Re: The Hunger Games

Finally got some time to listen to this one.

When you guys were having that whole debate about the Hunger Games being akin to a reality show and the Hunger Games being a comment on the people who watch that sort of thing and Teague was having that whole disconnect of "reality tv show with volunteers" vs. "People drafted into the game to kill each other". I'm really surprised no one brought up (or if they did it was so brief I missed it) the fact that the Hunger Games are basically a literal translation of Gladiatorial Events into this world.

What are essentially slaves are picked out of the crowd, thrown into a ring filled with booby-traps and dangers, (And dictatorial puppet masters that every so often might want to throw a lion or something into the mix just to shake things up) given weapons and told the last one out alive gets to live and gets a reward. While hordes of onlooking citizens watch gleefully and are entertained.

Of course, there are aspects of reality tv show in there as well, but I think that's mostly just a side effect of the upgraded technology of it. If The Romans had TV cameras you can bet your ass they would have shown it across the empire.

IDK, that's just always been my reading of the whole Hunger Games thing, less Survivor more Gladiator.

EDIT: Removed the line confusing my point.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2013-04-05 05:43:26)

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: The Hunger Games

BigDamnArtist wrote:

Finally got some time to listen to this one.

When you guys were having that whole debate about the Hunger Games being akin to a reality show and the Hunger Games being a comment on the people who watch that sort of thing and Teague was having that whole disconnect of "reality tv show with volunteers" vs. "People drafted into the game to kill each other". I'm really surprised no one brought up (or if they did it was so brief I missed it) the fact that the Hunger Games are basically a literal translation of Gladiatorial Events into this world.

What are essentially slaves are picked out of the crowd, thrown into a ring filled with booby-traps and dangers, (And dictatorial puppet masters that every so often might want to throw a lion or something into the mix just to shake things up) given weapons and told the last one out alive gets to live and gets a reward. While hordes of onlooking citizens watch gleefully and are entertained.

That was us humans, like actually the same species as us did that 1800 (ish) years ago. There is very very little stopping us from going back to that.

Of course, there are aspects of reality tv show in there as well, but I think that's mostly just a side effect of the upgraded technology of it. If The Romans had TV cameras you can bet your ass they would have shown it across the empire.

IDK, that's just always been my reading of the whole Hunger Games thing, less Survivor more Gladiator.

I'll grant that I haven't listen to the whole thing, but I thought that was Trey's point. He brought up the fact that in another thread people were discussing dystopias, and that is in essence what Hunger Games is. Trey's point is that if it is a realistic movie, its almost always about a dystopia, because that is the way the real world is. And the fact that humanity hasn't changed as much as we would like to believe, BDA, and your point is well taken. It wouldn't take much for humanity to go back to gladiator style games, and Hunger Games is essentially that.

As for dystopian stories, I have no problem with them existing, but personally, give me a movie with a happy ending. There is a place for gritty, realistic, and dark tales-I'll not deny that. But, sometimes I just need something like "Tangled" or the like. Hunger Games doesn't sit as well with me, because humanity is not far removed from it.

God loves you!

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Re: The Hunger Games

Sorry, no, I think I confused my point.

My point was that there really isn't that disconnect between people doing this to other people who are volunteers vs people doing to other people who aren't volunteers that Teague kept getting hung up on.

It's just that they (the guys) kept talking about the Hunger Games as a reality show, but it's far closer to Gladiatorial events and I think that's where the confusion was coming in.


EDIT: I removed the offending line from my op.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2013-04-05 05:44:53)

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: The Hunger Games

Ok, I think I follow now.
But really, if the Roman Colosseum had video cameras it would have been televised. Even Star Trek: The Original Series explored that in "Bread and Circuses."

So, its kind of a combination of the two, because gladiator sport could sometimes involve training, while reality TV involves no training but volunteering, similar to our current cultural obsession (in the United States) with reality TV.

God loves you!

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Re: The Hunger Games

fireproof78 wrote:

...current cultural obsession (in the United States)

Oh yeah...just the US...


But otherwise, I pretty much agree.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: The Hunger Games

I'm sorry guys. I just don't get why everyone's so crazy about Jennifer Lawrence...

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Re: The Hunger Games

http://cdn02.cdnwp.thefrisky.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/26/jennifer-lawrence-middle-finger-400x300.jpg

Re: The Hunger Games

That woman...oh god.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: The Hunger Games

BigDamnArtist wrote:

So basically what you're saying Red, is that it's their own damn fault and they should just get off their asses and work?

