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El Fappo
Dec 26, 2012
Usually I'm not the type of person to get bothered by stock sound effects, but there's one in particular that really irritates me for no reason. It's a stock "police radio" sound that is used loving everywhere. It sort of sounds like a woman's voice saying something along the lines of "betas tesla 128 9-10".

Anybody else notice this? Is there a name for it? I've recently been re-watching The X-Files and it comes up in every scene involving police at a crime scene. It's really jarring.

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OXBALLS DOT COM
Sep 11, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
Young Orc
One of the fun details in that miniseries Generation Kill was that the radio chatter is all new, reflects what's going on in the scene, and often has some great jokes thrown in.

tacodaemon
Nov 27, 2006



El Fappo posted:

Usually I'm not the type of person to get bothered by stock sound effects, but there's one in particular that really irritates me for no reason. It's a stock "police radio" sound that is used loving everywhere. It sort of sounds like a woman's voice saying something along the lines of "betas tesla 128 9-10".

Anybody else notice this? Is there a name for it? I've recently been re-watching The X-Files and it comes up in every scene involving police at a crime scene. It's really jarring.

There's this one (which apparently comes from a stock sound effect compilation called "Sound Ideas – Sound Generals Series 6000") and there's also this one (from a compilation called "Interior Crowds And Ambiences"). The first one has been around longer, I think. People were going on about them ITT a while ago.

Heres Hank
Oct 20, 2008

Cream_Filling posted:

One of the fun details in that miniseries Generation Kill was that the radio chatter is all new, reflects what's going on in the scene, and often has some great jokes thrown in.

IIRC wasn't the radio chatter from the beginning of each episode actual recordings of radio chatter from the events that happened in that episode?

EmmyOk
Aug 11, 2013

Slim Killington posted:

While I agree with this sentiment wholly, La Haine is probably one of the best movies I've ever seen and you owe yourself a watch if you've avoided it.

La Haine is an excellent film, who could dislike a film with a soundtrack that has a mash-up of gangster rap and Edith Piaf?

Modern Day Hercules
Apr 26, 2008

Xander77 posted:

The book is nerd stupid while the movie is Hollywood stupid, and there's a world of difference (the difference between a fuckwit in the reddit MRA section bragging about his engineering diploma and an actual drooling retard)

No they're both actually just regular stupid. There are entire sections of book stores filled with books that are just as stupid as any stupid movie, and if you find World War Z outside of one then it's been misplaced. There is nothing of value at all in the book There's not much of value in the movie either, but at least that only lasts 2 hours. Just because it's a book about zombies doesn't magically elevate it to "nerd stupid" and I don't know why you'd consider that an elevation anyway.

Megillah Gorilla
Sep 22, 2003

If only all of life's problems could be solved by smoking a professor of ancient evil texts.



Bread Liar

Davros1 posted:

That's one of the things that annoyed me about District 9 (that, and the entirely unsympathetic protagonist.)

In the opening scene of District 9, when they're going around the camps and you see the guy casually torch a shanty full of the aliens' eggs was when I stopped caring in the slightest at any misfortune he would later suffer.

Murdering someone's kids right in front of the parents does not make me inclined to sympathy when you start turning into Brundlefly.

Choco1980
Feb 22, 2013

I fell in love with a Video Nasty
So, I was watching Pacific Rim again yesterday, and the scene where the scientists each describe their theories had a bit that made me scratch my head. Namely why did Gottlieb need like 5 10-foot long chalkboards full of equations to figure out a simple algebraic exponential growth rate that any 10th grader could have given you?

Ugly In The Morning
Jul 1, 2010
Pillbug

Choco1980 posted:

So, I was watching Pacific Rim again yesterday, and the scene where the scientists each describe their theories had a bit that made me scratch my head. Namely why did Gottlieb need like 5 10-foot long chalkboards full of equations to figure out a simple algebraic exponential growth rate that any 10th grader could have given you?

Because that's what mad scientists do. And he is a mad goddamn scientist.

Killer robot
Sep 6, 2010

I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it!
Pillbug

Ugly In The Morning posted:

Because that's what mad scientists do. And he is a mad goddamn scientist.

I think he was more of an angry scientist.

