dropping my #monsterdon thread for #TheMonolithMonsters, in which I assume imposing architecture menaces the 1950s. Or maybe like walking statue monsters, i dunno.
Anyway, Monsterdon is the thing where we watch old timey monster movies and provide rareified intellectual commentary. Mute the hash tag if you don't want to see 9999+ posts about monster movies spawn in the next hour.
#TheMonolithMonsters starts with a spinning black and white globe as a voiceover explains how meteors work and that sometimes they make craters, over pictures of rocky landscapes. We then get a Disproportionately Grandiose Orchestral Music and then, goodness gracious, a Great Ball of Fire slams into the earth!
We then get a credit sequence where all the words are written in a goofy Halloween font, so i say that this movie is off to a good start so far.
#TheMonolithMonsters We see our first human, as a guy in a notable hat drives his wood bodied surf wagon into the desert and tries to refuel it, only for it to have a leak that I guess waters some meteors. The surf wagon is labelled "Department of the Interior", which is a US government department that I does does natural resources things, like casting Druid spells.
He then drives off past a model of the Parthenon and into a 1950s Western Town, which I guess is in California.
#TheMonolithMonsters 6 minutes in, we see our second human in the movie, an older dude in a white suit and a mustache, with a bow tie. The first dude shows the white suit guy the cool rock he found, which the audience assumes came from space. We learn that both of these characters are Science Masters and also Geologists, and that Western California used to be an ocean, because this movie was made when Americans believed in science.
#TheMonolithMonsters so I guess like the first dude is a government geologist, because he has the government surf wagon, and the second guy is a newspaper geologist, which is a profession that I hope still exists somewhere.
#TheMonolithMonsters Night falls and the audience and the geologists are attacked by strong winds and loud music. The government geologist wakes up to watch his new pet rock Bubbling Ominously, and then we cut to the next day and the next scene, in which a random guy drives up in a different car... I assume he's the main character because he's relatively good looking... and I assume he works in this office because he walks in and puts his feet on the desk.
#TheMonolithMonsters Probable Lead Character is confused that he can't find a geologist anywhere in his office, then he wanders around and discovers that the Bubbling Rock has turned into A Lot of Frozen Rocks. And also the geologist we met first is now like a frozen zombie mannequin guy, who Probable Lead Character knocks over, which the music tells us is Climactic and Disturbing.
Because #TheMonolithMonsters hasn't introduced any girls yet, we get a new scene where a Teacher Lady is taking some kids on a class field trip via her classy and yet somehow comical 1950s Megacar. One of the girls finds some lizards and a cool rock, which she takes back to her homestead, but it's one of the Evil Black Rocks from before. Ignorant of its terrible power, she gets it wet, which is a thing you should probably never do with Evil Rocks!
#TheMonolithMonsters we get an autopsy debriefing where a doctor explains to the Probable Lead, the Newspaper Geologist and the Schoolteacher Lady that the geology guy was like welded together with magic and that's why he died. I think they decide the rock was evil, showing that the characters can figure out the story as well as the audience. They decide to investigate the homestead to make sure that the wet rock the little girl brought home doesn't do evil wet rock things.
Characters so far in #TheMonolithMonsters, they aren't in any particular order as most of them haven't really shown any interesting personality traits, except for the school girl who likes lizards, which is a top-tier personality trait.
Newspaper Geologist
Doctor Autopsy Man
Hot Schoolteacher Lady
School Girl Who Likes Lizards
Probable Lead
Evil Wet Rock
Government Geologist (killed by bubbling rock, RIP)
#TheMonolithMonsters so the boringest scooby doo gang gets in their Megacar and visits the Little Girl's homestead, to find that the house has been Destroyed by Rocks, in particular, evil black rocks. The Little Girl is there, but she's frozen but not quite dead yet. They take her home and look at her in the microscope, confirming that she's turning into a rock and we need to rush her to the nearest hospital's medusa ward.
#TheMonolithMonsters We take the little girl to the hospital and put her in the reverse MRI machine, which is where your body is in I guess an X-Ray machine and your head sticks out so you can be confused for one of the talking heads from Futurama. Anyway, the X-Ray shows that she's being turned into stone, so the Probable Lead suggests calling his Old Professor (Dr. Flanders, possibly Dr. Ned Flanders) who knows the most of all the science masters about rocks.
