The (I Suspect) Sad Saga of Snakes on a Plane

Snakes on a Plane has inspired at least two screenwriting blogs, one Alien Loes Predator comic, and God knows how much other internet bandwidth.

It even has its own Wikipedia article. You can see a trailer here. I'm not sure where you can find a clip of Samuel L. Jackson shouting "snakes on a mother-fucking plane!"

So the film is developing a nice little fan base before it's even released -- it seems mostly people who are already thinking that it's so bad that it's gonna be good.

And I'll definitely be seeing it too. But I'm going to engage in some expectation management.

In order for a film to be good via being bad, it must be earnest. The producers have reacted to the free publicity by shooting some new material, attempting to intentionally appeal to their prophetic fanbase. I read somewhere that they are even using things seen on the internet to aid in their re-writes, and probably re-edits.

Must be a rare joy to be the screenwriters that not only have to take notes from everyone involved in the production, but now also random people on the internet. At this rate, perhaps the big screen will finally see Kirk and Spock take it to the next level.

Worse for the film, since as soon as you try to be bad, you cease to be funny.

Camp is the the lazy filmmaker's humor. Everyone knows the tired cliches so everyone can intentionally write tired cliches -- then throw the actors on screen and have them smile really hard at the audience: "We know this joke is ancient, but, see, we're all just having fun here. Please smile back at us." At its very best, camp manages to be cute and successfully beg an indulgent smile from you.

I'm sure the original writers weren't striving for camp. Someone probably saw the metal detectors at the airport and thought to themselves that they'd never detect something that was organic and lethal -- like a snake -- so wouldn't a snake be a clever weapon to use?

And a little hook like this can be all you need to hang a film around. If the other bits like character and suspense work well, then the hook can intrigue people enough to come to the theater (or read the spec) and the material can entertain them enough to enjoy the movie.

But the problem is that even when there is some sense to an idea, sometimes just a hint of goofiness can undermine any chance at suspense or serious drama.


I still have hope though. A particularly zealous performance by Samuel L. Jackson could make this a fun film -- so long as he plays it straight.