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(35 replies, posted in Off Topic)

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(35 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Yeah they'd be attached via the bulb.

But I wasn't thinking the shrapnel would be deadly. The guy in the video had glasses and probably was holding his breath.

What if you had no idea what they were, did not have glasses, and had no presence of mind to hold your breath as thousands of these are exploding in the air around you?

503

(35 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I'm working on developing an army based on mongols crossed with winged hussars, and had this idea for them to attach (carefully) Prince Rupert's Drops to shafts for use as arrowheads.

Does anybody here have enough familiarity with glass works to know if this would work?

Obviously they'd be incredibly fragile and useless as piercing arrows, but thousands of arrows exploding into glass dust against enemy armor sounds like a badass weapon. It would SUCK to be on the receiving end: glass in your eyes, lungs...

My main concern is whether the drops would be fragile enough to blow up as soon as they were launched by a bow.

Honestly I may not even end up using the idea. I'd hate to have to write from the perspective of the good guys with their eyes being shredded by glass.

Inconceivable!

505

(17 replies, posted in Off Topic)

That interior designer has terrible taste. What an awful lamp.

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(17 replies, posted in Off Topic)

So now that the fantastic LOTR trilogy and...the other trilogy...are both done, I'm thinking about the Silmarillion.
Mainly I'm just confused why people keep saying the silmarillion is simply not movie material.
I beg to differ. While obviously the ENTIRETY could not be made as a movie, there are a number of parts in the book where the narrative zooms way in and focuses on a single story for a significant period of time. I'll put one below along with my thoughts.

Beren and Luthien
This would make an excellent story for one or two (NOT THREE) films.
It has Beren's homeland being taken by orcs, his father and him being in a band of fugitive fighters for the first act.
His father and the others are betrayed by the guy who was promised his wife in return (by a much more involved Sauron), Beren fights alone, and then finds his way through the terrors of the Nan Dungortheb (excellent horror material) and into the Girdle of Melian, where he meets Luthien. Quite possibly the movie could start with him finding out his father is dead, and the other stuff is backstory.
Luthien returns to him, they fall in love, and then (oh no!) that stupid singer-elf tells Luthien's father Thingol, and Beren is captured and then given the quest of the silmarils to gain Luthien's hand.
END ACT ONE

Second act is him heading off alone to nargothrond, gaining friends there (along with all the fantastic intrigue) heading north and being captured by sauron.
The werewolf eating his companions one by one until his friend (forgot his name) fights it to death.
Then beren is alone in the dungeon when Luthien and Huon come to rescue him, showing what badasses they are by DEFEATING SAURON.
Then beren and luthien take a break in the wilderness, and then Beren stupidly thinking he needs to try getting the silmarils alone.
Beren gets deep into enemy territory alone, and then Luthian and Huon come to help him again in disguise.
Then the three of them head to Morgoth's lair, and luthien again outsmarts the evil dark lord, they get the silmarils, beren gets his hand bitten off by Carcharoth the Wolf (easily the coolest name ever). END ACT TWO

They escape, but Carcharoth goes on a rampage with the silmaril and Beren's hand inside him, and when Buthien (their celebrity name) gets back to menegroth, Thingol, Beren, Huon, and others finish off the movie by killing Carcharoth in an epic Hound-Hunter-Wolf battle to end the film.

Now maybe you could get into the whole Beren dies, and Luthien dies, and then sings to Mandos and gets Beren back, but that might be unnecessary (like the Scouring of the Shire). Love has already proven its worth at this point.

Of course, the tale of Turin would make an awesome tragedy, especially if contrasted with Tuor's adventures as well.

My point is, while the whole silmarillion would better serve as a setting than a story, there are several potentially AWESOME movies within the framework.

Any thoughts? Feelings? Rage?

Thanks, guys. You're all very correct about the details. As for the math, so far it checks out more or less with my other "sources" smile
Anyway, I'm being careful about the details not overriding characters and not info-dumping on the audience. I'm asking for help with the world-building because that's my weakness. So thanks for the help, and advice, maybe I'll post some of my manuscript when it's done for critiquing. smile

As the author, I need to know as many details as I can, so that I can present the world matter-of-factly, without being opaque about it. The more I know, the less I have to explicitly say, if that makes any sense.
I'm not a slave to the math, but the reality is that a culture bases itself on the world around it, so a midday eclipse of 1.5 hours makes a big difference for a developing culture. That makes for story ideas and interesting characters often enough.

Tomohawk, good points on not defining the exact universe...I'll try not to worry about it too much.

So far, the reasonably-accurate world (not perfect but who cares), is an earth-like planet orbiting a strikingly blue gas giant at approximately 400000 thousand km, with an orbital day of 30 hours, and (for the near side) a daytime eclipse of about 1.5 hours for the giant's 18 degrees of angular diameter. The nightime is dominated by the blue giant, making it almost as bright as the day. Cool part: the slightly lopsided orbit brings the moon slightly outside the giant's magnetosphere once every time the moon's orbit precesses. This makes for a "new year" marked by nearly planetwide aurora. Awesome.

