Babylon A.D. (2008) and Escort Mission Style Storytelling

There’s a specific type of level that every gamer seems to hate. Even people who aren’t avid gamers and only play video games once in a while hate these levels. Or quests. Escort missions can be some of the most time consuming, boring missions to be included in a game. The player must help an AI get from one location to another without being killed. The AI might be slow. They might say the same, meaningless drivel at different times throughout the trip. And they might get in the way while the player tries to fight off the enemies who are attacking. All of these things make for escort missions being something that people hate.

Yet, when it comes to movies, studios have repeatedly told stories that are essentially escort missions. The main character must help protect someone or something while travelling from one location to another. There might be other details to help give some more substance to the story, but in the end it all boils down to an escort story. The only difference is that an audience watches it unfold instead of actively participating in it.

Babylon A.D. was one of the many movies that felt like an extended escort mission, in film form. Toorop (Vin Diesel) was a well-known mercenary in the year 2027. He was hired by a Gorsky (Gerard Depardieu) to deliver a package from Europe to New York City. That package was a girl named Aurora (Mélanie Thierry), who was accompanied by Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh), a nun. During their travels, they met up with Finn (Mark Strong), a Russian smuggler. He found them a way into North America. Along the way, they found out that Aurora had some clairvoyant powers, and that would drive other people to want her for their own profit.

The crux of Babylon A.D. was an escort mission. Toorop was hired to escort Aurora from Europe to New York City. Throughout the course of the trip, he had to protect her from drones, the henchmen of the villain, the henchmen of a neutral player, and people trying to get onto a submarine. He fought a giant man in a cage. He was almost blown up at least four times. He had shrapnel lodged in his stomach. And he was dead for a good chunk of time. All this was as he escorted Aurora to safety. He took all the damage to protect her.

Even the part of an escort mission where the person being escorted causes trouble for the main character was present throughout Babylon A.D. Aurora was always going against what Toorop tried to do. She ran away from a customs building that they were trying to go through. She tried to force the submarine to go back and pick up more people. While Toorop was fighting in the cage, she gave herself up to a bunch of kidnappers, forcing Toorop to then have to break her out of their grasp. And then there was the whole part where she shot Toorop. She was constantly delaying his mission, causing it to take longer and be more work than it needed to be.

 Babylon A.D. wasn’t the only film to ever involve the escort mission style storyline. Just in the Sunday “Bad” Movies alone, there have been two other big examples of the escort mission style storytelling.  Both The Marine 4: Moving Target and The Happening could be considered movies that fit into the escort mission style of storytelling. One was much more straight forward than the other, but both managed to play within the tropes of an escort movie in major and minor ways.

The Marine 4: Moving Target saw Jake Carter as part of a security team transporting a whistleblower from an airplane to Department of Justice custody. She had important information on some traitors from her former company. Along the way, the security team was ambushed and killed. The only survivors were Jake and the whistleblower. The rest of the movie became an escort mission where Jake had to escort the woman through wooded terrain while the ambushers were on their trail.

The Happening was about a group of people escaping a mysterious epidemic that had the general population committing suicide. Most of the movie was an escort mission where Elliot Moore was leading his wife Alma and their friend’s daughter Jess to safety. Along the way, they would group with other people and avoid dangers such as a crazy woman in a secluded cabin, and some gun wielding folks who were protective of their property.

Each movie leaned into the escort mission story elements. The Marine 4: Moving Target had the more concrete escort story. Jake had to protect one person and put himself in harm’s way to keep her safe. It didn’t have as many memorable incidents involving the tropes as The Happening did, though. The Happening had the trope of the people being escorted making safety more difficult for the hero. At the house with the gun wielding people, two teens that Elliot had joined up with started yelling at the house, which led to people being shot. That was equivalent to someone in a video game escort mission running into the middle of gunfire when they’re supposed to be protected.

The question about these movies, as well as escort missions in games, is “Why?” What is it that makes escort missions such a fodder for levels and stories? People don’t seem to want escort missions. One of the main complaints of level designs and missions in video games is about escort missions. Yet they keep happening. Most story-based video games involve an escort mission of some sort. Possibly more than one. Many times, more than one. Why are they still a thing?

Character growth is the obvious answer. Having an escort mission allows some banter between a couple characters that could help flesh out who they are, what they do, and their views on life and everything in it. Because most of the time is spent with one character shepherding another to a place, they have lots of time to talk. Audiences and players alike get to better know the characters through the escort missions because of the dynamic.

There are a couple elements of the dynamic that make it annoying in video games, though. The two characters might not know each other beforehand. There would be no prior relationship for the characters to reveal as they travel. It just becomes a person that the player is transporting to earn a little bit of cash. When the characters have a history, the player can learn more about them through how they speak of their past.

It’s a little different in movies. With a movie, the character’s actions can speak as loud as their words. Since the audience isn’t playing as the main character, they aren’t choosing the actions that the character goes through. Thus, their actions can give insight into what they do in certain situations. Their actions can showcase how they treat one person as opposed to another. And there’s still the added banter that can help relay information about their past, things they’ve done, and relationships they’ve had.

That leaves me with the theory that the movies and video game levels keep getting made because the people behind them want to try and add some character moments while still getting some action in there. The banter and character choices will be interspersed with a little bit of action. Someone or something will try to attack the person being caravanned. There might be some weather or a natural disaster that needs to be avoided. It could be a car chase where one wrong move might cause a crash and death of the passenger. But it always comes down to the character moments that are gained through these scenarios.

Escort missions have been a bother for audiences and gamers alike for many years. Gamers don’t want to be forced to accompany some annoying AI from one location to another when they could be doing something more exciting and less irritating. Viewers don’t want escort mission style movies because they end up being repetitive and predictable. But they’re here and we all have to deal with them. They might not be what everyone wants, but they’re an important part of storytelling.

Now it’s time for an important part of any post, the notes:

• The Marine 4: Moving Target (week 154) and The Happening (week 185) were mentioned in this post.
• Lambert Wilson popped up in Babylon A.D. He was previously seen in Catwoman (week 174) and Timeline (week 222).
• Babylon A.D. was also the third time that Charlotte Rampling was in a Sunday “Bad” Movie. She had already been in Orca (week 144) and Zardoz (week 332).
• Have you seen Babylon A.D.? What do you think of escort mission movies? What about escort missions in video games? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter.
• You could also use Twitter and the comments to tell me about movies that I should be checking out for the Sunday “Bad” Movies. I’m always open to suggestions and will sprinkle them into the schedule when I have them.
• Check out the Sunday “Bad” Movies Instagram for more Sunday “Bad” Movies goodness.
• Now it’s time to look forward to what’s coming up next week. I found a movie that tied into something I wasn’t expecting. That thing was paintball. There was a movie in the mid-1980s that featured a lead character who was big into paintball. I expected a movie about paintball but was surprised when it turned into a 1980s Cold War thriller. That movie was Gotcha! and it will be the subject of next week’s post. I’ll see you then.