Jordan Rife Overall Garbage Warrior was a documentary focusing on the architect Michael Reynolds and his advancements in ecological and sustainable living. Michael Reynolds is a trained architect of the University of Cincinnati. Soon after completing his studies Reynolds realized architecture as it stood then was worthless in the sense that it was not about people of the planet and what they needed. He then decided architecture as he knew it did not address the issues we are faces with and don't guide us where we need to go. Mike has since displayed strong focus in the efforts of these issues that people and the planet may encounter. The architect is obsessed with his work and often dreams of his projects. Michael Reynolds devotes his life to revolutionizing the world of architecture with a focus on ecological and sustainable living. Ecological and sustainable livings are seen as issues that need to be addressed NOW rather than later. These include issues of the quality of life and survival, working to discover methods of living that allow people to take care of themselves. The documentary stresses limited resources and the planet running out of oil and fresh water while also revealing issues of ozone depletion and their relation to population growth, thus expressing the planet will soon be uninhabitable. Michael Reynolds works to fight the ideas of big cities and infrastructure. He creates infrastructure inside of the structure, putting matter of life into the people's hands with potential to enhance the planet. These visions shaped the fundamental ideas of Reynold's earth-ships. Earth-ships provide their own infrastructure: providing internal sewage, growing its own food, and is also self-insulated. These earth-ships are glorifies in the documentary as big steps in directions for humanity. Earth-ships are self-sustaining and essentially provide no bills- they provide their own food with animals, bugs, and trees, and introduce ideas of thermal mass or self-insulation, along with other environmental alternatives. These earth-ships are stressed to be experimental houses. It takes clients to express Reynolds' visions physically and they are often cases of trial and error. Many times these experiments fail and the crew is sued for mistakes in building. Obvious examples of these earth ships are provided in the documentary such as Reynolds' "Thumb House". This house uses bricks made of mostly beer cans tied together with wire. This innovation lead Reynolds to other environmental building materials, eventually just using cans and bottles with mud to create walls of homes. This house also helped in the forming of ideas, such as orienting windows to the south for solar gain. These homes became more about function and possibility then of beauty, representing trial and error, experiments, and learning. Although each theory hypothesized and later proved by Michael Reynolds is not explained throughout the documentary it is easy for the reader to gain insight on the immense amount of knowledge Reynolds bears on his topic. Michael Reynolds, as portrayed in the documentary, uses his sustainable houses to aid in situations of natural disaster. In the case of the documentary, the architect and his crew build earth- ships in India made out of recycled materials. These earth-ships are proved beneficial economically, providing advantaged to the victims of disaster with the lack of bills and the decrease in the general cost of living in a self-sustaining home. By building these earth- ships in places of need, Reynolds' is not only able to help the environment but also to enhance the economy in these places as well. It is important to save resources by reducing the usage or electricity and gas but also to save money by cutting the costs of living and the dreadful bills that are seen by Americans as every- day expenses as well. Michael Reynolds is not the only master-mind behind these earth- ships though; he is generally accompanied by his crew, generally a group of men with an almost paternal, parasitic relationship to Reynolds and the earth-ship. Seen as a giant family, all members of the crew including Reynolds work towards a common motive of creating a self-sustaining society. The crew is responsible for building their own sustainable community, each granted 10 acres of their own land. An example of these communities would be the "Greater World Community" where crew members live with their families and teach the ways of their ecological studies to those around them. The members also work in a collaborative effort to create a sense of family and bonding and generally all feed off of the hard work and successes of one another. These are trained architects working together through physical labor and innovative thinking to create a revolutionary society that is not dependent on limited resources. It is important to exemplify not only the beautiful effect of stain glass created when burning plastic bottles into walls, but also to notice the architectural and environmental break-through these communities present. This was an enjoyable documentary to watch. I found myself fascinated with the work of Michael Reynolds. The documentary glorifies Reynolds almost in a sense of a God or a genius, which is not quite the entire case. The architect provides an example of larger-than-life thinking; who knows if earth-ships are really the answer to our problems or a temporary collection of recycled materials? The ideas behind his advancements and the evidence it provides obviously support his ideas of an architectural revolution with an emphasis on sustainability without exact portrayals of the success or failure of these experiments. Personally as a student of urban architecture, I envisioned Reynolds' ideas of sustainability and earth ships but on a larger scale of an urban area; imagining these structures or earth-ships as skyscrapers or multi-level structures. The documentary mostly places earth-ships in a rural or dessert-like site which may be unrealistic if these are being seen as revolutionary. Imagine earth-ships and the role they could play in regulating pollution in industrialized areas; now that could be closer to revolutionary.

