So last week, I was on a luxury cruise. And sitting in a hot tub, watching the Pacific Ocean roll by, mulling over what flavor of margarita I should order next, I felt a tremendous sense of peace.

For the first time in years, I was safe from the living dead.

This is like Hometown Buffet for the living dead.

You see, I live in Manhattan. New York has many things going for it–world-class museums, vibrant nightlife, and a subway system that you are legally allowed to pee in (I’m pretty sure). But one major disadvantage to living here is that I will most likely be devoured by flesh-eating zombies.

Think about it. All pandemics hit the major urban areas first and hardest. That was true even in the days of the Decameron, in which the frame story involves young Florentines fleeing the Bubonic Plague to a villa in the countryside. But when the zombies hit Manhattan, the odds of me getting a Metro-North ticket out of here are pretty slim. I’m probably going to end up dashing across a bridge, carrying my son and my XBox on my back, trying desperately to escape the tristate area before it becomes the DIEstate area. But I might not even get that far – in the pseudo-zombie film I Am Legend, the government quarantines Manhattan and blows up the bridges.

I could, of course, just stay put. If I lock my front door, I’m pretty sure the zombies aren’t getting in. (I live in East Harlem, where we take front doors seriously.) I’ve got plenty of canned food, and I could get plenty of clean water out of the tap before that goes kaput. I figure I could make it a month or two, no sweat. But staying put is really gambling that the government will be able to turn the tide and fight back the zombie menace, or release some sort of airborne cure, or organize some sort of massive rescue effort. And although I’m a proud Democrat, and I believe in the government’s ability to accomplish many things, I don’t have much hope that FEMA can take on a zombie horde before I run out of Easy Mac.

Actually, the zombies may never have a chance to get be. I wouldn’t be surprised if the military panicked and fire-bombed the entire city. I’ve seen Outbreak.

So living in New York, I’ve gradually come to accept my doom. The cruise ship was another story.

A terrible plan.

Spoilers for 2012 follow. Although I’m not sure giving away the plot to a special effects pornstravaganza constitutes “spoiling” it. It’s a lot like revealing the plot to an actual porn movie–that’s not really why you rented it in the first place.

Roland Emmerich loves to destroy the earth. 2012 is his third disaster epic, after Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. But there’s one crucial difference this time around, and it’s not just the lack of the word “day” in the film’s title. In 2012, the leaders of the world know about the impending apocalypse. They have years to plan. But the plan they come up with is mystifying stupid. Basically, they keep the news very quiet while they construct a bunch of giant boats high in the Himalayas. This is largely financed by charging the richest people in the world one billion euros for tickets.

Deep breath…

1. Why not just tell everyone? Evil bureaucrat Oliver Platt explains that there would be complete chaos if the truth got out. The important thing is to preserve the human species, and if everyone knows they are going to die in three years, there’s no way they can pull off the logistics of building and stocking giant-ass boats. There’s a certain logic to that. But I also think that if everyone knows they’re going to die in three years, then everyone would work really, really hard to prevent that. Think about how many giant boats could be built if everyone in the world was spending every waking moment welding? Not to mention, the extreme secrecy means that 99.99% of the world’s smartest scientists never even knew about the problem, much less get a chance to solve it. I’m not saying anyone could have stopped the earth’s crust from collapsing. But they could have tried, or at least corrected some of the dumber parts of the ark plan. For instance…

Preface

I’m a BSG virgin.

Which is weird, I’ve gotta say, especially when you consider what a big nerd I am.  You know what’s sitting on my nightstand right now?  Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama.  Yes, friends.  I’m that nerdy.

Going into this new series, I only knew these few facts about BSG:

1. It was about robots,
2. one of the robots was Tricia Helfer,
3. and basically everyone on the Internet hated the series finale.

So, yeah.  I have that to look forward to.

Naw, to tell you the truth, I was super-excited that you folks picked Battlestar Galactica for me, and it was with gleeful anticipation that I snuggled up on a friend’s couch to watch the miniseries.

That glee was immediately dashed to the ground, its blood-glistening brains left to dry up on the floor.  Because, my friends, Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries may be the bleakest, most misanthropic piece of television I have ever seen.*

That isn’t to say I don’t like the show, of course!

But that’s what I want to talk about today, in this first of a many part series on the new BSG.  Bleakness.  Depression.  Ennui.  Despair.  Misanthropy.

Mmm!  Sounds fun!  But first, let me recap the miniseries for those of you whose minds haven’t been colonized by Cylons lately.

*Well, except for Neon Genesis Evangelion, maybe.  Anyway, the race is close.