Yeah...well actually since they're already working, and working really hard because their society demands toil, then under these conditions, none of the children should technically have to train. All the kids who've grown up in the shitty districts should be shaped by the hard world around them, they should be practical, hard, fit, and have plenty of survival skills. That they don't and that some come across as wide-eyed bambis is, in my opinion, one of the failings of the film to set up a plausible universe (along with the absurd notion that a few 19th century societies each with 19th century technology can support a 22nd century society).

With regards to gladiatorial games, I'd like just to point that virtually all entertainment with violence mimics what the Romans did. Films and TV are our gladiatorial games, entertaining us with skill, blood, and drama (heroics, trickery, cowardice, pride, bravery etc). Because you can bet if the Romans could fake it like as well as we do then they'd have done it too.  The surpreme irony is a show like Spartacus, which is a bloodthirsty gladiatorial show about bloodthirsty gladiatorial games.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

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Re: The Hunger Games

The Romans had theater too, full of fake death and spectacle but everyone knew that was artificial.   

It's professional sports that's the modern equivalent of gladiatorial games, it's just that we're "civilized" now so we don't require the ritual combat to end in actual death. 

But really, that's a bit hypocritical - because when someone does die in a sport, we get ALL up in that.   Or even when someone just snaps their leg in half - boy, did Twitter go batshit over that one a couple days ago.  Gore?  Lemme see!

And District 12 mines coal - already a major industry in the 19th century, and one that still fuels much of our world today.  Some of our real-world Appalachian coal miners don't live that much differently than the fictional District 12 folk in the movie as it is - and that's without a fictional dictatorship intentionally keeping them enslaved.

Re: The Hunger Games

The Romans had theatre, yes, but their fake death wasn't anywhere near comparable to the gruesome realism we have today (which you'll note is becoming increasingly more severe as we get more desensitised). Screen violence today appeals to the same base nature of man as gladiatorial games, much more deliberately so than professional sports. I'd argue we don't get our 'fix' from those at all.

Also, as an aside, the notion of gladiator fights being a fatal activity is somewhat overstated. In fact, at one point sine missione bouts (i.e., death matches) were banned (even though the 'games' in general may have continued to include executions). This to me suggests that it was not necessarily blood and gore that attracted people, but the drama.

Trey wrote:

And District 12 mines coal - already a major industry in the 19th century, and one that still fuels much of our world today.  Some of our real-world Appalachian coal miners don't live that much differently than the fictional District 12 folk in the movie as it is - and that's without a fictional dictatorship intentionally keeping them enslaved.

Our world isn't in the 22nd century though; the utopic city we're shown looks to have energy requirements far in excess of what we have now. The problem isn't that there's a gap, it's that the severity of the gap is too acute. Further, it's one thing to mine coal, but the poorer and more undeveloped the infrastructure for that is, the less efficient it's going to be, which ties into how the Capitol is supposed to keep functioning when at risk of being underpowered.

It also makes little sense to keep all these districts oppressed and backward... quite aside from the constant threat of rebellion if they're so poor they starve, they'll die, then the slaves will fail to provide what you need as well as not being able to buy your products and grow the economy...it's such an inane and moustache-twirling attittude and not at all conducive to long term gain!

Anyhow, I should probably listen the commentary now.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

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Re: The Hunger Games

Trey wrote:

http://cdn02.cdnwp.thefrisky.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/26/jennifer-lawrence-middle-finger-400x300.jpg

OMG LOOK! Her eyebrows CAN move! Quick! Cut that into a movie!

Warning: I'm probably rewriting this post as you read it.

Zarban's House of Commentaries

Re: The Hunger Games

Great episode.

As for anamorphic bokeh, They can depending on the lens used be flat on one side, no flaps or other things needed. Lenses can have quite different properties and looks, some will be quite neutral, some will distort bokeh balls in various ways depending on where in the frame you put them, and depending on fstop and focal lenght of the lens behind the anamorphic attachment.

Also, the Monty Hall problem has a pretty simple explanation which better highlights the mechanics of it if you just exaggerate it for clarity.

The solution is that if you get a choice of 1 of 3 doors, and after selecting one, another is shown to be empty, you should change your selection to the remaining one.

Instead imagine there being 100 doors. You select one as containing the prize/whatever. 98 of the others are then opened and shown to be empty. One door remains. In this case it is more obvious that the chances of your first choice being correct is not as good as the possibility of the last remaining door being the winner.
The same principle applies to the 3-door scenario, although less obvious.

As for the movie, I don't like it. It feels dumbed down and so simplistic in some aspects. When they are training in the beginning, anyone throwing a knife will always bulls-eye it even when throwing behind their own back. When Katniss shoots the guy in the hand at the end, it gets stuck in the hand, but doesn't penetrate the hand completely and continuing into Peeta. Convenient. These are just petty examples, but they show the type of things I dislike with it.