If anyone has any further thoughts, I'd love to hear them.
Thanks bunches for the help, guys!

Yes. I've been struggling with the necessary label for an iron-age war drama set on an alien planet...dunno I'll figure it out after I've written the thing.

Also the orbital period would be thirty hours, not days.
Maybe that would force the moon inside the planet's Roche limit. Or at least inside "we're dead" limit...

Right I guess I meant could it be closer? smile

This is helpful thanks guys. It's exciting to think about how a culture would operate with a midday eclipse and a night almost as bright as the day. They'd probably have natural polyphasic sleep patterns. Also I've learned if the moon's orbit was slightly elliptical the tides could still happen. Also if the orbit precessed just outside the giant's magnetosphere they'd have a few days a year of nearly planet-wide aurorae. Think of their "new year" celebrations! Ha sorry I just think its cool.

Curious why it has to orbit at 1000000 km?

Hello! Let's get right to it. I've been doing some research regarding the possibility of setting my fantasy novel on an earth-like planet orbiting a gas giant.

I've gotten a lot of the basic stuff like the effects of synchronous rotation on seasons (there wouldn't be any), midday eclipse, midnight light from the gas giant being nearly as bright as the day...

I've found some great resources on this, but now I need specifics like
If the orbital period of the moon ("earth") was about 30 hours, how long would the midday eclipse be (depends on the gas giant's size...I've no idea how to estimate this)?

If the gas giant were blue like Neptune, would the reflected light during the night be obviously blue? (I'm so ignorant...)

There was a lot I read about apsidal precession and crazy orbital stuff I can't make anything out of.

Note that I've read quite a bit of speculatory stuff, so that's not what I'm looking for.
I would need some specific work done...which is asking a lot, I know. If anyone has the knowledge and would be willing to work with me on this, I'd at least offer an acknowledgment WHEN the book gets published.

What happens on this planet and when will greatly affect the cultures in my book, so I need this. Thanks for reading!

515

(23 replies, posted in Episodes)

Guys, you spend ten minutes talking about how many pits and falls there are on the death star, and then you ask why all the Stormtroopers are equipped with grappling hooks?

Think about it.  wink

516

(10 replies, posted in Episodes)

Boxtrolls was good fun!
Agree with Doc Sub on Non-Stop
BTW I watched Edge of Tomorrow on Trey's big endorsement (and the rest of the guys) in one of the commentaries.
I was not disappointed. If you haven't seen it, you should.

517

(1 replies, posted in Pitches, Fixes, and Rewrites)

A movie about how a criminal group kidnaps a girl, discovers she's Liam Neeson's daughter, and spends the rest of the movie trying desperately to get her back home without getting killed.

518

(3 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Did anyone else think this movie was actually pretty good? Maybe it's because I'm not as prolific a movie watcher as many residents of this forum, but I was on the edge of my seat quite a bit.
I thought it was pretty good for a movie about Liam Neeson finding someone and killing them, and pretty good on the medium-level emotional stuff. Am I alone?

Guys, I'm OK with the Hobbit movies. They're not as good as LOTR, they use too much CGI, and they should have been two movies instead of three. But I like them.

However, I think I figured out the core problem with the series, from which I think the aforementioned problems come:
The Hobbit movies are trying to be more epic than LOTR. And the simple fact is that the Hobbit, even with the background White Council stuff, is not very epic. The battle of five armies was not nearly as big as the name makes it sound, and they shouldn't be making it that way. The Hobbit movies should be more of a character adventure than an epic saga. It really just downplays the epic scale of the LOTR by trying.

Peter Jackson shouldn't have tried to outdo himself. He should have done something different entirely.

I'm not going media Blackout for this one. I like star wars, but I don't go to it for thriller material. I don't really care if it's spoiled for me.

As for the lightsaber,  the "crossguard" looks more like flames, like it's almost a plasma vent instead of blades. The blade itself also seems rough-looking. Maybe this is a long-ago flashback with a more primitive lightsaber?

The Falcon maneuver was awesome.

521

(45 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Also from Pirates 3: Jack is about to escape from Beckett's ship by tying himself to a rope slung over a yardarm and tied to a cannon, in an attempt to launch himself over to the Black Pearl.
Beckett catches him in the act, exclaiming "you're mad!"
Jack responds, "Thank goodness for that! If I wasn't it would probably never work."

Also a more subtle one from Pirates 1: Gibbs introduces Mr. Cotton, whose tongue has been cut out. So, Gibbs says, "He trained the parrot to speak for him......no one's yet figured out how."

Now that I think about it, Pirates did this a lot.

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(18 replies, posted in Off Topic)

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(18 replies, posted in Off Topic)

sellew, I understand the Spartacus thing. And isn't that how it usually works? Only the good stuff makes good parody material, and if you can enjoy the riff without the original being ruined, you know it's the best.

I forgot. Taken makes me tear up when Mills finally finds his daughter.

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(18 replies, posted in Off Topic)

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(18 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Marty J, any particular part of Wizard that makes you cry?