1,501 Topic by Dorkman

(21 replies, posted in Off Topic)

They say you shouldn't talk about politics or religion in polite company.

I say, I'm not polite company, and They can go fuck Themselves.

A few terms worth defining at the outset here:

Theist: One who believes in the existence of a god or gods.

Atheist: One who does not believe in the existence of a god or gods.

Notice, an atheist is not necessarily someone who believes that "there is no god." Rather, it is at its core definition merely a person who has not accepted any god-claim with which he or she has been presented.

Now, there is a subset of atheists who would say that they not only reject claims that there is a god, but think that there is in fact no god. The term for this is "strong atheist." (I don't really like the term, in the sense that I don't like the implication that others are "weak atheists," but I didn't make it up and it is what it is.)

The distinction may not make sense so let me give a quick analogy. Say you flip a coin and cover it with your hands. You ask, "do you think that this coin is heads?" And I say, "No."

This does not inherently mean that I think the coin is tails. What it means is simply that I do not have a good enough reason to accept the claim that the coin is heads. Rejecting a claim is not the same as accepting its opposite.

So with theism. If someone does not accept the claim "there is a god," it does not mean that they inherently accept the claim "there is no god." Though some atheists do.

You may have also noticed that I didn't list "agnostic." That's because agnostic is not a valid theological position. The question of theism is binary. Either you believe in a god, or you do not. If you "don't know" if you believe in a god, then by definition, you obviously don't. If you did, you'd know. You don't. You're an atheist.

Agnostic, rather, is a philosophical position on what it is possible to know. It's part of a separate binary pair that derives from the Greek work gnosis, meaning certain knowledge.

Someone who is of a gnostic philosophy believes that it is possible to know something with absolute, incontrovertible certainty. An agnostic, on the other hand, thinks that it is not possible to know anything with absolute certainty. You may be 99.999...99% sure of something, but there is always a 0.000...01% chance that you are incorrect.

It is my view that in the gnostic/agnostic dichotomy, gnosticism is not an intellectually tenable philosophy. We are finite creatures and our ability to know something is also necessarily finite. We cannot ever have absolute knowledge.

But, as I said, recognizing that our knowledge is necessarily limited is not the same as saying everything becomes 50-50 odds of being true. You can be pretty damn sure based on all available information, but intellectual honesty demands that you always remain open to new information that will require you to rethink your position.

I am myself both an atheist, and agnostic. I do not believe that any god (as traditionally defined) exists, based on the information that I have seen; however I recognize that I may be incorrect, as I do not have a full knowledge of the cosmos (and if I did, I would have to believe in a god, because it would be me).

That being said, I am also a "strong" atheist. I not only reject all god-claims with which I have been presented, but because of this, I believe I have, if not all possible knowledge, then at the very least the same amount of knowledge that any theist has, and I find the evidence wanting. The universe not only behaves unlike what we should expect to see if there is a god, it behaves exactly as one would expect if there was no god. Therefore, though I am open to compelling evidence to the contrary, I not only do not think there is a god, but I think that there is in fact no god.

However, I acknowledge that this steps beyond the boundaries of what can be satisfactorily demonstrated, and so in terms of debate I only go so far as to accept or reject theistic claims as presented.

This all got started because of a discussion of faith and religion in the Contact commentary thread. We can pick up that conversation here or start anew, but in the main, the question put out to anyone who wishes to answer it is this: what do you believe, and why do you believe it?

Go to forum: Off Topic

1,502 Reply by Dorkman

(56 replies, posted in Episodes)

pastormacman wrote:

I believe you are trying to insinuate that God is not faithful because He has not been faithful to you.

No, I'm rather explicitly pointing out that there is no reason to assume a god exists at all. Matters of faithfulness are secondary.

pastormacman wrote:

Lets look at it this way...
Could you say whether or not I am a faithful person?

Not at this point. But I have more reason to think you exist than I do for any god.

pastormacman wrote:
DorkmanScott wrote:

Faith is actually defined as "belief in the absence of proof." What you mean is evidence.

No, read what I said again. Faith is the inevitable OUTCOME of proof. When something is proven to us, we have faith in it. I have proven myself to my boss and he has faith in me.

In the dictionary, faith is defined as "belief in the absence of proof." You can use an alternate definition if you choose, but that's the definition that seems most useful.

Your boss has only proof of what has occurred. He has no proof that you will do your job in the future. How can he? It's the future. What he has is evidence, in the form of your previous trustworthiness (or faithfulness, if you like) that you are more likely to do so than not.

