We've got tons of steel in the air. The last thing we need is a crate of 500 poisonous reptiles.

Only two days separate us from learning how Samuel L. Jackson will handle serpents on his (matriarch-grabbing) airborne vessel! The producers have copied the marketing strategy known as Intense Appeal to Two Disjoint Segments of the Population, also used to promote Deep Blue Sea. In no particular order those Segments are:

(1) people who are:
(a) scared senseless out of proportion to beasts
(b) excessively nervous about an uncertain future

(2) people with:
(a) instinctive irreverence
(b) a willingness to be entertained rather than disgusted at objectively putrid art
(c) ten dollars both they and an African child can do without

While I won't see Snakes on a Plane (SoaP), genealogically I see it as seventh in a line begun by a giant gorilla. With the possible exception of a certain rabid dog, each member of the line is superior (evolutionarily, not cinematically) to its predecessor. Each points towards the formula: Frightening Creature + Intimidating Feature of Modernity = $$ + Amygdala Action. N.B. these aren't all putrid.

Film	Beast	Modernity	Opposable Thumbs	Sorry, I Don't Speak Grunt
King Kong (1933)	giant gorilla	New York City	gorillas are real	fell for a lady; giant gorillas are not real; probably stinky
Godzilla (1954)	dino-mammalian savage	nuclear weapons	targeted and mature IFM	modernity solely responsible for the creature, so no organic associations with Godzilla to exploit; not a real creature
Jaws (1975)	great white shark	suburban sprawl/marine biology	human response to threat plays prominent role; excellent Beast	closing beach might have averted disaster, so terror tenuous
Cujo (1983)	rabid St. Bernard	domestic problems put into perspective	creature undergoes transformation to become fearsome; bats (also scary) involved	humans in no way responsible for said change; IFM lacking; no Soviets; Beast evokes only Fear, no Awe
Jurassic Park (1993)	dinosaurs	um, THEY MADE FUCKING DINOSAURS WITH A COMPUTER	science-y; dinosaurs win; Samuel L. Jackson	Beast and Modernity effectively the same idea
Deep Blue Sea (1999)	genetically engineered sharks	genetic engineering; Alzheimer's research	naturally scary Beast enhanced by Modernity; Samuel L. Jackson	fuel for opponents of stem-cell research; LL Cool J
SoaP (2006)	snakes	airplanes	naturally scary Beast enhanced by Modernity without being science-y; Symbol of Modernity now moderner than ever; Samuel L. Jackson	snakes not trained to attack only the witness; planes associated with lawbreaking groups other than the mob

The Red-Headed Stepchildren

The Net (1995): An enthusiastic web user's identity is stolen.
In its favor: Made before the internet or identity theft hit it big.
Not part of the line because: No Beasts, though the cast tried its hardest.

Anaconda (1997): A National Geographic crew is kidnapped by a snake hunter.
In its favor: The snake vomits captured prey so that it may kill again.
Not part of the line because: The snake did nothing with the crew's equipment; snake hunter is Ancient, not Modern.

The Day after Tomorrow (2004): Sudden changes in climate make America uninhabitable.
In its favor: Liberal slant; NASA official confuses time-scale on a chart; Weather as Beast is prescient; used marketing strategy of SoaP; Jake Gyllenhaal; putrid.
Not part of the line because: Weather is actually a threat; makes no sense that Dennis Quaid needs to get to NYC minutes before helicopters arrive.


SoaP in context.


In yet other SoaP news:
Yet at one point, executives at New Line Cinema renamed the release “Pacific Air 121,” because they didn’t want to give away the plot.

Surely “plot” can't mean “storyline.” The executives must mean “plot” with its sinister/scheming connotation, as in, they didn't want to reveal their plan to produce a crappy film and peddle it via the Beast+Modernity algorithm outlined above, thereby securing buckets of money in exchange for a crappy film.

But Sam, whose appearance in three consecutive Beast+Modernity films might not be a coincidence, “was appalled”:

“Nobody wants to see ‘Pacific Air 121,’ ’’ he told Entertainment Weekly. “That’s like saying ‘Boat to Heaven.’ ”