sbrand21 Garbage Warrior is a documentary about an "Eco-architect" based in New Mexico named Michael Reynolds. Director Oliver Hodge gets a chance to focus on the life and works of this unique architect who develops homes out of using recycled materials like old tires cars or soda cans. This is truly a great film and I recommend everyone to watch this documentary because it will teach of the current and pressing issue of environment. The main point of this film to educate people on how there is a possibility to be completely self-sufficient but hardly anyone is pushing for this cause. Michael Reynolds feels that since we are part of nature there is spiritual connection and we have a responsibility to make this connection flourish.Michael Reynolds started began his career in the 70's, he had a very different set of mind believing that what architecture was providing for the world was pointless. He became very interested in building affordable housing that used recycled materials and where completely self-sufficient, like create its own power, or filter their own water, and/or grow their own food. Houses like this are called earth ship homes, while they sound very radical they turn out to be very beautiful. There is one scene where he is explaining the plan for his latest house and he was describing how trees will be growing in the center of the house and that birds will be able to live in there. He wanted to totally merge nature with modern living. In the 70's though was the first oil crisis so that gave him the incentive to start creating prototypes to present to people and companies. The first projects he came up with were unusual but he had faith that one day they would get more traction and more people would follow in his footsteps. HE states in the film "I always thought if you are doing things right for people, they will find you" this mind set is the reason he was able to continue his work to this day. All of his ideas have been trial and error, he did address the fact that no all of his ideas have worked and since this such an experimental project that there is a lot of room to fail. But this idea of thinking outside the box is what I believe to be the theme of this film. Reynolds was doing all of this work outside of the law and since they are self-sufficient buildings they didn't need any of the public services. The law quickly caught up with him and he was restricted so badly by the authorities of New Mexico that he quit working. Reynolds faced many adversities in this process and they labeled his work and unsafe and unhygienic. He fought relentlessly against this regulations and he wanted to create a bill that allowed areas of land to be considered land where experimental can be developed. By creating this bill the regulations that stopped him in the past would be more flexible so he could continue to work. Hodge was able to follow Reynolds through long process of the New Mexico administration. Reynold's license as an architect was revoked yet he still fought very hard to show the state legislature that his work was beneficial to not only Tsao, New Mexico but the globe as a whole. After years of hard work and persistence he was able to get the bill passed and was able to continue his work not only in New Mexico but in Honduras, Bolivia, and France. There is portion of the film where Reynolds goes to the Andaman Islands after a tsunami hit to see if he and his crew could provide any help to the redevelop the islands. He was able to design a house that captures rain water and stores it in the cellar, while air is drawn in over the water to keep the air cool. This house was built out of tires and old bottles. The film is very unique because of how it is able to capture so many things within it. Yes, it follows Michael Reynolds and his team but it follows the continuous battle of society becoming more Eco-friendly. It is people like Michael Reynolds who are the ones who inspire because it is easy to see that he is willing to die for what he believes in. Time Out New York says "Perhaps one of the primary reasons for the film's success is that the director felt it important to not preach to the choir: 'I wanted this to go out to as wide an audience as possible to get the notion of sustainable living to an audience that wasn't necessarily involved in green issues.' He notes that the film, which has been released in numerous countries, has already helped Reynolds win new commissions, including a seven-story building in Norway proving that Garbage Warrior succeeds as more than just a movie." I feel that this article expresses how much this meant not only to Michael Reynolds but to director Oliver Hodge. It seems like that this is what Hodge and Reynolds were trying to achieve this whole time with this documentary, all they needed to do was get the word out and with more people knowing about the benefits then more houses that are self-sufficient will be created. Reynolds expresses many times that humans will not be able to live on this planet much longer, and if don't make any changes soon then will be too late. I really enjoyed this film because it shows the creativity some people in this world have, while it is very hard to believe that someone builds homes out bottles and tires I would recommend anyone and everyone to watch this film. While watching this film you will learn not only the hardships of making change in today's system but see some truly beautiful homes. Sources Cited 1. Time Out New York

