Well done you.

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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On 2010-06-13 16:21, somebody wrote:
> claiming to be drawing a realistic clock but fumbles and places both the
> hour and minute hand at exactly 6 o'clock, for no good artistic reason, that
> would ruin the painting.

...what?

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

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Warp wrote:
> but it's quite a stretch to say that it's not sci-fi at all.

True. I wasn't insisting everyone agree. :-)

> Just because the story doesn't rely on the science fiction elements doesn't
> mean there are no science fiction elements. If there are, then it can be
> considered a sci-fi story. (Whether it's a *good* story of that genre is
> a matter of opinion.)

Yes, that's what most people think. That's why "sci fi" and "fantasy" both 
wind up on the same bookshelf here.

I just like making the distinction between "science fiction" and "fantasy 
set in the future".   Fifth Element is fantasy set in the future, not 
science fiction.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Eiffel - The language that lets you specify exactly
    that the code does what you think it does, even if
    it doesn't do what you wanted.

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Darren New wrote:
> I just like making the distinction between "science fiction" and 
> "fantasy set in the future".   Fifth Element is fantasy set in the 
> future, not science fiction.

I think there are genres where the name actually makes a distinction. A 
murder mystery isn't a murder mystery if there's no murder and no mystery. 
Even a murder mystery revealed at the beginning (like Colombo, for example) 
isn't a murder mystery but rather a police procedural.

I prefer reserving "science fiction" for those stories that are about the 
affect of science on people rather than merely stories about people in the 
future.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Eiffel - The language that lets you specify exactly
    that the code does what you think it does, even if
    it doesn't do what you wanted.

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> writes:

> John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>> The movie industry's attitude towards the genre indicates that they
>> have absolutely no appreciation of its potential, but merely use it
>> to entice bla money out of people who will pay to watch anything that
>> features a technological future.
>
>   It all comes down to one's *definition* of "sci-fi". Basically sci-fi
> has a wide scale of "hardness", and where people put the line between
> "real" sci-fi depends on personal opinion.

I do, however, have to agree with John that compared to sci-fi
stories/novels, the sci-fi movie business is hopelessly behind (with
only very few exceptions).

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"somebody" <x### [at] ycom> writes:

> I would say it's *entirely* unbelievable. Why on earth (or moon) would a
> company probably worth multi trillions of dollars not able to afford to keep
> a crew of more than one person on their  base? Does it make sense to any

Who said they can't afford it?

> reasonable businessman, not to mention paranoid shareholders, to trust all
> your company marbles to the sanity and physical health of a single human?

If it's been tested, yes. 

> Why go through all the trouble (ethical, legal, technical, logistic) trouble
> of using self-destructing clones, when shipping a proper and healthy crew
> every six months or so would probably be even cheaper and without all the

Why assume that it is unethical? Why assume it is cheaper? 

> risks? Plus, if you are going through all that trouble, why give your HAL
> clone an Asimovian conscience so it can screw up things royally when the

Perhaps because the clones function better with it? Plenty of other
potential reasons.

> inevitable comes? (BTW, if you are going to rip off so many pieces from
> previous movies, at least try to improve on them. Compared to the original,
> the new HAL's lines and voice acting was beyond forgettable. What were they
> thinking? That the silly smiley faces would somehow make up for its utter
> lack of character?)

Set up a strawman, then blow it down. Congratulations!

> It seems that the whole operation is automated, except for taking a full
> canister from the harvester and putting it into the launcher, which their
> engineers conveniently forgot to automate. Speaking of the launcher, it

By watching snippets of a few weeks of his life, you managed to figure
out the whole operation the company is running. Very perceptive.

> that they remembered about the lunar gravity). Instantenous earth moon
> videoconferencing (everyone and their dog knows there's a minimum of just
> over 2 sec delay) shows that they could not be bothered to look up even the

This may have been a slipup, although I have no memory of it. The only
Earth to moon conversation I recall was with the robot - and I don't
actually remember it.

Sounds like you wanted a science movie, not a science fiction movie.

And if you want a really poor movie from an SF perspective, go and watch
District 9.

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"Neeum Zawan" <fee### [at] festercom> wrote in message
news:87i### [at] festercom...
> "somebody" <x### [at] ycom> writes:

> > I would say it's *entirely* unbelievable. Why on earth (or moon) would a
> > company probably worth multi trillions of dollars not able to afford to
keep
> > a crew of more than one person on their  base? Does it make sense to any

> Who said they can't afford it?

Are you suggesting that a company supplying clean, practically limitless
energy to the whole world cannot afford a couple of manned moon launches per
year? I did not realize the energy business was so hard to make a buck in.
Maybe we should start a donation fund to help our poor oil companies...

On a practical matter, the spacious accomodations on the base that look like
it could easily house 20, with leather, upholstered furniture, real wood to
carve... etc don't quite give me the impression of a cash stapped operation.

> > reasonable businessman, not to mention paranoid shareholders, to trust
all
> > your company marbles to the sanity and physical health of a single
human?

> If it's been tested, yes.

No. It's something not even worth testing. You never ever do that, period.
Even our tiny little company has a policy against key personnel traveling
together. Do yo realize how much paranoid risk assessment goes in mega
corporations?

> > Why go through all the trouble (ethical, legal, technical, logistic)
trouble
> > of using self-destructing clones, when shipping a proper and healthy
crew
> > every six months or so would probably be even cheaper and without all
the

> Why assume that it is unethical?

Because to assume otherwise (ie. clones engineered to die after 3 years is
perfectly acceptable) goes against everything we know and believe. Plus, to
assume otherwise invalidates the point of the movie: If it's perfectly
acceptable to do that, the movie becomes pointless and devoid of conflict
for the audience.

> Why assume it is cheaper?

It's cheaper in the long run when you consider the risks. Granted, I'm not
about to perform a real cost analysis. But at a first approximation, it's
cheaper for the same reason a company hires a qualified engineer for 10
times the cost of a bum on the street. When you are talking about running a
billion dollar factory, you don't try to cut huge corners for extremely
short term gains, if any.

> > risks? Plus, if you are going through all that trouble, why give your
HAL
> > clone an Asimovian conscience so it can screw up things royally when the

> Perhaps because the clones function better with it?

You are reaching. If anything, the clones would function better if "HAL"
stuck to the official company line. Also, it can be argued that even an
Asimovian robot would lie in that situation to maximize the happiness of the
poor soul before his inevitable death.

> Plenty of other potential reasons.

Such as?

> > inevitable comes? (BTW, if you are going to rip off so many pieces from
> > previous movies, at least try to improve on them. Compared to the
original,
> > the new HAL's lines and voice acting was beyond forgettable. What were
they
> > thinking? That the silly smiley faces would somehow make up for its
utter
> > lack of character?)

> Set up a strawman, then blow it down. Congratulations!

Huh?

> > It seems that the whole operation is automated, except for taking a full
> > canister from the harvester and putting it into the launcher, which
their
> > engineers conveniently forgot to automate. Speaking of the launcher, it

> By watching snippets of a few weeks of his life,

There's no real "Moon" world to objectively analyze. Our mind model is
solely based on the movie we are presented with. If you start adding extra
information to the movie, you are making *another* movie.

> you managed to figure
> out the whole operation the company is running. Very perceptive.

I am not under obligation to *imagine* that he has additional, more
important jobs. If the moviemakers wanted me to believe that, they would
have to have *shown* me. Since they did not, it's their failing either way,
that is even if they had more important jobs for him in mind, not
communicating that to the audience is failure of the movie. But the overal
simplemindedness of the script tells me they probably did not even have any
such concerns to fill the plot holes.

> > that they remembered about the lunar gravity). Instantenous earth moon
> > videoconferencing (everyone and their dog knows there's a minimum of
just
> > over 2 sec delay) shows that they could not be bothered to look up even
the

> This may have been a slipup, although I have no memory of it. The only
> Earth to moon conversation I recall was with the robot - and I don't
> actually remember it.

He calls "his" wife (and talks to the daughter). I'm surprised you did not
explain this away too by saying the parties deliberately started talking 2-3
seconds before the other party finished.

> Sounds like you wanted a science movie, not a science fiction movie.

Sci-fi doesn't mean wrong-sci and nonsensical human behaviour and motives.
With sci-fi, you *extend* the science, not disregard it (as you can with
fanatasy genre). And humans should behave in a reasonably normal way, not
like comic book supervillains who inevitably let the hero escape while
attempting to kill them with a Rube Goldberg contraption.

> And if you want a really poor movie from an SF perspective, go and watch
> District 9.

I finally agree, and I might even have said so here.

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On 2010-06-14 01:21, Neeum Zawan wrote:
> I do, however, have to agree with John that compared to sci-fi
> stories/novels, the sci-fi movie business is hopelessly behind (with
> only very few exceptions).

I can sum up the reason for this in one simple word:  budget.

Namely, the fact that it's always going to be limited, so you can't just 
portray whatever you want, whereas in a novel...it's all just words.  If 
you can find a way to describe something, even if it's "undescribable," 
you can have it exist.  You can look up some celestial mechanics 
formulas and make entirely believable situations with a single sentence 
that costs $0.00 to produce.

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

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somebody wrote:
> your company marbles to the sanity and physical health of a single human?

It wasn't a single human, tho. Certainly physical health wasn't a problem, 
and presumedly part of the job of the computer was to replace the clones if 
there was a mental problem.

> Everything was so cardboardy.

I'll grant that. I don't know why everyone thought it was so great.

Neeum Zawan wrote:
 > This may have been a slipup, although I have no memory of it. The only
 > Earth to moon conversation I recall was with the robot - and I don't
 > actually remember it.

He called his wife and daughter when he found out he was a clone. It wasn't 
the sort of scene that would have the same kind of punch if you put a 
three-second delay into the conversation.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Eiffel - The language that lets you specify exactly
    that the code does what you think it does, even if
    it doesn't do what you wanted.

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Tim Cook <z99### [at] gmailcom> writes:

> On 2010-06-14 01:21, Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> I do, however, have to agree with John that compared to sci-fi
>> stories/novels, the sci-fi movie business is hopelessly behind (with
>> only very few exceptions).
>
> I can sum up the reason for this in one simple word:  budget.
>
> Namely, the fact that it's always going to be limited, so you can't just
> portray whatever you want, whereas in a novel...it's all just words.  If
> you can find a way to describe something, even if it's "undescribable,"
> you can have it exist.  You can look up some celestial mechanics
> formulas and make entirely believable situations with a single sentence
> that costs $0.00 to produce.

I quite disagree. SF is not about fancy effects. 

Perhaps what bothers me is that SF movie *stories* (plot line, etc) are
fairly poor in comparison to written SF. It's rare that they're
creative. I'd be fine with low budget, low special effects SF movies if
they had a fairly good story.

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