And sure, regular bullets striking lizard skin can explode like little firecrackers.
And prehistoric species all had an insatiable hunger for human flesh --- especially swim suit models in T-back bikinis. Though apparently they’re not very filling. Maybe it has something to do with the low nutritional value of breast implants. I guess it makes sense that an oversized reptile would soon run down to the nearest resort and eat three times it weight in tourists.
And in a country where you can’t water your lawn on the wrong day without getting a citation, it’s no trouble at all to conduct outrageous experiments that put civilization at risk.
All those are acceptable fictions. But when a father finds the partially devoured corpse of his son, you expect a little more reaction than a single exclamation of, “Ohmygod!”
It wasn’t even a gut-wrenching “ohmygod.” It was more of an “I left my fork in the bowl of chili I’m trying to warm in the microwave” kind of utterance.
At that point, the Sci Fi Channel’s original motion picture, Supergator!, lost me.
Science fiction and fantasy are appealing because it’s the realm of the strange and unfamiliar. I’ve never stayed at a Holiday Inn Express so I know next to nothing about cloning, the dietary habits of dinosaurs, or government oversight of mad scientists. But I do know that people tend to react strongly --- even, perhaps, emotionally --- when other people die in a horrible manner, especially when the victim is a close family member. (Even sensitivity-challenged men typically don't hit on the pretty girl 15 minutes later. Or if they do, she probably isn’t finding them very attractive.)
On the other hand, I could certainly do with fewer histrionics. Remember Meryl Streep’s “Think of the children!” when the nation was gripped in mortal fear by Alar on a few apples?” (What the heck was Alar, anyway?)
A peeved Brad Johnson, star of Supergator! hasn't locked his keys in his car. No, his son has just been eaten by a dinosaur.
Mourning is practically a profession in a nation of aspiring victims. A person may be the worst kind of cold-hearted SOB (e.g. hitting on a girl half his age before the indigestible gristle of his loins is even cold), but any American nowadays would still manage to squeeze out a few tears for the news cameras. It’s considered one’s duty as a responsible citizen. There always need to be new government agencies to deal with every “crisis.” If you don’t scare people half to death they might not realize there’s even a problem --- like that one-degree rise in global temperature during the past 100 years that may or not be part of a normal cycle.
Of course if the producers of Supergator! did try to inject more realism into their film, our cad of a hero would never have won the day, the monster would have gone on killing, and the movie would have lasted until 2009 when the Democrats take complete control of the government and set up an ineffective bureaucracy that ultimately declares Supergator an endangered species.
On second thought, who want's reality? Damn fine movie, that Supergator!
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