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(17 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Just saw the Red Letter Media discussion... A few thoughts....

1. I'm hesitant about predicting the imminent collapse of the Hollywood studio system when the box-office of these movies is consistently breaking $1Billion. Quite the opposite i.e. more of the same. There's enough cashed up teens in emerging markets in the developing world that haven't grown up with the same movies we have - so it's all new to them. Just because you don't like something, doesn't mean it's going to end. Slavery lasted for centuries - in other words, something can be morally wrong but still be financially successful.

2. The opera/classical/Shakespeare world has lasted for 200 years with a business model of recycling the same works over again. If superheroes movies are the default template, then whoever are the hot, young 'popstars du jour' can be inserted into the roles. There's always a next generation of stars&starlets coming through. There'll be some updated effects as rendering times/costs come down. There's still plenty of old material that hasn't been given the 48fps, IMAX, 3D treatment - so at least there's a thin veneer of 'freshness' for the next decade. Also, MPAA standards change over time, so what was 'R' rated in the 1980s is PG13 now, so that's something the studio can market as new.... i.e. 'it's darker'.
Same template but new actors, more effects at higher-res, and a few more F-bombs, with each incarnation. Doesn't matter if the scripts are identical. It's been obvious for a long time that movies are NOT punished for having poor scripts.

3. Hard core geeks that whine about the the current vacuous tentpole movies should stop seeing them.

4. The studios might claim in response to Red Letter Media... we DID give you a NEW tentpole movie this year JOHN CARTER, and you bastards didn't see it. We lost bigtime on it. But when we served up Avengers, everyone saw it twice. Fine... now you're getting another five Avengers.

[I personally think this ever-decreasing reboot time trend sucks as well, but I'm just trying to see it from the studio perspective. I too saw Prometheus, so I'm guilty of supporting lazy tentpole schlock]

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1,052 Reply by avatar

(12 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Knock up the boss's daughter, and you won't need a resume.

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1,053 Reply by avatar

(32 replies, posted in Episodes)

Anyone else think the Godfather is over-rated? From a plot perspective, it's just endless tit-for-tat violence. You killed one of our clan/family, now we kill one of yours. Other side: now you insulted my honour, you must pay. And so on, for hours.

The acting is great, the production values are superb, but the actual plot is just 'Fuck you. No fuck you. No fuck you. No fuck you'.

Yes, I realize it can be a metaphor for Israel / Palestine, or any lawless conflict between drug gangs or militia, etc. Just seems infantile after a while.  Yes, a classic, but for not for the plot IMHO.

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1,054 Reply by avatar

(109 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Squiggly_P wrote:

That show claims to be science fiction based on fact, only none of the facts seem to have been presented outside of the show, cause it doesn't list much. What I can tell you from the clips they have on the site is that it looks hilaribad and I kinda wanna watch it.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts … 2070533123

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1,055 Reply by avatar

(34 replies, posted in Episodes)

The Dark Ages (in terms of intellectual progress) were more like 2000 years long, rather than 500 years. The height of the Greek philosophical inquiry was about 400BC with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc.

And the Enlightenment didn't take place until the 18th century. You could argue there were earlier moments of western civilization waking up e.g. Columbus' 1492 discovery of America surpassed ancient wisdom, as did Copernicus' heliocentrism in 1543, and Galileo with his telescope in 1609. The Renaissance is regarded as late 15th/early 16th century, but that time was more about recapturing lost knowledge, rather than surpassing it.

So it's closer to a 2000 year interruption, not 500 years. Without the Dark Ages, we'd be effectively now living in the year AD4000, for better or worse. Imagine the traffic jams.

And yes, you guys are right, Christianity bears much of the blame for why the Dark Ages were so protracted. Why care about the real world when you can study the Holy Scripture?

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1,056 Reply by avatar

(109 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Squiggly_P wrote:

It also looks like it makes more sense than Prometheus, which is something, I think, that marketing teams everywhere should be adding to the posters of all of their bad movies.

Coming This Summer.... Not from the makers of Prometheus....

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(109 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Talking about skepticism... this is what passes for documentaries in the USA...

http://press.discovery.com/ekits/monste … lease.html

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1,058 Reply by avatar

(52 replies, posted in Episodes)

Very good, Teague. Requests? Sweet Transvestite from Rocky Horror is a classic.

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1,059 Reply by avatar

(109 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I don't know if they have this in LA, but in London there's this thing called 'SECRET CINEMA' where you supposedly don't just see the movie, you 'experience' it. There are actors and sets and 'recreations' and 'an expanded universe' and an appearance by Ridley Scott, etc...

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(44 replies, posted in Episodes)

Audio-only... commuting between London and Sydney, where total door to door travel time is about 24 hours (and frustratingly hasn't changed for 40 years).

