(no subject)
So the first post for 2012.
I guess this would be a post to tell you about my Christmas and/or New Year. Or about my thoughts about the coming year.
But honestly? I just wanna make this post to say that I saw Alien about a week ago, and that I find it overrated. That is all.
Seriously, my mind will not let go of ranting about all the lazy horror movie logic that film is riddled with. Which is extra awful, because I want to like this movie. I want to enjoy it for all the good stuff it has, like good designs and great atmosphear and such and such. But in the end, when a movie's internal stupidity is too distracting to enjoy that stuff, there is no saving it. It's all horror movie logic, aka "when people get scared, they become so stupid they do things you'd have to make a concentrated effort of stupidity to pull off". Like the always, always occuring moment of "lets split up".
No. Just no! The natural reactions of a group of humans facing a threat is to seek protection in number, as in huddle together, not break apart! I've never seen a good rational or reasoning behind it either, not even the excuse of "to cover more ground" because most of the time that wouldn't be of interest either. You're not more likely to avoid a monster in a given area by covering more of it!
And "look behind you", as shouted by any given movie audience. Anyone with the least bit experience of navigating themselves through any kind of traffic (such as walking down a street) are capable of widening their perception as much as possible, in order to perceive any potential threat. Horror movie characters can ever only look in one direction, and not necessarily the one they're going in, even when they know that there's an unknown and mostly silent threat lurking about.
"But surely", you think, "Alien can't be that bad on the horror movie cliches? It's considered to be revolutionary and so much effort was put into this movie."
Oh, I'm not denying that a lot of good effort was put into this movie to good effect. (Hence, why I want to like this movie as much as everyone else does.)
But you wanna know how bad it gets on the cliches?
There's a cat on the spaceship. A cat on the spaceship that's transporting several million tons of space mineral ore, and that's run by a tight crew of seven people. Where the crew spends most of the time in hibernation to preserve the oxygen and food.
Was the company owning the ship worried about spacerats, or what?
You want to know what really bothers me about horror movie logic? Besides the fact that it makes a universally loved movie a pain to sit through? It's that it completely devalues humans as a species and completely underestimates what it is that's made us the dominant species on this planet. As far as Hollywood is concerned, it's pure dumb luck. (Probably because in Hollywood, survival is a lot more hingent on luck than in many other careers.) It's not that we humans are good at working together, or that we can use our intelligence for anything else but killing the planet (because we just assume that the deader the planet is the deeper our pockets get, am I right?), except, reality check: Our intellect and communication skills are what's gotten us thus far. (That and our stamina.) And as someone who has been through panic situations, as someone who has had moments when there's been a genuine cause of fear, I can tell you for damn sure that fear doesn't make you an idiot.
You might freeze up in fear, yes. You might have a weird overcompensatory reaction due to fear, yes. But generally, what happens is that your mind gets spiked with adrenaline, and that you focus every single thought of your being into figuring out how you will survive in the likeliest way. Because that's how we survive crazy things.
The thing is, I've seen horror movies where the characters didn't turn into idiots. And these movies are therefor so much more effective at scaring you. What makes Psycho potent enough that I a week later was scared of taking a shower, and why reading Dracula made me incapable of sleeping with my back to the windows for a long while, is because the characters weren't morons due to being threatened. With few exceptions, they were acting reasonably in reaction to what they did and did not know. And yet, that didn't make everything better. I guess the point with horror movie logic is that it really is supposed to take the edge of that fear. If you can be really scared while watching the movie, but still be able to take comfort in that if you were ever in that situation, you would be so much smarter than the fictional characters and would know what to do, then the horror move logic is working for you.
I guess I just don't see the necessity for that logic in Alien, because when am I next going to be trapped in a spaceship with a hostile alien? I can draw enough comfort from knowing that while no one can hear me scream in space, I'm pretty sure my next door neighbour will hear me if I scream bloody murder.
On that note: A weeble-stuff-parody makes everything better.
Also, now that I'm finally feeling awake, and hopefully gotten that rant out of my system, I guess it's back to studying for me.
