There's an awful monster on the loose, right, killing lots of people in horrible, gruesome scene
after scene. This happens for the first 20 minutes or so. Lots of great special effects,
edge-of-your-seat type stuff. Real boffo.
Then we flashback for the next 30 to 40 minutes to find out where this horrible monster came
from: a pet alligator was abandoned by an inner-city kid (who is at the same time cute, angelic,
clever and also scene-stealing), and it (the alligator, not the kid) makes its way to an Amish
farm, which will be portrayed with extreme angles and stark shadows and stuff. Also, the clouds
are always dark and there's lightning and thunder. You know, subtle and effective. Anyhow, the
baby alligator seeks shelter from the storms in this compost heap, sort of a relic from the
agricultural days that shows how old-fashioned these Amish folks are. You know, compost heaps
are warm and moist (I think there will have to be narration to explain this, maybe by Patrick
Stewart or James Earl Jones or Peter Jennings if we can get him). But then a lightning bolt
strikes the compost heap, and what with all the fertile soil and minerals and scientific stuff,
a monster is born: Ludditor!
It grows instantly to be something like 100 feet tall with big fangs and all - not just some
overgrown salamander or nothing. Oh, also, it is rendered with computer graphics three times
better than those in Jurassic Park. It instantly crushes the house of the Amish people whose
compost heap it so ironically was nurtured in, and then with a mighty roar is off to a nearby
large metropolis, where it seeks to destroy all that is technological in nature, which is to say
anything that improves people's lives.
However, we find out it did not kill everyone in the Amish house. In a touching scene, the old
man, leader of the Amish household, delivers a soliliquy along the lines of "Oh, curse my
foolish old ways! Oh would that I had right now in mine arms a bazooka, a shoulder-mounted
grenade launcher, or perchance a cruise missile, with which I could easily destroy this hideous
monster that destroys technology. Verily, this beast is an enemy of mankind. But I am a
simple Amish person, and have no such weapons,as I have selfishly eschewed mankind's
intelligence for simplicity." And then the farmer dies as a cellular phone tower falls on him,
maybe blown by a strong wind. But the point is Ludditor didn't kill him, technically. What
did kill him is his own ignorance.
While the Amish guy has been realizing the error of his ways, we flash back to what the monster
has been doing for the exciting climax of the movie: terrorizing the city with lots of cool
explosions and pyrotechnics and stuff like that. He goes around destroying computer places and
video game places and telephone and pager places - you get the idea. And then he knocks down
this TV tower and traps this scientist guy in his science building. This science guy gets all
scared, and we zoom in real tight on his face and hear his thoughts in a voice-over, where we
find out that he is the brother of the Amish guy who died, but he hasn't talked to him in a
while because the family split over the whole technology/no-technology issue and all that. (this
is explained in a convenient flashback - maybe we see the scientist giving the Amish farmer guy
a cell phone for Christmas, so they can keep in touch better, but the Amish guy gets really
angry and overreacts, and maybe starts hitting the intelligent caring scientist guy). So then
the scientist remembers that he has a cell phone just like the one he gave his brother - they
were a matched set. He pulls it out and we see a tear in his eye. He's about to call someone
for help, and as the cellular phone tower falls on the old Amish guy, this scientist hears his
last words over the phone through some wierd phenomenon - and the farmer guy says "avenge my
death with technology" or something. And suddenly the scientist realizes that he's the only one
that knows how to kill the monster, which is rampaging everywhere. Maybe he says out loud that
he's the only one that knows how to kill the monster. But now his cell phone won't work, so he
can't communicate this knowledge with the people who can use it to destroy this anti-technology
horror. So the scientist hatches his plan.
We switch to a view of this random guy surfing the web, watching live on the Internet as the
monster destroys the city he lives in, and he says, "Wow, thank God for the internet, because
otherwise I'd have to be out there in this storm watching that awful technology-destroying
monster destroy our fair town, but now I can do it from the comfort of my own home, where I can
wear bunny slippers". And then he says "what the..?!" because he sees on the internet
broadcast the building where the scientist guy is trapped, and the scientist guy is putting his
plan into action, flashing a flashlight out a window. And at first, the guy just thinks he's
trying to attract attention 'cause he's a scientist or something, but then he notices a pattern
in the blinking.
Now here's the real climax: if this were a bad movie, he'd be blinking Morse "code", but that's
kind of my subtle point here - it's not Morse code! This random Internet-surfing guy says,
"hey, that's TCP/IP protocol, I know that!" And starts scribbling down 0's and 1's on a pad of
paper. Then he, you know, adds the numbers together or crosses out some and sees a picture of
something, or however all that stuff works, and it's the scientist guy telling him to build a
cold-fusion powered anti-gravity ray to blast Ludditor with. And he brings it to the police
station, and no one believes him, because they think he's just a crazy "geek", that's what
they call him.
So in the dramatic climax, he goes to his friends at a computer place that hasn't been destroyed
by Ludditor, and they build the device, and they kill Ludditor with it, and as he dies, he
falls over and also crushes the police building. Which is, you know, ironic.
|