MisterBibs
Jul 17, 2010

dolla dolla
bill y'all
Fun Shoe
Watching Oblivion today reminded me a Movie Moment that is not only Irrationally Irritating, but Goonilly Irritating.

I dislike it when a movie depicts a scene that would normally have nudity, but due to ratings/actors, can't show it. Not because I desperately want to see the assorted goods, but because the various tricks used to hide said goods never look natural. Posing, special sheets, whatever.

Stupid_Sexy_Flander
Mar 14, 2007

Is a man not entitled to the haw of his maw?
Grimey Drawer
I was more annoyed with the "GONNA EXPLORE, LEMME GRAB MY MOTORBIKE!" idea.

Somehow, exploring a dangerous world via ground by a two wheeled vehicle doesn't exactly sound like the safest/easiest option. I'd have bought a 4 wheeler in the scenes, but a goddamned motorbike when there are pretty much NO roads and all rough ground, and it's not even a dirt bike?

God that movie was just.... NNNNRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH IT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER GOD DAMMIT.

:argh:

Whatev
Jan 19, 2007

unfading

Gorilla Salad posted:

In the opening scene of District 9, when they're going around the camps and you see the guy casually torch a shanty full of the aliens' eggs was when I stopped caring in the slightest at any misfortune he would later suffer.

Murdering someone's kids right in front of the parents does not make me inclined to sympathy when you start turning into Brundlefly.
Well yeah, but Wikus is supposed to be a pretty bad person; Christopher is the good guy. Wikus is a selfish and callous man who slowly becomes sympathetic to the aliens' throughout the course of the film. He's a bad person who later manages to redeem himself, not an unassuming hero. His behavior at the beginning is intended to be abhorrent.

Xander77
Apr 6, 2009

Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.



Modern Day Hercules posted:

No they're both actually just regular stupid. There are entire sections of book stores filled with books that are just as stupid as any stupid movie, and if you find World War Z outside of one then it's been misplaced. There is nothing of value at all in the book There's not much of value in the movie either, but at least that only lasts 2 hours. Just because it's a book about zombies doesn't magically elevate it to "nerd stupid" and I don't know why you'd consider that an elevation anyway.
Someone sat down and thought about the book. There was a lot of spergy effort put into it - interviews, social issues, military tech porn, "biting satirical commentary". Nobody thought about the movie beyond "Brad Pitt + Zombies = $$$".

As for "nothing of value" - if you can't find a zombie underwater nightmare for every battle of yonkers, a guide to dog training in a zombie apocalypse for every zatoichi, the rebuilding of national infrastructure after a world changing disaster for every orthodox priest performing mercy executions - well, genre fiction may not be for you.

Megillah Gorilla
Sep 22, 2003

If only all of life's problems could be solved by smoking a professor of ancient evil texts.



Bread Liar

Whatev posted:

Well yeah, but Wikus is supposed to be a pretty bad person; Christopher is the good guy. Wikus is a selfish and callous man who slowly becomes sympathetic to the aliens' throughout the course of the film. He's a bad person who later manages to redeem himself, not an unassuming hero. His behavior at the beginning is intended to be abhorrent.

Certainly, that was the intent. But I never got the feeling Wikus was actually redeemed. Only that his transformation and being hunted forced him into a corner with no other option. This is just my reaction, of course, I'm sure many viewers took away exactly what they were supposed to. I just could never get away from the image of him using a flamethrower on those eggs while being all Mr Petty Officious Bureaucrat as the distraught alien parents looked on.

Or it could be because many South Africans emigrated to Australia after the end of Apartheid rather than get necklaced for their part in the oppression and I personally know more than a few who fit the Wikus mold exactly.

Mikl
Nov 8, 2009

Vote shit sandwich or the shit sandwich gets it!
I watched Elysium, and I was absolutely mad at the ending.

The reason being simple: up until then, the division between rich and poor people and the lack of magical healing pods for the poor could have been explained as "there's not enough to go around for everybody, so rich people do what rich people usually do and don't give them away to everybody. But the ending shows that there ARE enough pods for everybody, enough even that you can fill entire spaceships with them, bring them down to Earth to the poor people and still have enough for the rich.
I know, it is an apartheid allegory, but I refuse to believe that in a post-scarcity future setting there would be a group of people that hoards all the resources even though there's enough for everyone, and NO ONE inside that group thinks to say "well then, what if we share them with the poor?"