Trouble is I've now exhausted all the commentaries to the movies I've seen, so now I gotta see schlock like Cowboys & Aliens just so I can listen to the DIF commentary.  big_smile

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1,061 Reply by avatar

(12 replies, posted in Movie Stuff)

It's an interesting paradox. Every movie will be wonderful if you go into expecting it to be a steaming pile of shit. Then happiest are those with the lowest expectations? But that can't be right. Going around thinking everything will be worse than The Phantom Menace can't be the key to bliss. Can it?

Dark Knight Rises? It's gonna make Transformers 2 look like The Godfather. After all it's directed by that stupid hack Nolan, right? And stars all those no-name D-listers who can't act.

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(12 replies, posted in Movie Stuff)

Opinion of movie = Reality - Expectation

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(7 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Frodo Baggins & Luke Skywalker... no mothers.

I would point out DUNE as a big exception, where Paul & his Mother are the two main characters and are together for much of the book. But he lost he father early on.

Yes, I wonder why it would change the dynamic having two nice healthy elderly parents pottering in the garden at the start of the adventure and they're still there at the end of the adventure.

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(109 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Invid wrote:
avatar wrote:

1. Space Jesus. Jesus was an Engineer. We crucified him, therefore the entire species deserves eradication. It'd be like the American ambassador to Iran is killed by a sect, and the USA fires every nuclear weapon at the country killing the entire population. Is that the behaviour of Enlightened beings from the future?

Or it would be similar to cleaning out a petri dish once your experiment fails.

If the relationship between Engineers and humanity was analogous to humans and bacteria in a petri dish, than that renders the whole 'Space Jesus' theory obsolete. Would we try to teach an amoeba advanced moral behaviour?

In any case, the Romans put Jesus on trial and read the charge to him. That was 2000 years ago. Did the woken-up Engineer, a being from the future, do that same thing?

If you interpret the gap between Engineers and humans as vast (evidence is that they were here 4 billion years ago), then we cannot be a threat to them, so why even bother with us? If the gap is smaller (evidence is that DNA matches) so that we are a credible threat, then surely we warrant some form of communication. We try to communicate with apes e.g. Kanzi the Bonobo.

And just how advanced are they if (1) they got their Earth experiment so wrong that it became so threatening it needed wiping out, and (2) their own xenomorph program went so wrong that it got out of hand. And they password-protect their console with a frigg'n flute. And one Engineer oversleeps in his pod for 2000 years. Dumb-arses.

And infecting Earth with alien goo/xenomorphs as a means of eradication is a pretty blunt instrument. Why not nerve gas the entire planet from orbit? ('it's the only way to be sure'). Or push the planet into the sun. Sure, we gave smallpox-infected blankets to some Native American tribes in the past, but we'd have more modern methods of getting the job done today, let alone the future.

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(109 replies, posted in Off Topic)

About the thesis that advanced Enlightened beings = nicer, I would recommend Steven Pinker's new book, The Better Angels of our Nature, that compares and contrasts the rate of violence in primitive societies with modern advanced civilisations. The likelihood that a one of us living in today's western society will die a violent death is much lower than in the past. Even including WWI & WWII, the percentage of deaths was lower than hunter-gatherer societies because the world's overall population was so much larger. Crime rates have fallen. Only the USA still has the death penalty, and only in some states, for only a small number of crimes. In the past, you could get executed by the state for being a witch, for minor property theft, for blaspheming, etc. In Scandinavian societies, crimes rates are very low.
And the 'expanding circle of inclusiveness' is starting to embrace animals. Most western societies no longer consider it very enlightened to hunt big game for pleasure or to have animals in circuses or to conduct frivolous experiments on animals, particularly our closest cousins. There are now extremely stringent rules for primate vivisection, and in Europe the practice is largely a thing of the past.
This evolving morality over the last few hundred years has coincided with the advance of science & secularism. You could even rank the countries along this path: NW Europe, Europe & Canada, Australia/NZ, American Blue States, American Red States, developing world, Congo & Somalia & Sudan, etc bringing up the rear.
Steven Pinker's full argument is here...

So yes I do think that an advanced species many millions of years ahead of us would NOT behave like the Engineer did when being woken up - like a WWF Wrestler with a full lobotomy. To give Scott the benefit of the doubt, there is rumoured to be more to the conversation that was cut and might be restored.

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(109 replies, posted in Off Topic)

crowkiller06 wrote:
avatar wrote:

The reason that Shaw wanted a termination is that (a) it wasn't really hers as it was alien DNA (b) she conceived without informed consent (c) she had other shit to deal with at that time.

The reason why Engineers changed their mind (if that's what actually happened) had to be different to Shaw's. Our DNA 'matches' - whatever that means. The Engineers deliberately set events in motion. Are they crappy engineers? The engineer's response upon waking up was rather....err.... inarticulate. It doesn't appear Scott or Lindelhof actually care.


I couldn't agree with you more in regards to the points you make about her "child" being forced upon her(for lack of a better word) ........
However, the point I wanted to bring up was more the theme of the creators not being happy with their creations, and deciding to destroy them.
Now, I'm sure there are many who would make the point that I(among many others) am reading/seeing too much into this film. But, I think it's pretty interesting that it's there. I, personally, don't think it's much of a stretch to see this strange connection between Shaw and the Engineers.

