Headscratchers / Luck (2022)

• For providing services to billions of people on a constant basis, the operation in the land of Luck is suspiciously small scale, with a maximum headcount of (generously) a couple of thousand employees responsible for the creation and equitable distribution of both good and bad luck worldwide.
  • The central machine responsible for the distribution is only overseen by a single unicorn who doesn't really perform 24/7 supervision. Having a single person overseeing the power plant for a city would be a concerning thought for most people, the thought of a singular entity overseeing a global system even more so.
• On the bad side of Luck, workplace hazards are prevalent. In theory, this should result in a far greater amount of good luck than bad luck being produced, but the production is apparently split evenly.
  • For that matter, why do they even need to produce bad luck? It comes off as something that simply is and needs to be dealt with, so it comes off as weird and kind of deranged to have workers devoted to making it happen and having people suffer.
• For a brief time, the machine outputs 100% good luck, which raises the question of whether it's even possible to achieve that standard.
  • Take, for instance, the setting of a casino. Imagine that every spin on a slot machine produces a jackpot. While luck would technically be 100% good for the players, it would be extremely bad luck for the owner, who now would have an unexpectedly large bill to pay.
    • So like Bruce Almighty where Bruce answers everyone's prayers, and because so many people prayed to win the lottery, everyone only won a few dollars from it?
    • Not the exact same concept, but close enough.
• What would happen if everyone did get good luck all the time? Good luck for everyone means good luck for bad people just as much, so crimes can be committed without any issues. And what if two people are vying for the same thing? A job promotion? A confession? A lottery ticket? An inheritance? Who gets the "good luck"?
  • If everyone gets good luck, that means crime victims would have good luck too to minimize their actual injury. Both applicants could end with a good and satisfactory conclusion ("promotion" is not the exclusive good outcome for one's career). How does luck apply to confessions? The good luck of lottery players and lottery sponsors would cancel out. Inheritances are not luck, they're determined by what the testator wrote in the will.
• If luck determines everything that happens in the world to such reality-bending levels, what even defines "good luck"? Someone gets "good luck" by getting a job promotion, but it means more hours and stress and less personal time for them or their loved ones. Is the luck really "good" in that case? Is it short term or long term?
  • You make it sound like promotions are all bad, but they'd earn more money and increase their quality of life. Also, they could be lucky enough that their new position doesn't have unbearable demands on their time and energy.
• The machine shuts down completely for a few minutes, halting the distribution of good and bad luck. While it is treated as a cataclysmic event in Luck, this apparently has had no noticeable impact on the Earth, which raises the obvious question of whether Luck really provides any sort of essential service to it.
  • Large portions of the land seem to be dedicated to relatively trivial matters, such as an entire building relating to dog poop. However, luck is shown to aid in larger issues, such as a marriage proposal and Hazel's adoption, so this world in theory should play a significant part in our own.
• Why are the pigs huge, bipedal, and clad in business attire while the cats, rabbits, and insects look relatively normal? It’s weird and jarring.
• If a little Bad Luck could mess up the entire operation, how has a situation like what happened in the movie never have occurred before? We clearly see that Bad Luck is constantly dealing with problems, things breaking, and people getting hurt. Sure, they all act like it's no big deal, but when they were informed of the whole situation with the Land of Luck being cast adrift in the void, they took it as a given that their side was responsible. It stands to reason with the constant problems they face and the complete lack of Good Luck they have to deal with any of it, things should have broken down long before Sam ever came along.

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