And now for something completely different, at least compared to recent posts here. Like the people who watch hash tagged programs such as Married At First Sight (#MAFS), I too can have thoughts about what I watch and then list them for people to mock, I mean enjoy. Thusly, I present twenty-seven and a bit thoughts I had during and after re-watching 2004’s climate disaster flick The Day After Tomorrow.

1. Absent father figure is bad, but heroic. Lucky he has that  grin.
2. Teachers misunderstand smart kid and accuse him of cheating trope. Yawn. Lucky student has that grin.
3. Come on. Not all smart kids are awkward dorks.
4. That guy whose career consists of playing second fiddle in every movie he is in, is in this one playing second fiddle to Dennis Quaid.
5. This film is old. Look at the phones, the computers.
6. Japan! and India! Is this the film 2012?
7. 2004 was a long time ago.
8. Disaster films making points about how media covers crises by creating a frisson of horror by showing how reporters die are …….. [insert your own conclusion].
9. Ubiquitous wide shots and close-ups of New York and residents experiencing terrifying calamity. [Extrapolate for the rest of the world]
10. So America: bright students competing for prizes.
11. Rich kid is looming kid with cliché absent parents.
12. America is in danger from an ice age inducing storm, but no let’s not tell Canada or open the borders for the northerners.
13. Australia rates a single mention though. #straya
14. Setting Scotland: featuring no Scottish people. They can science too you know!
15. Science: first hypothesis is equipment is not working.
16. On point (en pointe?) snide from unnamed bureaucrats directed at elected politicians.
17. Convenient ship is convenient. Not really in the city though until it gets a ticket from a parking authority.
18. I like the dog. And the wolves. And the bear.
19. Mmm books. Don’t burn the old ones.
20. Police officer authority does not respect smart kid authority backed by dad scientist knowledge.
21. Science Daddy saves kid through heroic exploits. Active Man. Sigh.
22. Unspecified medical specialist Mummy saves sick kid through nurture and being evacuated. Passive Woman. Sigh.
23. Start of a new ice age: why aren’t the main characters wearing gloves while in the snow?
24. Redemptive leadership arc for formerly arrogant and dismissive Vice Pres. Is this the prequel to An Inconvenient Truth?
25. It was a weird humid Melbourne summer. I’ve had the cooler on. It’s 24 degrees Celsius and this film is making me shiver. Lovely.
26. Refugees flooding into Mexico. This could be considered a first in that an American film deploys a deposit of raw authentic irony to make (yet another) political point.
27. What would have happened had there been a wall between the US and Mexico?

The world not as we know it.

I propose a sequel. I’m calling it The Months After the Day After Tomorrow. There is an adventure with the lead  character whose quest restores America’s sense of itself as a source of frontier myth making, while also resolving a fraught romantic relationship. Meanwhile, ragged bands of prospectors wander the ice shelves of Cold World America, battling wolves and bears, while sinking shafts into the ice, seeking sources of precious items from the Old World, like battery warehouses, specific (close up pictures of) chocolate brands, and clothing stores to sell to nostalgic survivors elsewhere. In the United State of Texas, the President has been overthrown in a coup. In Mexico, climate refugee farmers use their know how to show locals how to benefit from the milder weather but refugees are unable to own property. There are no more Pacific Islands. New Zealand and the tip of South America are a bunch of hills linked by ice extending from Antarctica. Tasmania is a snowy hill connected by an ice sheet to mainland Australia. South Africa is a glacier. The sequel  doesn’t cover any of this except in passing background pictures. The space station still orbits but the astronauts speak Spanish. The hero’s new Mexican side kick translates data from the astronauts to achieve above stated goals.

Tagline: Like Water World, only with ice! (But we couldn’t call it Frozen or Ice Age)

Like Water World, but frozen solid.