Okay, what are some possible reasons the Engineers may have for changing their minds?

1. Space Jesus. Jesus was an Engineer. We crucified him, therefore the entire species deserves eradication. It'd be like the American ambassador to Iran is killed by a sect, and the USA fires every nuclear weapon at the country killing the entire population. Is that the behaviour of Enlightened beings from the future?

2. We're a virus (cue Agent Smith's speech from the Matrix). But who cares if we're not looking after a rock 35 light years (or more) away from the Engineers' home planet? What do they care? What would we care if an ant colony was eating all its food and driving itself to extinction?

3. Life on Earth didn't turn out the way we were supposed to, due to an unforeseen glitch. They were breeding dinosaurs for big game hunting, and then a meteorite wiped them all out, and these irritating humans replaced the species they really wanted...

4. They wanted humans, but only hotties, not fatties. Once humans started pumping high fructose corn syrup into themselves, Project Sexdoll was cancelled.

5. It was their plan to destroy humans all along with alien goo, as the real project was to breed xenomorphs.  We were the perfect host species. Luckily the Engineers had funding approval for 4.5 billion years waiting around until the 'fruit ripened'.

6. Their receivers had just picked up The Phantom Menace and Transformers 2 and so they decided to hurry things along.

7.  I am the Engineer. I created the life on Earth. I've been waiting for you. You have many questions, and although the process has altered your consciousness, you remain irrevocably human. Ergo, some of my answers you will understand, and some of them you will not. Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also irrelevant. Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden to sedulously avoid it, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here.

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(8 replies, posted in Episodes)

Olivia Wilde and Summer Glau came out of the same alien vat

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(109 replies, posted in Off Topic)

The reason that Shaw wanted a termination is that (a) it wasn't really hers as it was alien DNA (b) she conceived without informed consent (c) she had other shit to deal with at that time.

The reason why Engineers changed their mind (if that's what actually happened) had to be different to Shaw's. Our DNA 'matches' - whatever that means. The Engineers deliberately set events in motion. Are they crappy engineers? The engineer's response upon waking up was rather....err.... inarticulate. It doesn't appear Scott or Lindelhof actually care.

Usually in SF, the most common reason given for advanced civilisations wanting to terminate us is that we've entered the nuclear & space age, but still have the moral temperament of cavemen, and so can't be trusted to be good galactic citizens. Kinda like how we view Iran now. Atomic bombs and ancient superstitions don't mix. The second most common reason is one of colonialism - they want Earth's land, resources, etc.

If you can solve the problem of interstellar space flight, you've already reached the level of technological sophistication to solve environmental/resource problems, so reason #2 doesn't actually make sense.

In the end, no answer is given. And if the film-makers don't care, I don't see why audiences should care.

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1,069 Reply by avatar

(109 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Squiggly_P wrote:

That was being generous. In reality, there seemed to be no briefing before the mission. No one had met beforehand or knew what the mission was. The advertisement would have been something like: "Are you a scientist that's only in it for the money? We're looking for biologists and geologists for secret five year mission. No questions asked"

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1,070 Reply by avatar

(69 replies, posted in Episodes)

Nolan back-to-back Batman on IMAX... http://www.bfi.org.uk/whatson/bfi_imax/ … ouble_bill

Correction: A TRIPLE feature with Dark Knight Rises from midnight!

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1,071 Reply by avatar

(109 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Matt Vayda wrote:

Heh.

http://blastr.com/2012/06/image-of-the-day-handy-ch.php

Zombie + Goo = Lindelhof

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(109 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Once the movie is out on DVD/Blu-Ray, I can see that question and response being parodied in a DOWNFALL-like meme. Anyone can put their own subtitle there... whatever topic of the day is.

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(109 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Matt Vayda wrote:

Also, apparently, this: http://blastr.com/2012/06/we-finally-know-what-davi.php

In Blade Runner, the conversation between Batty and Tyrell in the top-floor apartment ("I want more life") was one of the highlights of the movie.

So in Prometheus, the same conversation is given as an un-subtitled question in an alien language, and the answer is 'rrraaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!' that you'd expect off a cave-man, not an enlightenment advanced being.

If, as the article suggests there is MORE to the conversation, all in un-subtitled alien-speak, I don't want it. What's the point of that?

Ridley Scott to direct Transformers 5. That's his level now.

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(109 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Highbrow critics fall for it...  lol  lol  lol  lol  lol  lol  lol  lol  lol  lol  lol  lol

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/20 … e-horrors/

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(109 replies, posted in Off Topic)

All Michael Bay had to do for Transformers 2 or George Lucas for the prequels is sprinkle in a bit of Virgil, Homer, Sartre, Nietzsche, William Blake, and Camus and they've got themselves profound chin-stroking classics.

There's a script-polish.
And then there's a pseudo-intellectual tarting up.
Expect to see more of it.
It could even be 'algorithmed' - like the Postmodern Generator... http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/

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