AlternateAccount
Apr 25, 2005
FYGM

Gorilla Salad posted:

Certainly, that was the intent. But I never got the feeling Wikus was actually redeemed. Only that his transformation and being hunted forced him into a corner with no other option. This is just my reaction, of course, I'm sure many viewers took away exactly what they were supposed to. I just could never get away from the image of him using a flamethrower on those eggs while being all Mr Petty Officious Bureaucrat as the distraught alien parents looked on.

This is kind of what makes the movie good, I think. Did his heart really grow three sizes that day? Or is he still just desperate and selfish and using the only means at his disposal to get "fixed?"

hawowanlawow
Jul 27, 2009

Mikl posted:

I watched Elysium, and I was absolutely mad at the ending.

The reason being simple: up until then, the division between rich and poor people and the lack of magical healing pods for the poor could have been explained as "there's not enough to go around for everybody, so rich people do what rich people usually do and don't give them away to everybody. But the ending shows that there ARE enough pods for everybody, enough even that you can fill entire spaceships with them, bring them down to Earth to the poor people and still have enough for the rich.
I know, it is an apartheid allegory, but I refuse to believe that in a post-scarcity future setting there would be a group of people that hoards all the resources even though there's enough for everyone, and NO ONE inside that group thinks to say "well then, what if we share them with the poor?"


Well, we have the ability to feed everyone in the world and we don't do it. We have the ability to provide healthcare for every American and we don't do it. We have the ability to provide clean energy and stop burning fossil fuels but we don't do it. Less than 5% of the world population owns more than 50% of the wealth and we don't do anything about it. So, what's so hard to believe about Elysium? At the rate we're going, I don't think even free energy would do anything to equalise living conditions in the world, inequality is so ingrained in our lovely culture that even the poorest people vote Republican and sneer at socialists. (I haven't actually seen it, I'm just going by what you said about it.)

Mikl
Nov 8, 2009

Vote shit sandwich or the shit sandwich gets it!
The problem is that the main struggle of the movie, on the heroes' part, is to get from "Mexico" to "The United States" (actually a dirt-poor, Spanish-speaking Earth and a sparkling clean, ultra-rich, English-speaking space station) to get themselves cured of their illnesses through magical healing pods. The movie even makes the Mexico-US analogy blatant by having one of the Elysian bigwig shooting spaceships full of illegal immigrants out of the sky, and trying to justify this to her government by saying (paraphrased only slightly): "We can't let them in, no matter the cost, because if not they'll tear apart our way of living."
At this point everyone knows WHY the earthlings are trying to get to Elysium: to get cured. And even though, as the ending shows, sending ships full of healing pods down to Earth is literally just a matter of someone pressing a button (no logistics issues, no scarcity problems, no nothing, as opposed as the huge effort it would take in the real world), no one thinks to say "Well then, maybe if we send them the healing supplies they WON'T try to get up here, don't you think?"


Simply put: the ending, as shown in the movie, completely defeats the POINT of the movie.

Mikl has a new favorite as of 15:38 on Sep 24, 2013

Phanatic
Mar 13, 2007

Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

Mikl posted:

I watched Elysium, and I was absolutely mad at the ending.

The reason being simple: up until then, the division between rich and poor people and the lack of magical healing pods for the poor could have been explained as "there's not enough to go around for everybody, so rich people do what rich people usually do and don't give them away to everybody. But the ending shows that there ARE enough pods for everybody, enough even that you can fill entire spaceships with them, bring them down to Earth to the poor people and still have enough for the rich.
I know, it is an apartheid allegory, but I refuse to believe that in a post-scarcity future setting there would be a group of people that hoards all the resources even though there's enough for everyone, and NO ONE inside that group thinks to say "well then, what if we share them with the poor?"


