I think this is my favorite joke in the whole franchise. I love that Austin’s first assumption is that obviously socialism (the “good guys”) won in the end.
I mean, that’s one interpretation. The other one is the reality that the Soviet Union didn’t always treat political prisoners particularly well, and being a former/current western spy, he was pretty smart to err on the side of caution in case they were the ones in charge.
It’s honestly a great joke just because it can be so multi-layered given the character of Austin Powers being a free-love, hippy-ish, world-class spy. He genuinely could have both genuinely hoped that communism won, but also a smart tactic to potentially avoid being sent to a gulag, knowing that if he was wrong, the potential repercussions would probably be less severe.
What we swingers were rebelling against were uptight squares like you, whose bag was money and world domination. We were innocent, man! If we’d known the consequences of our sexual liberation, we would have done things differently. But the spirit would have remained the same!
The thing that weirds me out is that Austin Powers was frozen for 30 years and when he woke up, society had changed so much between the 60s and the 90s that he was hilariously out of place.
If the movie were made today, he’d be frozen for 30 years to go back to… the 90s. Obviously a lot has changed with technology since then, but the societal differences aren’t as visible.
It seems like it’d be a movie where Austin barely understands the Internet and cell phones - and does stuff against social norms like trying to smoke in a restaurant.
If the movie were made today, he’d be frozen for 30 years to go back to… the 90s. Obviously a lot has changed with technology since then, but the societal differences aren’t as visible.
nothing changed after 9/11
Could probably squeeze a couple minutes of comedy about him taking his shoes off at the airport and bombing Iraq.
The attitude towards LGBTQ+ folks is a lot different compared to the 90s. Back then “gay” was an insult I heard at school all the time, and it was a huge deal when Ellen came out.
Now that I think of it, it’d be almost impossible to make the movie funny and instead it would sound like a conservative ranting about how they got cancelled on the Internet for calling someone gay.
I really would love an Austin Powers 4. I’m a sucker for his sometimes absurd jokes.
The pentaverate has a lot of similar humor, you might enjoy it.
