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yeah I eat rear end posted:"Shields" is a dumb concept in scifi. They always either serve as buying time devices to keep the movie/episode going, or they are totally useless. I'm not sure when it started but it just seems to be accepted that if you have a spaceship it has some form of energy-based shields. Just make it really thick, no need to resort to something that can be turned off. Sure, like Star Wars where Tie Fighters are unshielded and thus explode immediately unlike X-Wings that are shielded and explode after a very brief delay. Best use of shields in sci-fi was Wrath of Khan. Not only because it's an awesome scene, but both ships come away so damaged that neither has any shields left for the rest of the movie.
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Nov 21, 2021 01:02
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Krispy Wafer posted:Sure, like Star Wars where Tie Fighters are unshielded and thus explode immediately unlike X-Wings that are shielded and explode after a very brief delay. Yeah shields are fine when used as a plot device by competent writers. Anything is fine when used as a plot device by competent writers.
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Nov 21, 2021 01:05
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I think supa shields is just a coping mechanicsm where people think that there must be some version / counter part to nukes or whatever is the new hotness, that way war/fighting is "fair." They cant accept that destroying things is just easy.
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Nov 21, 2021 01:30
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I mean it would be a fairly dull show if it just went like a game of Aurora where you get blown up by a massive bombardment of nukes from an enemy you didn't even know was there and also couldn't understand anything about even if you did.
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Nov 21, 2021 01:32
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The Expanse probably has the most realistic space combat of any sci do.
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Nov 21, 2021 01:47
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I like the shields in Dune where they're so advanced you have to use swords and stuff to get through them.
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Nov 21, 2021 01:48
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Beachcomber posted:
Fury Road (beaten) That's all I got off the top of my head.
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Nov 21, 2021 01:55
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Krispy Wafer posted:Sure, like Star Wars where Tie Fighters are unshielded and thus explode immediately unlike X-Wings that are shielded and explode after a very brief delay. Eh, I like to think if those as being enough to protect you against space dust and micrometeorites and maybe minor collisions but not against space lasers that are far too powerful to be blocked without a generator the size of a small building. Like its helpful and might save your life, but not if you straight up get strafed.
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Nov 21, 2021 01:56
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It just never seems like they never design ship weapons to exploit shield weaknesses. Like in SG-1, it's established that goa'uld personal shields (which presumably work on a similar premise to the ship ones on account of they look the same) that they can be penetrated by slow moving objects. Just don't shoot the nukes at them so fast maybe. They're falling for the same trap the asgard did - just because it's high-tech and fancy doesn't mean it's better than a dumb idea like just lobbing a missile at 5 mph.
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Nov 21, 2021 01:56
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Beachcomber posted:They actually ended up making that movie? Rambo: Part 4: First Blood 3 came out in 2006. I enjoyed it. Rocky Balboa came out 16 years after Rocky 5.
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Nov 21, 2021 02:12
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Creed 2 is technically a sequel to Rocky 4 and is better by dint of being a movie and not a 90 minute montage. Stallone cut Rocky 4 down himself so it could get more screenings per day and maximize ticket sales. Creed 2 doesnt have a robot though.
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Nov 21, 2021 02:44
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Inspector Gesicht posted:Creed 2 is technically a sequel to Rocky 4 and is better by dint of being a movie and not a 90 minute montage. Stallone cut Rocky 4 down himself so it could get more screenings per day and maximize ticket sales. Learned about the director's cut of Rocky IV after listening to The Bill Simmons Podcast and I admit I'm intrigued to see what was added.
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Nov 21, 2021 02:56
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Beachcomber posted:They actually ended up making that movie? When they get around to making Weekend at Bernies III it will be a great film that will prove you so wrong. He's STILL dead even after all of these years! Hilarity will ensue
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Nov 21, 2021 02:57
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Inspector Gesicht posted:Creed 2 is technically a sequel to Rocky 4 and is better by dint of being a movie and not a 90 minute montage. Stallone cut Rocky 4 down himself so it could get more screenings per day and maximize ticket sales. I started to mention the Creed movies but I didn't because it never felt like Stallone stopped making Rocky movies.
