Hollywood Ending



Abe

When I finally got around to watching the movie, Lincoln, I was certain I was in for a spellbinding journey. Directed by Stephen Spielberg, the film garnished a best actor Oscar and Golden Globe for Daniel Day Lewis. Lewis also received the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance as well as many other accolades. I enjoy movies about the past for the difficulty in weaving a compelling story in amongst historical facts.



During the tense scene depicting the vote on the Thirteenth Amendment which abolished slavery in this country, I noted early on that the delegates from Connecticut voted against the bill. I never knew my home state was on the wrong side during this pivotal time in our country's sordid past. Growing up, my teachers always told us that all six New England states ratified the Thirteenth Amendment.

I didn't even wait to leave the theatre before I googled this earthshattering event that went against everything I was taught in grade school. I quickly discovered that all four Connecticut delegates voted in favor of ending slavery. The same reaction perplexed Congressman Joe Courtney from Connecticut, who rifled a letter to Spielberg requesting that the error be corrected.

In response screenwriter, Tony Kushner, explained that Lincoln was a historical drama, not a historical documentary, and as such many elements like conversations and ancillary characters were fictious. Apparently, Kushner erroneously believed that the vote proceeded alphabetically according to state, and Connecticut being early in the alphabet, needed to vote against the Thirteenth Amendment to create tension. The filmmakers wanted to convey the concept that the bill barely passed. Actually the voting proceeds in order of the number of delegates in each state and not alphabetically. Apparently, the historical consultants on the film were not, well, historically consulted.

It's always been okay to change historical facts for a Hollywood makeover as long as doing so yields a better story than ordinary reality. It did get me thinking about a lot of films which would have been better if the story followed a more cinematographic theme rather than the boring truth. So here are a few popular films which could have benefitted from some literary license.

The Martian

This film was widely touted as a technically accurate portrayal of space travel, but unfortunately it contained significant errors. First off, the Martian atmosphere is 1% as thick as that on earth so it's unlikely that a storm on Mars could pick up a human in a spacesuit and fling him so far that his buds can't find his hapless carcass. The storm was the basis for Mark Watney's mishap that led to his stranding. Sometimes techno geeks criticize science fiction films for esoteric anomalies like satellites orbiting in the wrong direction, the sound of explosions in space or the wrong constellations in a scene. I think you can punt on some of these things, but not on the basis for conflict in a story. The main plot elements should be grounded in real science, not science fiction. The Martian astronauts also didn't appear to be affected by the 1/3 gravity on the planet as well.
 

 

The movie could have been made more compelling if Matt was stranded on Mars with a chimpanzee named "Chim-Chim." Even though The Martian won a Golden Globe for Best Comedy, it would have been actually funny if a monkey other than Damon was in the film. A lot of Hollywood flicks include an animal for comic relief. The 1964 movie, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, included a monkey named Mona, which was adorable in her little spacesuit, complete with tiny helmet.

Chim-Chim in The Martian could have saved Matt Damon from certain death as the monkey sacrificed himself when warding off an attack of alien lizard-like predators that lay eggs in your stomach, which explode, flinging guts and blood everywhere when they hatch. You know, something never done before.
 

Gravity

This film also deviated from scientific facts, but the mishap is certainly possible, that is, a catastrophic collision and disintegration of satellites orbiting the earth bring calamity to shuttle astronauts. Space debris whips around the earth at spectacular speeds. The movie implied that the Russians fucked up somehow when they shot down a defunct satellite with a missile and caused the chain reaction, the so called Kessler syndrome, which sets the plot in motion.

Clooney's character, endlessly jabbering veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski, who sounds more like a bowling buddy than a seasoned astronaut, commands his last mission as he buzzes around in a Extravehicular Mobility Unit which seems to have an endless supply of fuel. Clooney senselessly flies around like a kid on a playground even though extravehicular activity is usually not the job of the mission commander. Amusement abounds as Phaldult Sharma jumps for joy yanking his tether, as he succeeds with a repair procedure on the Hubble telescope. I'm no astronaut, but I would guess that normal operating procedures don't involve testing the fidelity of a rope in space. Clooney also almost loses a screw from the Hubble telescope. This doesn't happen either as fasteners are often mechanically attached to their panel to keep space junk out of orbit. After the cataclysmic collision, Clooney rescues Bullock, but later runs out of fuel in his mobility unit. I'll bet he wished he didn't zoom around like an ass wipe in the opening scene.  

The scene in which Saundra Bullock was attempting to communicate with some foreign dude on earth, and she hears a baby crying as well as a dog barking always disappoints me. For what seems like an exorbitant amount of time, a talented and beautiful actress is wasted by howling like a dog for no logical reason. Obviously she can't communicate with a foreigner which limits the possible dialog. Bullock's character lost her only child in a tragic playground accident, which leads me to believe she would have focused on the child crying in lieu of the barking dog.

Gravity was written and directed by Alfonso Cuaron, the same guy who did the riveting film, Children of Men, my all time favorite flick. In the latter movie, the human race is inexplicably unable to conceive, and the world unravels in the absence of children. A young teenager becomes the only woman on the planet to give birth in two decades. Factions attempt to kidnap the baby as their symbol of their organization. During one dramatic scene, a rebel is pinned down by gun fire. As bullets ricochet above his head, he says,

"I was carrying the baby up the stairs. He started crying. I've forgotten what they look like. They're so beautiful. So tiny."

