What do we have left on film to fantasize about? The extraordinary and the impossible, and the future that we cannot see are minor cues that some of the more successful films of the past decade have brought to life on the big screen. Superheroes, dystopians, alien species and creatures, paranormal and supernatural phenomenons, all things that we cannot tangibly understand but can at least try to comprehend on a symbolic if not escapist level. But what happens when the unlikely becomes real? When reality proves to be just as surreal and disturbing as the movies suggest? How do we respond, particularly when film and reality clash together? What I’m trying to say is that in my own personal hell, my eyes have been pried open and shat on by the never-ending endurance of Independence Day: Ressurgence.
This movie is a slog and it’s just terrible. Somewhere in here is a passable movie with Bill Pullman, Maika Monroe, Jeff Goldblum, and Liam Hemsworth about pilots shooting down an alien ship, but it’s just utterly so stupid and tone-deaf and riddled with awful characters who for some reason don’t die horrible violent deaths (I’m talking about you Whiny Bitch American John Oliver). But in all honesty the part that offended me the most was the “disaster” scene in question. Let’s break this down for a moment: The “bigger than the last one” alien spaceship, ranging 3000 miles long, decides to pay tribute to their favorite Lonely Island song by picking up China and Dubai and dropping them on top of London.
This is a bummer and Vivica A. Fox (who I guess got her PhD in Stripping) gets swallowed by a collapsing building in one of the movie’s many gratingly contrived scenes of adding drama to a situation that does not need any more drama because half of the fucking world just got obliterated like that birthday cake. Then the movie goes on, where this whole massive extinction of the Eastern half of the world is more of an annoyance than anything, and I leave the movie theater seven years later.
All joking aside, I’m actually not a fan of “disaster porn” in the least bit. In scenes like this, where massive devastation is being depicted on screen at such cataclysmic volumes of death, I find myself recalling 2005’s War of the Worlds. There, as the ensuing alien onslaught begins, I think back to the very real and grounded question young Dakota Fanning asks while in the fetal position in the escaping van, “Is it the terrorists?”
At the time such a line was still fresh and raw, which could only be asked by a generation living in a post-9/11 society. I’m young here, so I did live in a time before September 11th, but even before the idea of so much suffering at the hands out unexplained or natural elements disturbed me so. I remember shrieking during Titantic, because I knew that the ending was only going to be all of these poor innocent people drowning and freezing to death, and 5 year-old me didn’t see that as art or cinematic amazement, just frankly terrifying. Of course what separated the likes of a real-life event such as the Titanic’s demise versus the White House destruction in the original Independence Day is a matter of fantasy. Aliens weren’t real, which meant that destroying iconic landmarks for entertainment wasn’t such a harrowing experience, but the action set pieces such as that still only seemed to exist in the movies. And then 9/11 happened, and real-life disasters became too real.
The compromise then became that not of supernatural elements, but supernatural people. Superheroes existed in films, superheroes could save the day, they (in theory) could stop 9/11 events from happening at least on the big screen. The growing levity that developed as the superhero genre continued though was the weight of doing the right thing even in the wake of personal or wide-scale tragedy. Consider one of Batman v. Superman’s earliest scenes, in which Bruce Wayne stumbles upon the destruction of Metropolis as Superman and Zod destroy everything around them, carelessly neglecting the innocent people dying below. That speaks volumes for the kind of blockbuster we’re seeing today versus twenty years ago. You cannot make light of human lives, even in a fantasy setting it seems. The Avengers films, particularly Age of Ultron which seemed to be a knee-jerk reaction to the negative impact of Man of Steel*’s finale, make it a point to remind us that these heroes are trying to save people’s lives. They might not save everyone, but they represent a form of hope for humanity in the face of danger.
Science-fiction/fantasy films take into account the fragility of the human existence in the wake of an uncontrollable destruction because it’s usually about some fantastical force of nature versus mankind. That makes it easier to swallow, especially when we have scenes like the finale of 2014’s Godzilla that take place in an arena where thousands of people are trying to put their lives back together in the aftermath of the monster rampage (Jurassic World does this too but no one likes that movie). Pacific Rim offers an even more resounding scene in which we see Mako’s flashback, an incredibly distressful and disturbing scene that against helps sell the illusion of the monsters in a backdrop of a real-life devastation. In my opinion, these serve as better allegories for man-made destruction as opposed to films that are literally driven by death and devastation (see: Everest or San Andreas). I cannot see the appeal in watching either of those movies which are solely based around miserable things happening to innocent people.
Of course, keep in mind I’m not discrediting historical fiction (which Everest is actually), but I’m instead targeting more when we use disasters as a grasping point for tension and drama. It can work effectively when the viewpoint of the narration isn’t myopic, and needs to acknowledge that these things happening around the characters is unsettling cinema.
Which brings me back to the shitshow of Independence Day: Ressurgence; how is it that a film plays this kind of human species annihilation so cheekily and yet so straightforward? Asia and Europe are destroyed but Judd Hirsch and the kids on the bus are totally fine! The constant whiplash of using the tragedy of these events backed by idiotic dialogue and stupid annoying characters was nearly offensive. So many characters die in this film, the wrong ones mind you, and the reprocussions of such make so little impact on the characters. This is supposed to be a fun disaster film, but it’s not. It’s so artificial in it’s design and crippling understanding of the actions that it surrounds itself with, it is a boldface complete disaster.
Is it possibile to achieve a weightless-guilt-free experience in watching a movie where aliens or monsters destroy half of the world? Sure, look at all those Transformers movies with their inexplicable millions and airless plots. Do I watch movies with a constant dog-ear perking up at anything morally upsetting? I do when I’m not engaged. Because while films are still a form of escapism, to completely ignore the sense of emotional scale that would arise in the wake of a cinematic disaster is to assume the audience doesn’t have the emotional maturity to understand these things.
In short: Don’t assume your audience is stupid. Don’t assume vomitting CGI all over the screen and one-liners is going to be engaging. Disasters on film can be beautiful (Gravity) and they can be fun (Godzilla), but don’t assume that because a bunch of nameless extras are running around screaming and dying, that doesn’t mean I won’t feel any less sorry for them. I mean I already do because they’re in a shitty movie, but within the context of the film as well.
*I’ve never seen Man of Steel, mostly out of indifference but considering how disturbed I was by the BvS prologue, and knowing that that’s the last hour of the former film, doubt I’ll ever watch it.