#TheMonolithMonsters Meeting Dr. Ned Flanders, we ask how we stop the rocks from multiplying, a question that is not commonly asked. He joins our party, donning his Science Jacket to help go solve this Science Mystery.
As we are about to leave, we meet the Schoolteacher Lady, who is very sad and tells us that the Little Girl who likes lizard only has 8 hours to live. I'm not sure how we determined time to death for a mysterious medusa disease that came from space though.
Next on #themonolithmonsters human science advances as we go to the house that was destroyed by evil rocks and look at the rocks, confirming that have different colors. Also, they have the magic power to turn things that aren't rocks into rocks... they are like evil rock vampires... or maybe zombies.... or maybe borg... they assimilate you so that you are also rock. Anyway, when they do this, people die because rocks are too stiff to be a people.
#TheMonolithMonsters Okay, so we fart around in the desert a little bit, then find the evil rock meteor which came from space. we decide that falling through the atmosphere made the rock super and evil, and decide that it holds the secrets of space time.
Back at the hospital, we decide that we need to give the little girl more silicon so the rock has other stuff to eat and so she doesn't medusa to death. #Monsterdon
My #Monsterdon hot take for #TheMonolithMonsters is that it speaks to an era with a higher level of faith in science than most modern movies, because the characters are actually going the process of investigating a weird scenario and hypothesizing why things might happen. The logic of the scenario is insane, but they're approaching it in a very investigative way.
In most modern SF movies, the scientists act more like oracles than detectives.
#Monsterdon So doing our science, we learn that the evil rock can only reproduce when it gets wet, like gremlins. Unfortunately, it just started raining, which means that the giant meteor is getting wet, which means it will grow and we have problems.
Going to investigate, we find that the rock has turned into a giant Crystal Spire! Oh no! #theMonolithMonsters
#Monsterdon #TheMonolithMonsters good news as the little girl is feeling better and can move again, even if she's trapped in the iron lung thing that I called a reverse MRI machine because I don't know how 1950s medical technology works. We cured her by making a Salty Drug using the the power of science.
We suggest using the same therapy used on the little girl to defeat the giant evil space rock. The doctor repeats the chemical formula for the Salty Drug over the phone.
#Monsterdon #TheMonolithMonsters A sad and panicked farmer drives up, reporting that his livestock and his dog have turned to stone, and his kids are sad. Me too kids, me too. His wife screams as she finds herself turning to stone.
Fortunately, we have to cure for turning to stone now, it is a salty drug, so the audience is assured that the screaming wife will be fine.
#Monsterdon #TheMonolithMonsters I forgot to mention that they can't tell everyone to do an evacuation with the phones, because I guess the rocks cut the phone lines. Instead, the chief of police, who wears a cowboy hat, because this is the West, is resorting to an army of paper boys to order the evacuation.
The sheriff is indignant that the paper boys want to be paid, probably because he blew his department's infinity budget on a wardrobe filled with increasingly larger hats.
Our plan to defeat them is blow up a dam and flood the rocks with salt water, killing them. Someone objects that the dam is both privately owned and expensive, but the Probable Lead invents communism and is like "Fuck that! The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few! Or the One!" and then they go to put up explosives around the damn.
#Monsterdon #TheMonolithMonsters The climax of the movie approaches as we get more slowly growing giant crystals looming over the landscape and making crunchy noises. Then a damn explodes and some salt water pours after them, causing some of them to knock over.
Meanwhile, our heroes are standing in town, staring at this elemental drama blankly.
In conclusion, I give #TheMonolithMonsters 4/5 looming gigantic evil crystals. It is notable in that it both displays the scientific method while at the same time using wacky-town banana-pants science logic. It is notable that the tiny western town is excited about geology. I appreciate that the plot was resolved via Explosive Altruism. The movie would be improved if it had more godzillas, and/or more lesbians.
Oh wait, I need to list probably #Papergirls roles in the longed for crossover with #TheMonolithMonsters
Tiff - does science and determines that salt will kill the evil rocks
KJ and Mac - start by hitting cops with sticks, then end up hitting the rocks with sticks
Erin - actually delivers papers out of an ingrained sense of moral duty.
Also this crossover will necessary feature 20 future Erins who help blow up the dam as part of unrelated mission to steal some 1950s guitar amps and change history, and a bunch of Pterodactyl knights show up to stop them but then end up battling the rocks, some of which will be kaiju in this adaptation. At least one stolen stomper will battle the giant rock kaijus.
Floaty Birb
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