CAROL PEDERSEN writes in offence of ‘Signs’...


Yesterday I paid the $5.50 afternoon discount rate to see the movie ‘Signs’. There were only about 40 people in the theatre with a seating capacity of 200. I suspect after the first flurry of interest and the pocketing of multi-millions of dollars by the makers and movie stars this movie will be relegated to the dustbin of Hollywood misadventures.

The producer and stars (who, from watching interviews with them, don't appear to have a real understanding of crop formations) have taken the genuine crop circle phenomenon and twisted it to their money-making entertainment purposes, ie. that of portraying an enemy alien world invasion scenario, and a poor boring one at that.

The evil alien creatures have marked their landing sites, the circle formations, in corn crop instead of wheat (perhaps because these evil alien movie creatures are "tall" and would not be concealed in a short wheat crop). One rural American family, a father, his brother, his small daughter and small son who live together find one of these "signs" of a landing site in their corn/maize field. As the aliens invade their farmhouse and the world in an effort to "harvest" humans (but these competent aliens are somehow are not able to even break into an ordinary cellar door where the family has retreated and which is held fast by a simple farm tool), the father, a former priest, supposedly comes to terms with the loss of his faith because of the unexpected death of his wife in a traffic accident. As this occurs, the aliens suddenly depart in their ships. It is a very short invasion. The father's brother is able to beat to death with a baseball bat (he was a former ball player) the one lone evil alien survivor left behind in their living room, at the same time the alien is sprayed with the water from glasses left on the coffee table overnight which cause it to deteriorate. A bat is used because the father remembers that his wife said as she died (another sign) to have his brother keep swinging - and the bat happens to be coincidentally there perched on the living room wall in the moment of need. The theme of the movie isn't even close to original; the crop field, baseball and paranormal theme all somewhat seemed to be a copycat of the movie ‘Field of Dreams’, except the movie ‘Signs’ exploits crop formations. Movies
to instill fear of outer space intelligences are old fashioned.

So now, after watching this movie, the average person who knows nothing of the scientific research efforts of the past twenty years will most likely go away linking crop circles with evil alien monsters. Is this a step up from them going away linking crop formations with groups of roving out-of-work young men who the rest of the media want people to believe are stalking the fields of Britain and the world claiming, but not offering proof, they make all the formations? When I got up to leave the movie theatre, a ten year-old girl seated in front of me said to her parents, "I never want to see that movie again!" I echo her sentiments.