Damon Lindelof is stronger than he looks. At least I really hope he is, because right now we’re both dangling over a bottomless chasm with only his deceptively wiry left wrist keeping us from plunging to certain death.
In the biz, this is what’s known as a ‘teaser.’
…
It all began earlier that day, under slightly more amiable circumstances. I was having a working lunch with Lindelof and his personal assistant, an albino named Troy, who had bought my story of being a reporter for a legitimate news source and not a blogger with a legion of undiagnosed personality disorders. It’s amazing what a phoney press-pass and the retinas of an Access Hollywood correspondent can get you these days. Actually, Troy had only asked for the retinas.
“I know this sounds paradoxical, but for a journalist you certainly are a heavy drinker.” Lindelof looks like the president of every high school AV club pooled their DNA and produced a geek-ubermensch, who was born tragically premature. Just looking at him, you can tell this is a man who lost his virginity at the age of 27 to a jar of mayonnaise. Speaking to Damon Lindelof is a proven cause of cervical cancer.
Anyway, his comment isn't paradoxical. I am wasted, and everyone at this table knows it. Lindelof could hear me coming from six blocks away: apparently the whiskey-fumes wafting from my pores were making local dogs run straight into traffic.
“Be that as it may, good sir,” I retort flawlessly (after discreetly vomiting on a passing waiter), “I believe my readers are more interested in understanding your writing method.”
“Well, what a good question. It’s all about finding subject matter that engages your imagination, and then building a strong story based on relatable characters.”
“Yes, I know that’s the conventional wisdom. What’s so interesting to me is how you never do that.”
If Lindelof is flustered, he doesn’t show it. That self-conscious smile never leaves his face. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, ‘a strong story based on relatable characters’ does not describe any of your films or TV scripts. Actually kind of the opposite. If I had to classify your stories, I’d call them rambling, riddling clusterfucks peopled by interchangeable dumbasses.”
“Yes, that’s exactly right.”
Now I’m the one who looks flustered. Most of that is probably the booze though. I am literally seconds from vomiting again. “That’s whose-a-what now?”
“My writing style. You have it exactly right: I build complex, twisted mysteries which ultimately lead nowhere and are driven by impossibly dumb decisions. That’s the essence of a good screenplay.”
I can tell from his face that he knows I’m not getting it. But he obviously thinks it’s the booze, because he slows it down for me.
“Look, whatever the hell your name is,” (I told Troy 'Yukon Cornelius,' but Lindelof refuses to call me that) “you’re obviously labouring under a false assumption here. See, you think that a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. That everything that happens has to follow from previously established facts. That the conclusion to a story resolves the conflict which was established in the beginning. But this is the 21st century, and that’s not how screenplays work anymore. Movies aren’t about telling a story; movies are about producing an emotional reaction. What do you think 3D is, a storytelling device? You don’t watch movies with your eyes anymore, you watch them with your gut. With your balls. By definition, whatever produces the biggest emotional reaction in the average viewer, is the best screenwriting practice. Do you follow?”
I belch, directly into Troy’s face. I can see it gently tousle his shoulder-length white hair, but strangely, his expression does not change. Lindelof goes on.
“See, we’ve done research: audiences like to believe that they’re seeing a smart, intelligently written movie; it makes them feel like they, themselves, are intelligent. But we also know that most of them lack the attention span to actually sit through a genuinely smart movie, let alone fork out fifteen bucks and another thirty on snacks for the privilege. What they actually want is to see big explosions, slickly choreographed martial-arts fights, and multi-million dollar CGI renderings of wildly implausible environments, which then also explode. They just don’t want to acknowledge that this is all they want. So what do we do?”
I shrug as I unzip under the table and begin urinating on Troy’s shoes. He just stares at me, unblinking.
“We devote the first half of the movie to setting up a complex story: we establish a basic mystery which drives the plot forward, then seed some doubt about everyone’s motives, instil a general air of mistrust, a few unexplained or counterintuitive actions here and there… The audience is totally engaged with the story now, asking questions, trying to figure out what everything is building towards...it’s exactly the kind of emotional response we want! And then in the second half, we blow everything up. We don’t actually resolve anything, just explosions, gunfire, whatever, boom! Everyone walks out of the theatre in a highly-charged emotional state! It’s win-win for everyone.”