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Nov 21, 2021 03:05
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Not a movie, but Avatar the Last Airbender ended on a really annoying note for me. The hero of the show has to learn how to "bend" the four elements to defeat the evil fire lord and travels the world learning from masters of each respective element and gain wisdom from previous avatars in the spirit world. After three seasons building up to it, the avatar finally faces the fire lord in the very last couple of episodes and they have their huge battle to try and stop the fire nation's literal scorched earth campaign of genocide. The avatar defeats the fire lord and, rather than kill him, takes away his ability to bend. Everything in the show was really well set out, building on what came before in a really organic way. But removing a person's ability to bend was never even hinted at once in the entire series as something which even existed. Turns out the Avatar was taught how to do it offscreen by a giant mystical turtle in the previous episode and just never mentioned it. A literal deus ex machina. Megillah Gorilla has a new favorite as of 03:26 on Nov 21, 2021 |
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Nov 21, 2021 03:23
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yeah I eat rear end posted:"Shields" is a dumb concept in scifi. They always either serve as buying time devices to keep the movie/episode going, or they are totally useless. I'm not sure when it started but it just seems to be accepted that if you have a spaceship it has some form of energy-based shields. Just make it really thick, no need to resort to something that can be turned off. It's been a while, so I may be remembering wrong, but IIRC in the TV show Farscape the crew salvages a powerful shield from an old drifting battleship, which slowly degrades over a number of follow up episodes until it finally fails. It was really good, cause the IIMM for Farscape is that it was amazing and not enough people have seen it.
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Nov 21, 2021 03:33
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Ok, then where is my ice cream
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Nov 21, 2021 03:39
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Gaunab posted:I like the shields in Dune where they're so advanced you have to use swords and stuff to get through them. That moment in DUNE (2021) where the shield generator is hit with the specialized shield bombs and explodes but it takes a moment for the shield its generating to fail so you have this generator shaped fireball for a bit before exploding out completely. 
MariusLecter has a new favorite as of 03:49 on Nov 21, 2021 |
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Nov 21, 2021 03:45
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There's a scene in cowboy bebop, and it's even in the intro, where faye is grabbing and holding a punch dagger. Only, instead of holding it correctly, where the blade is pointed straight, it's at an angle like /. I dunno why this bugs me so much but it does. It's not really that hard to grab one of those and hold it straight.
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Nov 21, 2021 05:05
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Inspector Gesicht posted:Creed 2 is technically a sequel to Rocky 4 and is better by dint of being a movie and not a 90 minute montage. Stallone cut Rocky 4 down himself so it could get more screenings per day and maximize ticket sales. lol didn't that happen to Superman 4 as well?
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Nov 21, 2021 05:14
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In Invincible there's literally a girl that ages backwards when she uses her powers, so she looks 12 but is actually like 26. And the old guy secretly controlling all the robot bodies from a sort of Broken Science Man secret tube steals another team member's DNA and pays villains to clone him as a child, and put his mind in the child clone's body, specifically so he can go mack on this she's-totally-legal-to-drink-guys child. No other characters really remark on how loving weird and gross this is and Monster Girl actually seems into it.
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Nov 21, 2021 05:38
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LIVE AMMO COSPLAY posted:lol didn't that happen to Superman 4 as well? And it's the reason BvS released as a near incoherent theatrical cut.
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Nov 21, 2021 05:43
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Rockman Reserve posted:In Invincible there's literally a girl that ages backwards when she uses her powers, so she looks 12 but is actually like 26. And the old guy secretly controlling all the robot bodies from a sort of Broken Science Man secret tube steals another team member's DNA and pays villains to clone him as a child, and put his mind in the child clone's body, specifically so he can go mack on this she's-totally-legal-to-drink-guys child. No other characters really remark on how loving weird and gross this is and Monster Girl actually seems into it. DupliKate, black Samson, and RexPlode admonish him for it.
