"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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"Neeum Zawan" <fee### [at] festercom> wrote in message
news:87h### [at] festercom...

> > 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.

Surely, you meant to say: "I think the former is an opinion, and in my
opinion,
acknowledges that there may be valid reasons to like Y, even if you don't.
I dislike the latter because it assumes absoluteness in the issue, and is an
argument borne from insecurity."

I don't need to pepper my prose with "I like"s and "I dislike"s and "I
prefer"s
and "I think"s to feel secure. But if that's what you like and prefer, feel
free to
do so.

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On 6/13/2010 8:32 AM, somebody wrote:
> The drawers full of clones in the hidden chamber was so ridiculous
> on so many levels that I laughed out loud.

I agree the size of the clone storage area was a bit questionable.

-- 
http://isometricland.com

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On 6/14/2010 12:05 PM, Darren New wrote:
> 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.
>

Forgot about this part too. I don't think adding a three second delay 
would have hurt the scene. In fact I think it would have added to the 
sense of "distance" (temporally, spiritually, and in this case also 
physically) between the clone's notion of reality and the reality he is 
facing.

-- 
http://isometricland.com

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On 6/18/2010 7:56 PM, John VanSickle wrote:
> There are some who distinguish between sci-fi and science fiction.
>
> Science fiction is reserved for those tales in which the author both
> believes that the science in the story is possible, and is also
> technically competent enough to know what is possible and what is not.

I thought the distinction was based on literary/artistic merit alone? 
I.e. not on the quality of the "science".


-- 
http://isometricland.com

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On Sat, 19 Jun 2010 10:53:34 -0600, somebody wrote:

> I don't need to pepper my prose with "I like"s and "I dislike"s and "I
> prefer"s
> and "I think"s to feel secure.

I don't think it's a question of one feeling secure; I think it's a 
question of differentiating between facts and opinions.

YMMV, of course.

Jim

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SharkD wrote:
> On 6/18/2010 7:56 PM, John VanSickle wrote:
>> There are some who distinguish between sci-fi and science fiction.
>>
>> Science fiction is reserved for those tales in which the author both
>> believes that the science in the story is possible, and is also
>> technically competent enough to know what is possible and what is not.
> 
> I thought the distinction was based on literary/artistic merit alone? 
> I.e. not on the quality of the "science".

That's a bit too open to debate (and certainly more open to debate than 
the fidelity of the science) to be much use in making distinctions.

Regards,
John

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Neeum Zawan <fee### [at] festercom> wrote:
> And if you want a really poor movie from an SF perspective, go and watch
> District 9.

  I'm beginning to think that there are *no* good sci-fi movies in existence.

  Every time a sci-fi movie comes out, somebody will complain and point
out how ludicrous some detail about it is, hence making it nothing but a
caricature of "good" sci-fi. I don't think there exists any movie which
would be considered "good" in this regard.

  This makes me wonder what these people are comparing the movies to.
Nothing, I suppose. Some vapid imaginary concept they have about what
a "good" sci-fi movie should be like.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   Every time a sci-fi movie comes out, somebody will complain and point
> out how ludicrous some detail about it is, hence making it nothing but a
> caricature of "good" sci-fi. I don't think there exists any movie which
> would be considered "good" in this regard.

Galaxy Quest! :-)

Total Recall?  (Confusions easy to brush off, as that was the point of the 
movie.)

Alien? (I never really heard any defensible complaints about it.)

>   This makes me wonder what these people are comparing the movies to.

Books?

I'm trying to think of a (hard-ish) sci-fi movie that was as good an 
adaption of the book as (say) Harry Potter was.

-- 
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 <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Alien? (I never really heard any defensible complaints about it.)

  Don't ask me. I'm not the one claiming certain popular sci-fi movies being
bad...

> >   This makes me wonder what these people are comparing the movies to.

> Books?

> I'm trying to think of a (hard-ish) sci-fi movie that was as good an 
> adaption of the book as (say) Harry Potter was.

  Well, that assumes that the book itself can be considered good sci-fi
in the first place... :P

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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