...The Core?

EDIT:
Let me elaborate a tad. If it were the case that that what happens in the core initially(the whole earth thing), there would be nothing we could do. even if there was something, we wouldn't just send ONE fucking team down there. But because it's a movie, it doesn't make sense to involve all 4815162342 persons down there.

Last edited by Tomahawk (2010-08-24 12:45:23)

Well, in all fairness, that's the point. The aliens believe they have Kirk, not Shatner.

The same device doesn't work quite so well in The 3 Amigos, where Mexicans confuse TV show stars for the real things.

In The 6th Day, it turns out that there are 2 Schwarzeneggers because the cloning guy accidentally cloned Arnie even tho he wasn't present at the event that killed people who then needed to be replaced to cover it up. Without a body, how do you even know what clothes he should be wearing? Where would you get a wallet and ID for him?

In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Bond infiltrates Blofeld's Alpine allergy clinic. Instead of immediately killing the man who recently held the world ransom with nuclear bombs and interrogating his henchmen to find out what he was up to, Bond continues the charade until Blofeld discovers his identity and captures him.

In Cars, Lightning McQueen is arrested in a small town and is held for days without even being allowed to make a phone call. His court-appointed attorney is a mentally retarded tow truck without a law degree.

In Jumanji and Zathura, board games repeatedly try to kill the players for no reason that is explained.

In Scott Pilgrim the world is a video game for no discernible in-universe reason.

I think in Scott Pilgrim's case, the world as a video game is the magic bean and a poorly-executed justification. To contrast, a better solution would be to have a line in the beginning where Scott observes how much he loves video games and relates them to his life.

As of now, the movie simply is that with no justification.

EDIT: This might require elaboration on the nature of magic beans. It could be simply magic beans if the definition required absolutely no set-up for them.

For now, Scott Pilgrim Potter's story begins in his third year at Hogwarts and nobody hangs a lantern on all the magic wands.

Nobody explains or hangs a lantern on all the Hobbits and wizards and goblins in LOTR. No lantern is hung on the Balrog of Morgoth. They don't feel the need to because it's just accepted that that's how their world works.

The only difference with SCOTT PILGRIM is that the fantasy world they inhabit looks much more like ours, which I could see making it a little more difficult to suspend disbelief. But that's clearly the magic beans. Magic beans are the "in a world" statement. SCOTT PILGRIM takes place In A World that obeys the rules of a videogame. That's the part you either accept or don't when you go into the movie.

The part of SCOTT PILGRIM that doesn't really work for me is the fact that I have no idea why I should want Scott and Ramona to end up together. They have almost no screentime together, I don't see what makes her so interesting (maybe I'm just inured to the novelty of people with brightly-colored hair) and I don't see what makes him so likable that I should root for him.

Oh, and also Gideon uses mind-control microchips. THAT one can totally go in the "bad justification for plot points" column.

Very high on my list:  Star Trek The Motion Picture would have us believe that an incomprehensibly advanced machine intelligence would call itself V'ger because it couldn't figure out there was dirt on its nameplate and that its name was really Voyager.     

Or maybe because "My Name Is V... Something, Something, Something... ger" took too long to say.

Oh, and I guess if you haven't seen the flick, uhhh... spoiler?

Scarcity equals value.  Basic economics.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

As much as I love and accept most of that movie I can't get over the whole "we had enough time to set up a freakin' light show/DJ/podiums for history's greatest and big baddies/props like swords to fight Joan of Arc or the ridiculously expensive seven keyboards for Beethoven to play all at once.

I love it, but no, they did not set all of that up on their own.

RE: Bill & Ted -- you also have the usual fun timeloop paradox where Bill and Ted have no actual way of knowing Rufus' name because he never tells them. They learn his name when future Bill and Ted show up at the Circle K and give him a shoutout. So they only know his name because their future selves say it, but their future selves only know it because they heard themselves say it in the past.

When an ontological paradox comes up in a time-travel story, that's usually my cue to stop paying attention. Not because they make my head hurt — though they do — but because they're usually just goddamn lazy writing.

Guy's walking down the street, hears an obviously crazy homeless guy singing a song. Gets it stuck in his head, goes on to write it down. Song becomes a big hit, guy gets rich. Then, decades later, the guy falls back through time for some reason, loses his mind, ends up singing to himself in an alley as his younger self walks by.

Crap like that makes me nuts. If you're doing it just to be clever, stop it, because it's on the same level as asking whether Jesus could beat Superman in a fight. And if you're basing your whole story on it, give up writing forever and go be a park ranger or something, 'cause you're not cut out for it.

Grumble grumble curse and swear.

Well, okay. If it's a parable or a thinly veiled metaphor, then all bets are off. I was referring more to those quirky sci-fi stories that posit the paradox as some kind of major plot point of "ooh, look how mind-blowing I am" show-off thing.