You know this, because this is exactly what you're pointing out with the example you make later about the sun rising. So you're contradicting yourself again, but whatever.

pastormacman wrote:
DorkmanScott wrote:

True, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't. It also means that we would not be justified in having faith without having had similar experiences.

I would accept that as a true statement. I cannot expect you to have faith in something you have never experienced. However, has that ever kept you from experiencing something new before? Have you ever gone to a new restaurant, or went to go see a movie based on someone else's description of their experience there?

Yes, but all of those things clearly exist. That is a barrier that gods have not penetrated to my satisfaction.

pastormacman wrote:

You didn't read my words thoroughly. You instead read what you thought I meant. Read my words.

God doesn't ask us to have blind faith in HIM. He instead describes Himself as faithful and shows you His track record.

He asserts his track record. There's a substantial difference.

pastormacman wrote:

He tells us to remember His feats in the past. Where He does ask for us to have blind faith is in future events. Not who He is, but what He promises to do. (that is the difference in what I said earlier that you missed)

You say there's a difference. I don't see one here, and again, you're contradicting yourself:

pastormacman wrote:

Again, it all comes down to the person telling the story. Do you trust them?

What it all comes down to is having faith in the person, not what's been promised. When it's a person that I do not even have reason to believe exists in the first place, the question of trust is not a valid one.

pastormacman wrote:

You don't know me, you don't trust me. Fair enough. But what do you do when someone you do trust starts having these experiences over and over and over and over? At some point you either have to call them a liar or truly question your own stance.

These are not the only two options. Being a liar implies that they know what they are saying is untrue. A third option is that they sincerely believe what they are saying, and are simply wrong.

pastormacman wrote:

It's up to you. believe me or don't. It makes no difference to the fact that those things actually happened to me.

Case in point, I'm sure you believe that. And I'm willing to believe they did. What I'm not willing to do is simply accept your interpretations of why or how those things happened. Memory and interpretation are imperfect and powerfully affected by emotion and desire.

pastormacman wrote:

That is a very good point and a very good way of wording it. I suppose my only answer is that no one event has led me to believe in God.

I'm sorry, but this is necessarily a false statement. I don't think you realize it is, but it is.

You cannot attribute an experience to God unless you already accept that God exists. There must have been an initial event that led you to conclude God did exist, it was the God of the Bible, and that you were therefore justified in attributing future experiences to that God.

You failed to answer one question in my post, and it is possibly the most important question: what reason do you have to believe that the Bible is a reliable source of information?

pastormacman wrote:

It is an entire conglomeration of experiences. So I would have to say that no one event could get me to not believe in God. As long as my life's experiences continue to follow the promises God has given me in the Bible, I will continue to believe. There have been times when things didn't make sense to me. Where I really doubted some of the things I believed. In the end, the overwhelming majority of my experiences coincide with what God has promised me in His Word. Because of that, I am willing to accept the small things I don't understand on blind faith because I trust the Faithful One who has proven Himself to me over and over.

You've used a lot of words here to say "No, I am not sincerely willing to consider the possibility that I am wrong."

Your faith is not falsifiable. Anything you don't understand or doesn't fit your "theory," you will just wait until something else happens that allows you to explain it the way you want to, as part of God's will, rather than attempting an alternative explanation.

That's fine, but don't come around here lecturing others on having open minds, being dogmatic, or hearing only what they expect to.

We should probably open up a thread in off-topic to continue this, instead of dragging the Contact conversation completely off the rails. I'll do that now.

EDIT: it is done.

Go to forum: Episodes

1,503 Reply by Dorkman

(56 replies, posted in Episodes)

pastormacman wrote:

Most people misunderstand faith. God never asks us to have blind faith in Him. All throughout the Bible He tells His people to remember what He did.

And what reasons to you have to accept the Bible as a reliable source of information?

pastormacman wrote:

He is called the Faithful One. You don't get to be called faithful unless you have proven yourself in the past.

Or unless you tell everyone to call you that, which is what he does.

pastormacman wrote:

My boss knows I'm faithful because I have come through for him time and time again.

Would your boss still consider you faithful if you never showed up for work, never returned his calls or emails, and completed the tasks requested of you about as often as would be statistically predicted by pure coincidence?

pastormacman wrote:

Faith does not negate proof. Faith is the inevitable outcome of proof.

