Is Idiocracy 2006 intentionally stupid?
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by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
We all know about absolute cinematic masterpieces like The Room by the legendary Tommy Wiseau. Films that were intended to be great works of cinema, but that failed so miserably at achieving their goal, that they span all the way around the scale and became great works of cinema, by mistake, anyway. But then there are films like The Grindhouse movies, or Black Dynamite, or Wiseau's sequel to Samurai Cop, who's goal was to be those intentionally terrible pieces of crap, from the get go. Is Idiocracy by Mike Judge from the first type of terrible movies, or from the second, intentional one? Is Idiocracy intentionally stupid? c:0 ↩ Reply
The film currently holds a rather favorable position among critics and movie-goers. It paints a surprisingly accurate portrayal of the current political turmoil, giving it a similar status to masterpieces like Orwell's 1984. But given the merits of the film's message, it is hard to overlook the film's rather blatant refusal of trying to be good. ↩ Reply
The script has an insane level of seeming laziness by the writers. For example, instead of coming up with actual conversations that would have arguments and would sway the point of view from one way to another, like a good court drama would, this movie instead, tends to introduce a fucking voice-over narration that tells the audience how clever or how smart the character is without actually showing it. Almost as if the writer knew that he could not pull off good dialogue and instead decided to walk around the challenge all together. ↩ Reply
The film was written by two people, one of which is Etan Cohen ( not Ethan Coen ). If it was Ethan Coen, I would believe the film would have some rather nice dialogue. But Etan Cohen is notorious for being terrible. His 2018 mystery comedy film Holmes & Watson ( which he both wrote and directed ) won 4 Golden Raspberries. And his directorial debut Get Hard has only 28% on Rotten Tomatoes. ↩ Reply
Given that Etan Cohen worked on the script of Idiocracy, we can conclude that the idiocracy of Idiocracy is in-fact not intentional. ↩ Reply
But... ↩ Reply
Mike Judge, the director of Idiocracy doesn't seem like a terrible writer / director after all. His 1999 film Office Space is considered very good indeed. So how is a director of Office Space makes a movie who's quality is at best questionable? ↩ Reply
I think that Idiocracy might just be Mike Judge's attempt at trying to make a Grindhouse exploitation film. As you may know, Mike Judge played the character of Donnagon Giggles in Robert Rodriguez's series of Spy Kids films. And Robert Rodriguez is known for making intentionally shitty exploitation films. He was the one that made Planet Terror, the other Grindhouse film in the double-feature with Tarantino's Death Proof. He was the first one to make an actual exploitation film out of one of the fake trailer that they made for Grindhouse. He is probably one of the coolest directors when it comes to cleverly not giving a fuck. And Mike Judge, worked with him, on some of those trashy entertainment pieces. ↩ Reply
What if Mike Judge was trying to pull off Robert Rodriguez, when making Idiocracy? ↩ Reply
Think about it, in a way it makes sense. The movie is about the decline of intellect. If the movie was smartly written, or smartly directed, it would clash with the message of the film. It is possible that Mike Judge specifically hired Etan Cohen to destroy the script. He knew he would make too good of a job. He needed somebody Raspberry-worthy to dumb down the script. c:1 ↩ Reply
And in a way it is kind of genius. ↩ Reply
Happy Hacking!!! ↩ Reply
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c:0 March 20, 2026 We all know about absolute cinematic masterpieces like The Room by the legendary Tommy Wiseau
⤴ ViewI can see the sarcasm and genuine thoughts at the same time. WTF?!
Troler
c:1 March 20, 2026 It is possible that Mike Judge specifically hired Etan Cohen to destroy the script. He knew he would make too good of a job. He needed somebody Raspberry-worthy to dumb down the script.
⤴ ViewI imagine Mike Judge bringing Etan Cohen from 2500s, just so he could make a movie about his life.
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