The bigger issue is that the problems on earth are far wider than relatively poor medical care. It's polluted, it's overcrowded, it's crushingly impoverished. So now it's polluted, impoverished, and overpopulated with perfectly healthy people, so all those other problems just got worse, and those other problems sure aren't fixed by changing an entry in a database. If the people up on Elysium could have done this at any time, if they're post-scarcity to the extent that they could send those medical ships down and heal everybody without cost to themselves, but didn't, they're evil. But if they're that evil...why don't they just shoot down incoming illegal shuttles themselves without having to resort to the subterfuge of the sleeper agent? It doesn't make sense, either Elysium is resource-limited and has actual practical reasons for not flooding the planet with medical beds in which case the ending of the film is a happy one only because the credits roll before the imminent utter collapse of both societies, or there's no reason not to send the pods down in which case the Elysians are an evil bunch of bastards who excludes people from their post-scarcity society because they just enjoy it that way, in which case why do their evil robot cops (who will beat the poo poo out of a person because he makes a joke) carry Tasers?

Along those lines, what's with the product placement? Bulgari and Bugatti apparently paid for real product placement in this movie, so if the Elysians are that evil, that's hilarious. "Look at how evil these people are, but you should still aspire to wear the same brand of watch that they do!" This is like if IG Farben paid for product placement in Schindler's List.

Did you notice that when Matt Damon's moving around on Elysium he's able to open any door he wants to, but then as soon as he meets up with the coyote on Elysium, now he can't open any doors and the coyote has to hack them all open with his laptop?

And the notion that the President is literally and entirely identified by a field in a database and not by, you know, *people knowing who he is* is amusing. If it were a situation where the Elysians had totally surrendered the running of the thing to the computers and the robots, okay, this would work, but they haven't, there are still plenty of real people with guns up there, it's not like they're going to say "Hrm, Bob was President yesterday but today it's Steve. Makes sense. Yes, I know we haven't had any elections, but that's what this print-out says."

Related note: I'm getting tired of villains having to be thoroughly vile. Can't they just be ordinary and competent people in the service of the bad guys? The sleeper agent can't just be a soldier who works for the Elysians, he's got to be a sadist and a rapist as well. This gets tiresome, it's like the audience won't understand they're supposed to root against him if he's just Otto Skorzeny, so he has to be Ted Bundy. Either the author can't conceive of shadings of moral difference, or he thinks the audience can't.


This could have been a really good sci-fi movie if there'd been a bit more thought to it. As it is, it's visually gorgeous and worth seeing just for the visuals. There are a lot of films so filled with CGI that never let you forget, for a single instant, that you're watching a bunch of CGI. This film has just that much, but it's like District 9: The verisimilitude is perfect, it just looks real. Except for Jodie Foster's accent, which takes the award for "worst ever" away from Kate Beckinsale in Van Helsing.

jabby
Oct 27, 2010

Whatev posted:

Well yeah, but Wikus is supposed to be a pretty bad person; Christopher is the good guy. Wikus is a selfish and callous man who slowly becomes sympathetic to the aliens' throughout the course of the film. He's a bad person who later manages to redeem himself, not an unassuming hero. His behavior at the beginning is intended to be abhorrent.

The scene annoyed me purely because it felt too over-the-top. Could I believe a government official torching alien eggs? Sure. Do I think they would do it in front of a documentary crew and make jokey comments about what they were doing? Not really. It's so obviously morally wrong that the only way it could be presented to the public would be as a necessary evil, and even then it would probably cause a bunch of outrage. Unless Wickus was literally a psychopath (and a retarded one at that) he should've known how he was coming across.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

jabby posted:

The scene annoyed me purely because it felt too over-the-top. Could I believe a government official torching alien eggs? Sure. Do I think they would do it in front of a documentary crew and make jokey comments about what they were doing? Not really. It's so obviously morally wrong that the only way it could be presented to the public would be as a necessary evil, and even then it would probably cause a bunch of outrage. Unless Wickus was literally a psychopath (and a retarded one at that) he should've known how he was coming across.

Wikus van der Merwe is pretty representative of bureaucrats in apartheid-era South Africa. They didn't think apartheid was wrong, so why would they worry about what people thought? The egg-burning is maybe a little extreme, but then it's easier to dehumanise people when they really aren't human.

MisterBibs
Jul 17, 2010

dolla dolla
bill y'all
Fun Shoe

Phanatic posted:

Related note: I'm getting tired of villains having to be thoroughly vile. Can't they just be ordinary and competent people in the service of the bad guys? The sleeper agent can't just be a soldier who works for the Elysians, he's got to be a sadist and a rapist as well. This gets tiresome, it's like the audience won't understand they're supposed to root against him if he's just Otto Skorzeny, so he has to be Ted Bundy. Either the author can't conceive of shadings of moral difference, or the thinks the audience can't.