Last edited by TechNoir (2013-04-11 14:57:54)

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Re: The Hunger Games

Ok, own up, who keeps giving Friedberg and Seltzer cash to make these fucking things?

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Re: The Hunger Games

No words.

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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Re: The Hunger Games

Jimmy B wrote:

Ok, own up, who keeps giving Friedberg and Seltzer cash to make these fucking things?

Moviegoers. These fucking things always turn a profit.

I have to shamefully admit that I rented Date Movie (and paid an equivalent of $2 for it).

So honor the valiant who die 'neath your sword
But pity the warrior who slays all his foes...

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Re: The Hunger Games

Mostly because they are cheap to make compared to the films they parody. And by 'parody' I mean re-enact entire scenes, sometimes even re-doing the same jokes as the original but adding a fart noise as a punchline.

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Re: The Hunger Games

You could also lay part of the blame at the door of Polish TV - our channels love to air Spy Hard big_smile Only the Ace Ventura movies get aired more frequently here. Not that I'm complaining... Spy Hard is a masterpiece compared to their other works (Scary Movie 3 is almost watchable too, but Friedberg & Seltzer weren't directly involved with it).

So honor the valiant who die 'neath your sword
But pity the warrior who slays all his foes...

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Re: The Hunger Games

this commentary isn't on itunes can you fix it?

I'm Batman

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Re: The Hunger Games

TechNoir wrote:

Also, the Monty Hall problem has a pretty simple explanation which better highlights the mechanics of it if you just exaggerate it for clarity.

The solution is that if you get a choice of 1 of 3 doors, and after selecting one, another is shown to be empty, you should change your selection to the remaining one.

Instead imagine there being 100 doors. You select one as containing the prize/whatever. 98 of the others are then opened and shown to be empty. One door remains. In this case it is more obvious that the chances of your first choice being correct is not as good as the possibility of the last remaining door being the winner.
The same principle applies to the 3-door scenario, although less obvious.

Dunno why, I've always loved the Monty Hall problem.  TechNoir is right that you can exaggerate it to illustrate the effect, but I think you can make just the standard version of the problem more intuitive/comprehensible if you look at it from Monty Hall's perspective, which is sort of what Mike is getting at in the commentary.  This issue comes up a lot in Bridge (the card game), where it's called "Restricted Choice".

Your original choice of Door 1 straightforwardly has a 1 in 3 chance of being right.  If your original choice was correct, then Monty Hall could have opened *either* Door 2 or Door 3.  It wouldn't have mattered, since the prize isn't behind either one.

However, your original choice had a 2 in 3 chance of being wrong.  In that case, Monty Hall's choice of which door to open is restricted.  If he shows you Door 2, it's because he had to -- the prize was behind Door 3, so he couldn't have chosen it.  If he shows you Door 3, then that's because the prize was behind Door 2.

So there's a 66.6% chance that Monty Hall's choice of door was restricted, and therefore a 66.6% chance that the prize is behind the door that Monty Hall didn't choose to open, and therefore you should take the offer to switch.

How's that?

For the next hour, everything in this post is strictly based on the available facts.

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Re: The Hunger Games

Beautiful. I'd never thought of it that way.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: The Hunger Games

Monty Hall is so interesting to me because of how differently we all percieve and process it. For example, Sellew's explanation left me even more confused than any other explanation I've seen, and I usually feel like I've got a pretty solid grasp on the logic behind it.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: The Hunger Games

Yeah, conditional probability in general is something that human beings are *really* bad at.   I assume everybody knows the medical one, usually phrased as a test for a disease, or a rare genetic condition?

Assume that you're being tested for a rare genetic condition.  The test is 99.9% accurate, and errs on the side of over-sensitivity, so there are only false positives, never false negatives.  Let's also say that the condition is very rare, only 1 person in 10,000 has it.  If you take the test and get a positive result, what's the actual chance you have the condition?

[....]

Answer:  just over 9%

For the next hour, everything in this post is strictly based on the available facts.

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Re: The Hunger Games

I know I've heard it before, but can't remember the logical reasoning behind it atm.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: The Hunger Games

Basically, if the incidence of the disease/defect is very low, even with a super accurate test the number of false positives will swamp the number of actual cases.

So, in the case at hand, if we test an appropriate sample of 10,000 people, 9999 of them won't have the disease, and the test will correctly tell us that in 9999 * 0.999 = 9989 of of the cases.  However, the test will also throw up 10 false positives.  Put that together with the one actual positive in 10000, and your chances of being that one are 1/11, or a hair over 9%.

I remember reading that they gave this question to actual doctors, and like 40% of them got the wrong answer.

For the next hour, everything in this post is strictly based on the available facts.

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