If Covid-19 Was a Sci-Fi Movie
By: Marjan Krebelj
Tags: Drama, Science Fiction, Covid 19, Screenwriting, Movies

We’ve all seen a ton of sci-fi movie disasters and it is almost surreal how the current pandemic surpasses them all. Here’s why.

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Large Amplitude of Clinical Symptoms

Following the infection Covid-19 disease can range from being completely asymptomatic to very painful death and anything in between. This gives a lot of ground to all sorts of denial and conspiracy theories and can lead to a large variety of scenarios. Society can divide into groups (virus deniers, virus hysterics, conspiracy theorists and alike) which brings about a lot of dramatic tension and conflict. Sadly, while these groups fight among each other the virus continues to spread and kill people.

“They look like us now” — Source

We now know that asymptomatic people can spread the infection just as much as the sick ones. Since there is no way to be sure who is infected and who’s clear anyone is a suspect. People can turn onto each other. We’ve seen a little bit of that that during the first wave. If the virus was only slightly more lethal, this effect would be more pronounced. Almost to the point we’ve seen in Battlestar Galactica, when the enemy AI robots (cylons) evolved into a human form, indistinguishable from biological humans. When people learned this friends became enemies, relationships were broken and people began to spy on another. There was really no clearway to tell a friend from a foe so every unfavourable act was seen as an indicator. He must be a cylon.

In any case society can fragment almost ad infinitum based on this factor alone and people will fight and quarrel for a long long time before it gets boring for the series to run out of episodes.

In real world this is just sad.

It Kills Mostly the Elders

If the virus effected children the most then even low mortality rates wouldn’t leave much doubt for the action. “Children are our future” and other slogans would lead the action. But a virus that kills mostly the elders “who would soon die anyways” opens a lot of moral closets. It really puts our solidarity to the test, doesn’t it.

From a standpoint of dramatic screen writing this is a much more favourable situation because it makes way for further divide among population. Not only on academic moral grounds, but also for the fact that some people have more stakes in this situation than others. Imagine a twenty-something guy, with relatively young and healthy parents and no grandparents. He is free to party and travel! On the other hand there are a number of people who share household with sick parents or even grandparents, people who work in nursery homes, hospitals… The clash is inevitable.

Demanding solidarity with the weakest and often the most remote parts of society can bring out the worst in some people. Especially when they have to give up something they like. First comes freedom of movement, than some simple daily comforts, but what happens when basic living necessities become scarce?

It Spares the Children

The role of children is bizarre; while they are normally spared the worst outcomes of the disease they can spread it around almost the same way as adults. Again and again we see these contradictions which make people divide and argue. Further dramatic tension is guaranteed.

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Opening or closing schools is an obvious example, but what about when a character is forced to pull her child away from child's play at the playground? Wouldn’t it break your heart to see that? Or when a parent is forced to explain the situation to children?

Long Covid

Some people get through the disease relatively easily but only later develop severe inflammation or other inner organ damage. It happens to kids too. While it is extremely sad to witness these patients, it gives our movie a strong dramatic twist. An asymptomatic virus-denier can meet his karma later on in our script. It also brings twists and turns on a larger scale; perhaps certain young populations went for deliberate infection in order to gain immunity only to regret it miserably a few weeks further down the line.

Public Service and the Public Itself

One of the most striking differences between reality and movies like Contagion is the way scriptwriters treat people in public service and the masses. In usual cliché scenario politicians are noble and trying to do the right thing while the public quickly turns into a rioting mob. While we definitely seen it all, it is surprising to me how the first wave played out here in Slovenia. People cooperated gladly, they stayed at home and helped in lots of ways. We’ve seen almost unprecedented expressions of solidarity and comradeship. At the same time politicians were on the loose. They seized an opportunity of fear and chaos for their own benefit. Media blasted us with scandal after scandal of Covid-corruption which eroded the last bits of trust in our leaders.

This is quite the opposite to most movies, isn’t it? But closer to reality.

Furthermore it paved the grounds for the second wave; people don’t listen to politicians anymore (even when the advice is sound), they disobey safety measures out of mere caprice and the virus spreads rapidly.

Meanwhile medical staff is exhausted, medical systems on the brink of collapse and people still keep saying the virus is made up to empower the elite. Well, with the way the elite is acting it is quite hard to disprove the benefit they have. But benefiting from the situation does not imply causation.

My guess is that screen writers deliberately make politicians unrealistically noble simply because it would complicate the script way too much if they were portrayed realistically. It would be hard for the movie to focus on anything else and the pandemic or any other Sci-Fi scenario would loose its focus and thus serve merely as a background.

Then again a classical drama structure needs a clear protagonist to lead the way out of misery.

Real life doesn’t mind being without a saviour. Nor does it care if the role is dispersed among many many silent workers in our healthcare system, volunteers or people who just do the right thing on everyday basis. Reality is much more rough, harry and hard to define than any Hollywood script but it is still mesmerising just how many contradictions are present in our current situation. No doubt we’ll see them exploited in movies when this will be over.