consiglieri wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 11:44 pm
Yeah. It’s not like the pilot would have announced they were landing at an airport or anything.
Or that President Nelson ever got off the plane and looked around.
It's amazing how just adding the visuals to Russell's story makes it even more ridiculous. For example, the church, with its stock footage of the interior of (what looked like) a passenger jetliner, really dropped the ball in providing the gravitas needed for this miraculous, faith-promoting story. I am thinking that with CGI animation, and an interior set mockup of a Piper Navajo Twin engine aircraft, and a small crew of actors, the church should have stood by its man and provided a proper film that would do his story justice.
Now on average, if skydivers want a good 60 seconds of freefall, then they need to jump from no lower than 14,000 feet. If memory serves me right, DrW said that a Piper Navajo normally cruises at 10,000 feet on a commercial run. So, I am figuring with the forward momentum and the drag of the wings and rudder, and accounting for each 360-degree rotation of the plane on its downward spiral being roughly every 500 feet, that should give us a good 18 full spirals, (give or take a few) before we reach the 1000 foot mark for the miraculous recovery to start happening. So here is where the explosion and fire on the right side of the aircraft begins. Here we should have an inside view seeing nothing but a solid wall of orange from the windows, accompanied by a manifest lurch, with head bobbing from the screaming woman sitting two feet away from Russell. The pilot, at least, should be seen as competent (Google Dieter Uchtdorf
https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJ ... e&ie=UTF-8 the world-famous "German Aviator").
Now I'm writing my ideas on the fly and I'm the first to admit that I don't speak pilot talk, but I think that the pilot should at least have a good supporting role in Russell's movie. First, I would have Russell calmly watching the pilot toggle a bunch of switches, shake his steering wheel a couple times, then grab his radio mike, shouting to the control tower:
"Mission Control! Mission Control! This is N4728N! Our right engine"s blown! There's flaming fuel engulfing our right aileron. Mayday! Mayday! We're at the point of no return!"
"N4738N! This is Mission Control at Delta Municipal! You need to shut off all engines now! I say again, shut off all engines now!"
"I already DID that! But she's still burning!"
"Damn it! You got to put out that fire! ENGAGE PHASE TWO! I say again, ENGAGE PHASE TWO!"
"The DEATH SPIRAL?!! Jeepers! I've only done that twice in the simulator!"
"Well, welcome to the Real World, Son! It's time to put your Big Boy pants on and engage on my mark at the count of 3. One....Two....THREE!"
"We're gonna die!"
"Son, I want to see you and your passengers at Delta Municipal in 20 minutes ALIVE! Now that's an ORDER! I say again, THAT"S AN ORDER!
"It will take a miracle!"
And here is where, I think, that Russell and the man at the control tower should both look up slowly in a mutual act of discernment, both understanding who the passenger is on board and what he was called to do before the world began. I think that things should go in slow-mo for a bit while the background music plays "Come, Come Ye Saints" (preferably with a Sitar playing the melody over a layer of cellos and basses, with some soft humming from the tabernacle choir at temple square. I would make it soothing, not too triumphalistic. Sometimes less is more). Then the man at the Control Tower will say, in a fatherly way:
"One miracle coming up, Son. Just remember to restart your left engine at the last possible moment. I say again, restart your left engine at the Last. Possible. Moment."
"Aye, aye, Cap'n."
So with the 15 or so spirals in the dive, we've got at least a good 50 seconds of film time to pack in a lot of information. To add context, we should see the incident in real-time from the passengers' view, looking downwards through the pilot's front window as the patchwork ground spins round and round beneath them. (I would hope that by now that technology has advanced enough so that the church doesn't resort to showing stock footage of that cheesy, black spinning spiral against a white background as in the movies' Vertigo or High Anxiety). I believe that the first five spirals in real-time should be enough for everyone to get the point.
Of course, we should have an external view from the distance of an aircraft with its flaming engine and a 5000-foot lingering trail of spiral smoke. This should be a slow-mo shot. In passing nod to the culture at large, they should make it reminiscent of Gandalf's fall with the Balrog in the caves of Moria. Add music to taste.
I am also thinking that the hysterical woman's lipstick-smeared face could be pressed against the window for a brief slow-mo close up during the descent, as viewed from the outside of the craft. Then it can cut to Russell looking beatifically out the window as a triangular flock of seagulls gets passed on the way down. This would be done in hyper slow motion as Russell and the Seagulls pay a passing nod to each other in memory of miracles past. Then Russell should face forward and down to the front window for a second or two, then look at his wristwatch, adjust his tie, and perhaps pull out a bottle of breath spray from his coat pocket and give himself a couple squirts, then breathe into his cupped hand, nod and smile. Cut back to the woman with frazzled hair, screaming wide-eyed in absolute horror at Russell. Of course, it would be over the top to listen to the screams. This should be strictly a video shot, sans screams, preferably to a soundtrack that portrays the peace that Russell feels. (While I'm partial to the Sitar at the moment, I have no objections to the music of Enya. If the church can't afford her royalty fees, I do know that there are plenty of decent open-source soundtracks that people are free to use for their YouTube videos). Then pan to Russell, all gentle and avuncular, looking at her with a sigh (for how oft would he have gathered such a one under his wings, but they all heeded him not). This should be enough footage for 4 or 5 more spirals.
Then we should get a close-up of Russell's face and zoom into one of his eyes so closely that the next scenes switch to his interior vision. Despite the fact that this is the
raison d'etre of the story, it is also the part most nebulously described in Russell's accounts. All we really have to go by comes from Russell himself. He said that he had a perfect recollection of his entire life before. One could take that in any direction, but we only have a good 5 or 6 spirals left. Besides, this perfect recollection appears to have been a special dispensation that was soon taken away (as evidenced by his varied later accounts of this story). So all we really have to go by is Russell's general overview. Russell was at peace because he checked off all the boxes. Here I think it might be classy to show them listed in the wet sand of an ocean beach. Baptism, Priesthood, Temple Marriage, Children, Obeying the Word of Wisdom, etc, should all be listed next to their respective boxes. As he ponders each, I think that it would be cool to see a luminous hand draw a checkmark in each box. Temple Marriage with his True Love! For Time and all Eternity! Faithful and True to his Eternal Companion! That Dream within a Dream! The luminous hand scratches its checkmark slowly in the sand. This can be repeated for all the other boxes. I think creative license might be warranted for the Word of Wisdom. Here I think that the camera should pull back from Russell's eye and face until the fuzzy image of the passenger sitting two seats behind Russell becomes crystal clear. For it seems that the unnamed man had been smoking one last cigarette during the last 8 or 9 spirals of the plane. Here would be a good time for him to take the cigarette out of his mouth and look at it pensively, wondering internally "What win I if I gain the thing I seek? A dream? A breath? A froth of fleeting joy? Who buys a minutes mirth to wail a week? Or sells eternity to gain a toy?" Fortunately for this fellow, thanks to Russell, he can live to quit smoking another day.
At any rate, I could go on and on with this stuff. But, I think that tonight I will end here. Brothers and Sisters, Adieu.