Headline, October 21 2023/ ''' MULTIVERSE STUDENTS MULTIPLEXED '''

''' MULTIVERSE STUDENTS

 MULTIPLEXED '''

MULTIVERSE AND MULTIPLEXED - or be it in every verse and universe, the actual and total power on !WOW!, - lies with the students of the world. The World Students Society is the exclusive and eternal ownership of every student.

HOLLYWOOD'S FAVORITE NEW plot device offers escape for a society lamenting its choices and trumas.

IT IS A MULTI-SPLENDORED THING - THE MULTIVERSE : a science fiction plot device that has been around for decades, yet has suddenly spread through cinema and television with the speed of Quick-silver and the ensorcelling power of Dr Strange [both Marvel Entertainment.]

By combining characters and cultural references old and new, it can bind together grandparents,  parents and children, as well as many brands and most convoluted plots.

The recent summer spectacle, '' The Flash '', resurrects not only three different Batmen [ played by Ben Affleck, Michael Keaton and George Clooney ] but also several Superpeople of both genders reaching back to the white-and-black era.

It winks at the audience with the references to ''Star Wars '', '' Scooby Doo '' and '' Back to the Future ''. 

The effect is of a self-aware palimpsest begat by Tik-Tok and a pinball machine. '' Look at this ! '' cries the Flash - well, one of the two to three Flashes - at the climax. '' These worlds collapsing and colliding! We did this! '' Indeed they did [ truly, it is a meta-multiverse ]. 

Just how they did it is worth pondering only in a dorm room blue with pot smoke. Using a bowl of spaghetti, a Batman explains that '' Time isn't linear,'' though it must be admitted that, during the film's 144 minutes, it can certainly feel that way.

Much of this is just good fun, of course. Asking why one enjoys a rollercoaster ride is an invitation to turn delight into homework. Yet the ubiquity of the concept of the multiverse does raise the question :  Why how?

Technology is clearly part of the answer. It has made these movies possible not just through advances in graphics but by training audiences to toggle among countless open-browser tabs, even as their politics and news media are teaching them that reality is slippery, hard to name or trust.

But certain themes that come up again and again suggest that these films also respond to some deeper yearning.

EARLIER this year a multiverse movie, '' Everything Everywhere All at Once, '' won seven Oscars, including for best picture.

It was in essence a Marvel action film dressed up in musings about identity [ as are, come to think of it, Marvel movies].

Evelyn, played by Michelle Yeoh, is a Chinese-American immigrant who discovers she has great power in an alternative reality and must travel the multiverse to save it from destruction [ via a bagel ] by another powerful being who turns out to be a different-reality version of her alienated daughter.

The two are reconciled and the multiverse saved by Evelyn's embrace of empathy and kindness.

The Flash, by contrast, after disastrously dashing back in time to tinker with events, discovers that to save the world he must let his mother die. '' The Flash '' may be tougher-minded, but the basic message is the same, parenting is hard. 

One hopes the sprogs take this in, along with their $12 popcorn.

As those summaries suggest, these films are also obsessed with choice and contingency.

When the show ends and the lights come up you can feel less inspired than sad, considering a society suffused with regret, more preoccupied with individual trauma and with sorting out the past, and recycling its tropes, than dreaming of the future.

The escapism on offer is not just the old comic book fantasy of a humdrum existence transformed by a spider bite. It is that in another reality, sight now, the audience member might have choices that led to a grander life, or at least Hillary Clinton might have campaigned harder in the Midwest.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Multiplexed and Multiverse, continues. The World Students Society thanks Lexington | The Economist.

With respectful dedication to Grandparents, Parents, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See You all prepare for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter X !E-WOW! The Ecosystem 2011 :

Good Night and God Bless

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