{"id":1544,"date":"2017-01-18T00:17:57","date_gmt":"2017-01-18T00:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/?p=1544"},"modified":"2017-01-18T00:17:57","modified_gmt":"2017-01-18T00:17:57","slug":"braininess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/2017\/01\/braininess.html","title":{"rendered":"Braininess"},"content":{"rendered":"

I watched a terrible movie about stupid humans; but casting aspersions on the braininess of human beings, which must include the audience, is never going to work. Unless the audience agrees that they are stupid.<\/p>\n

I do see the sense in making a bad spoof film about human braininess. If humans are dumb, this move about human backwardness should be bad. That shows me that the makers of this film were onto it. Or were they?<\/p>\n

I guess they were the butt of the joke and perhaps know it, buy why?<\/p>\n

2001: A Space Travesty<\/em> (2001) is indeed a travesty, but anything starring the late Leslie Nielsen delivering dead-pan one-liners was bound to interest me.<\/p>\n

I watched it\u2026<\/p>\n

Not a funny watch, too crude as well. Though Leslie was the most well-known of the spoof movie masters of his time, by 2001 even he was wearing thin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Leslie<\/a>
Leslie Nielsen (Pictured)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/h4>\n

Theme<\/h4>\n

Space Travesty<\/em> is a part-spoof of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Some elements of that film are parodied.<\/p>\n

In Space Odyssey the emphasis is on human progress; the theme of humans making good progress is the general idea, however we take that. We humans are really quite intelligent according to this film. Because we are intelligent we make progress.<\/p>\n

In Space Travesty<\/em>, humans look dumb. In this film, God may have created detective guy Richard \u2018Dick\u2019 Dix (played by Nielsen), but at least the music has something good going for it.<\/p>\n

For a minute, Space Travesty<\/em> may have worked. We humans get life wrong. We make wrong decisions. We create wars or should I say that governments create wars. We make wrong choices. We could have been brainier.<\/p>\n

But if we wallowed in inadequacy about our brain size in the world, we would have died too early by doing nothing of use in the world. We would have thought that we are useless.<\/p>\n

The fact that we keep on ticking over is a good testimony. If one can invent the telephone, the internet, the computer, negotiate the intricacies of international relations and trade, and work out one\u2019s day to day life in the most challenging of circumstances, then human life is intelligent and has progressed.<\/p>\n

Maybe make better movies sometimes, though movie technology boggles the mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I watched a terrible movie about stupid humans; but casting aspersions on the braininess of human beings, which must include the audience, is never going to work. Unless the audience agrees that they are stupid. I do see the sense in making a bad spoof film about human braininess. If humans are dumb, this move…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":602,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,318,317],"tags":[357,101,15,22,8,10,358,16,7,24,103,148,25,245],"class_list":["post-1544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedies","category-practical","category-survival","tag-357","tag-2001-a-space-odyssey","tag-adventure","tag-comedy","tag-film","tag-film-commentaries","tag-leslie-nielsen","tag-life","tag-movies","tag-problems","tag-science-fiction","tag-science-fiction-films","tag-survival-movies","tag-themes"],"yoast_head":"\nBraininess - Life at the Movies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If we wallowed in inadequacy about our brain size in the world, we would have died too early by doing nothing of use in the world.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Braininess - 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