Saturday, September 10, 2005

It's the highly evolved saber-toothed RATACONDADILE!...this can't be good

During my junior year of high school I took an English Literature class. It was extremely fun for many reasons, the biggest being: I sat by The Honeyman, ZackyZack, and my buddy Troy. Oh. my. heavens. Quite possibly the most fun I had in any class. (Well...I don't know if I can actually say that; I had some really fun classes like radio, orchestra, mock trial, web design, debate, and German.)

I enjoyed my Lit class and the projects we did. At one point my teacher, Mrs. Robertson, assigned us each a partner and a short story to do a report/project on. She assigned ZackyZack and me as partners. (We didn't really know each other that well. We'd had Drivers Ed together that summer, and had hung out at Nikki's 16th birthday party.)
We were assigned the short story The Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury. I knew the story well, as I had become obsessed with Bradbury's short stories many years prior.
Meridith should remember my being assigned this story, as her favorite phrase to annoy me with came from it ("Warm phlegm gathered in his throat." gag me, hahaha.)

I don't remember what we actually did the report on. I think I remember standing in front of the class and telling a short bio of Ray Bradbury (specifically his claim of remembering his own birth.) But The Sound of Thunder continues to be one of my very favorite short stories.

While waiting to see "The Dukes of Hazzard" a few months ago I saw the poster for the new movie "A Sound of Thunder". Being the total dork that I am, I got super pumped.

So when I had the chance to seeing "A Sound of Thunder" with Elizabeth last night I took it. And OH MY HECK. I have NEVER seen such an unintentionally hilarious movie in my life. Definitely worth the $9.50, if only for the funny memories.

The special effects are HORRID. I think I have better Photoshopping capabilities than whoever was in charge of that green screen. The edges of faces fuzzy because of the fake backround? Man...you'd think with such a huge budget you'd sharpen those out.

** SPOILER WARNING **
The basic storyline of the original short story is: There is a company called TimeSafari Inc. who sends people back millions of years to hunt dinosaurs and other extremely large game. They are very careful that they leave no trace of themselves behind, the kill the animals only moments before they would have died anyway, and they bring nothing back with them.
After one of their jumps back in time the return to have the world as they know it completely changed. The alphabet is different and the results of the recent political election are opposite.
What could have gone wrong? Dun dun dun!!! A lone dead butterfly clings to the boot of one of the time jumpers--He stepped off the path!

Ok, so the movie follows the same basic structure...sort of. It says is based on it but based on someones acid trip while reading the story is more like it.

In the movie the changes aren't so sudden. Everything seems OK until the next morning when the temperature is unusually high. Suddenly plants start growing everwhere. Suddenly downtown Chicago has trees growing out of the streets. Time Waves, of course. Waves of evolutionary changes. Everything must be fixed before the final wave--humans.

The main dude, Travis Ryer, played by Edward Burns (MEOW! by the way), leads the crew into the jungles of Chicago to find the client he thinks stepped off the path. They are soon attacked by some "highly evolved" creatures. Liz calls them "Monkeysauras" but I've seen them called "Baboonasauras Rex", haha. They have a dinosaur body and a baboon face. Psycho.

And, of course, everyone is later attacked by giant pterodactyl-like creatures, who you soon find out are GIANT BATS. And, of course, they rip open the car hood, grab a member of the crew, and fly away with them.

We soon find that the Monkeysauras sleeps upsidedown on the ceiling...of course.

Soon the three remaining members of the TimeSafari Inc. team find themselves in the deserted subway.
Susannah: "Oh no; what are they going to find here? Giant rats?"
**big snake breifly shown on screen**
Elizabeth: "Anaconda."
Susannah: "Rataconda."
Elizabeth: "The RATACONDADILE!"

The ratacondadile, of course, turns out to be some sort of saber-toothed catfish electric eel mix.

Why is EVERY SINGLE CREATURE THEY FACE saber toothed? Is that just they way evolution goes?

There are many unintentionally hilarious lines from a scene of people having gone insane.
The moment of tension arrives. 3 seconds to go. Travis has to catapult back in time, beyond the time waves (because, of course, he can't jump through them) and then leap back to the exact time of the step-off-the-pathage. Giant monkeysaurases are about to bang down the door. The final Time Wave of Evolution is coming to change all humans into Gollum-like creatures (whose eyelids are vertical rather than our not-highly-evolved horizontal ones.) ...my precious...

I'm not going to give away the ending because, frankly, it's not funny; and I like to only tell the funny parts.

I can't wait to evolve. I'm gonna be first in line for the saber teeth.

No comments: