Return to the Blue Lagoon:The Awakening (A Tutorial)

It's been a week since I reviewed The Blue Lagoon: The Awakening, and my blog is STILL blowing up because of it.

Five hundred hits on one review. 

(insert gratuitous joke about Dean "hitting that" here)

Seriously, people.

That's like half a high school's worth of bored teenager right there. 

Which got me thinking...why are you going to my blog? So, I tracked the searches and stared in awe at the myriad ways your individual quests for information had brought us so repeatedly together. Then, my sister had an idea. Why not reward all you dedicated Lagoonies out there by creating an article that seeks to answer your burning questions regarding this installment of The Blue Lagoon saga? 

(Dean thinks with his pecs)

It's the least I can do for all y'all after you've been so kind to read my rant...er...review.

Obviously, to get to my site, most of you are just Googling "blue lagoon the awakening" and finding yourself here. To all of you who lack the creativity to get into the meatier issues of the text, I'm sorry. I have nothing more to offer than basic plot rehashing and some minor psychological deductions of the main characters' neuroses based on their inexplicable actions throughout the course of the movie. Go read a book or something. You're boring. You're on the side of the angels.

The rest of you, now, you're something special.

In the immortal (and completely made up by me) words of one Dean Whateverhislastnamewas: let's do this thing, baby.

Query #1: Is Blue Lagoon: The Awakening based on a book?

Aren't you all so cute? First you see the movie, then you read the book. I'm so proud.

Fun fact: The Blue Lagoon (the ORIGINAL version - which, in case you've really been googling is NOT the one with Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins but another one starring Jean Simmons and Donald Houston) was, in fact, based on a trilogy of books written by Henry De Vere Stacpoole. And, before you go off and Google "trilogy" that means, like Star Wars, there were three of them, but the first was probably the best. 

Now, before you start getting excited that the fictional love between Dean and Emma will carry you through three whole books this summer, it bears mentioning that Henry De Vere Stacpoole wrote these books in the late 19th-early 20th century (if you couldn't glean that bit from his name or anything). In case you had any lingering doubts, thinking maybe it is like Victorian porn or something, the main characters, Richard and Emmeline, are cousins. And, yeah, they have chastely unbridled sexy times which yields a son. That they name Hannah.

I shit you not.

There's also a whole subplot with a galley cook named "Paddy" - which this updated version replaced with a teacher of no discernible subject area or skill set who doesn't actually get stranded with the kids, just, you know, sucks at his job. There's another story line that involves Richard and a pursuant shark. that I'm pretty sure is a giant metaphor for the latent dangers of attempting to strike a spear into the cavernous mouth of female genitalia. 

But the sex is mostly understated and euphemistic. And the tone isn't really "romance" but "adventure".

The whole series is really more "postcolonial" than "pornographic."

Consider yourselves warned.

If it's any consolation, I'm currently writing some nice fan fiction in which Emma actually gets deservedly knocked up. 

And cankles.

Get excited.

Query #2: Blue Lagoon the awakening sex scene

Scarecrows, I think I like you most of all. No BS, you just cut right to the chase. You're in this thing for the naughty bits.

But this was a made-for-Lifetime-television movie, folks. The naughty bits weren't really that...well...naughty. There was a lot of sexual metaphor (i.e. the symbolic "deflowering" of Emma pictured above or that whole nasty business with Dean's bloody trouser knife).  But sex? Um...it was pretty tame.

I mean, did you read my review?

First, they're strategically covered with palm fronds and lagoon water so you're not going to see anything. Second, despite the fact that they share the island with only a few roguish monkeys and one lonely panther, Emma and Dean decide to have safe, boring, quiet sex. If they weren't doing it on the sand by a tastefully well-kept fire, I'd consider it entirely puritanical.

Don't you all have cable you could be watching?

Please don't learn about sex from this movie. 

And, if you're old enough to know about sex already, consider the fact that they're supposed to be in high school a little bit longer before you start typing things into Google.

Query #3: blue lagoon the awakening emma's hair

FINALLY. The world will know.

Watching Blue Lagoon: The Awakening will not impact my ability to do good hair.

This could have gone so horribly wrong...but, thankfully, of all the parts of Emma to google, you chose hair.

And it makes perfect sense.

If you master Emma's hair, you, too, will get to have politely untamed sex with a semi-hot, uber-buff Australian pretending to be American on some random beach. 

Here are a few easy tips to mimic Emma's 'do:

1. Part your hair into six sections, braid each section, and douse with texturizer.

2. Go to sleep and wake up. Or blow dry each section. Wait until dry.

3. Unravel braids GENTLY. Not like some crazy coke fiend on meth. Comb your fingers through your waves. Spray a little more texturizer on. Or hair powder. Or, I suppose, if you're desperate, some hairspray. Something that'll give it that salty "I just swam in the ocean/lagoon/Dean pool"  look.

4. Massage your scalp for a few minutes.

5. Get out the old curling iron you haven't used since you watched all those episodes of Little House on the Prairie and REALLY wanted to be Nellie Oleson. Wind and twist hair around the iron, but leave an inch or so of hair unwound. Curl, baby, curl.

6. Use your fingers as a comb again. Admire your handiwork.

7. You're welcome.

Here's the rub, kids. You're still not going to get stranded on an island and lose your virginity to a grown man-child named Dean. Dean is played by an actor. That actor, based on my limited anecdotal evidence from my high school drama club, is probably gay. And, if he's not gay, he's probably not going to be found in your bathroom while you're doing your hair.

Go outside. Pick flowers. Kill a panther. Stop fretting about sexy beach hair.

Query #4: Blue Lagoon The Awakening Trinidad

You know who the unsung hero of this film was?

Trinidad. 

Blue water, blue sky, Habitat-for-Humanity-esque need, laid-back police force, relaxed drinking age. Trinidad has all the necessary requirements for abandonment in tropical paradise.

But I'm not sure why you're googling it. Do you want to find the island? Because I'm pretty sure "Trinidad" was really "Hawaii". 

You'll have to give me something more specific to go on, sorry.

Query #5: blue lagoon awakening virginity

I totally get this one. You, like me, can't possibly imagine that sociopath Dean, with his severe mommy issues and proclivity for unleashing his pocket knife at inappropriate time is the more sexually experienced of the two. 

I mean, have you seen Emma???

The only time she actually projects "virgin" in the movie (aside from the awkward conversation where she tells Dean he was her superspecial virginity thief) is here:

And that's only because they dress her like the White Swan.

Which is, I think, ironic, because she and the Deanster had all that sex leading up to this moment, so it ain't like she's pure anymore.

Whatever. 

And Dean is kind of a dork. I mean, think about all those slow-motion scenes where he dances in the rain like Ben Stiller as Happy Jack...the guy isn't really a chick magnet here.

Still...one of them had to be innocent, right?

Maybe the writers tossed a coin for it?

I guess I feel like this google search is an extension of "blue lagoon awakening sex scene" - we're morbidly curious about the secret life of virgins.

But sleep easy, wee innocent ones.

Virgins never say die.

Or "I'm late."

Query #6: blue lagoon the awakening "sand in weird places"

You know who gets sand in weird places???

Sluts.

Okay, freaks, why are we Googling this? Not once do they ever show you how or where sand gets into anyone on the island. They ALLUDE to it, sure. But show? Never.

And would you really want to see that anyways???

Don't answer that.

Look, the simple fact of the matter is this: kids who wear this much clothing in the tropics deserve to get a little sand in their crevices.

Also, the sex.

But if you're looking for cutesy status updates for Facebook or some way to pinpoint your emotions in under 140 characters, letting the world know that you have sand in weird places is probably not the way to go.

JUST SAY NO.

Or, do as I do, and blame the movie for putting it there.

(May prom night ironically wash your dirtiness clean)

If we have learned nothing else from Emma and Dean, it's this: life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.

No, wait, that was the Beatles.

Emma and Dean teach us that a 4.0 and some mommy-issues can seem much less important when you're on a deserted island with an attractive member of the opposite gender who just wants to bone you and then write about it in a college essay for Princeton.

And what a powerful lesson that truly is.

Blue Lagoon: The Awakening - "Film" #13

You know what this world needs more of???



The Blue Lagoon!!!

Thank GOD! I had just healed my retinas from the last sequel starring Mila Jovovich; they were in need of some permanent re-scarring!



I mean, did anyone else forget her sweet virgin diaper???

Blue Lagoon: The Awakening is the touching story of Dean (aka "Holden Caulfield") and Emma (aka Molly Ringwald/The Prom Queen).

Dean is a rebel without a cause. But with a knife. That he carries in school. Because that's so cool.

And phallic.

And Lord of the Flies.

And illegal.

None of which the movie concerns itself with.

Emma is an overachiever who hates to be off-schedule. Her friends think she needs to sleep with the quarterback.

And you know what???

She really does.

But she won't, because there's a price on virginity in these things.

Long story short, they go to Trinidad on a school trip of spirit and giving. And alcohol. Somehow, they both end up on a boat raver that gets busted by the cops. As the cops yell the VERY fitting and slightly portentous "you're about to be boarded", Emma falls out of the boat, gets into a dinghy with Sk8r Boi, and the two drift off into the deep blue sea.

I'm pretty sure Thomas C. Foster would have a lot to say about this movie's use of water.

Regardless, somehow, the dinghy with two hungover kids on it makes it to an island while their teacher, played by the aged first generation Blue Lagoon "Adam" figure Christopher Atkins, finally realizes he is missing two of his students in what can only be described as the worst teachable moment ever.



I hope I never have to explain to a parent that I let her daughter get on a dinghy with Danger Boy on my watch.

"Don't be sorry. Just help us find our children."

Gah.

I'm pretty sure they don't rehire you after something like this.

That shit just would not fly.

I also hope I never need money so badly that I'll revisit a movie chain that has long since played to death the whole "return to innocence" bull that this smut purports to.



Tangent: I wonder when loin cloths are going to come back in style???

Dean and Emma, meanwhile, take to island life like two kids in a candy store.

If the candy store sold palm fronds, playful monkeys, and rogue panthers instead of candy, of course.

Here are my main ruminations/concerns upon watching this "film":

1.There is a serious dearth of loin cloth-age going on here. Even Mila got the aforementioned diaper. This version's Adam and Eve are practically clothed. What the heck, Lifetime! How are we supposed to know they're pre-fallen if they are too ashamed to be naked??? She wears either a blue bikini or blue tank top and cut offs. He is usually shirtless, which is, I think, his main function in the film. See photo:


I'm pretty sure the blue is supposed to highlight her virginity/parallel to Virgin Mary/etc. I'm also pretty sure his abs are supposed to highlight the fact that most men do not work out nearly enough to compete with the Australians.

Seriously, what do they feed them down there???

2. 

Don't worry, that's not virgin blood. Or even menstrual blood (who could forget THAT scene from Return to the Blue Lagoon!). Nay, good folks, that's motherfucking PANTHER blood.

Now, here's a good rule of thumb for all y'all: if you hear growling in a jungle, don't hunt it. Particularly if you have nothing to hunt with. Dean hears growling, then chases it down, until he catches up with a panther. Who then proceeds to chase him. Now, I don't know much about animals, but I do know this general tidbit: I don't care how cut Dean is. He cannot outrun a panther. But he almost does! until he trips on a rogue log and the panther pounces on Dean who somehow manages to get his illegal pocket knife out and kill him with one mighty stab to the panther heart.

That's right.

Little Dean gets to use his knife.

In case we missed it during all the weirdly quiet, gentile porn on the island...

He's a real man now.

3.  And what about the sex? Because they're Adam and Eve. They get to have sex with no consequences. It's a rule!

(Hey, Lifetime, it's Adam and Eve, not Emma and Dean!)

First, it feels creepily voyeuristic. But yet also masterfully tasteful. This movie may suck plot-wise but it gets an A+++ in strategic palm frond/tree branch placement. At one point, we even get to see through a little makeshift sunroof in their thatched hut of lovemaking joy. At another, a barky limb obscures the naughty bits. It's like Austin Powers without the winking.

I'm not even going to touch the fact that they engage in their premarital sexcapades because they find a crusty skeleton buried in their hut and the thought of their impending mortality creates some sort of psychological downward spiraling that culminates in Emma getting sand in her very special lady crevices. Sure, it's yet another blatant homage to the inexorable link between sex and death, but, damn.



Chester Copperpot should not inspire this much teenaged fornication.

Don't Dean and Emma know...

GOONIES NEVER SAY DIE!

Sigh.

Relax, the sex is not that graphic.

I mean, by Lifetime standards, it's Skin-a-max. But for the average viewer, it's politely untamed.

Beforehand, it's a lot of stolen glances and strutting around in varying degrees of clothed-ness. There's a lot of slow-mo involving Dean jumping and frolicking like a punch-drunk seven-year-old at the desert island gymnastics class.

But the eventual act(s) itself...very...quiet. I mean, pretty much she bites her lip and he puts his head down and we're supposed to just "know" that something magical has happened. And then they talk about how mindblowing the experience was for both of them. Before and after she does that insipid girl thing of asking him to 1. rank her performance among the mighty pantheon of his myriad sex partners and 2. tricks him into telling her all about his uber-sketchy first time with a junior in college (while he was a sophomore - which, if he didn't stay back, makes him at most SIXTEEN at that time and her well-past the age of legal adulthood) and 3. confesses that she gave him her most special chaste treasure.

