SuperMechagodzilla posted:

The basic problem of a such a thread is that no-one has a concept of what made Alien or Aliens 'good'.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Well I mean, for example, the scene where the soldiers go surfing in the warzone. It would be more effective if they had a reason to be surfing, like it is part of their mission objectives. Maybe they are trying to reach the enemy base covertly, and they can't use outboard motors: "why not use surfboards!"

It's still a bit silly, but i think this would fix a lot of the character inconsistencies.

Either that or they could explain that this part of Vietnam is very safe, so surfing is okay.

Toady posted:

Thorne talks about the evolution and intangibility of scientific beliefs and contrasts it with the immediate reality of the sea around them.

quote:

"Are you listening to all that?" Thorne said. "I wouldn't take any of it too seriously. It's jist theories. Human beings can't help making them, but the fact is that theories are just fantasies. And they change. When America was a new country, people believed in something called phlogiston. You know what that is? No? Well, it doesn't matter, because it wasn't real anyway. They also believed that four humors controlled behavior. And they believed that the earth was only a few thousand years old. Now we believe the earth is four billion years old, and we believe in photons and electrons, and we think human behavior is controlled by things like ego and self-esteem. We think those beliefs are more scientific and better."

"Aren't they?

Thorne shrugged. "They're still just fantasies. They're not real. Have you ever seen a self-esteem? Can you bring me one on a plate? How about a photon? Can you bring me one of those?"

Kelly shook her head. "No, but..."

"And you never will, because those things don't exist. No matter how seriously people take them," Thorne said. "A hundred years from now, people will look back at us and laugh. They'll say, 'You know what people used to believe? They believed in photons and electrons. Can you imagine anything so silly?' They'll have a good laugh, because by then there will be newer and better fantasies." Thorne shook his head. "And meanwhile, you feel the way the boat moves? That's the sea. That's real. You smell the salt in the air? You feel the sunlight on your skin? That's all real. You see all of us together? That's real. Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else. Now look at that compass, and tell me where south is. I want to go to Puerto Cortes. It's time for us all to go home."

Snowman_McK posted:

Wow. Man, gently caress Crichton.

As well as being really offensive, it's also just really stupid.

Toady posted:

You may believe that Crichton didn't believe in electrons, but the fictional character Thorne's statement is based on his backstory as a former professor of applied engineering who was increasingly at odds with academia. He's a foil for Malcom the theoretical mathematician, who criticized engineers in the first book ("They don’t have intelligence. They have what I call ‘thintelligence.’ They see the immediate situation. They think narrowly and they call it ‘being focused.’"). His final statement comes after Malcolm theorizes that humanity's function is to kill everything.

DeimosRising posted:

Do you have any evidence that the character is speaking the beliefs of the author directly?

Xenomrph posted:

Don't worry, I got your reference.

On the topic of Crichton-chat, I like the book 'Sphere' but I think the movie is better. The casting is perfect, and the movie handles several of the "twists" and suspense moments better than the book does. The biggest one is Harry's theory that if the (human) spacecraft actually traveled through time, that means none of the characters make it back to the surface alive otherwise it would cause a paradox. In the movie, Harry introduces it fairly early after they realize what they've discovered, and it becomes a huge point of suspense because logically he's right, so it makes the audience question if/how the characters are going to survive. In the book, Harry brings it up literally 3 pages from the end of the book, after the characters have already made it back to the surface. That leaves two scenarios: either the characters all die right before the book ends, or they solve the problem immediately. And since it's a Crichton novel, you know exactly which scenario it's going to be right away, and there's no suspense.

Toady posted:

Thorne isn't literally saying that things you can't see don't exist. His point is that consensus changes. The ending is an ironic inversion of the first novel, in which Malcolm uses mathematical models to predict that the park is inherently unstable, and Arnold responds that he's dealing with "life, not computer models." Thorne is a practicalist who believes engineers should study psychology because human beings undermine their perfect mathematical formulas.

Schwarzwald posted:

He doesn't imply that it will, only that there are currently things that are believed to be true that will no longer be believed to be true in the future.

Which is a very safe bet.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

This is foregoing the act of reading in order to fixate on whether dead celebrity Michael Crichton was a bad person, which of course he was.

If you've actually read State Of Fear, the bulk of it is a ridiculous pulp adventure novel where they literally travel to Cannibal Island to blow up the supervillains' doomsday earthquake machine. I'm pretty sure someone fights a crocodile at some point.

There is no point in the book where a character says "science isn't real" or anything of the sort. The failing of the book is the opposite: that it frequently pauses for the exposition character to give a PowerPoint presentation about temperature data, complete with charts and graphs. But this is secondary to the book's overall goal of trolling liberals.

Snowman_McK posted:

Whedon, like Sorkin and the overwhelmingly majority of artistic types, has one thing he's really good at, and every time he steps outside his area of specialty, he either struggles, or it turns back into his specialty, the way Sorkin wrote something with the same plot as 30 Rock with the intensity of the White House ops room.

quote:

I watched Prometheus and didn't hate it but I must admit I am confused as to how these movies are all supposed to fit together. I think I read this is a direct sequel to Prometheus but it doesn't look like the Engineers are involved at all in the upcoming film.

Please someone tell my stupid rear end what the gently caress is happening lol.

mllaneza posted:

The role originally called for Ninja from Die Antwoord. He turned it down because he wanted to be known for his music and a major SF epic would overshadow that. So yeah, Eminem or something like that.

Alhazred posted:

It's real bad.

Covok posted:

Breetai posted:

Is it just me who doesn't feel like he was blown away by Rakka? It felt like the first 5 minutes of a Syfy original movie stretched over 20 minutes, only with really clunky exposition.

Schwarzwald posted:

God forbid a person believe what they say.

Ferrinus posted:

Well, Weyland from the hologram at the beginning of Prometheus doesn't really act, sound, dress, look, or act like the Weyland who comes out of a cryopod towards the end of the movie.

Martman posted:

I'm not lying when I say that Prometheus was a laugh-out-loud funny movie experience for me when I originally saw it in theaters. It's thrilling and tense, but it approaches this tension from David's (mostly) justifiably hateful point of view. I'm not gonna claim the whole theater was laughing or anything, but I genuinely found it funny how much of a "gently caress you" statement I felt the movie was making.

Monglo posted:

Inability to even correctly identify the genre the film is made in disqualifies you from having further discussion.

LesterGroans posted:

It's really impressive watching Star Wars now and noticing how propulsive it is. Like you said, there's almost no exposition whatsoever until maybe the quick war room scene before the Death Star attack, and that's basically the end of the film. More sci-fi/fantasy films need to look back at the editing and pacing of the first movie and stop front-loading the worldbuilding.

Basebf555 posted:

The text crawl/opening exposition monologue has fallen out of fashion in modern film but I wish more sci-fi films used it. It's a great way to lay a foundation and then allow the audience to drop right into the story without having to spend precious time on establishing the basics. Right away we know there's an Empire, and a Rebellion fighting them. Some movies use like 15 minutes just to go over that kind of extremely basic information.