"somebody" <x### [at] ycom> writes:

>> Eh? It's rarely been /in/ fashion. Both in recent history and long term
>> history. People have been disposable in the past. I fail to see any
>> fundamental reason for that not happening again.
>
> It's one thing to routinely dispose of employees by firing them, it's
> another to literally dispose them into the garbage chute. The latter, if you
> have noticed, is not all that common.

I wasn't talking about firing.

>> I'm sure 99.9% of people surveyed will say lots of things are
>> unethical. Yet, when the opportunity arises, that number drops. Or
>> rather, they claim an exception.
>
> And it's the moviemakers' responsibility to convince me that that
> opportunity (& more importantly, the motive) arose. That the company
> operates on the moon instead of on earth is not enough excuse for me to buy
> that.

Yes, we do have different notions on what a movie/story is.

>> After all, are clones really people?
>
> The movie was too simpleminded to go into that.

Awesome way to defend any point you make, without actually saying
anything.

>> > It's an observation, and a very trivial one. I know you like being
> contrary,
>> > but surely even you are not going to argue that the robot (among many
> other
>> > things) is not a direct rip off from 2001? And I am sure opening the
> scene
>> > with an astronaut on a threadmill was also a coincidence.... etc
>
>> Frankly, I'm beginning to doubt that you've read much SF.
>
> That has precious little to do anything with the amount of "borrowed"
> material in this movie.

Oh, I don't know. Your statement reminds me of a friend who'd accuse any
movie that had a robot and took place in space as being ripped off from
Star Wars.

>> > It's a movie. It's self contained. And it's sufficient information. If
> I'm
>
>> Movies are self contained?
>
> Sure (or they should be). There's a definite start, and a definite end to a
> movie. You call what goes in between the movie. You can *speculate* on your
> free time about what the director *did not* put in a movie, but that is not
> part of the movie.

Yep, we have different views on what a story/movie is. Or rather, how to
enjoy one.

>> Well, not relevant to the *story*. If I made a movie about a company
>> that mistreats its workers, you're suggesting it's my duty to point out
>> the details of what the workers actually /do/?
>
> In that case, no. We *know* that workers are needed for our companies and we
> know more or less what workers do in a typical business. I don't know that
> humans are needed on the moon moving a caniester from point A to point B,
> much less why human *clones* are needed. It's a premise unfamiliar to the
> viewer (or to me at least, you may have more firsthand experience with moon
> operations), and that is why an explanation is in order. One doesn't need to
> explain the mundane, but extraordinary claims deserve extraordinary
> evidence. It's where a lot of movies (sci-fi or not) fail, for they take

Perhaps one of the reasons they didn't go into details is that it would
take a significant amount of time to explain it, yet contribute only a
minuscule amount to the actual story they're trying to convey. 

You must have really disliked Ray Bradbury's stories. And many low
budget movies, for that matter.

>> And I just can't see Earth-like gravity and faster than light
>> communication as being relevant to the plot of the story. Along with a
>> lot of your other complaints. Sure, with some of them, one /could/ have
>> come up with an interesting story, but it would likely be a different
>> one.
>>
>> You know, it's OK to simply say you didn't like it. You don't have to
>> construct a whole theory of story-telling and SF to defend it.
>
> No, I don't have to. But isn't it better to back one's viewpoint?

Since when was constructing a whole theory needed to back one's
viewpoint? There's a difference between saying "I prefer movies that
have X (because ...), and dislike movies that have Y, because they don't
satisfy X", than saying "All movies should conform to X, because ...,
and movies that don't do so are fundamentally weak."

The former is an opinion, and acknowledges that there may be valid
reasons to like Y, even if you don't. The latter assumes absoluteness in
the issue, and is an argument borne from insecurity.

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