Enter Mercedes Haefer. We see a shook up Mercedes recount the time that SWAT busted into her house, her parents house where she was living that is, and detained her.
This frames the tone and underlying idea of "We Are Legion." Over the course of the next hour and a half where the conception and rise of the Hacktivist entity called "Anonymous" is described, that beginning scene is never out of the viewers mind.
Two things can be surmised from this, first that Anonymous is a legitimate entity that is underestimated, and the second being that the government is overreacting and disproportionately punishing this group.
The thesis is ultimately expounded on in the last ten minutes of the film, when Anonymous members have been arrested, investigated and exposed. Many interviews double back to repeat those two initial ideas.
Nobody says it better than Richard Thieme, a tech expert and professional speaker that Anonymous is like Huck Finn when he refuses to turn in his friend Jim. Richard says that in order to 'be an expert at ethics' you have to 'transcend the legal and sanctioned religious appropriate truths of the day" to access a "meta truth of legality and righteousness." Look out, we got ourselves some Robin Hoods here.
That, my friends, is the real thesis and idea behind "We Are Legion." It is very pro Anonymous, and it will always return to the idea that Anonymous is a legitimate movement for the freedom of speech and human rights and that they are unfairly oppressed.
Now, in order to understand the rhetorical and persuasive strategies that are used therein, we've got to look at the relative strengths and weaknesses of Documentary style filming. Documentary inherently gives you the chance to let all parties speak. It's pretty great at allowing the opposition to speak, and thus you can more freely debunk the opposing argument by pointing out holes. This is pretty strongly used towards the end of the film where Aaron Baar tries to defend his views that Wikileaks is a crime. They catch him stuttering and struggling to find words to refute his blatant proposal to "attack" the journalist Glenn Greenwald. It's pretty crafty filmmaking. (Although, you got to give it to the guy for having the balls to appear in the film and defend his point of view.)
Within this example is also the really, really big set back to the Documentary style filmmaking and the structure of the film. It is sensationalism. And it is also the reason Documentary filmmaking pisses me off. Because behind the idea that this style is a much more balanced form of storytelling, it still has to be exciting, dramatic and adhere to the Act I, Act II, Act III structure of a film. Because nobody would watch a film without dramatic music and the fun 'everything is lost' moment at the end of Act II. Nobody would watch a film that is just a back and forth of a bunch of people on both sides of the argument stating facts about what happened with no music. That is boring. That is research... but that is real.
Documentary also relies heavily on editing. Since you have to rely on whatever footage you can get, it's often difficult to find the most visually crafty way to tell your story. So the sequence of interviews and footage has to be very precise. It needs to make sure that you have a very specific emotion and idea from one scene that you carry over to the next. It's why that choice of having Mercedes arrested in the beginning is so important.
So I say take the film with a grain of salt, because while it does effectively show that Anonymous is both a major movement with geopolitical power, and is being very severely persecuted, it is also very biased on behalf of the group.
Let's take a look at some of the rhetoric.
We see early on at MIT that Hackers were born out of doing pranks. They were about having fun. This I believe is the underlying feature of the hacker community.
At this point we see images of their pranks. Measuring a bridge in Brians or putting a car on the roof. This sense of comic relief is repeated throughout the film. It is shown later with memes, and Furries, and the prank phone calls to Hal Turner. The film itself echoes the idea of Anonymous that we always have to return to the luls.
Another rhetoric device, and the most important in the entire film I believe, is the music. It is very fast paced. Very reminiscent of a murder mystery. Something is afoot. Bad guys are around the corner. Serious shit is going down.
On the other end of the spectrum, triumphant and happy music is used when Anonymous has a victory. When the media footage is shown of the Anonymous members outside Scientology buildings worldwide, the music is decidedly victorious.
My point being, music is very sensationalist. We feel what Anonymous feels. We feel oppressed, then we feel revolutionary, then we feel triumphant. Rinse, Repeat.
Furthering this idea of creating a sense of empathy with the interviewees and the group in question, the Scientology protest is also used as an opportunity to humanize the Anons. The virgins are getting laid. The community is finally coming together.
It's like saying your name repeatedly to a rapist. I'm not an object, I'm a person! "We Are Legion" wants to get you empathizing with it's protagonists. They want you on the inside of this experience.
And this is my problem with the film, as opposed to other Documentaries. It is a lot more sensationalist than most. Their opponents are hardly interviewed. Representatives of the Church of Scientology are absent, although I bet they adamantly refused to be interviewed. The music and the editing and who they choose to interview, which is a majority on the side of Anonymous, all create a sense of drama. Slowly but surely you realize that we have protagonists, not interviewees.
Despite this, I earnestly believe the film is successful in fulfilling it's two claims within the thesis. The ideas that Anonymous is being disproportionately punished and that they are a very serious entity.
Over the course of the film, explaining how a dispute with Hal Turner eventually escalated to taking down governments in Egypt, and fighting legislature in Australia, as well as Wikileaks, we do see that freedom of speech can do great things.
We see that the internet is a powerful, even idyllic forum for the successful homeostasis of human rights on a global scale etc.
However, and it's pretty obvious at this point in my argument, I believe the movie is way too heavy on the dramatic side. It's more manipulative than persuasive.
Postamble (I'm making this word up but it works and I like it better than Post Script):
Maybe i'm more critical because the idea of Anonymous scares me. Hackers are far and away the most powerful people on earth in my opinion. The digitized economic system of our world is essentially an ecosystem that Anonymous could choose to dismantle any day of the week. As a group, their general momentum has been to do great things, but groups like LULZSEC show just how damaging they can be. I do give credit to the filmmakers here for taking a moment to show members and supporters of Anonymous who felt that LULZSEC didn't need to hurt the end user on their attacks on Playstation and Sony.
If Anonymous spans the column of Chaotic from Chaotic Good to Chaotic Evil, then when do we see real evil? Sending out gifs of strobes to epileptic forums is atrocious. I mean, what the fuck. When do we see more of that? When do Anons start to go rogue and choose to hurt us for the sake of hurting us.
Point blank: I don't trust anybody who has power that is not me.
Notwithstanding, I like to feel hopeful and exuberant when this group does beautiful things. Sending PDF's with tear gas treatments to Egypt. Helping a nation overthrow a murderous government. Standing up to entities like Scientology that will threaten the well being of its critics.
But it's all fun and games until....