A Light In The Dark[room]

Last night, I watched the Michael Bay film I Am Number Four. I greatly enjoyed Alex Pettyfer as the brooding, isolated teenager. His performance lacked the stereotypical angst of a teen protagonist (i'm looking at you Kristen Stewart); instead he projected a quiet solitude that I found to be more realistic and refreshing.

My enjoyment of the movie may have been enhanced somewhat by immediate access to facts from the book, provided by my partner as we watched. With him I was able to see how the movie differed from the book and explore the artistic and logistical reasons for changes. As with any book adaptation, there are some things that we couldn't rationalize leaving out of the movie, and parts that, while we could recognize reasons for omission, would have been cool to see. There were also some parts that the movie added/made better that should have been included in the book.

I think it was this immersive and stimulating viewing experience that made me react so violently to two scenes at the end of the movie. One of the scenes I can't talk about, because it would require me to reveal major spoilers. This is for the best, as I cannot articulate how unpleasant my feelings were. The other scene...well.

From what I can gather from my second-hand knowledge of the book, there is a part where the protagonist, John, is in the school (because where else would a teenager be before the a final showdown?) and finds the female love interest, Sarah, hiding in the school darkroom because of strange goings on and general creepiness. The movie gets us to this same setting in a different way: John shows sarah his freaky alien powers, then shoves a roll of film in her face for her to develop after he's left her life forever. Sarah doesn't let John leave and drags him to the school darkroom to develop the roll. 

Now, Sarah likes cameras and pictures. We know this, because she is first seen (in the film) in the principal's office getting in trouble for posting unauthorized pictures of students and teachers to her website. In almost every other scene, Sarah is snapping a photo of someone in a creepy, too-pretty-to-be-a-starving-artist way. At one point, Sarah gives John a camera. Though we never see him use it, this is presumably where the roll of film has come from in the coming-out-of-the-alien-closet scene. 

Sarah likes cameras and pictures. Sarah has also just learned that John has powers, which include telekinesis, hands lighting up like floodlights, and cool death-defying flips. 

Cut to the darkroom at the school. Sarah is developing the pictures John took and hanging them to dry. She then looks longingly at his face, grabs his hands, and then asks to see them light up. John obliges. 

SARAH LIKES CAMERAS AND PICTURES. SARAH NOW HAS PICTURES OF AN ALIEN DOING ALIEN THINGS DEVELOPING. Please take a moment and let this all sink in. The girl obsessed with taking  pictures on film cameras, who is in the school darkroom which could contain other students' projects, who just got amazing photos that show the personal side of alien love interest, John -- photos she claims are beautiful -- would like to, right then and there, see him produce light from his hands. In the school DARKROOM. 

Now, this is an alien movie, and some unbelievable things have to be rationalized. I, a generally cynical movie watcher, was able to happily rationalize many of the paranormal/sci-fi things in this movie -- this I cannot. Darkrooms were not named frivolously; they are dark for a reason. Color photo paper is sensitive to all colors in the visible light spectrum, so the processing has to be done in almost complete darkness. In this movie, there is a red hue to the room, so let's rationalize this by saying that the photo paper being used is for black and white photos, which are only sensitive to blue or blue and green light. Please tell me what color light is coming out of this boy's hands:

This scene was not originally in the book, which means someone between the book and the blu-ray I watched had to actively think about writing that scenario. There is no excuse for this. Sarah asking John to turn on his glowy hands in the darkroom is the same as having just spent days building a tower with rare depression glass in your living room, then begging your next door neighbor to bring over their hyper-active great dane for a tour of the house. Sarah has pictures proofing that have great monetary, scientific, and sentimental value. She can't wait a couple minutes and ask for a personal light show in a different location?