Faith is actually defined as "belief in the absence of proof." What you mean is evidence.

pastormacman wrote:

I have experienced things in my life that act as proof on which I have built my faith. Just because you have never experienced such things doesn't mean that my faith is unfounded.

True, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't. It also means that we would not be justified in having faith without having had similar experiences.

pastormacman wrote:

Where God does ask us to have blind faith is in something He has promised that hasn't come true yet.

Now hold on. You just said "God never asks us to have blind faith in Him." Now you're saying he does, sometimes. There is no such thing as degrees of never. Never means never.

This is why people like me don't find these kinds of arguments compelling. They're so rife with internal contradictions that the more they get "explained," the less and less sense they make.

pastormacman wrote:

In those cases He asks us to look back on all the times that He did come through and it helps us to believe in the yet-to-be-fulfilled promise. God is not unreasonable.

God has given you personal, compelling experiences that establish for you that you have good reason to have faith in him. He has not given me, or the other non-believers here, similar experiences. What, exactly, makes you so special that he's willing to give them to you and not to us? You acknowledge here that the reason you feel justified in your faith is because of this experience, so surely you understand that without such experiences, faith is not justified. Yet your god, apparently, would rather we accept these claims on your second-hand accounts than give us the same opportunities for justified faith that you have had, and in most Christian traditions threatens those who do not with extreme, even eternal, punishment.

That sounds pretty unreasonable to me, honestly.

pastormacman wrote:

[Healing touch story.]

You had a pain. You don't know what it was because you got no medical diagnosis, so you don't know whether or not it is likely to have gone away on its own. And it went away under circumstances in which you are predisposed to expect it to go away.

It's an interesting anecdote, but surely you recognize that that's all it is. It's especially difficult to give particular credence when every religious tradition has similar stories. Patients of non-religious treatments -- chiropractic and acupuncture, for instance -- also report "feeling better" after treatment, despite the fact that neither treatment has ever been shown to be actually physiologically effective.

pastormacman wrote:

I have a lifetime of experiences that has built my faith.

Is it that? Or is it a lifetime of faith that has colored your experiences?

pastormacman wrote:

Could I be wrong? It's possible. I may be attributing things in my life to God that might actually be caused by something else. Perhaps I cannot scientifically link the events to a supernatural being, but I cannot deny the fact that these events did happen to me. What I have is a theory (belief in the God of the Bible) that happens to fit the facts (events that have happened to me).

No, it doesn't "happen to fit the facts." You make a conscious effort to interpret the facts in a way consistent with your predetermined explanation.

You might be about to accuse me of not knowing you and how dare I assume etc, so let me ask you a question: what if the pain hadn't gone away? What if your pastor had prayed over you, laid on of hands, and the pain had gotten worse and they had to call an ambulance? Would that failure of prayer have shaken your faith at all? I'm guessing not. You more likely would have simply dismissed that part of the experience, and focused on the fact that your pastor showed up in time to call the ambulance, because God apparently told him to.

A true theory is falsifiable. So ask yourself honestly, is there anything that could happen, good or bad, after which you would consider your belief in your god falsified? That you could not explain with "God willed it thus"? If the answer is yes, what? If the answer is no, then you are not actually willing to consider the possibility that you might be wrong. Whereas:

pastormacman wrote:

My question to you is, do you accept it as possible that you could be wrong?

Yes. Show me evidence, not anecdote, that I am wrong. If it is compelling, I will change my stance.

By the way, I'd like to point out that believing a god exists would not be the same as believing said god is trustworthy or faithful. If I was given solid proof that a god existed, I would no longer be an atheist. But that doesn't mean I'd fall to my knees and praise his/her/their/its holy name. That's another, altogether separate issue.

pastormacman wrote:

Or are you willing to throw out all my life's experiences that I myself have lived through as nonsense just because you have never experienced it?

I can't throw out your experiences because I've never taken them in, in the first place. I don't know what your experiences are.

I'm sure you've experienced things. The question is, has your interpretation of the experiences been accurate? And, on a related note, is your recollection of the experiences likewise accurate? Human memory is woefully untrustworthy, and we tend to remember what we want or expect to, more than what actually happened.

Do you have faith because you've had experiences of God, or have you interpreted your experiences as being of God as a product of your faith? What do you say to a Muslim or Hindu who tells you that they know their god is the true one, because of an experience nearly identical to yours? How do you know you're right and they're wrong? Faith isn't enough -- they have faith too.

"When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

Go to forum: Episodes

1,504 Reply by Dorkman

(68 replies, posted in Episodes)

No.

Go to forum: Episodes

1,505 Reply by Dorkman

(8 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Frankly, it's like we discussed in the Ghostbusters commentary: a good comedy is a drama with jokes. Which means that you're looking at following classic structure in many cases -- just, with jokes.

Name any comedy that isn't a spoof and I'd say there's a 90% chance you can make a case for the hero's journey. Hell, if we're allowing spoofs -- Spaceballs was mentioned above -- most of those too, since they're probably based on a movie that you can apply the hero's journey to. This is not counting the worthless "spoof" movies of the last five years, which were just a series of other movies' trailer shots with poop added.

Ghostbusters; The Princess Bride; Stripes; Animal House; Honey, I Shrunk the Kids; Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery; Shaun of the Dead; School of Rock; Planes, Trains, and Automobiles; Bruce Almighty; Shrek; Men in Black; Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure; Team America: World Police; There's Something About Mary; Liar, Liar; Home Alone; Wayne's World; Zombieland...

Et cetera.

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1,506 Reply by Dorkman

(52 replies, posted in Episodes)

Holy shit, you just developed the basis of a workable Transformers movie.

I love the idea of the Transformers hiding here because there were already machines like them, and the idea of the Decepticons attacking and not understanding that the machines were not actually the dominant species. Like you say, the movie -- and its sequel -- just about write themselves from that premise.

Their pseudo-religious motivation doesn't quite work (Decepticons need to deceive people, which requires that they, too, disguise themselves), but there's material there to work with.

You did what I (and the actual screenwriters) could not do. Hats off.

Go to forum: Episodes

1,507 Reply by Dorkman

(52 replies, posted in Episodes)

Which excuses the first viewing...

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1,508 Reply by Dorkman

(54 replies, posted in Episodes)

Yeah, I should've done that when we did Revolutions. I'll have to review my thoughts on it and either do a recording or write it out like with the prequels.

Go to forum: Episodes

1,509 Reply by Dorkman

(9 replies, posted in Episodes)

Kevin's gone real meltdown-y lately. Like there was that whole brouhaha with Southwest Air, in which I completely side with Kevin, based on the information released by both sides. But I can't even count how many times he said "This is the last thing I'm going to say on the subject." He said it on Twitter. Then he recorded a special episode of Smodcast and said it at the end of that. Then he recorded ANOTHER Smodcast about it and said he was done. Then he did a whole slew of YouTube vlog-style videos. Then he was still on about it on Twitter and between that and talking about licking his wife's asshole (constantly) I had to unfollow and start ignoring him again. Which is sad, because I like the guy and I like most of his flicks.

But then there's shit like that. He'll spend all this time talking about how he totally doesn't care about what critics think and doesn't realize that the more time he spends saying it, the more clear it becomes to everyone else that he cares a LOT.

I wouldn't say the giant spider thing was turned against him "ingeniously." Guy could've pursued that analogy further. He just kinda said "Cop Out is like the giant spider" and let us fill in why that would be an "o snap." Still, someone needs to grab Kevin and give him a good shake because he's really starting to spiral from normal attention-whore to crazy one.

Go to forum: Episodes

1,510 Reply by Dorkman

(9 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I think I remember him saying something similar about the media once, although that rang true. That media has neither a liberal bias nor a conservative bias, it has a drama bias. I'd say that was pretty spot on -- although FOX does have a clear conservative bias.

I will say, I like that he calls them "the Penguins." I'm using that.

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1,511 Reply by Dorkman

(9 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Yeah, his whole "I AM MAMET HEAR ME ROAR" schtick is really obnoxious and exists in all his non-fiction writings/musings on the art and craft.

At the same time, if you give him a dramatic scene to write the dude will consistently bring the pain. He IS Mamet, it's just a little annoying that he's so aware of it and wants to make sure you are too.

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1,512 Reply by Dorkman

(2,061 replies, posted in Episodes)

maul2 wrote:

Oh yah, and maybe you guys could actually make Synechdoche NY make any amount of sense for me. It's a long shot, but it might be worth it.

I hate that movie so fucking much I can feel an ulcer coming on just typing this.

Go to forum: Episodes

1,513 Reply by Dorkman

(2,061 replies, posted in Episodes)

I almost have the same response as you do to conversations about Inglorious Basterds: what is there to like about The Aviator?

That's a slightly tongue-in-cheek question, as the movie does have some clear things going for it. Leo turns on a solid and relatively memorable performance (or, at least, his final moment is meme-worthy), the filmmaking is strong on a technical level and I appreciate the use of real miniatures in the FX department.