I think the bolded parts have a lot to do with it. It's not that the audience can't conceive of shadings of moral differences, but that they can, and are all too willing to do so. If your thematic goal is to make sure that nobody stands on the side of the Bad Guy, he has to become a Really Bad Guy.

The bad guys in Elysium have to be over-the-top bad guys, because the filmmakers don't want you to think about how horrible it'd be if everyone on Earth suddenly had the ability to be practically immortal whenever they want.

RyokoTK
Feb 12, 2012

I am cool.

Phanatic posted:

Related note: I'm getting tired of villains having to be thoroughly vile. Can't they just be ordinary and competent people in the service of the bad guys?

This is arguably the entirely worst thing about the Star Wars prequels to me. How do you know Anakin's fallen to the dark side? Because he savagely murders children for no reason at all. Which, you know, is entirely in character and a reasonable thing to do.

Phanatic
Mar 13, 2007

Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

RyokoTK posted:

This is arguably the entirely worst thing about the Star Wars prequels to me. How do you know Anakin's fallen to the dark side? Because he savagely murders children for no reason at all. Which, you know, is entirely in character and a reasonable thing to do.

Plinkett gets into that in one of the RLM reviews. In Episode IV, he's a bad guy, but he's hanging out at the conference table with the rest of the Evil Board of Directors. He's not Space Hitler. It's not even him who gives the order to blow away Alderaan, that's just some army officer. But in the prequels they have to do poo poo like that to elevate his badness level because the whole story's *about him*, not about some evil empire in which he's just another cog (albeit a larger and more important cog than most).

And the worst bit about that is that it makes Padme a creepy character by extension, because if you're going to make Vader into Space Hitler then Padme becomes Eva Braun. "What's that, my love? You just slaughtered an entire village of sand people, including women and children? Sounds like you could use a hug [puppydog eyes]."

swamp waste
Nov 4, 2009

There is some very sensual touching going on in the cutscene there. i don't actually think it means anything sexual but it's cool how it contrasts with modern ideas of what bad ass stuff should be like. It even seems authentic to some kind of chivalric masculine touching from a tyme longe gone

radiatinglines posted:

Well, we have the ability to feed everyone in the world and we don't do it. We have the ability to provide healthcare for every American and we don't do it. We have the ability to provide clean energy and stop burning fossil fuels but we don't do it. Less than 5% of the world population owns more than 50% of the wealth and we don't do anything about it. So, what's so hard to believe about Elysium? At the rate we're going, I don't think even free energy would do anything to equalise living conditions in the world, inequality is so ingrained in our lovely culture that even the poorest people vote Republican and sneer at socialists. (I haven't actually seen it, I'm just going by what you said about it.)

But people don't just refuse to solve those problems out of spite, it's because the problems are the result of a huge number of complex systems-- economic, social, ecological, geographic, etc.-- interacting and no single person or agenda has control over them all. In the movie they literally could solve the problem with the press of a button, but they don't, either for reasons of pure evil or because of factors that are never really explored. So the axis of the whole conflict is either arbitrary pointless evil or a bunch of issues that never come into play and are never solved.

Children of Men has the same problem. Why is the Human Project not allowed to do what they do? I guess to give the protagonists a goal for their journey. Maybe it's a problem of dystopian fiction in general, of wanting to have the heroes "solve" society by doing action movie stuff. It's a choice between that, or a "he loved Big Brother" straight up unhappy ending, or having the conflict take place on a more personal scale within the dystopia. Elysium starts on that scale but then goes epic in a way that doesn't quite make sense.

...of SCIENCE!
Apr 26, 2008

by Fluffdaddy

jabby posted:

The scene annoyed me purely because it felt too over-the-top. Could I believe a government official torching alien eggs? Sure. Do I think they would do it in front of a documentary crew and make jokey comments about what they were doing? Not really. It's so obviously morally wrong that the only way it could be presented to the public would be as a necessary evil, and even then it would probably cause a bunch of outrage. Unless Wickus was literally a psychopath (and a retarded one at that) he should've known how he was coming across.

