After Earth - Discussion

I went to see After Earth on Wednesday evening. On the whole, I have to say I enjoyed it. Let's face it, here we are, two days later, and I'm still thinking about it. Which is, I have to say, a LOT better than the time I went to see Avatar, and coming out of the cinema I was already moving on, thinking about my impending supper.

I've already seen some comments about things which, clearly, annoyed people. The statement from Cypher Raige, "Everything on this planet has evolved to kill humans." for example. Yes, that's a patently idiotic thing to say when humans haven't been part of the food chain in 1000 years. Mostly the local life would treat one with caution - after all, they have no idea if eating you would poison them, and they don't yet know if attacking you will result in you being a sneaky bastard with bacteria under your claws which could leave them with a nastily infected wound.

But you know what? I'm going to allow that as parental rhetoric. He's just trying to instill a bit of caution in the kid - who's unfortunate name, Kitai, is pronounced catarrh for most of the movie! After all, many parents spout much worse crap than that to make their kids do what they want. For example - "Eat your bread crusts, they're good for you." or "Eat your greens, it'll make your hair curl." I'm going to skate right over how long *I* believed that bread crusts were, somehow, different to the rest of the bread!

The fact that Catarrh Kitai threw a rock at the baboon who was menacing him? Oh yes, we're right there with the General in screaming, albeit in our heads, "NOOOO - don't throw it!" but we can also understand it - he's what? 12? Yeah, he's going to be scared, and it's not an unnatural reaction to seeing something as scary looking as a baboon. Kid must have seen Congo (1995) at some point!

I know there are many people who have commented upon the fact that young Jaden Smith appears to have but one facial expression. And while he's still only 12 (actually, a small amount of research reveals he is, in fact, 15 - sorry kid), I'm going to have to agree that the ridicule is fairly placed. He HAS only got the one facial expression. If he's not doing blank (a classic teenager expression), he's doing worried. In fact, he's ALL over worried. Like Blue Steel for Zoolander, Worried is Jaden's look in trade. You know what, kid? You've nailed it. I think it's time to add to your repertoire.

And then there's the volcano. I can't even articulate intelligently how much that exasperated me. But I'm not going to make a big thing of it. It was WAY too obviously flagged. And you're going to make a 15 year old kid run UP the volcano. Because teenagers are all well co-ordinated and there's no chance of mishap there. Glad we got that one squared away!

While there are probably many more points at which I'd like to dig, I'm going to finish with two which REALLY bugged me. Not Prometheus bugged me - now THERE was a REALLY ghastly movie. No, just a little bugged me.

The first. Now I can't remember the name of the creature they found on their alterna-Earth, but the gist of the creature is that it's completely blind, but can smell fear. OK - I'm prepared to suspend disbelief for just a second, and go with that one. It smells fear, and can thus know exactly where you are. The ONLY way to kill them is to "ghost", a state achieved by having absolutely no fear of The Beast - who, incidentally, has 2-foot long claws instead of nice, soft hands.

Just one thing, though. Humans (humans, you understand - that's us, the destructive ones. The ones who killed our own damn planet to the point we had to evacuate and find a new one. Those humans) have been on Alterna-Earth for 1000 years. That's One THOUSAND years.

And we haven't yet wiped this blind, fear-smelling SOB off the face of OUR planet? Seriously? You want me to suspend disbelief long enough to get my head around HUMANS not killing something we don't want? We made the Passenger Pigeon go extinct out of casual cruelty, along with many, many other species from sheer carelessness. And you want me to believe the human race DIDN'T, during that whole time, manage to slaughter a direct threat to our well being?

No. Just no.

And my second point. This is more by way of being a required plot change, actually. I'm sorry, if you've not actually seen the film (and you're completely unaware of how American films usually pan out), you may want to stop reading at this point.

Kitai is, of course, followed by The Beast (it's called an Ursa, sorry, and there's a complicated, and not entirely believable sub-plot as to how one gets loose on Old Earth when they crash there), but manages to fall through the crust of the volcano into a convenient water cavern. Phew, thank goodness that was there, eh? All that lava about was an accident waiting to happen. Ultimately he climbs out of the water, up a useful rock chimney. No problems here, as it happens. But at this point, why on EARTH (yes, I know, he's on Earth) would he not USE the natural features at hand? This Ursa is currently trying to get up a fissure in the rock, a natural containment point, if ever there was one. The audience are screaming (in their heads) for the child to USE this fortuitous moment and do away with the damn Ursa as he pops out of the top of the fissure. But no, he uses the time to try sending a text message (OK, I'm paraphrasing here, but he WAS trying to send the distress signal, which, in the absence of any cell towers locally, didn't want to go - I forget the actual reason it wouldn't send), allowing Ursa Gigantica to join him on the small plateau.

At which point all hell breaks loose. Ursa Gigantica (or UG, as we shall call him) sniffs the putrid scent of fear from young Kitai, and starts in on him. That's OK, we, the audience, think, Kitai has a double ended poking stick - that'll make short work of UG. Nope - that's not how it works. We have to wait for the Kid to be stomped on, almost defeated, before he decides it's time to lose his fear. Now he can't be scented any more (Yes. That'll work. The sweet smell of fear dries up THAT quickly. Suuure it does.), and is finally able to rip UG a new one.

Sorry, but really, you KNEW that was going to happen, didn't you? Kid conquers fear - all's well.

Well, you know what? THIS is how I'd have liked it to go down.

Assuming the kid's so dumb (and is IS a teenager, after all) as to continue trying to text his mates, and UG does, indeed, attain the plateau, rather than being offed more efficiently within the containing fissure, I'd have liked to see this "Danger is real, fear is a choice" BS debunked. I'd have liked the kid to get righteously angry, and see off UG in a whole NEW way. Oh yes! Teenage hormonal rage FTW!!