Saturday, April 13, 2013

Bad sustainability films for Apophis Day


In Space news for Apophis Day, I mentioned it would be the first of two entries to mark the occasion.  I now present the second, which reflects Apophis not only being the name of a potentially catastrophic asteroid, but also that of a Stargate villain.  Of course, both are named after the Egyptian god of darkness.  It's only appropriate that my wife and I will be spending the night at the Smithee Awards watching scenes from bad movies, most of which will be science fiction, fantasy, and horror.*

Some of these films will feature sustainability themes in very ludicrous and wrong ways, like Birdemic, which won Worst Movie at last year's ceremony.  Here are the movies that have sustainability themes gone wrong among this year's crop of losers.

Global Warming/Greenhouse Gases

Lightspeed
The mass ionic dispersal device will remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, causing a reverse greenhouse effect and instantly freezing everything nearby.
Solar Attack
CMEs & ignition of greenhouse gases
Wyvern
The wyvern is an ancient beast that was imprisoned under the arctic ice as punishment for attacking the Norse gods. But now global warming has released it.
Bad Biodiversity

Leeches!
The swimmers have been taking steroids. They go off to a local party at "the lake," and a few of them emerge with attached leeches. They pull the leeches off each other in the shower room, and kick them down the drain.  Giant steroid leeches emerge a few scenes later.
The Glass Trap
A U.S. Department of Agriculture black ops task force so secret even the President doesn't know about them vs. giant angry radioactive terrorist ants.
Orca: the Killer Whale
He accidentally kills off the pregnant mate of the biggest, meanest, smartest Orca in the whole North Atlantic. This Orca beats the hell out of his ship, kills one of his crew, then swims away to plot revenge.
...
First, the schools of fish vanish from the usual fishing grounds. Then people spot an Orca fin whenever they go out on the water. Then the Orca comes into the harbor and smashes every boat but Nolan's. Then the killer whale burns down half the town. That's one seriously vengeful pyromaniac killer whale.
This will be the ninth year I've gone to the Smithees.  Every one of them has been a great time.  This year looks like it will be no exception.

ETA: I wrote the above on the night of the 12th.  When it came time to go, my wife and I were too tired and went on a less ambitious night out.  However, all is not lost.  The Smithees will be held again at Penguicon in two weeks.  That's much closer to home and not on the same day as an all-day field trip.  We'll try to make it then.

No comments:

Post a Comment