Quarantine entry #115 - July 14

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Let us talk about the upcoming ‘Deep Blue Sea 3’ movie trailer. It promises to be good. Why? And what is it about?

Well, the latter is evident – it is about yet another team of people hunting down a pack of (possibly genetically modified) bull sharks in a river. Pause.

Here is the thing. All ‘monster (insert species’ name here)’ movies are really the same – it is a ‘man vs. nature’ conflict that would make Mr. Hemingway facepalm. I am talking about his ‘Old Man and the Sea’ novella here, when his titular character caught a swordfish after a long struggle, and but lost it to the sharks, (which personified the titular sea, I guess). It sounds quite exciting. Mr. Hemingway managed to depict it as long, deep, and almost semiotic instead; it is not quite in the same league as Stephen Baxter’s ‘Evolution’ is, because Stephen Baxter’s ‘Evolution’ is not quite so boring. I mean a classic, sorry.

…Anyways, the modern monster novels, (such as the classical ‘Jaws’), and movies, (such as the ‘Deep Blue Sea’ franchise in question), are not boring, but neither are they classic. Instead, whether we are talking sharks or snakes (think the ‘Anaconda’ franchise), it revolves around humans going into the wilderness, and where some wild beast picks them off one by one because reasons.

In such pieces of fiction, humans are smarter than their opponents are, true, but somehow it doesn’t matter, as the sharks, anacondas, crocodiles, big cats, etc. are strong and tough enough, are physically superior enough, to defeat the humans until the very end, when the humans win regardless.

There are some variations, true, as in the ‘monster alligator’ film that we have discussed a while back, where the alligators were depicted incorrectly as amphibious. That is wrong, because unlike fish and amphibians, the eggs of reptiles drown, as a rule, if submerged. There is an exception or two, true, because Mother Nature is like that, but none of them are alligators or their cousins – but what about sharks?

…It was semi-common knowledge since the early 2000s or so, when AFO had aired its’ ‘Hippo vs. Bull Shark’ episode, that bull sharks can exist in both salt and fresh water. They are formidable predators, but hippos are not too impressed by them, and neither are the Nile crocodiles, which defer to the hippos, (and for a good reason), but regularly hunt and overpower bull sharks instead.

Jeremy Wade, in his RM, regularly caught and fished for the bull sharks, especially in the first seasons, and he had also established that they are not as formidable as the saltwater crocodiles, for example, and their man-eater reputations might be overblown. That is why they are genetically modified, (sort of), in the franchise’s movies; and-?

And nothing. The other side of such films is that they are somewhat bland, there is no greater message, as there may be in the ‘AVP’ franchise, you know? There are humans, there are ‘monster animals’ which want to eat them, because they’re hungry, the end. The humans themselves may have greater motivations than just surviving, but because a big part of a movie budget is spent on special effects, (focused mainly on the monsters), the plot itself isn’t very complex, and the movie itself ends with the ‘monsters’ being dead, and human characters surviving, (usually only the main protagonist and their love interest, but there are versions, true). Period. Anything else?

…Sadly, no. We only got the first trailer so far, and it was a straightforward one, so for now, there is nothing left to discuss. Ergo, I will see you all soon instead!