Still, my only thought at the end of the movie was "Uh...why did I just watch that?" I felt like I'd wasted my time watching it.

But I tend not to like biopics as a general rule, so it might have had that going against it from the outset.

Go to forum: Episodes

1,514 Reply by Dorkman

(2,061 replies, posted in Episodes)

downinfront wrote:

Love The Aviator.

Ew.

I'm all for V for Vendetta though. I think the movie is great, but having read the graphic novel I totally see why people who started there were not particularly cool with the movie. They have polar opposite messages.

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1,515 Reply by Dorkman

(3 replies, posted in Off Topic)

My comments on Repo! The Genetic Opera were lost to the ethers when we switched forums, but the short version is that Repo! pretty much sucks from start to finish. There are a few bright patches in there -- most specifically, if you lifted out Night Surgeon and Chase the Morning you could build a pretty strong tale out from them -- and some intriguing ideas to play with, but overall it was just abysmal and oh, how I wanted to love it.

Repo Men is getting worse reviews than Repo! did. So...yeah. I'll Netflix it.

It's really astounding to me that a concept so awesome has been executed so poorly in two completely different movies.

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1,516 Reply by Dorkman

(7 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Here's the problem with Studio 60, and I'm not the first one to say this so I can't take credit for the insight: a great deal of time is spent talking about how funny the show is and, in particular, what a brilliant comedy writer Matthew Perry is. But then when we see examples of sketches for this brilliant show, they're fucking lame. It makes it hard to take the show seriously, and the show took itself very seriously -- I think too much so, for the general audience's tastes.

The West Wing had the benefit of being about the leaders of the free world, under a lot of pressure to hold the country -- and really, Western civilization as we know it -- together. It's easy for an audience to get on board with the the drama of "oh shit, a leading and inspiring political figure has been shot and might die!" I haven't even seen West Wing and I can immediately see where it can be a powerful source of drama.

Studio 60 tried to apply the same level of drama to "oh shit, the FCC might not let fake-SNL air their 'Tourette's Jesus' sketch!" (Or whatever, it's been a while.) Generally speaking, who cares?

I liked Studio 60, because I'm interested and engaged in the backroom workings of entertainment. I thought it was cleverly- (if occasionally overly-) written, in that Sorkin way, and wanted to see it continue, but I'm not surprised that it didn't.

And I'm not surprised that 30 Rock is the one that did -- it's consistently funny in a slightly mad "Alice in Wonderland" way (the original story, not that Burton...thing), and while the show-within-a-show's sketches are just as lame as Studio 60's, that's part of the joke rather than being a failing of the premise. 30 Rock mocks the idea that television is SERIOUS BUSINESS, whereas Studio 60 tried to enshrine it.

With the premise "behind the scenes of an SNL-like show," 30 Rock is the manic version of that concept, and Studio 60 the depressive. I would have been happy to have both, I for one enjoyed the contrast; but if we can only have one, I'm personally glad it's 30 Rock.

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1,517 Reply by Dorkman

(54 replies, posted in Episodes)

Gregory Harbin wrote:

I think our main points of disagreement are over what the first magic bean is in the first place. You seem to be willing to excuse anything at all that happens in the Matrix.

The first magic bean is that the world we live in is a video game. OK, swallowed.

But then Morpheus tells Neo that the rules can be bent, and even broken. In what video game can you bend and break the rules just because you know it's a game? The only way I know to bend the rules in a video game is to hack. Hacking, then, is the second bean, is it not?

No, because you can hack a video game. If the simulated world is a video game, and video games can be hacked, it follows as a part of the premise that you can hack the simulated world.

Gregory Harbin wrote:

Or if it's not the second bean, if it's connected to the first bean, then why can Neo only hack the Matrix? Why can't he hack the machines themselves?

At what point does he have access to the machines in the same way that he has access to the Matrix? He doesn't, and any answer that you can give me is pure speculation and not based on any of the established rules of the movie universe, let alone actually explained by the films.

Gregory Harbin wrote:

As you say, if something doesn't violate the established rules, than it's OK. Hasn't hacking already been established?

No, the Matrix has been established, and hacking the Matrix exists as a logical extension of the Matrix. I would not expect Neo to be able to hack outside the Matrix any more than I would expect him to know kung fu or fly.

