Oil Storm (documentary-style film) on FX

[nonconformist]

Anyone catch this last night?

I watched it. While it has a few cringeworthy and WTF? moments, all in all it's worth watching. Basically, the premise is a series of events - put into motion by a natural disaster in September of this year - significantly decreases our oil imports. It's filmed as a documentary, combining news footage, interviews and home video footage. It does a decent job underscoring how oil is connected to virtually every aspect of our modern lives and the chaos that will result when cheap abundant oil is no longer available. For those of us that are informed about peak oil, it is no surprise. For those that don't - and let's face it, that's most - hopefully it will be an eye-opener.

-- for those who haven't seen and plan to, be forewarned there are spoilers in the next paragraph --

That said, it's flawed and could have been much better - both on an entertainment level and an informative one. I don't think it went far enough in many areas, for one thing. Peak oil should have been a focus and could have easily been worked into the ongoing storyline, but instead it was presented that if we just got things under control and got a "break" from another oil-producing nation we'd be fine and dandy. To be fair, they do make a point of hammering on our dependence of oil. Unfortunately, it seemed that they were more concerned with foreign oil than oil, period. Things like US oil exports and the comparatively minor amount of oil in ANWR were not addressed. One thing that struck me was how nuanced it was, particularly when dealing with the government's response. It's pretty clear when watching that they're really dropping the ball, unfortunately it's not as in-your-face as it should have been for the masses to digest it. I did like how it showed that China has us by the balls and how easily our superpower title could be lost in an oil crisis, but they eventually abandon that. With the whole Russia/China deal, I like how they had Bush being unreasonably stubborn. I didn't like how it downplayed how Bush is in bed with the Saudi royal family. On a more shallow entertainment level, I felt some of the acting was mediocre at best (namely the family that owns the gas station) and a number of things didn't add up or seem realistic (why didn't the EMT chick move in with her mother, for example?). I liked the farmer storyline and the reduced speed limit and resulting effects. I think there are many things that they could have done to make it feel more realistic - like entire extended families forced to live together to survive and the results of the mass unemployment (which they basically only mention - 3 out of 5 adult males unemployed) which would be quite significant. I loved how they pulled the Hummer off the market, but like with many things I think they should have taken the fuel-efficient car thing further.

In any event, if you have 2 hrs to spare it's worth checking out. I hope some people watched it who were oblivious to the fact that oil is integral for our way of life and our very survival... I just wish that it wouldn't have been framed as just a disaster that could be remedied with effective diplomacy. At least it's something, I guess.

Repeats (all times Eastern):
FX Jun 06 08:00pm
FX Jun 06 11:03pm
FX Jun 11 11:00pm
FX Jun 12 05:30pm

[htuttle]

1. I watched it -- against my better judgement

I don't generally watch network-flavored pablum like FX, but I did watch it last night.

Overall, I agree with your review. The worst parts of the scenario IMO were the 'accidental' nature of the oil shortage. It never really pointed out the fact that oil shortages are in our future even without catastrophic hurricanes in LA and bad luck in the Port of Houston.

Also, I'm not sure they used the word conservation more than once. They only used the phrase 'energy alternatives' referring to non-petroleum fuel once. The solution that seemed to be favored by the program was finding more 'non-OPEC' oil (and more domestic oil). Sigh.

Also, where were the shots of big cities full of bicyles? (anyone think that WON'T be the case during an oil shock). Even at the very end when gas had gone down to $4.50 or so (an unreasonably low number given the events, in my opinion), the last shot showed an SUV driving off. And where were the food shortages? Not because the farmers in ND refused to grow, but due to food not getting trucked to the food stores. Didn't see anything about that. Massive inflation? Only really mentioned in passing.

Putin agreeing to sell to us instead of China in exchange for investing $16 billion in their oil infrastructure? That isn't a whole lot of money, given what the dollar would be worth at that point, and Putin has been more than a little leary of US investment in Russian oil of late. Kind of a doubtful scenario -- especially if Ras Tanura was out of commission at the time.

And for crying out loud, did they have to spend so much time with the gas-station owner's family talking about how their faith was bringing them through the crisis?

Finally, in the end it was really sort of boring. It was as though the whole scenario had been cooled to room temperature by heaps of government and oil industry spin.

[BlueEyedSon]

2. Yes Virgina, the solution to Peak Oil is Jesus!

I didn't see the movie (I'll probably catch a repeat) but I love your comment about the gas family's faith....

[nonconformist]

4. One thing that irked the hell out of me

And my timeline of events might be off, but that they showed practically empty grocery store shelves and then showed the gas-station family hosting a large Christmas dinner for their church with two hams. Starvation wasn't addressed at all, and it would be rampant in that situation. In fact, that brief shot of the grocery shelves was the only real mention of food shortage. The farmer protests were framed as more about their livelihood than a serious food shortage.

I totally agree that the Russian situation was doubtful. The more likely scenario would have been that China DID get their oil - because they would have been able to outbid us on our investment as well. Besides - how realistic is it to believe that any nation would help us regain superpower strength if we lost it? I could be wrong, but I don't see Russia bailing us out... I see them, along with China, capitalizing on it.

[BooScout]

3. We watched it as well......

For lack of anything better to watch.

I got tired of the woman praying to god to save us all.
:eyes:

It wasn't very realistic. I didn't go into enough details of what would happen if such a shortage did occur....and frankly never really showed anyone suffer very much.