Tuesday, December 28, 2010

We Love Our Mediocrity

I am growing tired of watching futuristic, end-of-days, only-a-handful-of-people-survive movies. However, as long as they keep being made, I will continue to be subjected to them: my wife is a big fan.

That being said, I can give science fiction its due. The ideas, oftentimes, sound intriguing, but our current technological limitations weave their way into the plot and ruin everything. Remember when we were attacked by aliens, and we destroyed their technological prowess with a laptop? A laptop!? And it wasn't even a Mac! Remember when weather patterns changed so dramatically one could freeze to death in a matter of seconds, but somehow, someway, a pickup truck was able to make its way from Washington, D.C. to New York? That's reasonable in an unreasonable situation.

I'm all for the suspension of disbelief when it comes to watching something fictitious, but I am so bored with everything being so convenient. I don't like convenience in the books I read or the movies I watch. It's too easy (I'm talking to you, Twilight.)

My mind likes to be challenged. When I watch a movie that takes place thirty years after a post-apocalyptic event, where water is scarce, the last thing I want to see is incredibly clean actors wearing incredibly clean clothes. I know actors get paid a lot of money to look pretty, but if they are the star of a shit-is-fucked-up movie, they need to look the part.

I can handle actors I like getting dirty. I can handle actors I like not being the superior species. I can even handle actors I like dying. What I cannot handle is actors I like getting out of impossible situations via mediocrity.

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