FILE: Iron Lung

> INITIATING PLAYBACK LOG...

Mark Fischbach's Iron Lung, is a movie that works as a love letter to the game, but falls flat.

Story: 2/10. The story of Simon, a man who is "guilty" of blowing up a space station, is sent into a submarine on a blood ocean planet to uncover secrets because the stars are dying and humanity needs to be saved. It's funny because you hate to see McGuffins, but this movie sorely needed one. In the end, the McGuffin was the black box, but I was unsure what exactly what in the black box that was so essential to humanities survival. There is no clear antagonist, and I say this, not because I need an actor like the rock to say "You're the enemy," or "You're evil" but because our protagonist is clearly fighting something outside of his submarine, hearing voices that are not at all clear if they're real or not. By the time the movie ended, I wondered, "What was the point?". There are no character arcs, there isn't a clear theme, nor message. There is a moment that Simon presumably dies, and is "reset" back to a certain spot, I believe this was a nod to the different endings of the game.

Let's try this again from the positive side of things. Iron Lung is a movie about guilt, sacrifice, and persistance in the face of death. The movie does a good job of making us feel as cramped as the protagonist is. We feel frustration alongside Simon, and we are probably even more confused and concussed than Simon is after being thrashed about. We are told Simon's story through flashbacks, but I am unsure if this method was appropriate to the plot.

Characters: I'm going to give Mark a solid 8/10 for his performance. The two points are lost in the sheer darkness of the film, and in the fact that we're supposed to somehow "hate" Simon's character, and feel pity for his character through the flashbacks. I mean.. What other reason is there to know about a coalition? About the Filament Station? The medallion he finds hidden which he takes for himself and wears it. At one point, he says "I was only trying to save the station". Are we meant to believe this is a redemption arc for this character to sacrifice himself for the act he has done? It's a hard sell. I didn't buy it. I see an innocent person, marked as a criminal, futile environment, and a "fuck it" mentality of, I can only move forward so I might as well move forward. There are other characters too, but they aren't worth mentioning. Every other character in this film is a disembodied voice aside from Ava and Jack. We get a close up of Jack's spiteful/hateful face. We don't get any consequence of Jack being hit with so much radiation. I genuinely thought Jack would stop Simon from surfacing, potentially fuck up his sub on purpose, or something. All we hear about Jack afterwards is "Someone make him stand, he needs to weld something again" from Ava, over the intercom.

My New Plot: We actually see Simon on the Filament Station. We see a space news broadcast that more and more stars are dying, and it is the Alien's fault. Humanity has grown too far and too fast, and the Aliens know we need stars to survive. Aliens' don't need the stars, so they are shutting them down. Filament station is orbiting the alien planet. We are introduced to Simon. He is an engineer, fixing stuff. We get a shot of a criminal being dragged away, kicking himself free, screaming, "I don't want to be sent down there, please kill me instead". We see Ava, the leader of the station sentencing him to be sent down. She is cold, and unwavering, hellbent on saving humanity at any cost. We see Jack, a fellow engineer commenting on the poor saps that are sent down there. He isn't allowed to talk about them, but tells Simon that criminal isn't wrong. The coalition is plotting behind everyones back. Simon find's their plot, their bombs, and is caught in the engineering room with the bomb he has tried to disarm. The blast destroys the station, knocking Simon unconscious, and lo and behold, he is in the Iron Lung planetside. Inside the sub, he beats the window, sees jack outside working, and Ava at the window. Here, you can context dump. A planet that can sustain a blood ocean can sustain humanity. Do this and we'll free you.

Conclusion: Everything else can happen the same way. Jack's death via radiation camera would have had meaning. "I killed an entire station, plus my friend who had survived it" It would have made sense as to why Ava was so hellbent on saving the blackbox. We'd know that the information on the Blackbox, and finally, I think it would have been better for there to be multiple "Download" parts, revealing logs of the previous convicts, revealing who the entity/aliens really are, and explaining why the aliens are actively fighting against humanity and actively trying to stop Simon from retrieving this information.

My only takeaway, is that I'm happy that a person has tackled Hollywood, and won. I'm happy for Mark, and his movie. I genuinely hope he makes many more movies, hopefully a little brighter, and he can always email me the script. I'd be happy to lend an arm.

> END OF LOG.