David Foster Wallace F/X Porn Sparknotes

David Foster Wallace brings forth an interesting point in his essay, “F/X Porn.” He immediately starts his essay out with a list of movies that were influenced by T2, as he refers to “Terminator 2” (1). These movies took a page out of James Cameron’s book and had a significant amount of special effects with a weak story-line. Wallace leads the reader to believe throughout the beginning of the essay his thesis is that watching movies such as Terminator 2 takes the same amount of brain power as watching porn; however, he later reveals his real thesis. Sequels or movies that were produced with the same director, with more F/X than the previous ones, which had an interesting story-line and a moderate budget made for a movie with an increased amount of special effects and thin story-line. Wallace’s thesis is

sluiceway and then the liquid metal T-1000 Terminator walking out of the explosion's flames and morphing [1] seamlessly into his Martin-Milner-as-Possessed-by-Hannibal-Lecter corporeal form. The T-1000 rising hideously up out of that checkerboard floor, the T-1000 melting headfirst through the windshield of that helicopter… ”, etc. (1). The list goes on a little bit longer as Wallace builds credibility by presenting scenes from the movie that doesn’t require much brain power to watch, but keep the viewer’s attention off the poor plot that is hidden behind all of the explosions, shoot-outs, car chases and fight scenes. Wallace then says, “But there were at most maybe eight of these incredible sequences, and they were the movie's heart and point; the rest of "T2" is empty and derivative, pure mimetic polycelluloid” (1). However, Wallace says that T2 was not completely plot-less and embarrassing, but instead it is far better than the other movies that are rife with special effects