I guess this would be a post to tell you about my Christmas and/or New Year. Or about my thoughts about the coming year.
But honestly? I just wanna make this post to say that I saw Alien about a week ago, and that I find it overrated. That is all.
Seriously, my mind will not let go of ranting about all the lazy horror movie logic that film is riddled with. Which is extra awful, because I want to like this movie. I want to enjoy it for all the good stuff it has, like good designs and great atmosphear and such and such. But in the end, when a movie's internal stupidity is too distracting to enjoy that stuff, there is no saving it. It's all horror movie logic, aka "when people get scared, they become so stupid they do things you'd have to make a concentrated effort of stupidity to pull off". Like the always, always occuring moment of "lets split up".
No. Just no! The natural reactions of a group of humans facing a threat is to seek protection in number, as in huddle together, not break apart! I've never seen a good rational or reasoning behind it either, not even the excuse of "to cover more ground" because most of the time that wouldn't be of interest either. You're not more likely to avoid a monster in a given area by covering more of it!
And "look behind you", as shouted by any given movie audience. Anyone with the least bit experience of navigating themselves through any kind of traffic (such as walking down a street) are capable of widening their perception as much as possible, in order to perceive any potential threat. Horror movie characters can ever only look in one direction, and not necessarily the one they're going in, even when they know that there's an unknown and mostly silent threat lurking about.
"But surely", you think, "Alien can't be that bad on the horror movie cliches? It's considered to be revolutionary and so much effort was put into this movie."
Oh, I'm not denying that a lot of good effort was put into this movie to good effect. (Hence, why I want to like this movie as much as everyone else does.)
But you wanna know how bad it gets on the cliches?
There's a cat on the spaceship. A cat on the spaceship that's transporting several million tons of space mineral ore, and that's run by a tight crew of seven people. Where the crew spends most of the time in hibernation to preserve the oxygen and food.
Was the company owning the ship worried about spacerats, or what?
You want to know what really bothers me about horror movie logic? Besides the fact that it makes a universally loved movie a pain to sit through? It's that it completely devalues humans as a species and completely underestimates what it is that's made us the dominant species on this planet. As far as Hollywood is concerned, it's pure dumb luck. (Probably because in Hollywood, survival is a lot more hingent on luck than in many other careers.) It's not that we humans are good at working together, or that we can use our intelligence for anything else but killing the planet (because we just assume that the deader the planet is the deeper our pockets get, am I right?), except, reality check: Our intellect and communication skills are what's gotten us thus far. (That and our stamina.) And as someone who has been through panic situations, as someone who has had moments when there's been a genuine cause of fear, I can tell you for damn sure that fear doesn't make you an idiot.
You might freeze up in fear, yes. You might have a weird overcompensatory reaction due to fear, yes. But generally, what happens is that your mind gets spiked with adrenaline, and that you focus every single thought of your being into figuring out how you will survive in the likeliest way. Because that's how we survive crazy things.
The thing is, I've seen horror movies where the characters didn't turn into idiots. And these movies are therefor so much more effective at scaring you. What makes Psycho potent enough that I a week later was scared of taking a shower, and why reading Dracula made me incapable of sleeping with my back to the windows for a long while, is because the characters weren't morons due to being threatened. With few exceptions, they were acting reasonably in reaction to what they did and did not know. And yet, that didn't make everything better. I guess the point with horror movie logic is that it really is supposed to take the edge of that fear. If you can be really scared while watching the movie, but still be able to take comfort in that if you were ever in that situation, you would be so much smarter than the fictional characters and would know what to do, then the horror move logic is working for you.
I guess I just don't see the necessity for that logic in Alien, because when am I next going to be trapped in a spaceship with a hostile alien? I can draw enough comfort from knowing that while no one can hear me scream in space, I'm pretty sure my next door neighbour will hear me if I scream bloody murder.
On that note: A weeble-stuff-parody makes everything better.
Also, now that I'm finally feeling awake, and hopefully gotten that rant out of my system, I guess it's back to studying for me.