Although I only saw the last 40 minutes or so of Runaway Train, we discussed it in class so I'll comment briefly on it. Good movie, although yes, many technical errors. Just an aside on the dead man's switch - back in the motherland my dad operated large cargo trains on the BAM and that button you have to press every 30 sec to make sure you're alive becomes second nature - he tells me he would fall asleep but still be pressing every 30 sec b/c it was just learned habit. Bottom line, it's not foolproof.
Anyways, I haven't seen much about the guy that Ranken sends to first get on the train who gets killed instantly. Call me oversensitive or nit picky, but at first we thought three people were going to die and in the end three people did die - just Sarah and Buck were swapped for unnamed dead man and Ranken. What's that about? Is it that in the end life is indiscriminate of who gets killed, as long as someone bites the dust? Or is that some are disposable and some aren't? I have to go to class...to be continued.
In the Star Trek fan universe, these disposable characters are known as "redshirts" because, in almost every episode of Star Trek, one of the crew gets killed off, not one of the main characters, naturally, and they always seemed to wear a red shirt. The uniform of Star Fleet was either a blue, beige, or red shirt. Your point is well-taken, of course. I don't think anyone has spent a second thinking about him, until you. How sweet.
ReplyDeleteShort and sweet. I admire your clutch, before class blog style. I appreciate this post much more sicne we finished the seventh seal today, so we now explicitly know that death is indescriminate.
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