Monday, December 20, 2010

The Fake Kind

I’ll admit that when the trailers for The Fourth Kind began showing I was very interested in seen the film. The entire movie passed off as a dramatic reenactment of what happened in Nome, Alaska in the year 2000. The evidence, or the video footage shown, was supposedly real archive footage. After watching the trailer and knowing this, I immediately was interested so when I got back I hopped on the MUFON database and was instantly let down. You see, all the “evidence” in The Fourth Kind was passed off as real but in actuality it was just part of it’s viral marketing. Ho hum. That didn’t stop me from wanted to watch it because it was about aliens and they were describing the ancient astronaut theory and telling us the four stages of alien contact. However, after watching the movie in it’s whole I know realize what the biggest problem that this movie suffers from.

I’m not going to knock the performances, or trash the story and direction because it was refreshing to see an alien movie that really shows the stage of ‘abduction’ and ‘contact.’ What I will trash is the footage that was shown in conjunction with the film. They were trying to pass it off as real but lets consider the fact that this footage was real, that would mean that the footage would ultimately debunk the idea that there are no aliens. If this footage was real than it would be the footage to prove that people have been abducted because we see people getting lifted out of their beds, we see people getting distorted from alien contact, we see alien spaceships and people talking in ancient Sumerian. The Fourth Kind wanted to show ‘actual footage’ of people being abducted but at the same time it tried to hide the evidence so that it wouldn’t seem like they were directly implying that all these events happened.

The reason why I went on the MUFON database, for those who don’t know what that is, is because MUFON’s (Mutual UFO Network) has record of every single UFO sighting since the 1940s. When I looked up UFO sightings in Nome, Alaska to try to find the basis of the story it only turned up 1 or 2 results. Additionally, the sightings were debunked as actual aircraft and it happened back in the 70s. So the part where Dr. Tyler was stating that there have been more missing persons in Nome than in any part of Alaska might have been false. It was a bitter disappointment to find out that Universal falsified evidence and news headlines to promote their movie because I wanted this to be a real reenactment but instead we get a hour and a half episode of Unsolved Mysteries. But I wont’ be too harsh on this movie because I admire the director and Universal’s attempt at trying to create a good viral marketing technique for their film. I just think that the viral marketing should be left to J.J. Abrams since he seems to know how to properly do it.

3 comments:

Pax Romano said...

I went into this film blind - I knew nothing about it, nor was I aware that the footage was fake. HOWEVER, about half way through a little voice in my head started saying, "this can not be true". None the less, I enjoyed the film and found it unnerving. Later on I went on line, and like you, discovered the trickery. That said, I really enjoyed The Fourth Kind.

Mr. Johnny Sandman said...

If I wasn't so interested in UFOs and what not, I could see this movie being really good. I don't necessarily blame all the responsibility on the marketing but the direction was awkward. I didn't hate it, though

HorrO said...

I liked the movie, but was also disappointed when I found out it was all fake. At the least, it was a good idea for a movie, even though they lied. I agree with Pax, it was unnerving in spots especially if you try to really buy what they are selling. They might have had a better chance at tricking you if they used a more unknown actress. In some parts I was waiting for her to go all Alice on the aliens.

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