CineLinkr #185: The Story Behind the Puzzle
Spoilers ahead: for the puzzle and the movies/games
This post assumes you've already solved the puzzle. It reveals all categories and their connections, and discusses plot details, endings, and spoilers for featured movies/games throughout.
Crank asks what would happen if an action hero had to keep his adrenaline up at all times. The answer is apparently "Los Angeles loses its security deposit." It is an admirably stupid premise executed with absolute professional commitment.
🟢 Easy: Teen romances culminate at a school dance or graduation party
Movies: Pretty in Pink · Can't Hardly Wait · She's All That · Prom
Pretty in Pink reaches its decision under prom lights. She's All That brings a wager, a makeover, and a public confession to the same room. Can't Hardly Wait swaps prom for a graduation party, but keeps the essential machinery: everyone arrives with one last thing they need to say.
🟡 Medium: Peril aboard a large sea vessel
Movies: The Poseidon Adventure · Speed 2: Cruise Control · Poseidon · The Last Voyage of the Demeter
The two Poseidon films turn an ocean liner upside down. Speed 2 sends a cruise ship toward land with Willem Dafoe handling the itinerary. The Demeter has less leisure infrastructure and one much worse passenger. Sea travel remains a marvelous advertisement for trains.
🔵 Hard: A personal relationship starts with a deal or wager
Movies: My Fair Lady · Can't Buy Me Love · Indecent Proposal · Failure to Launch
The terms differ, but somebody always believes feelings can be managed by contract. Higgins wagers that he can transform Eliza's social standing. Ronald pays Cindy to perform popularity. Failure to Launch hires a romantic intervention. Indecent Proposal asks a marriage to survive a million-dollar offer and then watches the invoice arrive emotionally.
🟣 Tricky: A ticking clock is built into the protagonist's body
Movies: Crank · In Time · 24 Hours to Live · Kate
These deadlines travel inside the hero. Chev needs constant stimulation. Kate has been poisoned. In Time displays mortality on the arm like the world's least soothing fitness tracker. Once the clock is physical, every quiet conversation feels expensive.
Speed 2 may have the slowest runaway vehicle in cinema, which takes nerve. PixelLinkr has its own collection of systems that refuse to let the player relax.