Destroying Las Vegas
June 22nd 2008 08:07
While watching Mystic River last night, in which the girl who gets murdered early in the piece was planning to do some Las Vegas travel (in other words, eloping with her boyfriend to that fair city where they’d get married) I was reminded of a crazy piece of TV apocalyptic soap that appeared for a couple of nights recently. Unfortunately, I missed not only the name of the piece, but the second and last instalment (there’s only so much blowing up of the entire US continent that you can do) and so I didn’t see Las Vegas completely vanish from the face of the earth. When I was last looking, models of all the fancy hotels in that dry and arid desert city were crumbling in spectacular heaps, while lots of extras and stuntmen/women ran around inside some old studio set that no one wanted any more and which the series producers had consequently got for half price, pretending that their casinos were crashing down around their heads.
Presumably the next night, after Las Vegas had been fully disposed of, they set to and got the San Andreas fault doing its thing, and sent all of California and the rest of the coast sliding off into the sea.
What is it about destruction on a massive scale that makes us watch with a certain amount of delight? It’s okay if we’re not in the middle of it, in real life, of course, but watching people running around screaming (and notice how they always run in opposite directions in these movies, rather than all one way?) seems to have a kind of cathartic effect on us? As I’ve said in another post somewhere, it’s like going to the transfer station (used to be known as the rubbish dump) and smashing lots of old glass and breaking up borer-ridden furniture.
Don’t ask me how I got onto this. Obviously don’t have enough real work to do.
Presumably the next night, after Las Vegas had been fully disposed of, they set to and got the San Andreas fault doing its thing, and sent all of California and the rest of the coast sliding off into the sea.
What is it about destruction on a massive scale that makes us watch with a certain amount of delight? It’s okay if we’re not in the middle of it, in real life, of course, but watching people running around screaming (and notice how they always run in opposite directions in these movies, rather than all one way?) seems to have a kind of cathartic effect on us? As I’ve said in another post somewhere, it’s like going to the transfer station (used to be known as the rubbish dump) and smashing lots of old glass and breaking up borer-ridden furniture.
Don’t ask me how I got onto this. Obviously don’t have enough real work to do.
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