Tag Archives: Aliens

Thousands of Trump rally attendees abducted by aliens

Oklahoma has never been a hotbed of UFO activity, especially when compared to their neighbors in New Mexico. Oklahoma has had fewer flying saucers, cattle mutilations, and crop circles than most of the country. It ranks 29th in states with UFO sightings and most of those were at the Black Mesa State Park way up in panhandle.

According to the Mutual UFO Network, Oklahoma ranks low in the list of places with alien abductees. Few residents report unexplained scars, sleep paralysis, or lost time. When it comes to long term alien abductions Oklahoma has less missing persons per capita than 50% of the country.

And yet 415 miles from Black Mesa, in Tulsa Oklahoma, at least 13,000 people went missing for approximately 3 hours.

Oklahoma’s alien abduction numbers are skyrocketing

On June 20th President Trump held a rally at the Bank of Oklahoma Center, a venue that usually seats 19,199. The administration anticipated millions of supporters in downtown Tulsa, but according to fire marshal only 6,200 were in attendance.

This can only mean one thing: the largest mass abduction in American history.

The empty rows were another haunting reminder of how powerless the Space Force is at stopping alien abductions. Every unworn MAGA hat represented a person who was trapped in space and made to suffer prophetic visions of the earth’s destruction. Every unclaimed KEEP AMERICA GREAT sign represented someone who was being fitted with implants. Every blue seatback represented an anal probe the local government was helpless to prevent.

The Aliens have gotten better at cleaning up after themselves

Oddly enough, there were no missing persons reported in the area. No claims of anyone experiencing missing time and no UFO sightings in the entire state.

It’s clear the extraterrestrials have refined their methods since abducting Betty and Barney Hill in 1961. Based on what happened at the Trump rally, aliens have made huge strides in cloaking technology. They can now hide a ship the size of a football field in broad daylight. The aliens appear to have upgraded their amnesia rays as well. Not one of the missing 13,000 persons have come forward with recollections of their experiences.

Weirder still, not one Tulsa citizen went unaccounted for during the rally. The only logical conclusion is that aliens now possess time travel technology. Physicists theorize that such technology would leave behind tachyon particles, but since these particles are purely theoretical we lack the ability to measure them. Had we the means we’d surely find the Bank of Oklahoma Center carpeted with tachyons from the nosebleeds to the pit.

In the meantime the Trump administration urges Tulsa’s alien abductees to come forward and share their stories.

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Why the Future of Hollywood is Stuck in The Past

By the year 2020 there will 101,228 feature films released throughout human history (according to IMDB). Assuming the average run time is 110 minutes, it would take 11,135,080 minutes to watch them all, that’s 185,585 hours, 7,733 days, 22 years if you don’t sleep or go to the bathroom, and 30 years if you do. If you tried to watch a new movie every night for the rest of your life you’d have to live to the ripe old age of 284 (assuming you watch nothing beyond 2019).

Cinephiles have a cornucopia of calls to adventure to answer, a diversity of dramatic turns to take, and a never-ending supply of new worlds to explore. So why do we get déjà vu whenever we go to the theater? Look up on the marquee. There’s that name we’ve seen a dozen times before, no roman numerals behind it, no subtitle. New year. Same old titles.

The answer is in the question. We have 284 years of options. People want to know what to expect before investing their time. That’s why franchise films continue to reign like eternal dynasties.

Rotten Reviews Don’t Matter Anymore

It used to be if an entry in a series was panned it damaged the franchise’s reputation. Back when there was a scarcity of long running continuities an Exorcist 2or Jaws 4 would derail a series. These days, in the era of shared cinematic universes, franchises are too big to fail.

SoThe Conjuring spinoff Annabelle was poorly received? The studio just made another prequel with a different creative team. So The Conjuring 2 spinoff The Nun was scored low too? Now they’re spinning off The Crocked Manfrom The Conjuring 2to see if he’s got what it takes. The convoy may swerve here and there, but it just keeps on trucking.