In the Thriller music video, Michael and his date have the misfortune of passing by a graveyard right as the dead start to rise. To make matters worse for MJ’s girlfriend, he becomes zombified as well. In most zombie movies, this is the part where she gets her brains eaten. But this is not a standard Zombie Apocalypse. This is a Thrillerocalypse.

Sadly, YouTube isn’t letting me embed the actual dance. But here’s some Filipino prisoners giving it their best shot.

My question is: why do the Thriller zombies dance? The obvious answer is: it’s a music video, and people dance in music videos. However, I think there might be a plot-driven reason too.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of Ghostbusters. We celebrate, as we sometimes do here, with Ghostbusters Week, dedicated to overthinking various aspects of the beloved film.

Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

—Egon Spengler, Ghostbusters

Okay, Egon, let’s imagine it. Everybody you’ve ever loved, gone. Everybody you’ve ever met, gone. All the cute girls you’ve ever had a crush on, vaporized. All the cute little babies, exploded. Say so long to your favorite celebrities: George Clooney, Barack Obama, Thom Yorke, all gone. And not just humans. You like pandas? Too bad.

Now tell me, is this an outcome any sane person would risk in order to run a small business?

Of course, it’s possible that Egon is lying about total protonic reversal. Maybe he has no idea what will happen if they cross the streams, so he’s playing it safe. Or maybe what will actually happen is that the proton packs will short out, necessitating a trip to Radio Shack and a long night of repairs. But Egon’s a gadget freak–he wants people to treat his creations with respect. So when Venkman snidely asks him to “define bad,” Egon thinks of the most over-the-top bad thing he can. Sort of like telling a kid that if she keeps making that face, it’ll stay that way.

Weapon of extremely mass destruction.

I like this theory. But for purposes of this post, let’s assume that Egon’s telling the truth. In that case, it seems to me that capturing ghosts, no matter how careful you are, carries far too great a risk. The odds of accidentally crossing streams seems pretty high–the process basically requires the Ghostbusters to all be aiming at the same spot. If Venkman and Stanz were responsible adults, the second Egon told them how dangerous the proton packs are, they would have turned around, gone back to the station, and smashed their equipment to bits with a sledgehammer (although that might be dangerous too).

But what about the moment that they decide to cross the streams on purpose? It’s nothing short of a crime against humanity.

Yes, I realize they were doing it to stop Gozer. But Egon only gives them a “very slim chance” of survival. How small is “very slim,” anyway? 5%? 1%? Doesn’t matter. Even if the odds were flipped, and there was only a 1% chance all life would end, I’d still say the Ghostbusters had no goddamn right to roll the dice like that. They simply can’t gamble all life on Earth on some spur of the moment, back of the envelope hunch. Not unless they were certain that the consequences of not acting were every bit as dire.

It seems to me that it’s only morally permissible to cross the streams if you know, for a fact, that every living thing on earth is about to perish. In that case, your actions at best give people a chance at survival, and at worst offer them a painless death. So if, let’s say, the asteroid from Armageddon is heading towards Earth (“Not even plankton would survive”) and crossing the streams somehow gives you a “very slim” chance of preventing it, in that case it might be the ethical thing to do.

Is the Gozer situation that dire? Not even close.

Really, Mark Lee should be writing this post. A couple weeks ago, he had the idea of doing a schmaltzy Terminator song, in the style of “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” or “Everything I Do (I Do It For You).” He asked if anyone would be willing to help, and I told him to “keep me in the loop,” which means “good luck.” Then he sent me a demo version of the song, and it’s been in my head ever since. So in the end, I had no choice but to make this video.

Notice the armband he’s wearing?

This song, to me, is a prime example of “earony,” a word I coined to describe my feelings towards inspirational speeches. The word is a combination of “earnest” and “ironic.” With this song, Mark is clearly mocking monster ballads. At the same time, he clearly loves monster ballads to death. Thus, it’s an earonic song.

I like to imagine this whole backstory about lovers separated by nuclear disaster, searching for each other as they dodge exoskeletons. “How far would you go to find the one you love?” No wait, maybe we play it a little lighter. Poster shows an endless line of gleaming robots walking down Santa Monica Boulevard. Tagline: “The commute is killer today.”

But here’s something to Overthink: is the end credits monster ballad a thing of the past? Robin Hood was ‘91, Armageddon was ‘98. Nowadays, they end action movies with upbeat rock songs, not cigarette lighter-waving declarations of undying affection. Of course, maybe the monster ballad itself is an endangered species. The genre definitely peaked in the 80’s and early 90’s. I might argue that the high water mark for monster ballads was 1992, which gave us “November Rain” and “Bed of Roses.” But ‘92 was also the breakout year for Nirvana. After Nevermind, rock became less glam, for better and for worse.

Anyway: Mark, you’re a rock star, plain and simple.

Lyrics after the jump.