Hissy fit

Is the upcoming "Snakes on a Plane" another sign of Hollywood's demise or a triumph of the blogosphere -- or both?

By Aemilia Scott

Read more: Movies, Samuel L. Jackson, Arts & Entertainment

Samuel L. Jackson regards one of many snakes, on a plane

July 17, 2006 | If you were in the audience for the opening-day screening of "X-Men: Last Stand" last May, you would have seen a movie preview that begins with a series of silent, ominous title cards:

"AS THE SUMMER MOVIE SEASON BEGINS / YOU WILL HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO SEE / MOVIES THAT WILL HAVE / HUGE STARS / SWASHBUCKLING PIRATES / ELABORATE CODES / INCREDIBLE SUPERHEROES / AND ANIMATED ADVENTURES / BUT THERE'S ONE THING / WE GUARANTEE YOU THEY WON'T HAVE  / SNAKES / ON A PLANE."

Seeing this trailer on the big screen was, for much of the audience, the culmination of months of rumors, party conversations, YouTube searches and endless jokes. It was a moment of collective consciousness on a par with the "Lazy Sunday" phenomenon. The word "snakes" was greeted with applause more raucous than for the feature presentation itself. The clapping exploded into arena-rock-caliber cheering because with every clap, each person in the audience realized that the person next to them saw what they saw. Snakes. On a plane.

Was being in the theater that day like seeing the Stones at the Altamont, or watching Lloyd Bentsen tell Dan Quayle that he was no Jack Kennedy? Were we part of one of those cultural high tides recounted romantically by Hunter S. Thompson? "Snakes on a Plane" is no Altamont, that much is certain. But it is a phenomenon unlike any other. For those who are unfamiliar with this surprise hit -- this improvised explosive device on the highway of pop culture -- let this article break the seal and pop open the can of Snakes. On a Plane.

Snakes on a plane is actually "Snakes on a Plane," the title of a movie to be released Aug. 18 and starring unlikely cult hero Samuel L. Jackson. The question one should ask is not what -- what is the movie's plot? what is the action like? what the hell were the screenwriters thinking? The answer to all those questions is, of course, "snakes on a plane." The real question here is how "Snakes on a Plane" became so much more than just a shitty movie.

Although its anticipated cult status is high, the film doesn't seem to have been created as a ready-made cult classic. It began like many other action films, as a god-awful B-movie script with a simple premise and simple thrills that needed some rewrites. It was filmed to be a PG-13 snoozer with the working title "Snakes on a Plane." A groundswell of Internet love for the title emerged. The title was changed by New Line Cinema to "Pacific Air Flight 121." The Web erupted into e-riots. The studio, realizing the golden, rotten egg upon which it sat, restored the original title and shot new sequences to push the rating from PG-13 to R.

And like a snake shedding and re-shedding its skin, "Snakes on a Plane" was born and reborn.

Everyone who hears about it loves "Snakes on a Plane." And yet no one has actually seen it. There are countless homages and parodies of all levels of production value on the Web that millions have enjoyed -- from film mash-ups using previous footage of Samuel L. Jackson and nature shows, to camcorder images of white college-age males in their garage. None of these are based on the movie. This preemptive attack of fandom was caused by the four syllables that make up the title.

The appeal of the title does not derive from its simplicity or its specificity but rather from the existential truth of it. It's as if the author read the screenplay aloud to his two sons and asked them what the film should be called. The first son might reply, "Death Flight! Wait, wait, no! Poisonous Air!" The second son, if he were autistic, would reply, "Snakes on a Plane." The second son would be right.

Next page: All the really bad movies have really good titles