“It’s so incredibly, completely not.” I get up shakily. My dick is still out, but only Lindelof seems to notice. Maybe the smile does fade a little this time. I can’t be sure. But he goes on:
“But it is. Think about it: Prometheus, Star Trek Into Darkness, Lost… people loved all the plot-twisty complexity, and they didn’t even notice when major plot threads ended up going nowhere and nobody’s actions made any sense in the context of events. Did you ever hear anyone complaining that those stories made no sense?”
“Yes! Goddamn it, everyone in the world says that! Literally the entire world has been talking for years about how you jerk your audience around for hours and then skimp on the payoff! You’ve played people for suckers again and again and again, and everyone is sick of it! Nobody thinks that cool shot of a spaceship crashing into San Francisco Bay is a valid substitute for understanding why, if that ship existed, Admiral Marcus needed the Enterprise to fire his stupid space torpedoes at Khan in the first place! It makes nonsense of the entire fucking film!”
Lindelof looks genuinely hurt and confused. “You mean… people actually did notice that both Khan and Admiral Marcus’s plans depended on having foreknowledge of events they couldn’t possibly have had?”
“Yes!”
“And in Prometheus… people actually caught that the existence of cave paintings directing humans to the alien planet is rendered nonsensical by the fact that we later learn that the planet is actually a secret weapons lab?”
“Yes, they did.”
“Did anyone say that Charlize Theron probably should have run sideways when the giant ship was rolling towards her in a straight line?”
“Pretty much all of us. Several of us yelled it at the screen, actually.”
"Oh shit.”
“I am so, so confused right now… how is this the first time you’re hearing this? How do you not know how much we all hate your stupid scripts?”
Lindelof slowly turns to Troy, whose expression has morphed from one of blasé passivity to malevolent apathy.
“I believe I can answer that question, Mr. Cornelius.” Troy rises. I notice now that he is over seven feet tall.
“You see, I have come from a great distance to visit your world. I and others like me are the first. We shall not be the last.” He pauses dramatically, as if someone, somewhere, were later going to take snippets of this speech and edit them together for some unknown purpose.
“Our plan was to subvert your critical reasoning faculties by turning all your popular entertainment into mindless horseshit. By making you all get used to turning off your brains and letting the sounds and bright colours wash over you. Inch by inch, you make yourselves stupider. More suggestible. Less likely to ask crucial questions about the things you are seeing and hearing.”
Lindelof is slowly backing away from the table. I am spraying a protective urine-circle around myself and doing the same.
“I was assigned to Lindelof. I fed him lies and told him that his writing was genius. The studios didn’t care; they made billions. And one of your own became the hapless tool of your inevitable enslavement to the mighty Qur’kovian Star Empire! What do you think of that?”
“I think…” I wobble. “That sounds highly implausible, actually.”
“What?”
“You’ve mastered intergalactic travel, but you need to infiltrate Hollywood and trick screenwriters to complete your domination of earth? That doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
“It makes perfect sense. Because… your critical intelligence is a threat. I already established that!”
“Throwing in a single line does not erase a logical inconsistency.”
“It does too!” Angry froth sprays from Troy’s mouth.
Lindelof is petrified with fear, and I can’t feel my face, so I press on.
“And what is with your behaviour right now? Five minutes ago you were a silent, intimidating stoic, now you’re bombastic and maniacal. Where is the consistency? Hell, why am I speaking so clearly? Wasn’t I drunk off my ass when this all started?”
“Character consistency is meaningless! Arghhh! I can contain my burning hate for all humans no longer!”
“What burning hate? You never had burning hate before!"
Troy of the Qur’kovian Star Empire rips off his rubber mask to reveal his real face of gears and wires.
“So now you were a robot the whole time? Are you guys are an empire of robots?”
“Enough! The urine you have sprayed on my shoes has activated the Thanatos Reactor! Soon your world will be fire and smoke!”
“But I pissed on that table before you went insane. How did you know I was going to do that?”
“It happens… because… it needs to happen!"
Suddenly there is a flash and the world goes red…
…
Lindelof is hanging over the edge of a chasm which used to be West Hollywood. I am gripping his pant leg and cursing all robots. As the world burns around us, Lindelof looks down at me and sighs.
“Okay, I think I’m beginning to see your point.”
Then a bunch of eagles show up and we’re rescued.
The End. (Fuck you!)
