Alien Abduction Time!

I already know. This is already my second (!) post that involves Pixar movies. (The first explained how Roland Weary was similar to Sid from Toy Story.) I am aware of this fact, and I do not care. Pixar is amazingly animated and I think it's really funny. The video I linked to is a short Pixar film titled Lifted that was featured before (I believe) Pixar's Wall-E, but maybe it was before Ratatouille. I can't remember, but it doesn't matter. The video is about an alien abduction, and when I read page 76 of Slaughterhouse-Five, this is seriously the first thing I thought of. Although I don't think the original video included that soundtrack (I don't think Pixar wanted their videos to be easily available on YouTube or something, so someone must have had to edit it due to copyright limitations), the video still has the same meaning. I think it's quite hilarious personally, but maybe other people think otherwise.
Anyways, as I mentioned earlier, I thought of this video when I read page 76. Specifically, when I read the quote, "Billy's will was paralyzed by a zap gun aimed at him from one of the portholes. It became imperative that he take hold of the bottom rung of the sinuous ladder, which he did. The rung was electrified, so that Billy's hands locked onto it hard. He was hauled into the airlock, and machinery closed the bottom door," I immediately thought of this video.
Okay, so maybe the video doesn't exactly match up with the passage. However, I still thought of this video because each describes exactly what I picture when I think of an alien abduction. Both involve a human entirely against his will being lifted into a porthole of a spaceship through some sort of glowing light or "zap gun". Somehow, both Vonnegut and Pixar know exactly what I picture in terms of an alien abduction. Perhaps Pixar was attempting to make the two aliens in Lifted resemble Tralfamadorians. After all, both are green! I doubt this is the case, but I still find it interesting.
I think the main purpose of Vonnegut's quote from page 76 is to evoke an image of an alien abduction where Billy's brain is no longer able to function, and he is thrust onto the spaceship without a choice. I also think that Billy's abduction may come into play later in the novel. Perhaps this brain take-over by the Tralfamadorians will explain why Billy's mind travels throughout time. Then again, perhaps not. (After proof-reading this, I guess I really like saying the word perhaps, and I really love Pixar movies.)

From Gory to... Toy Story?

While reading Chapter Two of Slaughterhouse-Five, I had a sudden realization of a movie connection. I was able to connect a character of this book to a character of Toy Story. Yes, as foreshadowed by the picture above, I am connecting the life of Roland Weary to Sid Phillips, the toy bully.
 For example, on page 35, Vonnegut begins explaining the young life of Weary to begin to characterize him. The quote is, "It made Weary sick to be ditched. When Weary was ditched, he would find somebody who was even more unpopular than himself, and he would horse around with that person for a while, pretending to be friendly. And then he would find some pretext for beating the sh*t out of him."
This quote provides a reason for the motivation behind Weary's actions as a cruel, bullish person. Because Weary was unpopular as a child (due to his horrific, unavoidable aroma of bacon), he had to take out his anger on someone else. Weary was never satisfied with anyone's friendship, and he took out his grudge on innocent classmates. Consequently, from then on, Weary began to love torturing others in the most gruesome ways possible. (Exhibit A: the "triangular blade" he possesses would cause a wound to never close up. Yikes!)
And with his horrifying love of torturing others, he is very similar to Sid Phillips. Yes, I know, Sid was not necessarily a torturer of humans, but the point is still valid. Sid loved torturing toys, and he would not stop with a simple way of torture; instead, Sid opted for torture devices like "The Big One," to cause the largest explosion. Other examples of Sid Phillips' torture include performing a "double bypass brain transplant" surgery between his sister's Janie Doll and a pterodactyl, and he also took a magnifying glass to burn Woody's head. Clearly, this is one pretty messed up kid.
Weary and Sid have one main thing in common: a knack for painful torture. But Sid Phillips also had a reason for being so nasty: he must have been kicked out of summer camp. (I know this based on Hamm's comment of "They must have kicked him out of summer camp early this year.") Sid must have been angry because of the camp (or maybe just because he's an insane young psychopath) to take out his anger on his toys. In this way, he shares a bond with Roland Weary because each of the two takes out his anger on others and enjoy torturing with the most possible pain upon their victims. The two are each bullies, and I think there is a direct connection between them.