The Monolith Monsters
Floaty Birb
Floaty Birb
floatybirb

good news as the little girl is feeling better and can move again, even if she's trapped in the iron lung thing that I called a reverse MRI machine because I don't know how 1950s medical technology works. We cured her by making a Salty Drug using the the power of science.

We suggest using the same therapy used on the little girl to defeat the giant evil space rock. The doctor repeats the chemical formula for the Salty Drug over the phone.

Floaty Birb
Floaty Birb
floatybirb

Okay so if this was a Japanese movie then those crystal meteor spires would hatch into giant kaiju that godzilla (or a color coded team of superheroes with alien technology) would have to fight to save the earth. The kaiju would be played by dudes in strangely angular clothes that look like rocks, and the production quality would be extremely cheap but everyone would appreciate it nonetheless because of the creativity that went into it.

Ben Zanin
Ben Zanin
gnomon

"Think of the knowledge buried down there..."

no I think those aren't boulders of knowledge, those are rocks. sorry to break it to you

Ross of Ottawa
Ross of Ottawa
ottaross

Kinda cool, 1957, it's an era before "silicon" becomes a household word, so they have to explain it to people.

Floaty Birb
Floaty Birb
floatybirb

We take the little girl to the hospital and put her in the reverse MRI machine, which is where your body is in I guess an X-Ray machine and your head sticks out so you can be confused for one of the talking heads from Futurama. Anyway, the X-Ray shows that she's being turned into stone, so the Probable Lead suggests calling his Old Professor (Dr. Flanders, possibly Dr. Ned Flanders) who knows the most of all the science masters about rocks.

Floaty Birb
Floaty Birb
floatybirb

Characters so far in , they aren't in any particular order as most of them haven't really shown any interesting personality traits, except for the school girl who likes lizards, which is a top-tier personality trait.

Newspaper Geologist
Doctor Autopsy Man
Hot Schoolteacher Lady
School Girl Who Likes Lizards
Probable Lead
Evil Wet Rock
Government Geologist (killed by bubbling rock, RIP)

Floaty Birb
Floaty Birb
floatybirb

Probable Lead Character is confused that he can't find a geologist anywhere in his office, then he wanders around and discovers that the Bubbling Rock has turned into A Lot of Frozen Rocks. And also the geologist we met first is now like a frozen zombie mannequin guy, who Probable Lead Character knocks over, which the music tells us is Climactic and Disturbing.

Ben Zanin
Ben Zanin
gnomon

Far be it for me to second-guess the laboratory storage methodology of a professional geologist but I would probably keep my carefully labelled "DISTILLED WATER" in a round-bottomed flask uhhh maybe corked, lest it become distilled water (95%) airbone dust and pollen (3%) ceiling tile dust (1%) ghosts (1%)

Floaty Birb
Floaty Birb
floatybirb

so I guess like the first dude is a government geologist, because he has the government surf wagon, and the second guy is a newspaper geologist, which is a profession that I hope still exists somewhere.

nhgeek
nhgeek
nhgeek

Do you want Monolith Monsters? Because that's how you get Monolith Monsters.

Raindrops and Roses
Raindrops and Roses
raindrops_and_roses

@plaidtron3000 Well-spotted.

My opinion is I think that's because during this time people were still in the post-war reconstruction and boom period. There was a general belief in the government's role to alleviate poverty and stress in society and in life. People still had faith in systems and structures.

nhgeek
nhgeek
nhgeek

@allanb Thanks folks, goodnight! I'm here three nights a week. Don't forget to tip your server.

Floaty Birb
Floaty Birb
floatybirb

In a victory of the good, if salty water elementals against the evil earth elements, some salt water eats the evil crystals. We get a Joke Coda where a guy pretends the governor said to not blow up the dam (meaning that we'd be in trouble, despite saving everybody), but we learn that the governor was a responsible guy and instead said "don't blow up the dam, unless you're certain it will work!", which is a very reasonable governor thing to say.

Floaty Birb
Floaty Birb
floatybirb

The climax of the movie approaches as we get more slowly growing giant crystals looming over the landscape and making crunchy noises. Then a damn explodes and some salt water pours after them, causing some of them to knock over.

Meanwhile, our heroes are standing in town, staring at this elemental drama blankly.

