As I was reading through various articles regarding yesterday’s bombings in London, I came across this gem from an article on Boston.com:
Blair, flanked by fellow G-8 leaders, including President Bush, read a statement from the leaders. “We shall prevail and they shall not,” he said.
Whoa. Must have taken hours upon hours of painful re-writes and spirited negotiation for the gang of eight to come up with that heavy-hitter. I guess they ruled out “You know, these terrorists really suck” or “Syria’s really gonna get it now.”
Looking at the quote again, I couldn’t help but immeadiately think back to the 1980s, to that complicated work of art which moved a nation to laugh, to cry and to hug: the movie Spaceballs. Now, I hope beyond hope that Spaceballs did not inspire the quote above, but the similarities are indeed strange. Take the following quote from Dark Helmet, indisputably one of the great villians of modern film:
“So, Lone Starr, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.”
Now, I’m not a leader of any nation, but I do believe Blair should have copped this line verbatim and spat it out to the press yesterday, of course reversing the “good” and “evil” in the sentence. While we’re on the topic of Spaceballs, might as well throw this bit of dialogue in, too:
Ship’s Voice: This ship will self destruct in twenty seconds. This is your last chance to push the cancellation button.
Skroob: Cancellation button? Hurry.
[They all slide down a ladder. They run to the center of the ship.]
Dark Helmet: Where is it? Where is it?
Sandurz: It’s gotta be here.
[Sandurz opens a panel to the self-destruct cancellation button. It has a sign on it that says, “Out of Order.”]
Sandurz: Out of order?
Dark Helmet: Fuck. Even in the future nothing works.