The Sun-Herald

The Tribal Mind: Film will eat itself

To discuss how dumb Australia was in 2009, go to Who We Are

by David Dale
YOU CAN'T call it plagiarism because they want you to recognise the parallels. Please don't call it postmodern self-referentialism because jargon has no place in this conversation. Lets just call it cannibalism. Every big movie these days is not complete unless it contains at least one blatant reference to another big movie.

This year the fad first became apparent in Star Trek, when young Spock glimpsed old Spock (who had travelled back in time) and said "Father?" Old Spock replied: "I am not our father".

Then in Terminator: Salvation, a soldier asked John Connor ""What should I tell your men when they find out you're gone?" and Connor replied: "I'll be back".

Then in Night At The Museum 2, a pharoah looked at the brought-to-life statue of a classic villain and said: "Is that you breathing? Because I can't hear myself think. There's too much going on here -- you're asthmatic, you're a robot. And why the cape? Are we going to the opera? I don't think so."

The apotheosis was reached with 2012, when the hero, played by John Cusack, looked up from a map and said to his pilot: "We're gonna need a bigger plane".

If none of those lines mean anything to you, you are probably not among the 14 million Australians who go to the cinema at least four times a year. But keep reading, you might learn something about how modern movies are eating themselves. The references are:

1 In a film that mostly contains in-jokes about the Star Trek TV series, this is a twist on the moment in Star Wars when Darth Vader revealed his identity to Luke Skywalker. (The conversation ends with another zinger, when old Spock tells young Spock: "Since my customary farewell would appear oddly self-serving, I shall simply say Good Luck." That's a reference to the Vulcan signoff, with hand gesture, "Live long and prosper".)

2 In the original Terminator movie, the line belonged to the cyborg played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

3 The pharoah is looking at Darth Vader.

4 It's a twist on Jaws, when the sheriff sees the shark and tells the captain "We're gonna need a bigger boat".

If you found those explanations unnecessary, you can now move on to prove your cinephilia by matching these 2009 hit movies with the lines below: 1) Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which grossed $40.5 million; 2) Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen $40.2m; 3) Up ($28.2m); 4) Monsters Vs Aliens ($20.5m); 5) The Twilight Saga: New Moon ($20m in its first week, likely to make $40m); 6) Angels and Demons $18m; 7) The Proposal $16.5m; 8) He's Just Not That Into You $14.6m.

Here are the lines to match:
a) "Do you want to play a game? It's called See Who Can Go the Longest Without Saying Anything."
b) "The absence of him is everywhere I look. It's like a huge hole has been punched through my chest."
c) "Citizens of the human hive, your leaders have withheld the truth. You are not alone in the universe."
d) Hey! She's only interested in you because she thinks you're The Chosen One."
e) "It feels warmer than I remember. Did the Earth get warmer? It would be great to know that... that would be a very convenient truth."
f) "I didn't fire you because I felt threatened. No. I fired you because you're lazy, entitled, incompetent and you spend more time cheating on your wife than you do in your office."
g) I had this guy leave me a voicemail at work, so I called him at home, and then he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies."
h) "Science and religion are not enemies. There are simply some things that science is just too young to understand."

Go below for the answers and to nominate your favourite lines from this year's flicks.

The matches: 1d; 2c; 3a; 4e; 5b; 6h; 7f; 8g.

David Dale is the author of The Little Book of Australia -- A snapshot of who we are (Allen and Unwin). For daily updates on Australian attitudes, bookmark blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.