Push (2009 film)/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

Line 17:

** To elaborate on that last bit: offering the psychics a government job with a steady paycheck, benefits, and a nice pension would be a much better way of gaining their long-term loyalty. Killing them all off for the sole reason of pursuing a futile endeavor is just a heavy-handed means of showing that the Division is an evil government branch. Not only would giving them employment and proper training reduce the chances of rebellion, it would have meant having a lot ''more'' soldiers and agents instead of an absolutely wasted pile of corpses.

** It could be that they somehow discovered what causes psychic powers/what determines how strong they are by some unexplained means, and used that to develop the serum. As for why they were ''so'' certain it would work eventually, I refer you to the above troper.

*** Developing any drug means you have at least a general idea of what you want it to do - certain chemicals will always react certain ways under certain circumstances, which is how they "knew" what the serum would do. It's not that the serum remained static for each subject, they just had to keep revising it to try and get it to work. It's not that Kira was special as a pusher (Carver says so, but he's proved to be a lying manipulator through the entire film), it's that she got the first dosage of a serum that didn't kill the patient - the serum that worked. Granted, this raises other questions, such as why they would have [[No Plans No Prototype No Backup]] for, of all things, a super serum - which could be easily recreateable if they had the formula. As for why they didn't just keep training people, they obviously have, and now they want a method that's either (a) easier (or quicker results) or (b) limit-raising, so the psychics can push their powers past their normal boundaries, like overclocking a computer to go beyond the normal performance.

*** Developing any drug means you have at least a general idea of what you want it to do - certain chemicals will always react certain ways under certain circumstances, which is how they "knew" what the serum would do. It's not that the serum remained static for each subject, they just had to keep revising it to try and get it to work. It's not that Kira was special as a pusher (Carver says so, but he's proved to be a lying manipulator through the entire film), it's that she got the first dosage of a serum that didn't kill the patient - the serum that worked. Granted, this raises other questions, such as why they would have [[No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup]] for, of all things, a super serum - which could be easily recreateable if they had the formula. As for why they didn't just keep training people, they obviously have, and now they want a method that's either (a) easier (or quicker results) or (b) limit-raising, so the psychics can push their powers past their normal boundaries, like overclocking a computer to go beyond the normal performance.

**** They had the formula, they were worried about other governments reverse engineering it. It was also likely an intersection of the formula and the girl, so they had to test her to see what combination made it work, and would have to tweak the formula for other supers. They also had to worry about her pushing a bunch of people to take revenge on them.

** My impression from the movie was that the serum consistently kicked powers into overdrive, but killed them within 24 hours by burning out the body, one of the reasons it was so worrying that Kira was spitting up the black stuff (blood and/or liquefying/deteriorating organs). As for why the government doesn't just hire the people... well, that gets into whether they've classified the conflicts using the psychics as wars and the psychics as weapons of mass destruction. Most governments have provisions for drafts during times of war and there isn't always a lot of choice in the matter.