Why is it that in every movie that has ancient treasure grounds of some sort in it, there is never an out without somebody needing to die? I saw National Treasure: Book of Secrets a while ago, that is. I have to spoil it a little in saying that someone is required to stay behind to hold a mechanism up or a certain way for everybody else to get out, or they all drown instead of just one. While I get that traps may be necessary to keep people out, I'm not entirely sure what purpose a mechanism like that serves anymore once someone is in, hence my question.
Did the people who built the place also leave behind someone as a supposedly necessary sacrifice when they were getting out in the first place? Or did the engineers back then have a fancier mechanism to sort it all out, bypassing that stage entirely? Because other than to deliberately kill off that one character, the point of the thing doesn't seem to exist.
It's not quite Galaxy Quest mocking the computer game style obstacle courses which characters have to run through to get to their objective in far too many movies, but it sweeps close to that. I believe The Phantom Menace was mocked for doing precisely that soon after Galaxy Quest came out, for one.
So I'm sure there are infinite reasons for the people of old to have the balancing board in place as in Book of Secrets, but until somebody gives me an actually sensible or reasonable one other than "It's to kill everyone" (which leads to "Then why have it there as a sporting chance in the first place? Just kill the buggers if you're going to"), I can only look at it as Ye People Of Olde having had strange pastimes. This one on the sports side, their having used it as a make or break level balance- and Being a Bit of a Bastard- test.
In other old ways to build suspense in movies, there is having the landline cut or not finding a phone booth on time when you're in peril. Usually a young woman in peril, more precisely. The new version goes not having network coverage on your mobile phone or having the battery run out while in peril. Once we move to levels where everyone has chips or circuits installed somewhere in their body, the kinetic energy used to power keeping in touch with the world, we run out of even that excuse for creating suspense in movies.
I recently discovered that even cameras can have a GPS tracking system these days. I'm not entirely sure I want them even in my phones, everybody being far too locatable even as it is. Or not locatable enough when a real emergency arises and such get thrown away, or they lose power at critical times if talking someone merely lost. As if kidnappers wouldn't find ways to short-circuit or blatantly cut out GPS-style communication chips even if they were under someone's skin, too. Chips I'm rather clearly against, by the way, if I dislike the Big Brother or nanny state societies even as they currently are. But when I first see a movie use that solution once we've reached the chip states, I'll probably call people out on using that one, too.
Everything is always of its time, but same as my being tired of people instantly jumping at painting in rollercoaster rides and the sort for the new fad of 3D movies, I'm tired of nothing changing on these movie fronts otherwise, too.
I don't normally nitpick, I don't see loopholes particularly clearly when watching movies, I just enjoy them. But could I enjoy something that doesn't automatically just repeat the same old patterns, please?
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