I finally sat down and watched Powder. The movie aside for a moment, I was astounded by how hilarious the premise is. (Bear in mind, the writer subsequently wrote two Jeepers Creepers movies.)
If you haven’t seen the movie and would like to, do not read on. I won’t waste time avoiding spoilers.
Jeremy “Powder” Reed is a higher-evolved being because his mother was hit by lightening with him in the womb. An expert in high-school level theory, Donald Ripley (Jeff Goldblum!), his science teacher, makes this assertion without hesitation. He should have hesitated.
There are ideas about what humans would be like if they used all of their entire brain instead of the ape-like ten percent or so (we use more, but not simultaneously). It’s not possible for many reasons but here’s one…
We adapted the ability to use tools and language to survive scarcity. We don’t have that. In fact, we have abundance and we’re still wasting it. Humans are dim, simplistic and lack foresight.
Natural selection, Intelligent Design, the Logos, God or however you define it made us this way. We aren’t supposed to realize we’re part of nature or that our planet is dying. We’re special in that we think we’re special.
So, for someone like Powder to exist, we’d only need a few periods of unparalleled scarcity, right? Nope.
It’s unlikely we’d ever advance past the point of ignorant, belligerent ape. Even with the rudimentary tools we’ve been given we dominate the planet. We idiots are the supreme species so there’s no need to adapt to anything more.
There can be improvement, sure. We can realize we can no longer wage war, address commonality in culture instead of differences and educate our children. Or even consider ourselves part of nature, acting accordingly.
You probably know from current events or Us Weekly, we do none of this. In fact, there’s a growing movement desperately against any of this. Which makes the ideas behind Powder all the more hilarious.
As a romantic comedy between teenager and cloud, it’s stellar. (See what I did there?) As a movie, it’s entertaining. As an idea, it’s horrid and absurd. Then again, it’s more likely than a winged beast that feeds every so often on somewhat-attractive teenagers or Justin Long.