Search songs on a busted ECHOnet
A woman’s head explodes in a shower of brightly coloured paper strips and the man in row G, seat 17—trim dark beard and a forest green hoodie—he shouldn’t be here. Not according to writer Lucas Hill Paul. Not according to the UK’s Daily Express. Brain confetti is raining down on apathetic shop assistants, and bearded hoodie man in G17—he should have stayed home tonight. It’ll be too confusing; too unbearable. It’s not even so bad that it’s good.
BOOM!-cut now to a puppy-eyed man hugging a tyre. To a group of pilots dance-emoting through an airport. To 71 smile-perky jerks bouncing down a Brisbane city street on space hoppers. And the young couple up in the back right corner—row L, seats 19 and 20—they’ll regret this. Taking back-to-back urine samples and vaginal swabs—testing for chlamydia—would’ve have been a far better option. More useful and less painful, says Rolling Stone’s David Fear.
On screen, predatory birds are circling credit card hackers. And the two guys wearing basic Melbourne couture—puffy black coats, blue jeans and white kicks—they should be Pandoran red with embarrassment. Based on the Globe and Mail’s Barry Herz, based on Pittsburgh Magazine’s Sean Collier, these two guys in F-9 and 10—they should be taking a long hard look around the near-empty cinema they’re in. They should be rethinking their life choices. They should listen to advice more.
Everyone in cinema 10 should.
Coming here tonight, already knowing this? This is what it means to buy and read Hellgate: London novels. To appreciate the war analogies of Boy Kills World. To create home-made gaming tees and collect art books for games you’ve never played. What it means to go to chiptune gigs on your own. To purchase gaming zines from Sticky. To play Five Dates instead of Gris, then consider more vegetarian meal options because maybe—just maybe—you fell a little bit in love with your “hippie” date, Saffron.
Pan back to the big screen now. To couples confused about consent. To an inverted jet fighter. To a human skull with “Who am I?” painted on its forehead. And the man sitting alone in row I, seat 17—he already knows the film has all the grace and acuity of a drunken 3am chicken nugget run to Maccas. That it’s going to be so drearily routine that an AI would find it plagiaristic. The Independent’s reviewer Clarissa Loughrey told him. Daily Beast critic Nick Shager told him. They all told him.
Soft focus now on two young women faux-orgasming over gold-choc malt balls, and to the left, Nukah’s sports watch begins vibrating, lighting up with messages. Flashing up, “Women who work in close proximity to each other can develop menstrual synchrony.” Flashing up with, “It’s called the McClintock effect, named after American psychologist Martha McClintock.”
The two women on screen are sliding down in their cinema seats, giggling, and Nukah’s text chat on her Garmin is flashing, flashing, “The theory was published in a 1971 paper on female lifeguards living together.”
Cut here to a trailer for The Crow. For the Beetlejuice sequel. For the religious horror, Heretic, where a demented Hugh Grant traps two women in a Mephistophelian maze to test their beliefs. And, finally—after almost 40 minutes of ads and trailers—the movie begins.
Skip the lazy intro and track in to an explosion on a space station. To soldier-boy Roland running and gunning down a set-piece corridor, psycho Krieg effortlessly cracking heads and murdering dialogue. And according to CGMagazine reviewer Shakyl Lambert, to Looper.com’s Cynthia Viney, the two guys sitting in row E (possibly F) have no one to blame but themselves. They knew the film would look like a cheap escape room; feel like a tedious string of sequences from a dull video game. They’d been warned. Way more than once.
This here is the joy of the seasoned critic: typed transmissions that shuck off the Sisyphean task of finding passion in pabulum. An opportunity to turn text into teeth; copy into carnivorous columns of emphatic explication.
Pull-quote bloodstains the colour of Jaffas.
Back on the big screen, bounty-hunter-not-yet-Siren Lilith is in a Promethean back-alley bar, bitching and moaning to barkeep Quinn. Moaning, “I’m too old for this shit!” And Nukah’s glancing down at the message on her watch that’s flashing up, “It’s the alpha female that sets the agenda.” Flashing, “Usually.”
