# The Undefined World Building of *Civil War* Back on my *Civil War* [[Civil War's Environmental Storytelling|kick]] hot off of [[Civil War is a Certifiable Banger|seeing]] Alex Garland's film, I read [this article](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/civil-war-controversy-alex-garland-kirsten-dunst-politics-1235876949/) by Eisa Nefertari Ulen for The Hollywood Reporter. It's title—The Compellingly Packaged Cowardice of ‘Civil War’—is a thin veil of what I'd call frustration from Eisa. > Great storytelling requires an answer to the question left hanging in the center of Garland’s otherwise solid film: How in the world did it come to this? It is a question that vexes both the film and the viewer. Civil War tells us bad things are happening, but never tells us why they are happening. > Are we fighting over immigration? Is it about race? Has the war started because of the water shortage? The film would be stronger even if it made explicitly clear that no one really knows what the fight is about, that the issues have become as unrecognizable as the bodies that are now dead because of them. > Unfortunately, none of the graffiti expresses the causes of the war. Why has this happened? Surely that would be a topic of discourse among the grown-ups in the camp, yet even here, in a place where characters have an opportunity to eat and sleep in relative safety, Civil War never fully explains why there is a civil war. Sorry for the three back-to-back quotes, but these are Eisa's tulle that stitches together her veil.[^1] Eisa claims that if *Civil War* planted a flag in the ground and said *why* the war happened, the film would be better off. I disagree. To keep it focused on *Civil War* at first, Eisa ties scenes and moments throughout the film to real life events. > I am haunted by the familiarity of the film’s images of torture and terror, images consistent with the North American Experience. They include a mass grave, like the pits filled with Native American children as far north as Canada and the one filled with contemporary migrants down in the Southwest, in Falfurrias, Texas. There are bodies hung in effigy, like the thousands of documented racial terror lynchings of Black people that took place primarily in the American South from the Reconstruction through World War II and the nearly 20 Chinese immigrants lynched in Los Angeles in 1871. If the movie just outright says the cause was a water shortage, all of those comparisons fall down flatter than they exist now. The story stands taller and takes up more space by not being clear cut. Eisa filled in the blanks. I filled in the blanks. The audience filled them in. *Civil War* has the ability to bend and morph with time and generation. The story speaks to the core, raw emotion in a way that gives it longevity. And, to leave *Civil War* behind, I think this is a powerful element of good storytelling. Eisa's third paragraph starts off with this; > Great storytelling requires an answer... I think this is why my opinion bubbled up around this article. I flat out disagree with this sentiment. Great storytelling provokes its audience to engage and think about the subject. That does not require an answer. Video games are a prime example of this with its ability to combine interactivity and environmental storytelling. The post-apocalyptic world of (you had to see this coming) *The Last of Us* is rich with stories scattered through the environment. These can range from teddy bears on trash piles to an entire subplot of survivors living and dying in the sewers. That last example, [Ish and his sewer community](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Ish), has both the environment and spelled out collectibles, but, crucially, the whole story can be understood without reading one note. And honestly, the gaps left behind, whether you read the notes or not, add to the immersion and connection to the story. Eisa goes on to call out *Casablanca* and how the film *shows* the audience the cause of the conflict—Nazis. This is important to the classic because it was created in the middle of World War II. The time period was so closely tied to reality that the film was pushed out to be [marketed alongside](https://web.archive.org/web/20080430060149/http://www.vincasa.com/indexkoch.html) the liberation of North Africa.[^2] > ...plans to shoot it were scrapped when the marketing department realized they had to get the film out fast to capitalize on the liberation of North Africa. The writers chose to ground and set the film in the middle of a real life event that dominated the attention of the world. *Civil War* is not set during a real life event, despite Eisa's singular [cited poll](https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/43553-two-in-five-americans-civil-war-somewhat-likely) that average Americans believe civil war is "somewhat likely."[^3] > Casablanca endures because it spoke to a moment as “crazy and mixed-up” as this one, and nudged the country away from its isolationist inaction. Civil War does not resonate like that classic, because it does not explicitly address this moment. We as a people cannot fix a problem we cannot name. Eisa is asking *Civil War* to callout and be tied to an event that is not real. She wants answers to all the questions and to leave nothing left for the audience to engage with when the credits roll. We cannot name a problem—really, an event—that isn't real. My whole goal is not to proclaim *Civil War* is better than another person's opinion. I'm making a case for world building and storytelling. Having hands held and all questions answers robs us of taking a work of art and turning it over in our hands. To look at the piece from all sides for ourselves and deciding what it means on a personal level. What are we taking from the story and how to we carry that forward. It's being given to us to decide. When that opportunity is taken away from us by heavy handed, unsolicited specificity, we end up living in a world defined by the views of one person, group, or entity. And that world looks and sounds a whole lot like *Civil War*'s [opening scene](https://youtube.com/watch?v=u3XnlpfP5yU). [^1]: I'll stop the veil puns now. [^2]: Only in a marketing department in Hollywood... [^3]: Eisa did not mention the 43% fell under "somewhat likely," but I get her point was a punchier end to her introduction.