A little bit about the PyWeek 24 theme candidates

Cosmologicon on 2017/10/13 02:59

Sharknado is a disaster/horror film. The movie follows the plight of a few people seeking dry land while the city of Los Angeles is hit by heavy rains, flooding, shark attacks on land, and finally three tornadoes carrying a bunch of sharks. They save the day by throwing improvised bombs into the tornadoes, dissipating them.

The acting, writing, directing, editing, and visual effects are all extremely bad. I expected it to be a parody of bad movies, but really it's just another bad movie. But making a bad movie is exactly what they were trying to do, so they succeeded. Like most bad movies, it can be fun to watch ironically with friends. But I watched it as research for this post, and I did not enjoy it.

Storm's dying down: Nova (or some other character? It really doesn't matter who) says this halfway through the movie. It means the rainstorm is lessening in intensity, or coming to an end. You might also say this when a metaphorical storm in your life is ending, for instance if you had to work hard to meet a deadline, but now you can relax. The phrase suggests the relief you feel when things get easier, but like in the movie, sometimes when it seems the storm is dying down, the worst is yet to come.

They're behind everything: the group stops into a liquor store, where the employee gives his conspiracy theory that the government caused the extreme weather. This has absolutely no bearing on the plot, we never see the guy again, and we never find out what caused the weather. To be behind something means to control it, or cause it to happen. If the government is "behind everything", they have a great deal of control over everyday events, including the weather.

I never saw that coming: the same employee says that, although he expected the government to do something evil, he did not expect it to take the form of a shark attack. He's impressed that it was something he didn't expect, given how much he's thought about it. If you don't see something coming, you're unprepared for it, and it will take you by surprise. Also, this employee's 60 seconds of screen time is pretty much the only joke in the film, despite Wikipedia claiming that this is a comedy.

It's too dangerous: April says this to her son Matt when he plans to fly in a helicopter to throw bombs into the tornadoes. He goes anyway. If a plan is dangerous, it has a large risk of a bad outcome, in this case getting attacked by sharks in midair. In real life, if you have a plan and someone tells you it's too dangerous, you should probably consider a safer plan. But of course if you're in a movie, you're going to do it anyway.

Los Angeles has been saved: this is never spoken in the film. The protagonists do blow up the tornadoes at the end, but there are still sharks everywhere, so it doesn't even seem like something that would be appropriate to say. Also the movie ends right away so nobody has any time to say something like this. Los Angeles (also known as LA) is the second-largest city in the USA, in the state of California on the Pacific coast. It's an important economic and cultural center. It includes the famous neighborhood of Hollywood, home to the US film industry. Many films are set there, especially when the filmmakers are lazy and don't want to travel. A city being saved means that some destructive force that was threatening the city was brought to an end.

Like always, whatever the theme is, I want to encourage you to take the theme in your own direction. Tell us how your game was inspired by the theme. I always like to see interesting ways to use the theme!