The chapter on Independence Day and the Alien films was the least involving chapter. It had the least depth of argument, the most stretching of the facts of the films to fit the chapter theme, the least philosophizing, and the most emotional appeal.
The Star Wars chapter has a repeated misspelling of Darth Vader’s name as Annakin Skywalker, when Anakin is correct. That repeated typo aside, the best explanation of Plato’s Cave that I’ve read is housed within, as well as the best explication (and defense) of the major ideas of Nietszche, free from demonization; especially when he explains creativity as being born of sublimating negative drives toward higher purposes, the hallmarks of the übermensch.
The Blade Runner chapter brings the book full circle back to life’s meaning, and Rowlands’ attempt to answer that by positing death as the giver of meaning. Naturally, he does not posit the actual meaning given, although some might take issue with that, and claim he does. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, and state that he leaves it sufficiently open.
Overall, the book entertains and uses the idea of the films in service to the idea, while sometimes the reverse might have been the better approach. Although he disdains art films, one cannot help but wonder what Rowlands would make of some of the classics of Bergman, Fellini, Antonioni, Tarkovsky, Mizoguchi, Angelopoulos, and films that do not merely reflect a philosophic idea(l), but immanently employ it.
Nonetheless, The Philosopher At The End Of The Universe is one of the best primers on the world of ideas that I’ve ever read, making a nutritious meal out of the junk food of Hollywood, i.e. getting something from nothing, creatio ex nihilo. Oh, wait, now that’s theology. One wonders the filmic references a book like that could make!
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