Daily Dialogue — January 5, 2016

ADVISOR #1: Sir, it’s at dire times like this when I stop and ask myself: “What would Oprah do?”
PRESIDENT: Hang it all! What’s the point? It’s a disaster.

President readies to push a giant red button but the advisors around the conference table panic and try to stop him.

ADVISOR #2: That button launches all our nuclear missiles!
PRESIDENT: Well, then which button gets me a latte?
ADVISOR #3: Uh, that would be the other one, Sir.

President pushes the other giant red button.

PRESIDENT: What idiot designed this thing?
ADVISOR: (O.C.) You did, sir.
PRESIDENT: Fair enough. Wilson, fire somebody.
WILSON: (O.C.) Yes, sir, Mister President.
PRESIDENT: Listen up. I’m not going to go down in history as the president who was in office when the world came to an end so somebody think of something, and think of it fast. (Sips coffee). That is a good cuppa joe.
MONGER: (Appears at upper-level railing) Mister President, not only do I have an idea, but I have a plan. Yoohaw! (He parachutes to the main floor.) Now, conventional weapons have no effect on this thing, and we all know nukes ain’t an option.
PRESIDENT: Sure they are, I just, uh —

Advisors panic again.

MONGER: I’m not going to kid you, Mister President, these are dark times. The odds are against us. We need a hail Mary pass. We need raw power. We need — monsters.
PRESIDENT: Monsters! Of course! It’s so simple. I…I’m not following you.
MONGER: Over the last fifty years I have captured monsters on the rampage and locked them up in a secret prison facility — so secret that the mere mention of its name is a federal offense.
MILITARY ADVISOR: Is he referring to Area Fifty — (gets struck by a dart).
MONGER: Mister President, say hello to Insectosaurus.
RONSON: (Screams)
MONGER: Miss Ronson, please. Nuculer radiation turned him from a small grub into a three hundred fifty foot-tall monster that attacked Tokyo. Here we have the Missing Link.
RONSON: (Screams)
MONGER: A twenty thousand year-old frozen fish man who was thawed out by scientists. He escaped and went on a rampage at his old watering hole. This handsome fellow is Doctor Cockroach, Ph.D., the most brilliant man in the world. He invented a scientific machine that would give humans the cockroach’s ability to survive. Unfortunately, there was a side effect.
RONSON: (Screams)
MONGER: (Sighs) Now, we call this thing BOB.
RONSON: (Screams)
MONGER: Would someone get her outta here? (There is a scuffle) Thank you. A genetically-altered tomato was combined with a chemically-altered ranch-flavored dessert topping at a snack food plant. The resulting goop gained consciousness and became an indestructible gelatinous mass. And our latest addition: Ginormica.

A scream off camera.

PRESIDENT: Ahem, General, continue.
MONGER: Her entire body radiates with pure energy, giving her enormous strength and size. Sir, these monsters are our best and only chance to defeat that robot.
NERD: Don’t we already have an alien problem, General? I don’t think we need a monster problem, too.
MONGER: You got a better idea, nerd? (Gives him a super wedgie)
PRESIDENT: (Panicking) Okay, stay where you are. General, I propose we go forward with your monsters versus aliens idea…thingie.

— Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), screenplay by Maya Forbes, Wallace Wolodarsky, Rob Letterman, Jonathan Aibel, and Glenn Berger, story by Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Formulating a Plan, suggested by Lior Shemesh. Today’s suggestion by Will King.

Trivia: Movie is set in Modesto, CA, birthplace of George Lucas.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Will: A giant alien robot invades San Francisco in a search for the power contained within Ginormica, who was an ordinary human until she was struck by a meteorite carrying an alien mineral. The President and his advisors search for some way to defeat it, until General Warren Monger arrives to reveal that he has been collecting monsters that could be used against the invader. Though we’ve met all the monsters previously, this scene gives us a little bit more backstory on each as well as Monger’s relationship to them, and sets up the goal of the next stage of the story (the conflict with the robot). And, a few chances to play some comedy off several sci-fi and nerd tropes. Each of the monsters here is reminiscent of an old sci-fi or horror film:

Ginormica — The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)
Insectosarus — Mothra (1961)
Dr. Cockroach — The Fly (1958)
The Missing Link — The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)