Thursday, February 14, 2008

Almost Prophetic

Picture this scenario: A Islamo-Fascist dictator from a middle eastern country has gotten his hands on a nuclear missile and threatens to use it. A division of the United States Army Reserve is called in to answer this threat. Unfortunately, an American reporter is captured by the dictator’s forces along with a General from the United Nations. They are videotaped pleading for their lives and their videos are sent out to be played on the national news stations. But there’s a twist: The U. N. General is really making deals with the enemy!

Does this sound familiar at all? Does any of this mirror any events that have happened, say, in the past couple years? Maybe it was a multimillion dollar blockbuster summer movie from Jerry Bruckheimer or the guys that brought you “The Kingdom.”

Guess what? It’s neither one. It’s the synopsis for “Ernest in the Army.”


That’s right, Vern. It’s Ernest. Back in 1998, this was the last Ernest movie ever produced. And it was dirt cheap as well. I just caught it on Comcast Free Movies tonight. Contrary to the synopsis I gave, it’s actually quite family oriented judging by the story pacing and the humor. You see, folks, back before 2001, there was a time where Islamo-Fascism wasn’t even a term. Terrorism could be pulled off as a joke and no one would be concerned about how the radical Muslim population might feel. Nowadays, most movies are more sensitive to the Arab world and some will even take more aim at the United States with their humor when it comes to things like the War on Terror.

What weirded me out about this movie was that many of the events portrayed in this movie were eerily similar to some of the things that have happened in the past few years. Of course, the way events unfolded in the movie, you could drive a mach truck through the holes in the fabric of the film’s universe, but that’s kiddy entertainment for you. Still, terrorism was around long before 9/11 it’s possible that some of the ideas in the movie like the evil dictator getting his hands on a nuke may have been inspired by events in the news circa 1997, i.e. Saddam Hussein trying to get his hands on nukes. And then the rest was just taken from the kind of thing that you would expect from terrorists. Who knows?

Heh. Ah well. I’m going up to the snow this weekend with the family. Toodles.

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