
This week’s question is inspired by a tweet from TV writer JP Larocque:
If you’re ever having a bad month, just remember that from Ellen Ripley’s perspective, Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3 took place over about six weeks.
— JP Larocque🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ (@jplarocque) August 28, 2022
(Screengrab here in case it gets deleted.)
So: What movie characters bad experiences make you feel better about your own life?
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“At least I’m not one of the bureaucrats in Shin Godzilla.”
Generally speaking, I don’t have dreams or nightmares about media I’ve recently consumed, but this movie gave me a nightmare and actually put me into a funk for a day or two.
And it wasn’t about the monster stuff, even, so much as the hopelessness of getting a big bureaucracy to act quickly (or even act at all) when it really needs to. I’m a lowly civil servant in the U.S. federal government, and while I don’t have a position where I have to make life-and-death decisions, occasionally it’s only a couple rungs down from that. And the way bureaucracy works is definitely as portrayed in the movie.
Anyway, my job’s still better than having to somehow stop a constantly mutating God-fricking-zilla, where even the final “victory” seems to be merely putting off the inevitable for a while.