IQ4: Incompetence Day

Hollywood's done it again...

I was utterly devastated by the epic scale of the tragedy this movie encompassed. Harking back to earlier tried-and-true movies, IQ4 took on the mantle of the tragic war movie and took it to its logical extraterrestrial extreme.

It begins simply with a race of well-meaning alien ecological activists parking in orbit near our moon for a quick glance. It took but one quick glance to notice that we humans had left some litter there. With that they had to explore the nearby planet, looking for the offenders.

From orbit they observed the ozone depletion and the horrific amount of air pollution. Several cleansing and reclamation vessels were dispatched to major pollution centers on the planet in order to assess the situation. Already they could determine that many species had recently been driven into extinction.

At first the peaceful aliens observed Earth. A helicopter armed with strobe light projectors was sent by Earth under the pretense of an attempt to communicate, but it soon was revealed that the flashing light patterns caused brain seizures in crew members who observed it. The aliens had no choice but to shoot the "signal" helicopters from the sky.

After a few hours of careful deliberation, it was regretfully decided that they had to rescue the Earth from this foul infestation which inhabited it. The humans would have to die so that the Earth could live. And thus they began with the removal of cities: major sources of pollutants and toxins. It would have been another simple case of planet rescue, except that the aliens made several key mistakes. A little hubris led to a lot of downfall; a time-tested formula for high tragedy.

Unfortunately for the well-meaning aliens, they had recently installed W------ 95 as their operating system, with an interface designed to imitate a Mac------. And thus they were vulnerable to the pranks of a pathetic human bug, who crashed their computer systems.

Oh, the tragedy as their magnificent vessels fell under the attack of mere gnats, technological leeches feeding off the lifeblood of this fair planet. In the end, all the aliens accomplished was to add their own wreckage to the pollution killing this doomed planet. Even the Ancient Greeks would be hard-pressed to bring such pathos to the viewer. All this could have been avoided had they gotten a real operating system installed.

All in all, I'd give this cautionary tale a big thumbs up.

Last updated: August 27, 1996