You don't need to believe it, it's a thing that literally happens right now. And we don't even have the excuse of doing it against another species.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD5oMxbMcHM

bonestructure
Sep 25, 2008

by Ralp

...of SCIENCE! posted:

You don't need to believe it, it's a thing that literally happens right now. And we don't even have the excuse of doing it against another species.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD5oMxbMcHM

How have I not heard of this film before? It looks absolutely brilliant.

Cowslips Warren
Oct 29, 2005

What use had they for tricks and cunning, living in the enemy's warren and paying his price?

Grimey Drawer

Gorilla Salad posted:

In the opening scene of District 9, when they're going around the camps and you see the guy casually torch a shanty full of the aliens' eggs was when I stopped caring in the slightest at any misfortune he would later suffer.

Murdering someone's kids right in front of the parents does not make me inclined to sympathy when you start turning into Brundlefly.


Has been hit on nonstop, but seriously, this is what exterminators do. And in District 9, the roaches might be six feet tall, but they're still roaches.

But once he gets his arm bugged up, and Wikus is technically a prisoner, he does spazz out at being made to shoot a prawn. Because I imagine it's one thing to shoot a giant roach in cold blood, and the roach is clearly afraid and wants out, compared to wiping out effectively a few hundred potential roach-to-be problems.

gently caress, if the aliens in Avatar looked half as odd/insecty as the prawns did, the movie would have been about humans claiming manifest destiny over a bunch of animals. Some people might balk at keeping prawns in ghettos (at least until they go outside and find prawn poo poo everywhere and cat food cans all over the place) but very very few people would be down with caging up giant human-ish large Disney eyed cat people.

Razorwired
Dec 7, 2008

It's about to start!

Cowslips Warren posted:

Has been hit on nonstop, but seriously, this is what exterminators do. And in District 9, the roaches might be six feet tall, but they're still roaches.

But once he gets his arm bugged up, and Wikus is technically a prisoner, he does spazz out at being made to shoot a prawn. Because I imagine it's one thing to shoot a giant roach in cold blood, and the roach is clearly afraid and wants out, compared to wiping out effectively a few hundred potential roach-to-be problems.

gently caress, if the aliens in Avatar looked half as odd/insecty as the prawns did, the movie would have been about humans claiming manifest destiny over a bunch of animals. Some people might balk at keeping prawns in ghettos (at least until they go outside and find prawn poo poo everywhere and cat food cans all over the place) but very very few people would be down with caging up giant human-ish large Disney eyed cat people.

Japanese Internment, Jewish Ghettos, Indian Reservations, South African Apartheid. People can be okay with locking other humans up. Giant blue cat people wouldn't be that hard to demonize.

My irritating moment with that movie didn't even come from the movie's script. It was so many people afterwards that I knew saying "Well I guess Christopher and his son had evolved into the new leader caste." No, dummy, the leader caste thing is some racist bullshit similar to using phrenology to prove that black people like being slaves. Whoever was running the ship died in whatever happened and we met a bunch of laborers and janitors. After they got locked up one of the laymen spent years teaching himself spaceship repair. When I studied for an exam I didn't "evolve into a third year student."

Terminal Entropy
Dec 26, 2012

Razorwired posted:

My irritating moment with that movie didn't even come from the movie's script. It was so many people afterwards that I knew saying "Well I guess Christopher and his son had evolved into the new leader caste." No, dummy, the leader caste thing is some racist bullshit similar to using phrenology to prove that black people like being slaves. Whoever was running the ship died in whatever happened and we met a bunch of laborers and janitors. After they got locked up one of the laymen spent years teaching himself spaceship repair. When I studied for an exam I didn't "evolve into a third year student."

It's something that pops up in colony based things like that: if the queen dies, some random drone spontaneously becomes a new queen. Don't know about real life insects, but it is something that pops up works of fiction, I know specifically that drone to queen evolution has been sperged to happen with Xenomorphs.

The prawn interrogation trailer that never happened in the movie specifically mentioned a queen that died if I remember it correctly.

Terminal Entropy has a new favorite as of 05:40 on Sep 25, 2013

Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007

Yeah, there was actually a queen, but that was extrapolated in the racist bullshit to mean every other prawn was some dumb useless moron. Christopher doesn't become the new leader caste, he's just a smart dude that gets his poo poo together.

