Booba at Barbenheimer

Booba looked down on the ridiculous blue planet below. He had parked The Hand Of God on the far side of their moon and was keeping a low profile until he decided what to do. The persistent ache in his 7th knee was bothering him, and this planet's resemblance to the one responsible for flinging the antimatter torpedo at his starship during the Battle of Lookai intensified that ache.

He knew this world wasn't capable of tossing anything like that at his ship. So, it was safe to linger. He should probably be doing more important things, but maybe he just wanted a reason to escape the tedious duties of being a Supreme Council Member back home in Bloderia. And so, here he found himself, observing the ongoings of the natives of this strange planet, finding amusement in their current fascination with Barbenheimer

After downloading the recent cultural history, even before watching these films, he found their music was the worst part. So predictable and repetitive.

Booba eyed his control panel. He missed the days when he could simply push a button, launch a Bloderian torpedo and watch the fireworks of an exploding planet. The excitement of watching a species go extinct, it was very Oppenheimer-esque. These days, doing things like that involved far too much paperwork. Ironic it’s still called paperwork, Bloderians haven’t used paper in two billion years.

He saw something move out of the corner of his eye. A Jubian bug. They kept scurrying about the ship. He would deal with it eventually. On the top of the dashboard, he checked his childhood flamethrower, the only weapon he could safely use inside of the ship. Bloderian parents handed these out when they gave birth to their 20,000 offspring. Only two children could make it into adulthood, and they needed a way to nudge each other out of the line of succession without causing too much disruption to their parents. The robot vac would clean up the losers of the day before their parents arrived home.

Having two billion years of Bloderian technological development behind him provided another useful gadget. One might call it a telescope, but it was more a long-distance MRI scanner. He turned it on and watched a human couple on their way to watch Barbenheimer.

Curtis and Chelsea were well past the honeymoon stage. They couldn’t agree on which film to watch, so they agreed to disagree, and planned to watch both.

English-language films! Booba laughed at how 50 years of alien invasion films had people like him landing in New York, DC, or just outside London. One would think, after centuries of western colonialism, they would know a technologically superior species such as his would land in the easiest to conquer place first. You know, give those docile, bad at warfare people a hint about their certain demise if they don’t cooperate, explain the advantages of being able to lord it over the others if they do, and then enlist them as their new bureaucratic class—the people who get to do the boring work of governance, so the warriors can go back to their fun and games. What the British army used the Sikhs for in India.

If he followed his planetary conquest simulation, the Americans would be taken by surprise when the people of Cameroon showed up with Bloderian weapons and demanded their unconditional surrender. Karma would be if the Cameroonians shipped them all back to Cameroon to become slaves. But it appeared earth’s humanoids now thought exterminating civilians with air strikes was more ethical than involuntary agriculture work. Booba could see the beautiful simplicity in their barbaric ideals.

Oppenheimer. Being a warrior, this was more his type of film. A male of the species developing a weapon of world conquest. As a bonus, the film was all about testing the new weapon and the glory of the conquering army, and didn’t give a second of screen time to the vanquished. The way it should be, what could be more Bloderian than that? It reminded Booba of the buzz he felt after annihilating the Xander Belt and its 5 billion people as retribution for their war crimes in the battle of Lookai.

Booba had already seen Oppenheimer. Today he thought it fun to live vicariously watching the humans on their date. It was like watching mating rituals on Animal Planet. Or a YouTube reaction video.

Booba toyed with his childhood flamethrower while he watched the next three hours of the human Curtis in rapt attention with the film Oppenheimer. His girlfriend Chelsea rolled her eyes and sighed through most of the film, except for the awkward romance scene which she found amusing for reasons Booba couldn’t fathom.

After the curtain went up, Curtis declared to Chelsea, and to the rest of the universe, “Christopher Nolan’s film was amazing!”

“You think so?” Chelsea's voice dripped with doubt.

“Don’t you?” Curtis lifted an eyebrow.

“Sorry. I found it a bit boring. A lot of men in horn-rimmed glasses acting important.”

"But they changed the world. And the director handled so many characters and perspectives so well."

“I just didn't like it. Am I not allowed to have a different opinion?”

“I don't know why you're getting angry with me,” Curtis said, his face turning red thinking of how to justify himself.

He had better snap them out of it.

Booba warmed up The Hand of God’s gravity beam. He dialed in a 5.5M earthquake, centering it beneath Minneapolis, even though they don’t normally have earthquakes there. The geologists will figure out a way to explain it later, they always did. “Scientists discover a new fault line…’

The ground started shaking beneath Curtis and Chelsea’s feet. Their eyes widened.