Universal has been trying to launch a monster mashup franchise forever. Dracula Untoldwasn’t the series launcher they were hoping for so they tried again with The Mummyas a Tom Cruise auctioneer. Now they’re remodeling their Dark Universe after The Conjuring universe, with a lower budget horror-centric version of The Invisible Man.

Warner Brothers are continuing with the DCEU where Ben Affleck and Jared Leto play Batman and the Joker respectively. Meanwhile they’re producing a backdoor DC universe where director Matt Reeves is recasting Batman and Joaquin Phoenix is playing the Joker. Oblivious to possibility oversaturating the superhero market Warner Brothers is hedging their bets.

Everybody is Eating the Member Berries

Hollywood is learning that extended cinematic universes are hard to build, much harder than resurrecting a dead brand. YouTube is full of Gen Xers who can’t stop talking about the movies they grew up with. Hollywood tried to reboot those classics action adventure flicks for millennials, but none of them took. So producers came up with a new strategy.

Let’s listen in on one of their conversations.

“Can we do anything with the Alienfranchise or did Ridley Scott kill it for good?”

Prometheusand Alien Covenant didn’t resonate with audiences. The Alien VS. Predator movies are best forgotten. Joss Whedon wiped his hands of Alien Resurrection. Alien 3almost killed David Fincher’s career before it started… But Alienwas a cult classic and Aliensmade James Cameron a household name. If only we could jettison the franchise’s baggage we might be in business.”

“What are you proposing?”

“We make a sequel to Aliens. Bring back all the characters who died off screen in Alien 3, like Hicks and Newt, and pretend none of those other movies even happened.”

“But what about the fans of the sequels, prequels, and spinoffs?”

“They’ll be first in line. Didn’t you see what happened with 2018’s Halloween?”

(Authors note: this actually pitch by Neill Blomkamp is stuck in development hell at the time of this writing, but the Alienfranchise will live on as a mobile game).

Halloween was A Harbinger of Things To Come

TheHalloweenfranchise has gone through many revisions, retcons, and reimaginings since John Carpenter directed the original, but 2018’s Halloweenmarks a trend in franchise film making. It isn’t quite a sequel nor is it a reboot. It’s a do-over sequel, one the wipes all but the 1978 film from the continuity. Technically it’s the third version of Halloween 2.

It sounds like a bold experiment until you realize it was made on a modest 10 million dollar budget. Since Halloweencame out in October it’s earned nearly 160 million, making it the franchise’s biggest opening, the biggest horror opening with a female lead, the biggest opening with a female lead over 55, and the second biggest October opening ever.

Halloween’s success set the stage for every tarnished brand to come back with a fresh coat of paint on, but will it teach Hollywood the right lesson?

1980s Franchises Now and Forever

TheGhostbustersreboot was a hit with critics, it made a profit, but it wasn’t a billion dollar success, so that continuity is dead and director Jason Reitman is going forward with Ghostbusters 3.

TheRoboCopreboot followed a similar trend, which is why Neill Blomkamp is bringing Alex Murphy back to his old continuity in Robocop Returns.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is set return to the role of Conan the Barbarian after the reboot failed to take root.

Linda Hamilton is returning to the role of Sarah Connor in the next Terminatormovie, even after two Game of Thronesactresses have played the character.

Closing Thoughts

My generation’s nostalgic streak is costing mellenials new experiences. Bankrupt brands are taking up too much real estate on the big screen because we’re letting them. If a franchise has had one too many brushes with failure it should go into a state of hibernation for a five year minimum.

The wounds inflicted by Terminator Genisysare still fresh in my mind. It’s too soon for another one.

2018’sHalloweenworked because it was the exception that proved the rule. It was a 10 million dollar low risk experiment that payed off. The estimated budget for Terminator 6 is 255 million dollars (making it the most expensive entry in the series). If it makes anything short of a billion dollars the studio will likely consider it a failure… But they’ll probably make another one anyway. Think about all the sci fi movies the studio could make if they divided up that budget and took some risks on some fresh intellectual properties. That’s why my generation needs to stop giving franchise films infinite retries. Let’s give the next generation something of their own to be nostalgic for when they grow older.

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