Tomorrow is Earth Day so I’m getting all my movies lined up for the day so I can watch them while I’m running the dryer (empty), turning on all the lights in the house, leaving the minivan idling in the driveway, plugging in all my Christmas lights, and wrapping myself in blankets because I turned the air condition down to 54 degrees.
Brendan Fraser’s new movie made me think of all the ridiculous environmental movies that have come out of Hollywood. Here’s the top seven stupidest environmental messages movies I could think of right now.
Furry Vengeance (opening tomorrow) – So a big bad evil company wants to knock down a bunch of trees so the animals of the forest act like furry poltergeists and start annoying the heck out of Brendan Fraser. If the animals were doing this as payback for all the ridiculous Brendan Fraser movies I’d be supportive but sadly it’s just a case of animals picking on a sentient being with less intelligence than animals.
Thankfully, just yesterday the Supreme Court made animal cruelty videos legal again so the sequel where Fraser tries to get back at the animals could be fun. (It might have to be independently financed.)
AvatarAvatar tries to disguise its clever environmental message by disguising it as a club and beating us over the head with it like baby seals. Funny, while James Cameron had such a big problem killing trees, he didn’t seem to mind killing humans in the movie. Huh. You’d almost get the idea that super environmentalists don’t like humans all that much.
Return of the Jedi Really, if you look at it it’s the same stinking plot as Avatar with the natives fighting back against mechanized imperialists except that Luke didn’t get romantically attached to the Ewoks. If he did I think their kids would probably look a lot like me though. But I really hated the Ewoks. And the later introduced Jar Jar Binks was evidence that some races should be wiped out.
The Happening This wasn’t just a bad environmental movie this was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. I think the trees were just trying to kill Mark Wahlberg for the “Planet of the Apes” remake. A shame they failed.
The Day After TomorrowAnother “When Nature Attacks” movie. You gotta’ love a movie where a Dick Cheney look alike is the bad guy.
Fire Down Below Remember this classic? What Hollywood imbecile greenlighted this disaster? I’m betting the Steven Seagal fan base and the Al Gore fanbase are pretty freaking mutually exclusive.
And let’s face it. The only Fire Down Below Steven Seagal was feeling by 1997 was heartburn from too many cheeseburgers.
Happy Feet –
At some point in this awful pointless meandering snore fest I was hoping Steven Segal would appear and start slapping and tasering penguins. And then he’d probably eat them.
April 21, 2010 at 11:45 pm
Well, ask and ye shall receive and all that. For me, nothing says wacky environmental fun like 1970s animal attack movies. You can't go wrong with stuff like Day Of The Animals (furry friends go nuts over depleted ozone), Night Of The Lepus (giant bunnies ticked off over pesticides), and the all-time classic Frogs (basically nature just gets sick of us dumping trash everywhere and decides to take us out). If you're still craving more after that, then Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster ought to hit the spot just right.
April 22, 2010 at 1:49 am
Environmentalism as a movement tend to be silly at best and dangerous at worst (pro-abortion). Still, not everything environmentalists say is wrong. There is such a thing as pollution, there is such a thing as cruelty, there is such a thing as waste. The two tragedies of the global warming cult are a) ignoring real dangerous situations and b) driving away reasonable principled conservatives.
April 22, 2010 at 2:02 am
What was that one with Susan Sarandon and the gorillas (and no, that is not a character portrayal)? I'm thinking not "Dead Man Walking" *chuckling to self*…hmmmm….
And what about Evan Almighty? Let's take a Bible Story and crucify it for environmentalism right?!
April 22, 2010 at 3:08 am
WallE?
April 22, 2010 at 4:27 am
I don't know…Star Wars doesn't seem like it was particularly geared towards saving the environment. The above mentioned movies like Fern Gully better fit the bill, I think. But those Ewoks are pretty freaky looking.
April 23, 2010 at 3:23 am
"Bee Movie" should have definitely made the original list. I had forgotten it until Sharon mentioned it.
The bees sued for the right to make their own honey! That movie went from cute fun to weird preachy garbage super fast.
April 23, 2010 at 5:48 pm
William – huh? Sued for the right to make their own honey… were they buying it at Costco before?
April 24, 2010 at 3:50 am
Well, actually, Steven Seagal is a buddhist and therefore a vegetarian. Where the martial arts tie into buddhism is a mystery to me.
April 24, 2010 at 3:01 pm
I like Day After Tomorrow, but I just ignore the doomsday overtones.
April 29, 2010 at 5:47 pm
the day after tomorrow was fun, but I agree that The Happening was one of the worst movies I've EVER seen.
May 17, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Haven't seen The Happening, and don't intend to. But I did read a review that drew parallels b/n some of the suicides and methods of abortion, e.g.:
stabbing yourself in the head, similar to partial birth abortion;
getting torn limb from limb, similar to D&E (complete w/ videophone to resemble ultrasound);
vacuum mower, much like curettage.
Here's that review's URL: http://catholicexchange.com/2008/10/18/114196/