I thought for sure when I heard the baby cry in Gravity that Cuaron would have had Bullock's character say something similar about the beautiful sound of a child crying as heard by a mother who suffered such an unbearable loss. It would have been an appropriate nod to his other magnanimous film. Instead we got the dog barking scene. Oh, well.

When Clooney was being dragged away from Bullock only to release himself to save her, the up close and personal sacrifice made for a very dramatic scene. Problem is that there was no basis in physics as to why Clooney was being pulled away. All Bullock had to do is tug on the tether and Clooney would've drifted to her. You can't kill off a protagonist with convenient science. I would have had a monkey named "Chim-Chim" at the controls of a robotic arm, snatch Bullock from her perilous predicament. Clooney, who never got along with Chim-Chim, would've been swatted into oblivion by the same robotic appendage. The monkey gives Clooney the finger as he sails by the window.

Titanic

I liked this movie, but why did the ship have to sink? It was fun watching Cal chase Rose and Jack about the decks, popping off shots at them as they scurried about. The whole ship sinking gimmick was a bit of a distraction. In fact, with a little editing, the film could have been turned into a rom-com.
 

The ending when Rose tosses the "Heart of the Ocean" necklace into the sea never made any sense to me. After Rose finds herself a survivor on the deck of RMS Carpathia, alone in the rain and cut off from her wealthy friends and family, she gives her name as "Rose Dawson" before she discovers the jewels in Cal's coat. The ending scene includes a collage of pictures of Rose on horseback in Egypt, flying a biplane, deep sea fishing, all the things Jack would've done if he had any money. I figured Rose did all these things after she hocked Cal's coat and the diamond. I'm not sure how Rose paid for all these adventures as an uneducated woman in 1912. I would have had Rose use the money from the gem to become the first female astrophysicist instead of some bimbo bouncing around the planet. Rose says,

"A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets."

The only secret I want to know is how she weathered World War I and the Great Depression while travelling the globe on perpetual vacation.

Saving Private Ryan

This film should have followed the revisionist history movies like Inglorious Basterd and Django Unchained which fulfill our desires to rewrite history. The former movie portrayed a white guy assembling a Jewish guerrilla group who whaled on the Nazis, including scalping SS officers, and ultimately assassinate Hitler. The latter was about a black gunslinger who shot white slave owners. I think if Private Ryan was a full fledged trans soldier who was completely accepted by his army buddies in 1945, the film would have been a real groundbreaker.

Pearl Harbor

Another movie that would have been better as a comedy. Perhaps a small, ragtag group of GIs defend the entire island against the invading Japanese. There would be a wisecracking dude bro from the Bronx, an ivy leaguer from Connecticut, a rough and tough sergeant with a good heart, and two comic relief goofballs, Minnesota Bear, who wears his ball cap up turned, and Gooz who has a pet rat. The constant companion to the main protagonist, Rafe, played by Ben Affleck, is a monkey named "Chim-Chim" who seized the controls of his airplane when Rafe is knocked unconscious. Chim-Chim shoots down several Japanese zeroes before Rafe regains consciousness.

Apollo 13

The riveting true story of astronauts, Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise and their ill fated trip to the moon had many tense scenes involving NASA geeks trying to figure things out with slide rulers. It was a testament to the can-do attitude of Americans that I sometimes think is lost to the millennial generation, who are always popping 5-Hour Energy every time they have to do something physical.

The story would have been more compelling if the three astronauts were accompanied by a monkey named "Chim-Chim" who saved the crew when he seized the controls and stabilized the cripple capsule. Lovell and Chim-Chim perform a difficult extravehicular activity (EVA) to repair the damaged spacecraft only to have Chim-Chim dragged away by an unseen force that only affects him. He sacrifices himself by uncoupling then casting off his tether. As he drifts away, Chim-Chim flips Lovell the bird.

Blog of One

This post marks the end of my blog. I agreed to write twice a week for a year. I wasn't sure if I would be able to keep it up, but I did. Initially, I thought I would run out of ideas after a month, but they kept rolling in. With 104 posts, over 25,000 page views and a bit over 30 subscribers, I think I can say that it was an enjoyable run. I wrote this blog to sharpen my skills as a humor writer, and now I'm tasked with completing a comedy script I've been toying for a few years now. Thank you, for the kind comments. I had a lot of support from friends and family who said things like,
"You write a blog? Where?"

Throwback of Aidan, Me
and William

"I haven't read the last three months."

"You swear too much."

"That last post was stupid."

My wife, Christine, who is often the subject of many posts along with our boys, Aidan and William, have been the editor and first line readers, respectfully. They are my closest advisors who let me know when I've gone too far and occasionally not far enough. They are all the very best of everything in my life.

I'll likely return to Blog of One in the near future after my latest project is brought to a close. It's been fun and educational. I've learned many things, but one thing is for sure.

I haven't a clue what makes people laugh.