Overpopulation and how a frank discussion was missed ("Inferno" spoilers included). [View all]

[Ilsa]

I recently read Inferno by Dan Brown because the movie was being released and I was looking forward to watching it after getting the whole story from the book. The novel is about an acclaimed bio-engineer who believed mankind will go extinct if something isn't done about overpopulation. The wealthy bio-engineer said he was releasing a plague he engineered, and Robert Langdon and a young female doctor race to find the plague container before the planet is infected. Intense, right?

Spoilers coming up:


In the book, Langdon fails to find the plague in time. But it isn't a plague that causes disease. It is a plague that causes infertility in a random one-third of the population. The bio-engineer figured that this was necessary to rebalance the population levels. There was a discussion in the novel by the two lead characters about overpopulation and how unwilling leaders and everyone are to discuss it, much less deal with it. There is an inherent denial reflex at work.

In the movie, from what I read online in getting reviews, director Ron Howard (and others) changed the ending. Langdon finds the plague, which is a real death plague, disaster averted, everyone goes home glad that Langdon saved the day.

Well, it was the discussion about denial playing out in reality: the director and screenwriter decided not to tackle overpopulation. Unlike The DaVinci Code, there was no public discussion of the topic, whether it was reality-based, supported by evidence, etc. It was another opportunity missed to discuss the topic, even if it was just from the perspective of ordinary movie-goers. Ordinary people need to be talking about this, don't they?