Hollywood Brains

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Hollywood Brains

By Plot Roach
　
“I can totally see where they were going with that.” Sandra said, squinting against the harsh sunlight as they exited the theater.

“Then could you let me in on it? ‘Cause I’m totally lost.” Jacob asked.

It was a summer film, the usual blockbuster Hollywood used to lure in the public and fleece their wallets. The previews showed the best scenes, and the movie was little more than overdone posturing done by desperate actors. Still, Sandra had had hope for the film, since it was directed by one of her favorite independent talents that Hollywood had yet to tempt with money and stardom by producing a special effects heavy, plot light fluff of a monstrosity. Until now, that was.

They settled down at a local fast food restaurant, having already spent the bulk of their pocket money on the film. She took a bite of hamburger, waiting for the right words to channel through her brain as she attempted to defend this farce of a film from her friend. She chewed thoughtfully, trying to ignore the scene that popped into her head where an alien warrior had chewed one of the main characters into hamburger in its truck sized, razor toothed maw. She winced, it was not working.

“The monster chewing scene with the Edward character, am I right?” Jacob asked.

“Yeah.” She sighed, taking a sip of watered down fountain soda. She looked into the Styrofoam cup and asked: “Is it just me, or is everybody getting cheap nowadays?”

“Everything from overpriced movie tickets to buckets of popcorn, more vegetable oil than butter.” Jacob admitted. “What were you expecting in this economy?”

“Something a little better. At least from Hofferstein. “ she scoffed and dipped a French fry in ranch dressing. “His last three films were so good, and he only had a budget of about ten thousand for each. Now he was given sixty million and he chose to make ‘The Alien Equation’?”

“Ever stop to think that maybe he made the big budget film like that because it was expected of him?”

“I know, it just seems unfair. He did such good work before. With better actors and an actual plot.”

“Maybe because he had to skimp on things like special effects and big budgets, that he became so good. I mean, think about it. If you’re broke, you write mostly cerebral scenes that won’t ask for a lot of action, special effects or lots of physical background. You’ll hire on actors trying to prove themselves, so they’ll take the job seriously and not give you over the top acting like the big cats pulling in millions per movie.” he said.

“You’re right.”

“Yes, I know. But now it’s your turn to redeem Hofferstein.”

“What?” she asked.

“Prove to me that the last two hours wasn’t a waste of ten bucks per ticket. Save your director by defending his movie.”

Sandra set down her burger and pushed away the watered down soda. She stabbed a French fry into the blob of ranch dressing in its tiny paper cup and organized her thoughts. “Okay, what didn’t you like?”

“You might as well start with what I did like, the list would be smaller.”

“Seriously. What were your major problems with the film?”

“It lagged in the middle, when they were hiding from the aliens in the abandoned apartment building. It seemed to take forever.”

“It would seem to take forever, if you were actually there with them and hiding out. So maybe the director was trying to give a sense of realism to the movie.”

“Nothing else did.”

“What else?”

“What the hell was with the ending? The last ten minutes made no damn sense at all.”

“Let me recap: the two survivors get sucked into the mother ship. They pull out his brains to put into an alien robot looking thing and he fights to save her, one drone against potential thousands.”

“Something like that, yeah.” Jacob said around a mouth full of nacho chip. “How come the guy at the end of the film wasn’t turned into a drone like the rest of them?”

“First, the main male character had been infected since almost the beginning of the movie, maybe that gave him time to be immune against the powers of the alien virus.”

“So why couldn’t he blow them all to Hell with his new powers?”

“For the same reason you can’t expect a Mac computer to hack into alien technology, it isn’t believable.”

“Quit mixing your movies.”

“It was an example, okay? He was just one person -one brain, actually- against a bigger system. So he could only do what he could with the one alien suit.”

“And why human brains? That was just gross.”

“I think the alien drones were like a parasitic suit of sorts. They could think and act on their own, but they needed something extra. I think human brains ran the suits like batteries, what with the synapses and electrical currents and all. So when the brain that they were using ran out, they had to put new ones in. Remember that scene where the drone pulls off the guy’s head that was shooting at him and replaces its bullet riddled brain with the shooter’s?"

“That was disgusting.”

“But it made sense. And maybe some of the human memories helped the drone aliens to understand how humans thought and acted in order to harvest more of them.”

“Still gross.”

“Yes, but effective.”

“So why didn’t the guy’s brain turn again?”

“Because he had been building up a tolerance to the virus since the beginning of the film.”

“So you’ve got one all human brain trying to save the love interest against a fleet of alien-human warriors with hive mind. And it stops in the middle of a fight sequence, leaving you hanging. Why?”

“Hofferstein is setting it up for a sequel. And if it never gets funded, then idiots like me will defend it as a cult classic and say that ‘he was ahead of its time’ twenty years after he’s dead.”

“The brain sucking thing still freaks me out.”

“It’s new, I’ll give that to Hofferstein. Who knew Hollywood could make a film with brains, and still screw it up?”

“Mmmmm, brains…” Jacob said, arms out ahead of him and head cocked to the side in a mock zombie pose.

“That’s a different genre entirely.” Sandra said, chewing a bite of burger and washing it down with weak soda. Then an idea blossomed between bites of salty fries. “There was a ten minute alternate ending that no one saw yet. And it probably won’t be seen until the director’s unrated cut of the film hits DVD.”

“What’s that?”

“The main male lead wakes up the morning after the big party and realizes that in his drugged out state that he dreamed the whole thing.”

“That’s cheating!”

“No, wait. Give me a chance here. He’s so upset at the thought of losing the primary love interest and his unborn child that it gives him a massive guilt complex in the form of a nightmare.”

“And the aliens?”

“They’re a metaphor for the job that he was offered there in Hollywood. He was afraid deep down inside that the place where he got a job offer would be run by brainless drones looking to suck out his creative soul because they have used up all of their own. So-”

“They need his brains, I get it. But what about the whole ‘me against the world’ thing?”

“He has to take her back home to their small town life and keep her safe before she gets sucked into the big Hollywood hive mind and tempted to become another mindless creature of the system.”

“I hate to admit this, but I like your ending better. Maybe you should write a screenplay and see if it sells.”

“Naw, I’d rather keep my brains to myself, thank you.”