A few days ago I was watching a big budget, Hollywood science fiction movie that was only about a year old. I don’t want to say the name because the movie was so bad nobody ever should watch it, even as a joke. Anyway, at one point the camera panned down and the music welled up and a spaceship entered the frame, and the whole scene was supposed to be awesome and spectacular.
I laughed and said, “Look, they kit-bashed it.”
Everyone laughed, but someone said, “Hey, kit-bashing is a classic, time-honored and acceptable way to make a model.”
Someone else said, “Yes, but it’s not supposed to look like it was kit-bashed. And certainly not after they spray CGI all over it.”
Everyone laughed again.
*
“The thing is,” Jenny said, “a film like this is more than bad. I mean, it’s like, empty and worthless. There’s nothing you even remember about it after you see it. I mean, when I was a kid I hated those Japanese monster movies. My brother watched them all the time so I had to sit through them. Now it’s, what, twenty-five years later or something and when there’s a storm coming, when it gets windy outside, the wind blows through the electrical wires behind my house. The wind in the wires makes a kind of humming sound. The pitch goes up and down. It always makes me smile because even though I hated those Japanese monster movies now when I hear the wind humming through the wires behind my house it makes me think of those little Japanese women singing for Mothra, calling for Mothra to come and protect them. And it makes me smile. Is anyone ever going to remember anything from the movies they make now?”
“With old films,” Kevin said, “even if the films were bad, you could sort of kit-bash the films themselves and take cool bits from one and stick them together with the cool bits from another and make something good in your imagination.”
“See?” Jason said. “I told you kit-bashing was cool!”
“Maybe new films themselves are the monsters,” Kevin said, “that the little Japanese women are calling Mothra to come protect us from.”
“You know, that’s about it,” Jenny said. “If you kit-bash modern movies and stick them all together it does make one ugly giant fucking monster.”
“Do you think,” somebody asked, “Mothra will come and protect us?”
“The electric lines behind Jenny’s house are singing for Mothra,” Jason said.
“Wires aren’t women,” Kevin said. “We can kit-bash modern movies together and make a monster. What can we kit-bash together to make two beautiful little Japanese women singing for Mothra?”
Someone said, “Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera?”
Everyone laughed. Jenny laughed so hard Redbull came out of her nose.
When she finished coughing and wiping her face, Jenny said, “I guess we are just doomed.”
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Kit-bashing at Wikipedia
Shōbijin at Wikipedia
Daikaijū at Wikipedia
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