I've wanted to talk about Sci-Fi clichés for a bit, and in a brief, ill researched way, I'm going to talk about one that always tickles me as a way to add a tad more diversity to the ol' blog.
OK, what I want to talk about is the power of a main character in a film/tv show to overcome any odds by gritting their teeth - honestly it's like their Hollywood-whitened pearlies have some kind of superpowers.
Seriously, it doesn't matter whether the hero has had a building fall on them, been injected with elephant tranquilizer or had a hypnotic blast that is absolutely guaranteed to make them fall in love with the slug warriors of Varlgacb that cast it (that last one's mine, and it's copyright OK?) all they have to do is look at their comrades, maybe give their head a thought0clearing shake and then grimace for all their worth and they're bound to come through.
My favourite example of this is in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan where the eponymous warlord chucks some Ceti eels down the ears of a few cast members. One is an admiral, but not from the Enterprise - the other is Chekhov. The thing about Ceti eels is they get into your brain, cause you a lot of pain and kill you - guaranteed. The creepy thing bores into Admiral Redshirt's cerebelum and does it's thing, resulting in a dead admiral - one goes to work on Chekhov, but all the plucky lad has to do is grit those teeth and...
...pop goes the weevil! (eeewww grosss!)
Who knows, maybe as humanity slowly blazes it's trail across the stars what we really need to survive in the depths of space is a decent dental program - that or we only send recognizable Hollywood stars with the right training to fight the horde of terrifying beasts that await.
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