how are any of the challenges except dragon wrestling entertaining for spectators?
Actually not even the dragon wrestling was good for the spectators since harry potter was flying around the castle and the guys could see a little bit of it before it moved out of their vision...i would have thought thy would of had wizard screens or some shit...otherwise it is a boring tournament to watch lol.
I'm pretty sure in the book they had a big one of those viewing pools or something that they were all watching. Never watched the filmOriginally Posted by Xercies
You're right, and I don't watch porn either. Why settle for less?
Nobody has a problem with fantasy. Lord of the Rings is awesome. The problem with films like Sunshine, 2012, Prometheus et al. is that they purport to be taking place in the real world and to depict real scientific processes. Gross scientific inaccuracies do indeed violate the internal logic of such films. Moreover, given the state of public (mis)understanding of science in the world today, these depictions of the form of science without the substance have real-world repercussions.
Last edited by Rii; 11-07-2012 at 06:35 AM.
Well said, now I don't have to type up a response.
Agreed. Though I think in Sunshine's case, the suspension of disbelief is relatively minimal. People don't act incredibly stupidly like in Prometheus, beyond the crazy space plot device of course. He's a walking plot hole in himself.
Fully agreed. Though like Blaze I didn't find Sunshine quite as egregious as Prometheus in that regard.
Why yes you're right I'm deliciously evil
Tradition is the tyranny of dead men
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*blush* I'm flattered by the attention boys, but please let's not make the thread about liddle old me
The Matrix. How did the people of Zion ever get the first matrix-embedded human out, and train him to plug back in?
Based on The Architect's speech, I think the machines help with that and then conveniently let people roam around the farms.
The Matrix doesn't make any sense no matter how you look at it. Why didn't the machines simply build nuclear power plants? They'd have enough nuclear material to last well beyond the nuclear winter on the surface and go back to using solar power. =/
Aside from laneford saying "Prometheus. All of it," I'm not sure what the issue is, not having seen it. The setting may be "realistic" but the intent of the director and writers should be taken into account. Do they believe their science is accurate, and is scientific accuracy of primary importance in the tale being told? Can you give an example of a plot hole from that movie? I reiterate that scientific implausibility is not normally a plot hole in and of itself. It may impair suspension of disbelief (for some more than others) but any sequelae of how the film influences perception of science in the real world sounds like an entirely separate discussion from whether a film has a plot hole.
I grew up watching Robotech and Voltron and Transformers. All of these feature giant robots, and technology is crucial to each, but all are science fiction with strong fantasy elements. Going back to Lord of the Rings, there was discussion about why the eagles couldn't just fly the ring all the way to its destruction. There wasn't any discussion that the eagles were a plot hole because really giant eagles couldn't fly or magic rings are a plot hole because magic rings don't exist.
I've read some of Keith Laumer's Bolo stories. These are about super-intelligent giant tanks. Their behaviors and abilities are consistent with the expectation that they are super-intelligent tanks, although I suspect that progress in artificial intelligence will never reach such heights.
Just because Lord of the Rings takes place in a low-technology world with elves and etc doesn't mean that all fantasy has to take that shape. The movie 300 took place on Earth in the past, and though portraying historic events was a fantasy film. That didn't seem to bother people too much. What makes historical inaccuracy more tolerable than scientific inaccuracy, and what makes either a plot hole? In either case you are comparing what's true within the film to what is true without the film, and that is a measure of external validity not internal consistency.
Last edited by icupnimpn2; 11-07-2012 at 01:21 PM.
Historical inaccuracy is plausible whereas scientific inaccuracy is not.
The original Matrix script made a lot more sense - Power wasn't an issue, they were farming humans for computational power.
Although thinking about it I wouldn't think that incredibly intelligent machines would need Humans, they'd just continue to make more robots.
