Snakes on a plane!!!
August 17th, 2006I feel like I just participated in a cultural event of my generation. I believe I witnessed history by watching Snakes On a Plane.
Yes, thats me and my friend Rachel in “Snakes On a Plane” t-shirts that we won at the movie. And yes that is a green snake coming out of my shirt. Man, do I need a better camera phone.
For those of you aren’t familiar with the movie Snakes On a Plane, it is a thriller which is about nothing more than snakes on a plane. Well, it has slightly more plot than that, but really thats what it boils down to.
But lets talk about the cultural experience. Its 10PM on a Thursday night. The theatre is packed. Not only that, the crowd is screaming, chanting “snakes on a plane”, and making hissing noises. Why? An internet marketing phenomenon. Snakes on a plane wass the cult movie of the year/decade even before it was released. According to the wikipedia:
In recognition of the unprecedented Internet buzz for what had been a minor movie in their 2006 line-up, New Line Cinema ordered five days of additional shooting in early March 2006 (principal photography had wrapped in September 2005). While re-shoots normally imply problems with a film, the producers opted to add new scenes to the film to take the movie from PG-13 into R-rated territory and bring the movie in line with growing fan expectations. Among the additions is a line that originated as an Internet parody of Samuel L. Jackson’s traditional movie persona: “Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherf*ing snakes on this motherf*ing plane!”.
Yes, thats right. People came up with a line for Samuel L Jackson to say on the Internet, then they went back, shot that scene, and added it to the movie. Wow.
The movie itself is in someways an Airplane of this decade, except it could actually be taken seriously. I’m not sure if they originally planned to have it taken seriously as a film, but if you try to do that, you’re missing out on the fun. While the snakes will still scare you, the whole move is still absurd and quite amusing (provided you’re with the right crowd). It’ll be interesting to see how it does past opening night, when the people who aren’t cult fans watch it.