The Platform 2 is even more cryptic than the first movie: let’s focus on its meaning and philosophy, they both need to be explained.
When The Platform was released in 2019, it rapidly became one of the most mysterious and enigmatic movies of the season. The film’s structure contained a lot of philosophy, and we explored it in detail in this article; the Pit was the perfect context to symbolize how humans behave, how they see others, and how they handle needs, survival instincts, priorities, and empathy while belonging to a social group. Now that The Platform 2 is out too, we all need to have many aspects explained: how does the second movie fit the timeline set by the first one, and what’s its authentic meaning?
Something stands out immediately when you start comparing The Platform and The Platform 2: the first movie was entirely about survival. The protagonists acted like animals trapped in a maze, trying to survive and looking for a way to solve the riddle. The Pit represented an extraordinary portrait of society, brought to the extreme conditions of challenging survival. When there are no rules, people will tend to take whatever they can, not caring about others, leading to injustices and inequalities that would make people die. Only a few show interest in others and humanity as a whole, but it’s not enough. Therefore, from a certain point of view, we can extract an important meaning from The Platform: humans need rules to guarantee equal rights and life conditions for everyone.
This is how The Platform 2 fits in the story: the second movie extends the meaning of the first, introducing The Law. This time, people seem to understand how urgent it is to set rules to survive as a group, not just as individuals. The Pit is actually based on a simple concept: there is food for everyone. The platform serves all the dishes ordered by the protagonists before entering the structure, so if everyone eats only the dish they ordered, everyone will eat every day and survive. This doesn’t happen because of human greed: people eat more than they need, so those who stay in the upper levels can determine the death of people at the bottom.
Therefore, The Law is necessary for a society’s survival. However, we soon discover that blindly enforcing the Law leads to a different kind of injustice. Fanatism is behind the corner; those who assume the role of law enforcer can quickly lose empathy for the specific situations and needs of a complex society. This is the most important thing Platform 2 has explained to us: laws and rules represent a general structure; their guidance determines the spirit of our society, but real life is made of many extraordinary circumstances that may require special attention. A law can’t cover all possible cases, can’t always guarantee justice in exceptional situations. This is where law enforcers need to show their human instinct and empathy towards the specialties behind their eyes.
This is not happening in The Platform 2: in this first stage of society’s evolution, a Law is formulated, and no exceptions will be made. The Law must be respected regardless of any special situations, and the punishment for those who break it must be cruel because terror is the way to make the Law effective. Law cannot become a cult; it must be applied with common sense, especially if many extraordinary situations occur. In the movie, we hear about the case of a sick inmate who needs special care and a friend who gives him more food for that day; if that is considered a serious offense that requires a symbolic punishment, then the Law becomes a second, more dangerous degree of injustice.
Therefore, The Platform 2 conveys a fascinating meaning, showing the failure of law enforcement. One of the most interesting aspects of the movie is what we discover at its ending: besides the many aspects that remain unexplained, at the end of the second movie, we find the protagonists of the first movie, revealing that The Platform 2 is actually a prequel, its events happened before The Platform. In The Platform, there is no presence of the Law, and that’s not because humans haven’t thought about it yet: there is no Law because its application failed in the past, leading to rebellions, internal fights, and more deaths.
We can explore many other aspects in The Platform universe, but if we want to extract just one meaning the two movies have explained to us, this is it: a society without laws surely generates inequalities, but the wrong laws, or their blind enforcement without appropriately judging the specific situations, will lead to more chaos and injustice. We may wait now for a third movie and more food for thought, especially given The Platform 2‘s open ending.