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Nov 21, 2021 08:42
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Krispy Wafer posted:Best use of shields in sci-fi was Wrath of Khan. Not only because it's an awesome scene, but both ships come away so damaged that neither has any shields left for the rest of the movie. Maybe this is exactly what you meant, but they never actually use the shields in TWOK? Both sides go in with ways to disable/ get around each others' shields and then go to town. Funny enough, even though it might be the most "Shields!"-heavy franchise in all of sci-fi, it's not until the end of Star Trek VI that we get a good look at a ship taking fire with its shields up, and even then it's not the force fields you might expect (and the way you'd see in TNG etc.) but a barely noticeable kind of electromagnetic reinforcement of the hull, so the ship itself is still getting hit. I'm curious how the discussion went that lead to that decision, because you know somewhere along the line someone had to sit down and think, "okay, we can't get around this anymore, what do these shields actually look like?"
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Nov 21, 2021 09:11
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Problematic old scifi ideas aside, The Mote in God's Eye still stands as one of my favourite examples of interesting technological limitation that lends itself to a cool story - and in this case the concepts for the 'FTL' drive and spaceship shields. Rather than using magic future tech to handwave problems, the tech has problems that are integral to the plot.
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Nov 21, 2021 09:59
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Megillah Gorilla posted:Not a movie, but Avatar the Last Airbender ended on a really annoying note for me. Yeah, that always felt like a very unearned way to end things. I mean yeah, at the end of the day it's primarily a kid's show, and you can't really have your hero come away with the lesson of "sometimes extremely bad people need killing". But they've been playing up the conflict between Aang's (relative) pacifism and the implacability of the fire lord for pretty much the whole season, and to just sidestep that whole thing with "actually there was a perfectly simple way to resolve the whole issue with no cost or complication" felt pretty cheap.
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Nov 21, 2021 10:29
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The lion turtle told Aang that if he fucks up the energy bending that he will kill himself. So Aang is risking his own life rather than killing someone.Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:There's a scene in cowboy bebop, and it's even in the intro, where faye is grabbing and holding a punch dagger. Only, instead of holding it correctly, where the blade is pointed straight, it's at an angle like /. I dunno why this bugs me so much but it does. It's not really that hard to grab one of those and hold it straight. The one scene I saw her with the push dagger was when she was fighting Spike in the first episode and she was holding it correctly? Do you mean this? If so that's a karambit. 
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Nov 21, 2021 11:15
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The Avatar having random magical bullshit no one else does is kinda their thing, at least. Plus, it's way better all round than just killing the guy. Iroh does point out that it specifically has to be the Avatar to defeat the Fire Lord, for poo poo to not get any worse. Iroh could probably beat Ozai at that point, but figures he'll be seen as just a usurper stealing his brother's glory. Not only bringing the Fire Lord literally to his knees but stripping him of his powers in lifelong public humiliation is the one thing that stops his war of conquest in its tracks. Hell, even better than killing him.
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Nov 21, 2021 11:21
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DarkDobe posted:Problematic old scifi ideas aside, The Mote in God's Eye still stands as one of my favourite examples of interesting technological limitation that lends itself to a cool story - and in this case the concepts for the 'FTL' drive and spaceship shields. Rather than using magic future tech to handwave problems, the tech has problems that are integral to the plot. As I understand it the story finale literally came from the limitations set down by the JPL guy who did a little math magic to explain their ftl and shield widgets, as part of the world building. As did the ship we spend most of the story on, which was a toy I think? And everything kind of flows backwards from those initial ideas. They went pretty hard on scientific consistency (such as you can) and moved a planetary orbit to keep a line, which was an interesting little blurb in the book I read. I kinda wish there was a little mini series with less of those issues you reference. It's a fun and weird story.
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Nov 21, 2021 16:25
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Yeah Aang killing the fire lord would have made a much worse ending. Like if Superman had just snapped his enemy's neck.
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Nov 21, 2021 19:08
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For waht its worth its nice that Aang's no kill rule has a clear cause and effect chain that causes a problem for Korra in her series. Sometimes a bitch got to be killed yo.
