Thursday 18 August 2011

Today's Review: The Lack Of Safety Features On Alien Ships In Movies

I just watched the last Star Trek movie, and while it was indeed awesome and worthy of praise in a review, I haven't yet had to resort to reviewing a movie that is years old, and there is a more pressing concern within the movie itself.

The antagonist, Nero, has commandeered a Romulan mining ship and is using it to create all sorts of havoc. Of course, the climactic battle takes place within this ship, and it's instantly noticeable just how unsafe the whole place is. It's a mess of narrow platforms at varying heights, suspended over seemingly bottomless pits. Worse still, there are no guardrails. Seriously, who designed this thing? Apparently the same person that designed countless other alien spaceships and industrial areas in various other movies.

Okay, perhaps humans are just more accident prone than any other species in the galaxy. Perhaps the aliens who designed these other ships could not comprehend how one of their kind could slip and fall off an incredibly narrow walkway. But wait, just look at Star Wars. The pit over which the climactic scene in The Empire Strikes Back takes place, the mess of platforms and lasers that we see in The Phantom Menace. They must have been designed by humans, albeit ones in a galaxy far, far away, a long time ago. Surely they can understand the safety concerns with endless bottomless pits and lasers out in the open. They do live in a time with lightsabers though, so I guess they just think "Screw it, if these guys can swing lasers around all day we might as well just stick a few more in everyone's path"

Of course, the safety concerns don't stop there. Various movies, TV shows and video games contain places that are altogether bafflingly unsafe. In fact, there's a comprehensive list of them here. It's not just alien constructs, and it's certainly not just pits and walkways. Countless times I have been walking through factories or strongholds in a video game and come across open pits of lava and acid, swinging saw blades and axes, pretty much anything that could kill a person is eagerly waiting to maim in some game or movie. I know it adds to the challenge, I know it adds some danger to the proceedings, but when you think about it you really start to wonder how all this stuff got approved for everyday use. These places probably aren't built with the knowledge that a large scale battle between good and evil will occur there, they're mostly just for everyday use by some unfortunate employee who could become brutally killed by slipping or pressing the wrong button. These places are dangerous, and they should be shut down before anyone else gets hurt. Hell, a duel in a room with guardrails and protective glass could still be pretty awesome.

My rating: 0/5

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