Ben Zanin
Ben Zanin
gnomon

(still can't believe they hit that dynamite detonator without one of the characters staring straight into the camera and proclaiming "fankly, I don't give a dam")

Raindrops and Roses
Raindrops and Roses
raindrops_and_roses

Awww... they hold the car door open for Lola Albright and all wait until she sits in the car first.

Humanity's on the line but there's no need to lose our etiquette, people!

Sordid Amok!
Sordid Amok!
SordidAmok

This used to be a country where people would get together to blow stuff up at a moment's notice. We need to bring that back.

nhgeek
nhgeek
nhgeek

It's like a slow-motion chase scene with really, really heavy villains.

Ben Zanin
Ben Zanin
gnomon

oooooo are we about to get a split-screen miniature set explosion scene?? I LOVE THOSE

Ben Zanin
Ben Zanin
gnomon

"You're the husband? She's going to be all right, we got to her in time."

dude your _actual patient_ is _right there_ and you have her hand in your hand _TALK TO YOUR PATIENT_

Ben Zanin
Ben Zanin
gnomon

sorry for all the spam tonight folks, Eugen is going to kick me right off this thing

Floaty Birb
Floaty Birb
floatybirb

we get a fun geological crushing scene where the giant evil rocks start crushing other rocks and also a house. then we get a fun printing scene where an evacuation order gets printed and we see a bunch of hopefully paid paperboys going to deliver the message.

Ben Zanin
Ben Zanin
gnomon

Getting some real Christopher Reeves-era Superman Fortress of Solitude vibes from these crystalline monoliths.

Floaty Birb
Floaty Birb
floatybirb

I forgot to mention that they can't tell everyone to do an evacuation with the phones, because I guess the rocks cut the phone lines. Instead, the chief of police, who wears a cowboy hat, because this is the West, is resorting to an army of paper boys to order the evacuation.

The sheriff is indignant that the paper boys want to be paid, probably because he blew his department's infinity budget on a wardrobe filled with increasingly larger hats.

Ben Zanin
Ben Zanin
gnomon

"I wouldn't say we're cut off, not completely."

"Henh?"

"Come with me!"

Dude please use your words
You can just tell him
It is a tense situation
Just describe your idea before asking him to follow you around

Ooooh, I see, the plan is to get delivery kids on bicycles to courier evacuation messages to residents?

BIKES SAVE THE DAY ONCE AGAIN

Floaty Birb
Floaty Birb
floatybirb

Okay, so halfway through the movie the stakes go up and we figure out that if the evil rocks get wet enough, they'll reach the ocean and then everyone will die. I have to wonder if, in this universe, these meteors have thus turned other water planets into lifeless worlds.

Ben Zanin
Ben Zanin
gnomon

*ominous crystalline monolith stretches skyward as a freak monsoon in the desert causes it to grow*

We
Are the crystal gems
We'll always save the day
And if you think we can't
We'll always find a way
That's why the people of the earth
Believe in
Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl
And Steven!

nhgeek
nhgeek
nhgeek

And here is where we’ll build our rock-themed amusement park: Monolith World

Ben Zanin
Ben Zanin
gnomon

(Real talk for just a moment: let's please never see a child in an iron lung again. Please, please, let's make sure our society continues to fund and value the education and research that makes vaccines safe, effective, and available to everyone. Please.)

Floaty Birb
Floaty Birb
floatybirb

Okay, so we fart around in the desert a little bit, then find the evil rock meteor which came from space. we decide that falling through the atmosphere made the rock super and evil, and decide that it holds the secrets of space time.

Back at the hospital, we decide that we need to give the little girl more silicon so the rock has other stuff to eat and so she doesn't medusa to death.

Floaty Birb
Floaty Birb
floatybirb

Meeting Dr. Ned Flanders, we ask how we stop the rocks from multiplying, a question that is not commonly asked. He joins our party, donning his Science Jacket to help go solve this Science Mystery.

As we are about to leave, we meet the Schoolteacher Lady, who is very sad and tells us that the Little Girl who likes lizard only has 8 hours to live. I'm not sure how we determined time to death for a mysterious medusa disease that came from space though.

Ben Zanin
Ben Zanin
gnomon

"At the rate this stuff spreads destruction, by the time you write your story there might not be anybody left to read it!"

I don't know, if our species is outpaced by inanimate rock, maybe we deserve the extinction.

nhgeek
nhgeek
nhgeek

Ah yes, the classic 'stare at it until it does something interesting' scientific method.

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allanb

For reporter he's awfully good at talking himself out of writing a story