Reptoid Democracy
Nov 30, 2009
ASK ME ABOUT REPORTING PEOPLE FOR EMPTY-QUOTING IN THE QUOTE THREAD

Razorwired posted:

Japanese Internment, Jewish Ghettos, Indian Reservations, South African Apartheid. People can be okay with locking other humans up. Giant blue cat people wouldn't be that hard to demonize.

My irritating moment with that movie didn't even come from the movie's script. It was so many people afterwards that I knew saying "Well I guess Christopher and his son had evolved into the new leader caste." No, dummy, the leader caste thing is some racist bullshit similar to using phrenology to prove that black people like being slaves. Whoever was running the ship died in whatever happened and we met a bunch of laborers and janitors. After they got locked up one of the laymen spent years teaching himself spaceship repair. When I studied for an exam I didn't "evolve into a third year student."

But he and his son were demonstrably smarter then the other prawns. The one helping scavenging couldn't tell the difference between human and alien technology, while the kid could remotely fly the ship and the mech. I thought Christopher was the only survivor of the leadership caste, which was why he had the shuttle thing.

Mr. Bad Guy
Jun 28, 2006
While we're on Distric 9, howsabout how a single drop of Magic Space Fuel means the difference between being ready to go and not, then Wickus comes along and sprays, like a full ounce of it all over himself, and this does not affect the Prawn's plan at all?

Also, Magic Space Fuel turns humans into prawns. Hello? Really?

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Mr. Bad Guy posted:

While we're on Distric 9, howsabout how a single drop of Magic Space Fuel means the difference between being ready to go and not, then Wickus comes along and sprays, like a full ounce of it all over himself, and this does not affect the Prawn's plan at all?
I assumed that they needed a drop of <magic space fuel component number 37> to complete the otherwise finished magic space fuel recipe. Remember that there was apparently going to be enough spare to sit around in orbit for a bit to fix Wikkus until Christopher decided time was of the essence due to humans being dicks.

Mr. Bad Guy posted:

Also, Magic Space Fuel turns humans into prawns. Hello? Really?
Prawn technology is heavily biological in nature. For all we know <magic space fuel component number 17> is puréed prawn stem cells.

EmmyOk
Aug 11, 2013

While the film itself is an allegory for apartheid, it's worth remembering it's also a sci-fi film. The 'prawns' are quite closely related to eusocial insects so it'd make sense for them to have castes. I don't think it's a comment on humans in that respect though. Christopher was easily overpowered by the jerk military commander (Qoobus?) whereas another prawn was able to kick a man in half. That seems like a pretty big disparity in strength if there are no castes. I don't think they have a Queen though, and I don't think Christopher would be anything similar to that.

Modern Day Hercules
Apr 26, 2008
I don't think it matters if there was a caste system or not. It's pretty clear that the aliens' situation is not due to some inherent weakness or stupidity but rather the circumstances of their existence. A lot of them do seem to be really stupid and violent, but they're forced to live in filth and poo poo by a power system that actively hates them which does not tend to bring out the best in anybody, even an alien. That's way more important than any biological stuff about the prawns.

peer
Jan 17, 2004

this is not what I wanted

EmmyOk posted:

Christopher was easily overpowered by the jerk military commander (Qoobus?) whereas another prawn was able to kick a man in half

I think that might have been because the jerk military commander had guns. The prawns are obviously strong physically but that doesn't mean they'll always have the upper hand when dealing with humans. They're kinda fragile, too, judging by the one who goes down from a single machete chop in the back.


Edit: Also what the guy above me said. I definitely interpreted all the "blah blah they're all useless, dumb drones" as justification for keeping them in their shithole camp.

jabby
Oct 27, 2010

A couple of minor annoyances from the otherwise great film The Terminator.

- Right at the end when the terminator is crawling through the hydraulic press, there is no way it would have had enough purchase to move itself. The floor of the press is practically polished steel and it only has tiny metal fingertips.

- Sarah's line 'You're terminated, fucker'. I know it's the 80's and we have to kill the bad guy with a pithy one-liner, but it just comes out of nowhere.

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Tunicate
May 15, 2012

jabby posted:

A couple of minor annoyances from the otherwise great film The Terminator.

- Right at the end when the terminator is crawling through the hydraulic press, there is no way it would have had enough purchase to move itself. The floor of the press is practically polished steel and it only has tiny metal fingertips.
Magnets!

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