Or use geothermal, tidal or wind power, but with the humans you don't need the matrix and without that you're just watching some computer work out pi as many decimal places as it can fit in its memory (or whatever the goal of the machines was).
the human as energy is just stupid thing higher ups come up. Alex is right by saying that originally it was a processing power of human brains they needed not energy.
and why?
if i can guess
intelligence of one thing does not equal of intelligence of another. there might be some limitations to computer brains which they cannot overcome. using human brains as cpus they can overcome those limitations.
example
agents, other programs actually run in matrix using the power of human thought processes. without matrix they would never truly be alive... smart, intelligent but dead inside.
just a guess on my part. the movies did not explain anything really.
Human graphics cards, they only want us for our anti-aliasing abilities.
To be honest I'm not too fussed by any of the science in Prometheus, so much as the consistency of its own logic. That and nobody bloody wears their helmets (morons!).
Though it's not an actual in-universe explanation for such a plot hole, my pet-theory is that 'the matrix' and 'the real world' were both levels in an overmatrix which had the overreaching goals of rehabilitating humans into civilised society.
In the second renaissance part 1 and 2 we see how barbarically the humans act towards the machines, who constantly try and treat the humans equally, but are beaten, destroyed, eventually nuked, and declared war on. So they crush the humans and plug them into the matrix. According to smith the first matrix is a paradise, but humans rejected it and died en masse. So the way I see it is the matrix is there to bring humans up to speed. The low down one is where most people are, which is fairly routine and humdrum and late 20th century. Zion is where a few escape to, with the hope of freeing the rest of the humans. Periodically the machines test the escapees, and specifically The One - reset the matrix, go back to the status quo, or protect the one you love - act with compassion or reset the system. Whether Smith is deliberate or not doesn't matter, because 'the real world' isn't real either, so no actual machines are threatened. But it explains why Neo can hack 'the real world' as much as he can the matrix. Anyway, they end the war against the machines. Effectively, humanity levels up. Instead of fighting they opt to try co-operation and coexistence. They've finally proven themselves mature enough to get the chance to rejoin the world, or at least take the first step. The machines aren't idiots, they can use nuclear power or whatever takes their fancy, they don't need the humans, the matrix is a courtesy.
I think I was wrong to place the emphasis on 'real-world', when what it is really about is internal consistency, where the consistency to be observed is not so much a product of the work itself but in how the audience perceives it. For example, if I were watching a hard-bitten police procedural on television and the final twist was that dragons did it, I would describe this as 'bullshit' not because there is anything wrong with having dragons in a story but because there is something wrong with having dragons in this particular story. 300 is unobjectionable because, despite its historical trappings, from the very beginning nobody could possibly mistake it for anything but fantasy. Same goes for Abraham Lincoln Vamipre Hunter. If we were watching Gandhi, OTOH, and he suddenly pulled out an AK-47 to mow down the British, this would be multifariously objectionable. The problem isn't a lack of realism, or even with fantasy juxtaposed with reality, but rather with fantasy seamlessly bleeding into reality in such a way as to go unacknowledged and unrecognised by the audience: the presentation of bullshit as non-bullshit.
As for an example of such stupidity in Prometheus: the scientists' removal of their helmets. We can understand one scientist doing it -- he's a moron. Some scientists are, being human. But for everyone else to take the fact that he doesn't immediately drop dead as sign that the atmosphere is safe to breathe is ridiculous. James Cameron apologised to the US Marine Corps for the depiction of the Marines in Aliens, but it's safe to say that depiction was a hell of a lot closer to reality than the conduct of the 'scientists' in Prometheus is.
And again, this habit of playing fast-and-loose with science is something that has real-world repercussions. It's not exactly on the level of wild irresponsibility of depicting a Muslim/Jewish/Chinese/UN/etc. conspiracy to destroy the world, but nor is it harmless.
* On that note, incidentally, I find it hilarious that the culprit in 'the first detective story', i.e. Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue, is a crazed chimpanzee.
Last edited by Rii; 12-07-2012 at 05:30 AM.
If we were watching Gandhi, OTOH, and he suddenly pulled out an AK-47 to mow down the British, this would be multifariously objectionable
What do you mean? He does do that!
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