Scrub forward now to a late-night campfire on the planet Pandora. To Claptrap irritating Lilith with an earworm song while scanning the ECHOnet for Tiny Tina. And it’s no coincidence that the console junkies in the audience, they’ll be desperately looking for an ‘X’ button—one that will skip this wacko bullshit and get them back into the gameplay. Donald Clarke of the Irish Times said this would happen; he predicted this days ago.
Cue some chase scenes, explosions, and…
BOOM!-cut now to a handful of heroes driving through Pisswash Gully in an armoured truck. To Tina refusing to close her window. To everyone suddenly getting splashed in Thresher piss. Bunny ears dripping with urine, Tina is frozen-faced shrieking. Wailing, “It’s in my mouuuuth!”
Nukah’s watch is buzzing, flashing up messages saying, “When someone’s emotions and behaviours lead to another feeling and behaving the same way…? That’s called Emotional Contagion.”
BOOM!-cut again. To the armoured vehicle exiting through the back of the Thresher’s head, flying through the air. And the message on Nukah’s watch reads, “This subconscious mimicry is due to the presence of mirror neurons in the cerebral cortex.” Adding, “that’s the part of your brain that’s used for memory. For thinking and learning.”
“For emotions, consciousness and sensory functions.”
On-screen now, an underground brawl and bullet royale has begun between the vault heroes and a horde of Bloodshot bandits. The kind of bandits rated “Bag of Cats” on the Psychometer. Rated “Cheese Slipped Off Their Cracker”. Rated “Elevator Stuck Between Floors.”
Nukah’s slurping down the last of her medium Sprite (extra ice) and up-front, hand-to-hand scream showers are echoing off the cavernous walls; Nukah’s watch flashing up, “It’s dialogic in nature”; flashing, “When members of a group are close, the effect is faster, more widespread.”
Tannis now (post ageing experiment gone too far), is projecting a vault key map, talking to Lilith. Saying, “There’s no salvation without sacrifice.” And the three young people in seats K-11, 12 and 13—right now they should be thinking about arson, about demolition. According to San Francisco critic Bob Strauss, they should be ready to go home, stuff their PS5 full of small household explosives, douse it in a couple of litres of Unleaded, drop in a lit match, and…
RUN!
Of course, they won’t. No one here will. In fact, some may even buy a cheap copy of Borderlands 2 or 3 and play it again for a few weeks.
Being here—sitting in a late-night session of Borderlands on a Saturday night—this is what it means to be acutely aware. To know all of it: the reviews, the talk, the Facauldian forces of power… To push through the confirmation bias and disappointment and still show up.
To be here for reasons other than simple entertainment.
This is film-going for connection. For re-connection. For the opportunity to engage once more with characters that became friends, fictional locations that became second homes. Memory stones of halcyon days in a personal world turned to shit.
The two guys in F-9 and 10, the young Asians in row K, bearded hoodie man in G-17… In here, they’re brothers, sisters, uncles. Children of Eridia. Distorted copies of a promise from an everlasting God, lost in the societal ruins of our own undoing.
This is cinematic co-op in a wasteland of not quite belonging.
Search songs on a busted ECHOnet.
Nukah’s watch is quietly vibrating again, green text on black, flashing up, “External pressures on groups can encourage unity and support.”
Flashing, “When combined, anger and despair can lead to altruism.”
BOOM!-cut now; one last time. To the denouement. To Sanctuary City. To fireworks and cheering. Siren Lilith, rhetorically asking, “Do you hear that?” Answering, “That—I think—is what peace sounds like.”
Pull out slowly to a group shot. To thirteen year old, pre-Barbie Ariana assessing her surrogate Vault family. A bounty hunter who became mum and mythological messiah. A hulking psycho who became a big brother. A vault-obsessed grandmother. An annoying robotic younger brother. The shortest soldier in the army; now a dad to look up to.
Fade out on a burst of flames the shape of a bird, immediately followed by the credits. And quietly, wordlessly, the cinema empties.
Nukah sits patiently.
The lights come on.
The walk down the main corridor is surreal; even the cinema carpet sounds loud underfoot.
Leaving the foyer, bearded hoodie man is heading this way, and a flicker of recognition turns to a look of shared experience: a sad, knowing smile that speaks in words only those who were here would understand.