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pete999tete (13)
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Hi,
It isn't a plot hole because no one knows what occurred before the action in this film. It starts off with an isolated family walking down a road, no one is around. They are on their own. We have no idea what transpired to get to this point, other than it was a world-wide event as per the newspaper accounts. What if there were other aliens not shown in the movie with different features? For instance, they sent down their invasion force made up of invincible aliens to wipe out the world's armies. Once that was accomplished, they let loose the blind monsters to track down the survivors with the eventual goal of inhabiting the planet. At that point, the remaining people had figured out that the monsters were attracted to sound, but by then millions of them were loose and no further information was to be had. The survivors would therefore have no idea how to deal with the subsequent wave unless they figured it out for themselves. They only knew to be quiet. In this case, one parent's attempt to create a working hearing aid for his kid accidentally created a frequency the monsters were susceptible to. It was pretty clear that they had lava-like heads which when closed, were likely impervious to bullets. It was only when the high-pitched sound opened their heads that the shotgun was effective.
So maybe the best minds simply didn't have a chance to figure anything out, they were the first to go.
Yes. What made this movie different from your average horror movie was the kid dying in the first few minutes, and then the father dying in the end just before they discover the audio defense. In most horror movies, the kid would have done something dumb, and the father would have dramatically saved him. It's rare kids are killed off. Then at the very end, he sacrifices himself for his kids. Any axe-throwing would have been pretty cheesy considering those things wiped out the Earth's population.
It was his "oh man, this is gonna hurt...." scream.
Hahahaha, the implication there is that you have read them all, and found them wanting. Whereas the truth of it is, you have read none of them and are discrediting an entire nation of great storytellers because you are bigoted. How about Liesel Schwarz, Jaine Fenn, or Malorie Blackman? No, never heard of them? What a surprise. Or perhaps a little more well known author, Arthur C Clarke? All British!
Just to be pedantic as hell (because I am just trying to fit in), not for nothing, but I don't know what a "Hitchhikerer" is, but then, you understand English. Oh, wait a minute . . . You should be proud of your GED degree, going back and finishing after all that time. Well done!
And yes, not reading Hitchhiker's is just like missing out on a Monty Python sketch! Great stuff! Unfortunate you can't appreciate the humour. I'm afraid this post has rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.
There is only 1 city-proof wall, just like The Wall in Game of Thrones. It's massive, towers over London. There are permanent cities (non-moving) behind it. Yeah, the movie isn't great, I wouldn't recommend it. The dialog is cheesy and filled with cliches, there are many moments when you just shake your head and wonder how the script writers could have included such bad lines. But the special effects are terrific, the CGI is top notch, and the least of the problems with the movie are the predatory cities. I found they were very well done, even if the idea is far-fetched.
You lost me at "awful books written by Douglas Adams". I LOVED Hitchhikers guide when I was a kid. Read that trilogy over and over. Mortal Engines is a very entertaining read, it's too bad your prejudices against English sci-fi writers will force you to miss out on it.
:-). What can I tell ya, it's a really big wall! Kind of like the Game of Thrones wall holding back the White Walkers, it is described at over 1000 feet tall. At least one thing they did well in the movie, when London's engines are destroyed and the city comes to a halt before it hits the wall, even the half-destroyed wall absolutely towers over London. I am not sure crashing into it would have had the desired effect, probably would simply have destroyed London.
They do, that is what the wall is for. Those who live beyond it live there to escape the Traction Cities. The continents have all been flattened, either by geological events following the 60-second war, or from hundreds of years of Traction Cities flattening everything.
EDIT - Forgot to add, captured people are either enslaved or reduced to proteins and eaten. The market where the old woman was auctioned was supposed to clarify that, but I am pretty sure the script-writers chickened out and left out the cannibalism intentionally.
The movie was based off a series of 4 books. The world had engaged in the 60-second war, which devastated the Earth leading to massive geological upheaval. Mountains were flattened, volcanos formed everywhere, earthquakes were common. An engineer named Nicholas Quirke (that's why the money is called Quirkes) decided the only way humanity would survive is by building massive treads under cities so that they could move around to avoid the geological events, but also take over neighbouring cities and consume what resources they had left. The whole idea of "Municipal Darwinism" where one city "eats" another is unsustainable, which led to the creation of the Anti-Traction League where permanent cities have banded together to try to get rid of the Traction Cities. Even the name indicates the current state of affairs is not sustainable, the massive city Engines are Mortal, they will die unless they can keep chasing down smaller cities and consuming them. Eventually, of course, they will run out of other cities to eat. Everyone is worried about this, but no one in the bigger cities (London) wants to do anything about it while they live on the biggest bully on the block.
It is not really meant to make sense from a "is that even possible?" point of view. You have to remember the action takes place thousands of years in the future, engines, platforms, and city-sized treads have all been made possible by advances in science. It's steampunk science fiction, you simply have to accept a few leaps of faith for the story to work. All that being said, it is just too bad that the script was so weak in the movie. It was nothing but 2 hours of old cliches, Sweet Valley High style romances, and predictable outcomes. The premise was there, it could have been so much more.
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