He is, as all boys are in these things, overjoyed at how fortuitously things worked out for him in the virginity department while she is relieved to have someone pre-trained take care of all that awkward deflowering.

Just how God intended.

4. "Honey, we need to talk..."



After several vanilla sex scenes (and, yeah, Christian Grey, THIS is vanilla), we get a scene where pretty, perfect Emma starts vomiting.

Dean: Do you think it's the fish?
Us: No, Dean. We do not think it's the fish.
Emma: Maybe, it did smell a little funny.
Dean: Do you think you could...you know? Be pregnant?
Us: Yes, Dean. We do think it's a VirginBirthMiracleIslandBaby!
Emma: NOOOOOO. I am NOT pregnant.
Dean: Good. Because I have the emotional maturity of a toddler. Sure I have very handy knowledge about the appropriate berries to eat and not eat, but fatherhood? Man, that some heavy shit!
Us: Couldn't have said it better ourselves, Dean!
Emma: I want kids someday. With you. Maybe.
Dean: Me too, Emma-kins. Me too.
Us: Vomit!

And then she's not pregnant!!!

WTF, people!

The last time two young, good-looking kids had that much sex and DIDN'T get pregnant, this happened:



I guess Jenny was right, Oliver. Love means never having to say you're sorry you didn't know how to fasten a makeshift condom out of jellyfish skin.

Seriously, Lifetime. You of all people should know the importance of having tangible repercussions for this type of behavior! Now every teen who gets stranded on a desert island with her local resident bad boy is going to have non-stop sex for days and find themselves woefully unprepared to give birth in a sandpit! We should be getting ready to watch a very special episode of I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant: Island Edition, not heaving a collective sigh of relief at their blameless (babyless) wild abandonment.

5. What happened to Denise Richards's face?


None of the adults in this film have understood the concept of "growing older gracefully"...Denise's character has clearly had her lips and nose done. Her husband had hair three shades too dark. And you already know how I feel about the Atkins diet.

Sadness.

6. "WHAT ABOUT PROM, BLAINE???"


I hope I'm spoiling this for you: Dean and Emma get rescued. That's why she couldn't get pregnant. Paradise island babies/tangible symbols of hope for an unruined future can only exist ON THE ISLAND. Didn't we learn anything from Lost??? If they're going to get off the island intact, an impending baby turns their story into an episode of Teen Mom and that's a whole other TV movie right there. So, they get rescued and escape the shackles of an 18+ year commitment.

Score.

And, predictably, life off the island is not as idyllic for these two sex fiends. Emma returns to her life of popularity and overscheduling. Dean becomes once more otherwise ignored. Despite his efforts to keep their thang going strong, the two drift apart like two dinghies in the night.

Until prom.

Prom is magical. It's when ugly ducking little sisters who are not named Ducky get to go to prom with the prettiest girl in whole world and then get dragged off to dance by a non-Kristy Swanson "hipster boy" thus leaving the more attractive date unattended and ready for some rekindling.

And the good friends who once thought "Hot Steven" would be the ideal bedroom/prom/life date are all now rooting for the former freaky loser boy and the prom queen to get their romance on.

In the rain.

While her friends watch on (because he still doesn't have any), shit-eating grins plastered to their smarmy little faces.

Yes, sir!

7. The Green Flash/Light


Hey, Dean...Gatsby also believed in the green light...the orgastic future (that's WAY different from your orgasmic one). Stop using played out metaphors for the American Dream and the power of hope and nostalgia in your Lifetime movie, please!

Wait, did we talk about Dean's mother???

The movie attempts to flesh out Dean's character (because, let's face it, a 12 pack set of abs does not a troubled past make!) by giving him a sordid backstory involving his dead mother, that he may or may not have accidentally killed in a poorly timed game of "Warp Speed!".

Or something.

And what, you might ask, does every boy stranded on an island with a half naked hot chick think about constantly?



His mother.

She is the green flash, the guardian angel, the creepy overlord of Dean's emotions, and the catalyst for sexual exploration.

It's so very wrong indeed.

8. "Should we feel guilty?"


Yes.

I mean, that is SORT of the whole point here, right, Genesis fans?

Again...

Sigh.

This movie gave me sand in weird places.

Or crabs. I can't tell which.

Look, if I could leave you with one wish for this movie, it's this: watch this movie for the people in the background who clearly think NO ONE is watching them.

They are the true makers of music, the real dreamers of dreams.