made for TV - and human morality

I watched the made for TV remake of The Poseidon Adventure over the weekend. It was one of the most ham-handed morality plays I've seen in a long time - totally over the top. Right down to the Evil Terrorist falling into the fire under the catwalk - followed shortly there-after by the Home-wrecking Massuse who's only crime was sleeping with Steve Guttenberg. His character was - of course - reunited with the rest of his family in a hallmark moment. Which made sense since it was a hallmark film.

One reviewer on IMDB said that you could almost see when the various cast members would die - and who would make it out alive - right from the start of the film. Sort of like someone coughing in Act One of a shakespearian play - and knowing they'd be dead of the pox by Act Three.

So, what's the point? Do we really need this kind of morality shoved down our throats yet again? This movie came out in 2005, shouldn't we know better by this point? And if we don't, will this be the movie that suddenly makes us better human beings?


I've read a lot of books - a huge number. And a few of those have involved introducing some kind of influence into humanity that forces us to be better people. Chemical, virus, or whatever - the goal is to make us more peaceful. Now, these are all Sci-fi, so of course something terrible has to happen. In a Stephen King story, everyone gets stupid. In Serenity, everyone either gets so peaceful they stop breathing or gets so agressive they turn into monsters.

But, can any amount of religion, politics, or social engineering really make a differnce anymore? Are there enough made for TV movies out there to influence us?

Maybe we need to risk it. Find a way to make us peaceful and good to each other. And then force it on everyone - take choice out of the equation. If it isn't universal, those that aren't affected would quickly go totally world domination on the rest.

I don't have enough of a bio-chemical background to do this myself, but I wonder if anyone is already working on this. Seems like things are getting worse out there.


Well, enough of that for now. Starting to bring myself down. Time to get back to work...