I have to start this post stating that I am not a Peta member or vegan or anything like that. However, I do have strong opinions when pets are depicted being killed in movies or TV shows. I just don't like it. It will make me actively avoid a given movie because I just don't need to see that. For instance, I "was" interested in the Keanu Reeves movie John Wick. Then I learned what drives his character's actions and I was like, "I'm out". I will probably never see that movie. So when I know it is going to happen I will avoid it. When I don't know it is coming, I tend to like whatever movie I was watching a lot less than before. That brings us to this week's movies…
Space Station 76 - This movie looks at the lives of people living on the Omega 76 Space Station in a future that looks a lot like what would have been envisioned in the 1970s. You have holograms and space ships, yes, but catalogs from stores come on ViewMaster disks and people smoke pot and see their therapist robot for Valium, etc. Plus just about everything is colored in white, yellow, greens or browns. Space Station 76 stars Liv Tyler, Patrick Wilson, Matt Bomer and Jerry O'Connell, among others. All of the actors do a very good job with the material they are given. The movie also gives an interesting view of a retro-looking future and could have been really great if it had swung more to straight comedy rather than trying for a bleak version of comedy. You have the narcism and neglectful parenting, a little bit of the loose morals of the 70s being shown, but it could have been even better if those things were exaggerated even more. Instead what you are left with at the end is just feeling down. Oh yeah, and then there is a bit with a cryogenically frozen dog that could have been left out and I would have probably been able to give this a 3 Mick Happy rating. Instead I have to go with 2.
Automata - This film stars Antonio Banderas as an insurance agent for a company that supplies androids to help mankind. This is set in an apocalyptic future where solar flares and activity have burned up most of the vegetation on the earth and reduced earth's population by >99%. Here Jacq (Banderas) finds some androids have somehow circumvented the two rules that regulate their activities (1. can't hurt humans or allow them to hurt themselves and 2. can't modify themselves). As he investigates the things his world starts to unravel and he begins to suspect that the company he works for may not be doing good things. The main problem I had with this movie started very early on when Jacq goes to investigate a complaint that an android has malfunctioned and killed a family pet. It didn't, and the family was using that as an excuse to try to get money. The film didn't need to go there. They could have injured one of the people and said the android hurt them instead. That is just frustrating as they hurt the pet just to drive an emotional reaction that they could have gotten in a different way with a little more effort. Anyway, this is a bleak future movie and weird. It also gets 2 Mick Happies but mainly due to the choices of the screenwriters than any other major shortfalls.
Which leaves us with this. If you are like me and don't like it when the pet is the one who gets it in the end. There is a website that can help us. It is DoestheDogDie.com and they have over 700 movies listed and will let you know if the pets are okay, injured or presumed dead but end up okay or are killed. They obviously don't have all the movies and didn't have the two listed here but they do have a lot of favorite movies listed. Check it out.
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