Gregory Harbin wrote:

And wasn't the overarching question of the first film WHY Neo was so much better at hacking than the rest of them?

Not really. At best, the question was IF he was any better at hacking than the rest.

I will grant you that what makes someone "The One" is never adequately addressed in any of the three films, but I don't see how that supports your argument.

Gregory Harbin wrote:

Why can't this be explained by Neo having some sort of remote hacking ability?

Neo requires a direct hardware connection to the Matrix when he does whatever he does to "hack" it. There is no establishment of a remote hacking ability. There is no indication of a remote hacking ability. And even if it could be explained by some remote hacking ability, it isn't explained by a remote hacking ability. It isn't explained at all.

Gregory Harbin wrote:

You seem to be begging for an as-you-know scene to explain it.

You seem to be misunderstanding the term.

An "as-you-know" scene implies that both characters already know the information being spoken and are repeating it solely for the sake of the audience.

The simple fix to any as-you-know scene is to make sure one of the characters doesn't know, and needs it explained to them as our representative in the scene.

Considering that every moment of the films not filled with an action setpiece involves characters explaining things to each other, because one of them knows more than the other and is trying to bring him or her up to speed. I don't think it would be out of place or an as-you-know scene to have one more, especially one this crucial.

Gregory Harbin wrote:

My argument, I guess, is a prima facie one. It happened, there's only one explanation, so there you go.

There are multiple explanations for why it happened, the most likely being that the Wachowskis were just making shit up as they went along.

I think where we really differ is that you seem intent on believing that they had a good reason for doing it, and then concocting out of whole cloth what that reason might be. I see no reason to accept the premise that it was a competent and reasoned choice in the first place.

Go to forum: Episodes

1,518 Reply by Dorkman

(54 replies, posted in Episodes)

Gregory Harbin wrote:

So you have the same complaint about Empire? According to the first film, Vader is an evil guy who killed Luke's father. In the second one, we discover that he actually IS Luke's father. The only way you can reconcile that is to forget what you had assumed after watching the first one, and believe something that makes sense in light of what comes later.

But this is explained, is a form of new information, and most importantly, doesn't violate the established rules of the story universe.

There is no rule in evidence that says that someone can't be someone else's father in Star Wars.

Likewise, there are no rules that state that the scenario I posted a couple days ago -- that Neo was actually an unwitting mole for the machines -- could not have been the case, which is more akin to discovering Vader is Luke's father. It's new information that can exist without having to alter a fundamental established nature of the story universe.

By contrast, there are very clear rules representing the distinction between the Matrix -- which is not real, and someone who knows that does not need to obey the rules -- and the real world -- which is, by definition, real, and there is no apparent way to bend the rules.

You're essentially arguing that it would make perfect sense for someone who plays a Spider-man videogame to suddenly start using Spider-man's powers in the real world. The One has powers because the Matrix is a video game. It is a program that can be hacked. That doesn't translate to having powers outside of the game, which as far as we are ever told is not a program and can not be hacked.

If the story wants to start breaking its own rules, it had better be ready to explain why those rules don't apply instead of just pretending that one follows logically from the other. Your argument -- that "Neo is special" represents the second set of magic beans -- is wrong. There is nothing that says that someone cannot be special within the Matrix, and in fact it follows easily within the concept of "world is videogame" that some players will be better than others and some will figure out the cheat-codes. But it does not in any way follow logically that he should then also be special in the real world, and if the filmmakers want to make that leap, they need to hold my hand if they expect me to make it with them.

And as I feel I've made relatively clear, my problem is less that the films broke the rules, than it is with the fact that they -- and their apologists -- refuse to even acknowledge that they broke the rules and come up with all kinds of convoluted theories and "thought experiments" to hand-wave it away.

The Matrix is a place where you can have powers. The real world is not, and I won't just accept it if someone starts using powers in the real world. The story needs to at least meet me halfway and take maybe five minutes to fucking explain.

Any fucking justification at all. Any single thing that has been brought up in this thread might have sufficed. But they don't even try.

Go to forum: Episodes

1,519 Reply by Dorkman

(54 replies, posted in Episodes)

Gregory Harbin wrote:

And so this is a bit of a thought exercise. I want you to forget the explanation for Neo's powers that you had at the end of the first film. Only allow explanations that also explain what he does in film 2.

And my answer to that is:

No.

Because that's not how it works. They have established a set of rules and must either work within them or explain why they no longer apply and/or never did and we just didn't have all the information.

