
‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ Film Review
In what is an otherwise wonderful historical period piece, the hot contest for right action or rightful conduct among men ignites with a sea voyage of moral turmoil in Mutiny on the Bounty. It is in the requirement of obeying commands, to maintain order, to persist with lawful conduct which has graced the Oceans with British Kingship, which runs into jagged rocks due to the judgment of a few royal fruits to be more precious than the King’s own subjects.
The voyage to Tahiti for a special exotic fruit – purely for luxury we can suppose – brings out the stern demeanor of the captain of the ship (insert name here.) He is on a furious course in the seas to chart, to manage to succeed at his scheduling as likely promised by royalty. Ambition abound amidst all ranks on deck, and it is perhaps this subtle haste which motivated a goal higher than a moral one, through the disregard of crewmen, that puts the men’s fates into a perilous decision.
The trip to Tahiti requires a multi-year effort. It is on the way back, where preparation was lacking in considering the actual need for water for the plants, which imposes an ostensibly difficult decision: water the men or the plants?
Are humans really this disposable?
This is the oft-difficult task at rule.
For with such unyielding power on deck, the Captain of the ship has the right, a royal mandate, to be able to will whatever is necessary. To act out of line is to be insubordinate.
Yet can insubordination be moral?
Yes.
How does one know?
When one judges human life to be more valuable than plants.
And yet, that daring, that resignation of one’s future potential in the Kingdom, requires a testimony which is more than Earthly in rewards. It requires a leap of faith, a demanding courage, to volunteer hanging and family humiliation, to save what others would judge scraps of biological heap. The blind and lost at sea.
So then it is evolved to think of others as humans, with the same potentiality for experiencing good and bad.
The suspicion of captaincy gains fuels the rebellion. Yet it is the anarchy that ensues that damages the reputation of right action. For when all are equal in judgment, there is eternal uncertainty in the future being coordinated by the crew. To act similarly to nobility with the ignorance in the self-demonstration of honorable conduct leads to the “abysmal” frustration in fruits going to waste at sea. As if being shipwrecked in the tropics is a curse? As if continuing with a Monarch that is this wasteful of his subjects is a blessing?
This is the invisible drama that unfolds with such a masterpiece motion picture. The aims of Future Perfect are never this smooth with the tide.