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Nov 21, 2021 19:28
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PhazonLink posted:For waht its worth its nice that Aang's no kill rule has a clear cause and effect chain that causes a problem for Korra in her series. On the other hand, Legend of Korra has a combustion bender get killed by having a steel cuirass wrapped around her head as she's about to fire, causing her head to literally explode which is badass. That set of 4 evil benders with the murderous airbender and his combustion-bender girlfriend, the disabled waterbender who used her bending to make arm tentacles as she was born without arms, and the lava bender was a really fun arc in that season.
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Nov 21, 2021 19:34
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Just finished watching Harder They Fall on Netflix, it was mostly enjoyable but I was annoyed that the love interest decided to yell "she's mine" and run off for a separate (and, ok, pretty cool) fight with the villain's love interest. Yes she knocked you out and threatened to kill you, but you were planning to kill her and all her friends. By the movie's own standards it doesn't seem like much to hold a grudge over. It always seems like a dumb, sexist cliché when two women have to square off with each other in action movies.
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Nov 21, 2021 20:10
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I know a guy that makes the argument that last Airbender would have been better if it showed charred corpses and violent gruesome deaths by bending. And that just wouldn't improve anything ever. Would the show be better if it acknowledged that people do die and things have stakes? Probably Do we need to see ultra violence? No that's just unnecessary grimdarkening My iimm about avatar is that people seem to think Iroh is some paragon of good and he's just as lovely as every other adult in the show.
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Nov 21, 2021 20:45
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BioEnchanted posted:On the other hand, Legend of Korra has a combustion bender get killed by having a steel cuirass wrapped around her head as she's about to fire, causing her head to literally explode which is badass. That set of 4 evil benders with the murderous airbender and his combustion-bender girlfriend, the disabled waterbender who used her bending to make arm tentacles as she was born without arms, and the lava bender was a really fun arc in that season. I remember the TVIV thread and a music gif of Rules of Nature for that kill. 10/10.
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Nov 21, 2021 21:00
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Hallucinogenic Toreador posted:Just finished watching Harder They Fall on Netflix, it was mostly enjoyable but I was annoyed that the love interest decided to yell "she's mine" and run off for a separate (and, ok, pretty cool) fight with the villain's love interest. Yes she knocked you out and threatened to kill you, but you were planning to kill her and all her friends. By the movie's own standards it doesn't seem like much to hold a grudge over. It always seems like a dumb, sexist cliché when two women have to square off with each other in action movies. This really annoys me in the first Guardian Of The Galaxy where the inevitable cat fight gets comically cut short before it can kick off... and then ends up happening anyway.
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Nov 21, 2021 21:16
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Len posted:My iimm about avatar is that people seem to think Iroh is some paragon of good and he's just as lovely as every other adult in the show. That's sort of required in kids shows in order for the kid main characters to be the ones that solve everything Not saying it's not an iimm, just that it's really common one
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Nov 21, 2021 23:21
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Mu Zeta posted:DupliKate, black Samson, and RexPlode admonish him for it. I might be misremembering the comics (it's been a while since I read them) but Robot and her are close in actual age (like 20s?) and in physical age (young teen?), I think? I guess he thought thought it would be cool if both things matched. It's definitely weird and gross though, maybe just use your super brain to help her not age backwards
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Nov 22, 2021 01:30
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Cowslips Warren posted:Yeah Aang killing the fire lord would have made a much worse ending. Like if Superman had just snapped his enemy's neck. I've got no issue with Aang showing mercy, that's his whole character - being at truly decent and kind person who has been through hell but still retains that inherent goodness. Which is a great message to teach. All in all, it's just a small thing as the ending does match with the themes of the show. It's just that it was so out of nowhere with three seasons setting up a world and its rules, then having a whole new concept being introduced offscreen by a magic turtle and never mentioned until the last few minutes of the final episode of the show.
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Nov 22, 2021 03:42
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Len posted:I know a guy that makes the argument that last Airbender would have been better if it showed charred corpses and violent gruesome deaths by bending. And that just wouldn't improve anything ever. TLA is like the DCAU where they get away with a fuckload by implication that they otherwise would never have done in a network cartoon.
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Nov 22, 2021 09:09
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