How can you say this "doesn't require retconning" when it requires that I "forget the explanation from the first film"? That is the definition of retconning.

In a world where the rules set out in the films were different and accommodated Neo's sudden manifestation of abilities outside the Matrix, then I obviously would not be complaining that it violated the rules. As that is not the world in which we exist, it makes no sense to bring it up other than to say there's a good chance I would have been more satisfied with it. We are talking about the films that exist. If we want to talk about other ways they could have done it, obviously I have no problem with that, but it's ridiculous to ask me to imagine a fantasy version of the movies I don't have a problem with, and pretend that somehow justifies the actual versions.

They set the rules and they broke them with neither justification nor explanation. You can excuse them if you like, you can come up with all kinds of reasons that you are making up and have no basis in the story as presented, but you need to recognize that you are excusing poor storytelling, not somehow making it work.

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1,520 Reply by Dorkman

(54 replies, posted in Episodes)

Gregory Harbin wrote:

OK, Dorkman, so here's the deal that I don't get about with you and the Matrix films:

It seems to me there are two bits of magic,

1. Everyone in the world is plugged into machines
2. Our main character can do crazy things that no one else can do

It's never stated that the One's powers only exist in the Matrix, and in fact, his powers are never explained at all. For all we know, he never needed to be plugged into the Matrix to do the things he did in the first film.

First of all, yes, it is stated specifically that the One's abilities revolve around his ability to reshape the Matrix however he pleased. Morpheus knows of at least one other One before Neo -- the one that freed him -- and makes no indication that he thinks Neo can do anything outside of the Matrix.

Secondly, it is not two magic beans. The magic beans of the story are: what we consider "reality" is a computer program. The rest of it -- humans interfacing through needles in their brains, the ability of certain special people to "hack" the program -- are expressions and fulfillments of that concept.

The special abilities in the Matrix are acceptable because it is not reality, it is a simulation and the freeminds can override it in certain ways -- and the One, we're told, can override it entirely.

It's when suddenly the One has powers outside of the computer program, in reality, that the second set of magic beans appears, and are never explained.

Neo is a hacker, he has a mind for code, and I can accept him using his mind for code to override the Matrix code within the Matrix. The real world does not have a code to override and does not exist within Neo's mind and therefore should not be within his realm of influence.

We can come up with theories all day long -- "reality" is really another Matrix, Neo has an airport card in his head -- but the fact is, this just appears out of nowhere at the end of the second film, entirely without precedent, and is never explained by the movies themselves. Whereas the ability to do fantastical things within the Matrix is well-established and well-explained in the very first movie. In point of fact, Neo learning to use this to his advantage is the plot of the first movie.

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1,521 Reply by Dorkman

(54 replies, posted in Episodes)

We can't safely assume any kind of wireless connectivity because we have no evidence of wireless connectivity on an individual level. Sure, ships can apparently transmit and receive to and from the Matrix, but humans? Not so much. As you point out, connection to the Matrix requires a big needle inserted into the brain stem. Even the machines' most basic communication requires them to bust out a satellite dish.

And it's not like Neo just communicates with a machine -- he explodes it. With his mind. And then does that again to like a million of them.

I would have no problem accepting some kind of wireless connection if it were in any way established or explained in the world of the film. But it isn't. And there's no indication or explanation as to why Neo should be "The One" in reality as he is in the Matrix (never mind that it's never properly explained or justified what The One is inside the Matrix in the first place). Neo just suddenly has magic powers -- literally an "and then a WIZARD shows up!" second piece of magic.

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1,522 Reply by Dorkman

(54 replies, posted in Episodes)

fardawg wrote:

I believe they say in the film that the One's abilites extend to the machine world. That to me implies that it IS a type of wi-fi that is part of the machines' programing of him. Why? I have no idea because it was a horribly written movie.
Another possibility is that by jumping into Smith in the first movie he assimilated part of his programming. Smith says something about part of Neo being passed to him. It is conceivable that it went both ways.

But the problem is that you're talking about programming. That's software. Wifi requires hardware, and that's not something you're just going to pick up or become infected with because you ran afoul of an agent. It has to be installed.

This raises another possibility I hadn't thought of before as an alternate storyline. I mean, we've got "Jerry" as the traitor in the version I did -- what if Neo was, unknowingly, the traitor? What if the machines planted Neo as The One, using The Oracle and other programs to push Morpheus towards him? They would have then installed some kind of transmitter inside of Neo to track his location and help them find the location of Zion. And maybe they could occasionally use that chip/transmitter to override his free will and make him do traitorous things. The mystery of who's the traitor and the reveal that it's a schizophrenic Neo could make for a solid Matrix 2.

