CIA, as well as his love life with Lyndsey, a girl he met on a dating website.

There are many movies out that are based on topics like this, cyber security and terrorism, one such movie being Black Hat, this movie mainly covers foreign terrorism targeting the United States through the cybernetic world. What made Snowden different from Black Hat was the fact that, the movie topics were slightly different. Snowden being about the injustices of the U.S. government against its own citizens, and Black Hat was about foreign terrorism targeting the U.S. Another thing that made Snowden different was that Snowden was a well thought-out and planned movie. Unlike Black Hat, Snowden was able to keep me entertained throughout the movie, whether it be through a brief action scene, or through information that I thought was intriguing. Black Hat struggled in keeping me glued to the screen the entire time, it was a movie about cyber terrorism yes, but mainly the movie was focused on fillers between the two main points in the movie, as well as being way too focused on the love relationship between the two main characters. Yes there is a major love interest in Snowden, but the love interest in Black Hat didn’t really tie in well with the plot, where as in Snowden, the more the love interest continued to grow, the more paranoid Ed felt about the NSA and the CIA watching him and his family. Even Matt Seitz, a writer with RogerEbit.com said, “"Blackhat" is far from a perfect movie, mind you. Its rock-solid confidence in technical details isn't matched by similarly exacting attention to plot mechanics” (Seitz 1).

 I would have given Black Hat a solid 4/10 and I gave Snowden a 7/10. The reason for giving it a 7/10 was that, it was a good movie to sit down and watch, but being the topic that it was, cyber terrorism, you had to sit there and actually focus on the facts that where being presented to help you understand the movie and how everything tied in together.  A. O. Scott, a writer with the New York Times recently wrote a review on the movie, the title of his article/review states his view on the movie, ”Snowden”, Oliver Stone’s restrained portrait of a whistle-blower. In the review A. O. Scott states that, “Oliver Stone’s “Snowden,” a quiet, crisply drawn portrait of the world’s most celebrated whistle-blower, belongs to a curious subgenre of movies about very recent historical events” (Scott 1). I take this as a good take on the movie, he didn’t dislike it, he called it a “crisply drawn portrait of the world’s most celebrated whistle blower” (Scott 1). If that isn’t a good thing then I’m not sure I understand his writing. Now that we’ve discussed my and another view on the movie, lets break it done and look close to identify aspects in the movie that you might not have caught the first time.

The plot of the movie was easily laid out for the viewer; Ed wanted to serve his country in the only way he thought he knew how, through the military. But when that didn’t really work out, he was able to continue to serve his country through the NSA and the CIA as a cyber terrorist specialist. The genius computer specialist also found love in the movie, which only seems to happen in movies. But down the road, we see Ed’s growing concern with the government’s power of being able to spy on any person in the world through their camera. Let’s look at one of the ethos sections in this movie. Towards the end, Ed releases documents and information on the U.S. government exposing them for spying on the entire U.S., this is ethos because he worked for the NSA and the CIA, so he knew firsthand what was going on, making him a very credible source when it came to the topic. There was also a lot of pathos in this movie, mainly with the love interest between Ed, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Lyndsey, played by Shailene Woodley. We start analyzing the pathos sections by looking into their love life, everyone wishes that they could meet the perfect person and just be with them for all eternity; well that’s kind of what happens in this movie. Ed meets Lyndsey on an online dating website and they almost instantly fall in love with the mention of computers and the military. They are clearly in love with each other, but it is a rough relationship with Ed’s job, he can’t tell her anything about what he’s working on, and he’s also never around. At one point in the movie, Lyndsey gets back onto the sight where they originally met and starts talking to other men, but claims that its only for conversation purposes because Ed is never around. Finally, we will evaluate the lovely logos sections of the movie. Logos has everything to with logic, and since this movie was based off real world events, there are a lot of logos sections. We start off with the fact that the U.S. government was indeed spying on its citizens through their personal computers and cameras without actual consent. This is know because in 2014, the real life Edwards Snowden exposed the government for what it was really doing, and then no one felt truly safe. President Obama ordered the shut-down of all illegal surveillance systems in the year of 2014, so that the U.S. might feel safe again. Looking into the logos, pathos and ethos sections of the movie really helped me understand how it connected to the real-life events that happened between 2004 and 2014.

Since the events in 2014 and the exposing of the governments wrong doing, the citizens have been shaken when it comes to their security, and they have the right to feel shaken and insecure, the U.S. had no right to look into your life without your consent. But since the Obama administration has said to have fixed the problem, some citizens feel better about their security, and the way they live. I have an understanding of computers so I understand how easily it would be to gain access to another person’s computer. In conclusion, Snowden gets a proper grade of 7/10, because I enjoyed the movie and the topics that were discussed but there were things that could have been improved. Also, being a real-life issue that happened in 2014, it was cool to do some research on the topic of that a whistle blower was and to learn more about Edward Snowden and the Obama administration and what they are doing to stop cybercrime.

Bibliography:

Seitz, MAtt Z. "Blackhat." Rogerebert.com. N.p., 1 Feb. 2015. 27 Sept. 2016. Web

Scott, A. O. "Review: ‘Snowden,’ Oliver Stone’s Restrained Portrait of a Whistle-Blower." The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 Sept. 2016. 26 Sept. 2016. Web.

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