Actually, this brings me to a good point, and it may as well be the topic of this post (I'll have to change the title from Background Dominated is stupid to something else now...). Dr. Foot-face claims that aliens in most sci-fi movies are stupid, at least the ones that try to take over the Earth. He's probably not too wrong on this. I am sure both he and I will eventually think of many idiotic moves that aliens have made throughout the history of sci-fi movies. And it's probably this stupidity on the part of the aliens that always leads to the humans winning!
But the notion of humans quickly outsmarting the aliens would also make for boring movies. So, the writers actually make the humans just as dumb as the aliens (but maybe just a little smarter at just the right time in the movie for something exciting to happen).
For example, let's analyze on of my favorite movies, Independence Day. As any 14 year old boy would, I enjoyed this movie when it first came out in the theaters. But as I grew up, I realized how bad it is in so many ways. It's only one of my favorites for two reasons: 1) the fact that I can so easily rip it apart and 2) the President's speech right before the big battle, which I must admit still gives me goosebumps (Bill Pullman for President!).
First, the movie starts with these huge, city-sized alien space-ships strategically moving themselves over the most populated areas on the planet. Now, this should have been the first clue that they may not be all that friendly. Why did the president in the movie wait so long to evacuate the cities? Surely, his defense and military advisors would have said to him, "Mr. President, the aliens have positioned themselves in a very militaristic and strategic way".
Second, with all of the smart minds in the US likely analyzing the situation, it takes a cable guy (who, granted, went to MIT for 8 years) to figure out that there is a signal being propagated from the mothership to all the other ships via our own satellite system. This I can forgive I guess, because they do make this character (played quite well by Jeff Goldblum) a supposed genius. But, seriously - no one else thought of this??
By the way, this signal is how the aliens coordinate their attack, and it's also how the city-sized ships have power to generate their impenetrable shields, a point to which I am about to return.
Third, after the aliens attack, the President and the various important members of the government escape. However, as shown later in the movie, they obviously still have control over defense systems, etc.. So, why in the HELL didn't they just take out or shut down or move (or whatever) the satellites that the aliens were using against them? Instead, they come up with this cockamamie plan to plant a virus into the mothership, and then nuke the mothership.
But for the sake of argument, let's assume that for some reason, this was the ONLY option they had left. There is one fatal flaw in their plan - how in the world did Jeff Goldblum's character figure out how to connect our computer software with that of the aliens?? Hell, for the longest time, Macs and PCs couldn't even talk to each other! But yet, he is able to upload this virus into their system and get a good idea of how long it will take for it to go into effect. And why even use the virus? They blew up the mothership with a nuke at the end anyway (oh, sorry, spoiler alert). Why not just do that to begin with? Then, the signal would be disrupted and the air attacks back on Earth could take out the ships.
Wow, the more I think about this movie, the more I find wrong about it. But I think that's enough for one post. My point is that while idiot-head claims that aliens in these movies are dumb, I say the humans are just as dumb!
Makes for cool special effects, but a storyline with more holes in it than swiss cheese.
 |
| Since he was only a fighter pilot and wasn't involved in any of the idiotic decisions made by the other characters, Will Smith's character may be the only intelligent human in Independence Day. Courtesy: TouchFM |
No comments:
Post a Comment