Then, maybe by his encounter with Smith or some other trigger (probably something else, as it would come in #2), suddenly Neo gains the ability to transmit back. And things change considerably. There's your Matrix 3.

That I would buy, and it would give a great opportunity for them to elaborate on questions of destiny vs. free will, the difference between who you're "meant" to be and who you choose to be, and the unintended consequences of creating the means of your own destruction. In creating Neo to be basically a thinking weapon, after all, the machines essentially made the exact same mistake that humanity made in creating the machines.

A story with that aspect to it would be quite different from the direction I took my version of it, but would still be one I could be very satisfied with.

But, that wasn't the story we got.

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1,523 Reply by Dorkman

(11 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I didn't see the original until my early 20s, and while I have retro-nerd affection for all the Harryhausen it got on my face, it's kind of a baffling movie and I had trouble getting past the flagrant mythological inaccuracies. Still, it has a charm and a humor and a cleverness that makes it a must-see classic for the geek cred.

The new movie I'm sure will have none of these things. I'm guessing it will be technically flawless without any personality, take itself way too seriously, and have a lot of sweeping camera moves around CG vistas, characters, and creatures in a desperate attempt to convince us we care.

I'll see it, but not on April 2, and not in 3D. Maybe I'll do a matinee $6 screening at AMC.

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1,524 Reply by Dorkman

(31 replies, posted in Episodes)

maul2 wrote:

Obviously, yes, they should have gotten experienced voice actors, I'm not debating that. But for who they had, the performances seemed remarkably disproportionate to skill.

What skill is it that you think actors have, precisely? In a live-action movie, an actor's performance is never in the words they say and barely in the way they're saying it. Most of the performance is in the body language, the face, and most of all the eyes.

So you've got a brilliant actor who can get volumes across with just a look and a nod on film. How far do you imagine that particular skillset will get them in voiceover work?

The point is that the performances are NOT disproportionate to skill, because this is not a skillset that these actors possess.

For the record, I haven't seen 9, but the criticisms are consistent, and all things I could've (and did) anticipate from the trailers.

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1,525 Reply by Dorkman

(19 replies, posted in Off Topic)

And yet the paragraph you quote is me attempting to give some form of credence to your argument. So you disagree with my attempt to agree with you, if only rhetorically.

Look dude, you've gone and backed yourself into a corner here. On the one hand, you're apparently rejecting the notion that cinematography, visual effects, production design, etc, are part of the filmmaking process -- because remember, we're talking about the fact that you said "filmmaking," and are now attempting to say that means "storytelling" and isn't that so obvious you shouldn't even have to say so.

So if cinematography, CG, and production design aren't part of storytelling, then they can't be part of filmmaking, because those terms are interchangeable. Right?

But I think we both know that you're not making that argument because it's stupid and indefensible, and considering the different aspects of filmmaking you've worked in, you know better. Filmmaking is about the process of making the film, and there are many aspects to it. Writing is one aspect. It's an important aspect, and without much prodding I would be willing to say it's the most important aspect, but a film can be made with an awful story and be perfectly competent or even brilliant in its other aspects.

So since you can't possibly be arguing that "filmmaking" can be separated as a term from "the process of making the film," what we're really left with is that you can't support your claim that "filmmaking" is the same as "storytelling" entire. Even in your idiosyncratic mental dictionary, you have to know that there's a difference.

Furthermore, you said "on every conceivable level" and that is demonstrably false whether you meant the filmmaking process or simply storytelling -- AVATAR adheres perfectly to the Hero's Journey structure. If anything, the film's sin is that it's TOO perfectly structured, neglecting to build in any subversions of expectation for more seasoned film watchers. The film is capable of skipping merrily over long stretches of time without you ever losing track of the plot. Whether that's a "bug" or a "feature" depends on how much it matters to you that you connect emotionally with the events onscreen, but emotional connection is just one aspect of storytelling. Again, you could argue it's the most important, and I'd be hard pressed to find a reason to disagree, but it's not every aspect.

So it was 3 a.m. and you overstated your case. Okay. No one's going to fault you for that, and I can agree with pretty much all of the criticisms you came out with on your second viewing (though not the first, as the few you mentioned were superficial and clearly explained within the film).

It's just that to try to spin it as though you took the long view and the rest of us have come to know your wisdom is a little much.

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