Today I went to see \u201cIron Lung\u201d with grandson prime.\u00a0 He is a big fan of the writer\/director and star of the movie Mark Fischbach or as he\u2019s known on YouTube, Markiplier.\u00a0 Mark has about 35 million followers on YouTube and leveraging that much support he was able to make the movie with his own money (~ three million dollars) and get it distributed to over 3,000 theaters in the United States.\u00a0 It\u2019s been in the theaters for a couple of weeks and has made already something like thirty million dollars. \u00a0Estimates say it\u2019ll end up at forty million dollars.\u00a0 After giving the theaters half of this he\u2019ll get twenty million dollars which is six times what he invested; an unheard-of return on investment for a motion picture in this day and age.<\/p>\n
All very interesting.\u00a0 How was the movie?<\/p>\n
(Spoiler Alert \u2013 Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)<\/strong><\/p>\n Full disclosure.\u00a0 This movie is not for anyone who doesn\u2019t know the background \u201cmythos\u201d from the video game of the same name.\u00a0 The visuals, the dialog, the \u201ceaster eggs\u201d that the story revolves around will be difficult-to-impossible to understand without prior knowledge of the plot elements that only the die-hard fans of the game know beforehand.<\/p>\n The plot revolves around a convict being promised a reprieve if he will allow himself to be welded into a small submarine and dropped into an ocean of human blood that has been found on a \u201cmoon\u201d somewhere out in interstellar space.\u00a0 And this is being done in the hope that the convict will find something in this ocean to help explain and potentially remediate the result of the \u201cQuiet Rapture.\u201d\u00a0 And what this refers to is the sudden and inexplicable disappearance of all the planets and stars that humanity had colonized in interstellar space.\u00a0 The only humans remaining are one that were off-planet in space stations and ships.\u00a0 This remnant of humanity is attempting to marshal its remaining numbers and resources to attempt to save the human race from extinction.<\/p>\n Once the prisoner (Simon) is submerged he looks for anything that could help explain the rapture.\u00a0 And during his voyage he encounters harsh working conditions of the craft, hostile life, proof of the bad intentions of his mission handlers and the existence of some malevolent intelligence that is undermining his grasp on reality and even his sanity.<\/p>\n Eventually we discover that his handlers really never intended to rescue him at the end of the mission and we also discover that the intelligence he senses emanates from contact with the extra-dimensional creatures that killed off humanity and eliminated the stars and planets of our universe for the sake of their own plans for our space.\u00a0 And the ocean of blood is all that remains of the murdered human race.<\/p>\n At the end, as both Simon and his handlers face destruction at the hands of these malevolent beings all he can do with his last efforts is eject from his submarine a flotation device carrying the records of what he\u2019s discovered for the sake of some follow up mission that might try to use the knowledge gained to help mankind in some unspecified and apparently hopeless effort.<\/p>\n Wow, bleak!\u00a0 As I said earlier, no one but fans of the creator of this movie will know what\u2019s going on.\u00a0 It\u2019s too confusing and intentionally cryptic.\u00a0 And talk about your depressing story.\u00a0 This is the ultimate.\u00a0 But at the same time there is a huge and enthusiastic fan base for just this story.\u00a0 Mark\u2019s viewers and the video game\u2019s players are literally LEGION!\u00a0 So, if you\u2019re not in those categories you won\u2019t and probably shouldn\u2019t go to this movie.\u00a0 And if you are you almost certainly will go and maybe several times with friends of the same persuasion for company.\u00a0 And as I\u2019ve said before this may be the beginning of a new way to make and target entertainment.\u00a0 Gen Z likes its own things.\u00a0 And they aren\u2019t as interested as the Millennials in being preached to by movie studios about what they should like and what they shouldn\u2019t.\u00a0 And good for them.\u00a0 The interesting thing is that Mark Fischbach wants to create more content that entertains his audience and produce other people\u2019s stories for this audience.\u00a0 Maybe I should send him my \u201cscreen play\u201d for the \u201cThe Sniper.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today I went to see \u201cIron Lung\u201d with grandson prime.\u00a0 He is a big fan of the writer\/director and star of the movie Mark Fischbach<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4606,239,237,4,243],"tags":[354,5128,5127,43,38,1355,265],"class_list":["post-36026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-reviews","category-movie-reviews","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-movie-reviews","tag-horror","tag-iron-lung","tag-markiplier","tag-movie-review","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-science-fiction"],"yoast_head":"\n