“Is this…an earthquake?!” Curtis asked, not really expecting an answer.

“Maybe it's the film playing next door," Chelsea said, watching the ceiling shake violently from side to side.

Curtis eyed the trembling movie screen and swaying ceiling lights. He tried to recall what the current Avengers film was about.

Then the earthquake intensified beyond the magnitude of hyperbole of any possible Marvel film.

“What if this is the end?” Chelsea asked, her eyes looking increasingly fearful. “I don't want our last moment to be spent arguing about a film we will forget nine months from now. I think we need to stop”

Curtis was quiet for a moment. “Agreed. Do you think we might have caused the earthquake?”

“Maybe…I dunno.”

They hugged each other and waited for what would happen next. It was a true Barbie moment.

Booba turned off the gravity beam.

For Booba, this interactive game was far more entertaining than watching another formulaic Bloderian soap opera. A Bloderian mother hides her third baby under the bed while her husband is at war, and her stepmother finds it and demands the final sibling duel to follow Bloderian tradition. How many times has this plot been done over and over?

Making one, or at most two, babies at a time like humans do could hardly be considered high drama for a Bloderian, but one can live vicariously through other species if you set your mind to it. Booba hoped Curtis would get lucky that night if he made all the right moves.

Instead of watching intergalactic wildlife, he could have stayed home and partied like other council members do. Booba could mate again if he wanted to. Bloderians had no problems with polygamy. But that would involve having to watch another 20,000 children fight to the death, then having to pay the tuition bills for the two that survived.

Perhaps it's the challenges of Bloderian parenting that makes wiping out alien races so attractive to Bloderian warriors.

After the earthquake quieted down, Curtis and Chelsea realized nature was calling and rushed to the toilets. They soon returned to the theatre to watch Barbie, this time with a larger box of popcorn and smaller drinks.

Despite being a fraction of his size, Curtis reminded Booba of himself in many ways. As Barbie began, Curtis crossed his arms, irritated by the first twenty minutes of pink saccharine nonsense. If Curtis was going to get a chance to mate, he would have to be more charming than this. Booba thought it was too bad he didn’t have any buttons to control the little things.

Curtis leaned over to Chelsea. “What do you think of the film?”

Her eyes still on the screen, she murmured, “It’s fun.”

“I think so too,” he said. Right answer. There was hope after all.

Booba didn’t like the film. Not at all. But with a 2 billion year backlog of things to watch, it was hard to choose. Sometimes it was just easier to let someone else make the decisions.

If his wife was here, she would enjoy the lightheartedness of Barbie. She found him hard to be around, always so obsessed with intergalactic domination. He should loosen up and have fun she said. She often put him in the box of being just another Bloderian warrior lacking any heart, soul, or mode of artistic expression. He had to admit, when he sang, even the Jubian bugs went into hiding. Music was not his strong suit, but with twelve legs, boy, could he dance.

The film switched to a song and dance number, and the catchy melody from Barbie began to echo through Booba’s brains. He began to feel lighter. He didn't know how, but it was steadily pushing the dark thoughts out of his mind. The pain in his seventh knee became a distant memory. His finger began to tap in rhythm with the music. The Jubian bugs in the toilet no longer seemed a big deal. The threat of indictment for intergalactic war crimes would certainly blow over. It was easier to listen to this happy music than to worry about all those problems all the time.

He let himself be immersed in this new feeling. Before he knew it, the film had ended and the couple was walking out.

Chelsea murmured to Curtis, “Do you want to come to my place tonight?”

“I’d love to, Chelsea.”

“Then, come on, Curtis.”

They walked toward their car, sharing a kiss along the way.

Booba cut the connection. Bloderians enjoy romance, but feel awkward watching anything R-rated.

He looked at his childhood flamethrower. The humans don't need to watch 20,000 children fight each other to the death, maybe that's why they can be so carefree. Perhaps Bloderian traditions weren’t correct about everything.

Feeling in the best mood in a long while, Booba decided he would stop flying off the handle about not being able to destroy planets without permission. He would learn to go with the flow, enjoy life and not overthink things. Life could be all rainbows and unicorns if he just let it be.

On The Hand Of God, the interior lighting was slowly dimming. Soon it was so dark he couldn’t see a thing. Glowing text began to scroll up in front of his eyes: An Alien Warlord Reacts to Barbenheimer. A dum-dum resounded, one he had heard many times before in his dreams. Just for a second, he saw through the fourth wall and out to a 15-year-old boy peering in at him.