Snakes on a Plane (SOAP) comes out Friday (finally), which allows us to ponder the phrase of the summer one more time (you know what it is). OK, OK, so it’s an over-hyped movie by a big media company no doubt part of the problem (whatever problem it is you’re having right now). But it’s still: a) fun stuff (not up for debate); b) a watershed for bloggers and Hollywood (arguably).

As Chuck Klosterman notes in his occasionally great but too often grumpy-like-a-hipster-ArchieBunker Esquire column, “Snakes on a Plane is like the Wikipedia version of a movie.” That is, the bloggers have spoken and actually catalyzed a change in the final product (which is only final until the DVD comes out and fans start playing with that). See, the masses demanded that New Line change the title back to Snakes (the suits had planned to switch it to the safer, snoozily titled Pacific Air Flight 121). New Line not only did that, but also brought back Samuel Jackson and other cast members to shoot the additional dialogue the fan demanded (Jackson’s oft-quoted line, “I’ve had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!” was evidently not in the original version), as well as upped the violence quotient, unleashing some more snakes on the plane.

Klosterman argues that what he calls “this brand of participatory, choose-your-own-adventure filmmaking” a terrible idea because: 1) People don’t really know what they want and always want everything (thus the trouble with focus groups—a sentiment to which I heartily concur); 2) Something about SOAP being all about irony in reverse, and people liking bad movies to be cool and contributing to box office returns of lame movies (but I couldn’t follow his second point very well). Basically, Klosterman feels user-generated ideas lead to stupid ideas. Obviously, he ain’t been listening to what’s going on in the massively exciting user-generated world. It’s not all good, but it’s not all bad, and it’s not all MySpace either.

But all this pontification is standing between us and the poetry. SOAP fans launched scores of stuff online (no doubt to the delight of New Line, which promotes some of these sites on its official site). I could spent all morning on them (looks like I just did) but a few of my favorite are the Quote Tracker, the audience wiki Snake Play
and, the inevitable, awesome, old-school All Your Snakes Are Belong to Us

The filet of the Snake-y neighborhood is Snakes on a Blog which launched in January as one nut’s attempt to get invited to the Snakes premier in Hollywood, which he did (this Thursday, 8/17—have fun Brian Finkelstein), and offers a rich repository of fan links, shots of snakes in kindergarten classes, and fan poetry. And what could be better than this on a Tuesday in mid-August?

snakes on a plane, bitch
on this motherfucking plane
aint shit we can do
—by Snakes in Europe