SNAKES ON A PLANE

You know how the internet is everything? The internet didn’t use to be everything. Sometimes something would happen on the internet and it felt like everything. And then sometimes this thing that felt like everything would cross over with real life and you’d come to this startling realization that the internet was nothing. For me that was Snakes On A Plane in 2006.

I lived in Ballarat at the time and was very on the internet. Being very on the internet in 2006 meant that I had followed the whole development journey of Snakes On A Plane. I’d read blogs about how the producers wanted to change the title to Pacific Air Flight 121 but Samuel L. Jackson made them change it back.

I’d followed the discourse where the joke line of dialogue “Enough is enough! I’ve had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!” became such a popular meme that they reshot part of the movie to add that line in. This movie was the internet. In all of its Chuck Norris jokes and Pirate vs. Ninja 2006 horseshit. All Your Snakes Are Belong To Plane. Jokes that started on the internet were being put into the movie. We couldn’t believe it. My friends and I were giddy with anticipation.

I remember being so excited to see Snakes on a Plane in cinemas. It was a huge event for us. We arrived at Regent Cinemas in Ballarat, flashed our membership cards which gave us absolutely unbelievably cheap tickets, and headed into the beautiful Cinema 1 to make sure we got our seats before the throngs of people poured in. But they never came.

The cinema was EMPTY. It was opening night. We were stunned. I honestly was baffled. I couldn’t understand what had happened. The internet was OBSESSED with this movie, and yet, here I was, sitting with three of my friends in a massive empty cinema. This didn’t just happen in Ballarat. This happened everywhere. Snakes on a Plane was a flop. The internet was not real.

I must have still gotten caught up in the moment, because for the longest time my memory of Snakes on a Plane was that it was hilarious. That it was a perfect combination of stupid and funny and that all of those people who didn't show up missed out on a gem. And the thing is, it’s really not. Rewatching this made me make a damning reassessment of myself as a 23-year-old. If anything this movie is completely joyless. The sort of empty shell of a film that would happily reshoot scenes to try and please anonymous jokesters in a forum somewhere.

Where would I fit into this dud? Would I be stuck having to sing the horrendous Bring It! (Snakes On A Plane) by Cobra Starship over the end credits or would I actually get to be on that motherfucking plane with those motherfucking snakes?

IF I WERE IN ‘SNAKES ON A PLANE’ I WOULD: DIE KNOWING THAT I HAD THE ICONIC LINE OF THE FILM