pasoapaso_91 Michael Reynolds is a man who has gone through formal architectural training and earned his license, but he does not fully believe or accept everything he has learned. According to him the field has so much power to change how we live and how we use resources but architecture, specifically homes, hasn't gone through any radical changes. Mike Reynolds strives to change this and his innovative "earthships" are proof of this. Earthships are homes that are self-efficient, sustaining and are mostly built from recycled materials, or what we would consider garbage. This means that the homes do not need any outside energy or heating as these are provided with the construction of the home. They are also less costly to build since materials like tires, aluminum cans, and bottles are used in the homes' construction. Solar panels provide energy, rainwater is collected for the water source, large windows allow solar heat to warm the home, and an in-house greenhouse allows for plants and food to grow. His purpose in making these homes is to live off the grid, correctly use the earth's resources as well as reusing and re-purposing garbage that would otherwise harm the earth if it were to continue to build up. This film Garbage Warrior documents the construction of these earthships, his own life, and the efforts he goes through to change how we think about housings.The most captivating aspects of this film are the homes Mike Reynolds builds. I find what makes up the homes and there purpose is extremely innovative. Unfortunately, not much time is spent on this. The film is very much focused on Reynolds as a person and how he defies traditional architectural discourse. While I understand that it is important to get to know this man, I feel way too much time is spent on this. Going deeper into the construction process of an earthship and their history would've made a more effective film in my opinion. His work is so remarkable that it is in fact capable of speaking for itself and relaying this message of who he really is. A person's identity and character can be reflected through what they create so this is why I say that there is really no need to excessively focus on him or the people he hangs out with. This film is instead too focused on the people who do the work and not their actual work. It's nice to know that there are others in the world who support Reynolds' projects, but is this something new that we are learning? I feel like it is obvious that there are people who believe in what he does, that's why there is a documentary film being made.The last half of the movie is where my interest was fading because of how it seems like Reynolds is being put on a pedestal. This part of the film is spent on the process of Reynolds trying to pass new legislation which would allow him to build his earthships but as tests on test sites. In these moments he comes off as whiny and impossible as if he is the only one who has had trouble passing legislation. Passing laws that only benefit those who can make money from them happens all the time. Even when people are fighting for something that can benefit most people and change the world, the law is not passed. The film makes Reynolds seem like he is a victim, but like I said he is not the only person in the world who has gone through this. Because of this, there are too many instances in the movie in which Reynolds is separated from the audience. He often comes off as being above others it seems, because he is the only one who cares about these issues and he builds these houses. This is my biggest issue with the film and this is why I think that less focus on Reynolds' personal life would have made for a better film.What I do like about the documentary is that it exposes the personal agendas and stubbornness of our bureaucratic system. Even though Reynolds is raising new points and bringing up extremely relevant issues, it takes some time before the legislation's benefits are seen and it is passed. This is something that happens all the time and everybody, even those who have the best intentions, goes through this experience. The film also shows us the alternative of living off the grid and the benefits of doing so. While the film does have a bunch of new information to offer, it does not succeed in presenting us this information. Glorifying Michael Reynolds for the work he is doing is where the film goes too far. There are many innovative minds before him who have accomplished such feats whose stories are untold, but the film makes it seem as if Reynolds is the only one. There needs to be more balance in terms of who he is and what he builds. A little history on alternative housing wouldn't have hurt either. I'm sure it was not the filmmaker's intention to make Mike Reynolds come off like this but they succeeded in doing so. More focus on his work and his development of these ideas would have made Reynolds appear to be someone who is well invested in transforming housing and architecture and cares deeply for the Earth.

packoftwenty The first part of this film shows the huge amount of wood, and manpower, that is being used to build an Earthship. Just look at the cost of Earthships, and you'll see that they cannot be the solution to the problems they claim to solve.Strawbale houses can be built for £10,000 (Google "£10,000 Strawbale House") - Brian Stinchcombe built such a house in the 1990s, and of course, the local planning officers had to put a stop to it, because their rich building industry friends, (who would never give them bribes of course), couldn't allow the rest of the population to see that you could build a house for only £10,000, and a super insulated, super quiet, super eco-friendly strawbale one at that.When are we going to see a film about Brian Stinchcombe's £10,000 strawbale house, or any other £10,000 strawbale house? Earthships use the most labour intensive (and stupid) form of construction possible - tyres rammed with earth.