I just watched Moon. 80% on IMDB, 89% on RottenTomatoes. People compare it
to 2001 and Solaris. Those people should be shot. The "movie" is a huge
insult to the viewer's intelligence. Hint: If you are so technologically
advanced to have achived artificial gravity (!) and faster than light
communications (!), you probably don't need to go to the trouble of cloning
humans and implanting them with memories solely for the purpose of carrying
a canister from point A to point B, and kill them after 3 years. I've
probably just ruined it for those who haven't seen the movie and intending
to see it. To them, I say you are welcome.

Why is it that this genre has become such a bad joke?

</invisible>

Post a reply to this message

Moon was great. Not entirely believable, no, but still good. Spoiling a 
movie because you didn't like it is bad form.

  - Slime

Post a reply to this message

On 6/13/2010 12:30 AM, Slime wrote:
> Moon was great. Not entirely believable, no, but still good. Spoiling a
> movie because you didn't like it is bad form.
>
> - Slime

I liked the movie as well. Better than the second Solaris.

-- 
http://isometricland.com

Post a reply to this message

"Slime" <pov### [at] slimelandcom> wrote in message
news:4c145f7e$1@news.povray.org...

> Moon was great. Not entirely believable, no, but still good. Spoiling a
> movie because you didn't like it is bad form.

In that casel, more spoilers below...

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

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
needs to accelerate to about 5000 km/s in a few seconds - just how many g's
would a person hiding inside (even if we are to believe the engineers again
conveniently and myseteriously made it much bigger than necessary) be
pulling? The drawers full of clones in the hidden chamber was so ridiculous
on so many levels that I laughed out loud.

Not to mention the magical earth normal gravity inside the base and even
outside on the lunar surface (to their credit, there's a 2 second period
when he's returning back having dumped the other clone back into the truck,
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
most obvious facts. I was given no excuse for suspension of disbelief. I am
willing, but I expect the movie makers to meet me at least halfway there.

I'm not even going to bother with the poor character development. I could
not care one bit for either of the clones. Their interaction was no more
than a slapstick comedy act anyway. There was no suspense, no mystery.
Everything was so cardboardy.

Post a reply to this message

somebody wrote:

> Why is it that this genre has become such a bad joke?

As Theodore Sturgeon famously quipped, when confronted with the 
statement that 90% of science fiction is crap, "Ninety percent of 
everything is crap."

The movie industry's attitude towards the genre indicates that they have 
absolutely no appreciation of its potential, but merely use it to entice 
money out of people who will pay to watch anything that features a 
technological future.

The fans share no small part in this general failure.  The typical fan 
either goes "oh--ah!" at the explosions and exotic elements, or hopes 
that high tech will bring meaning to his life.

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message

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 
> 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.

  On the "softest" end of sci-fi we have products which take immense amount
of liberties and go absolutely to extremes with everything. We may have
spaceships routinely traveling between *galaxies* in short periods of time,
thousands of alien species (all of which inexplicably speak English as a
common lingua franca), time travel (with or without any regard to any kind
of consistency) and often a varied amount of supernatural phenomena, such
as telepathy. Don't expect even regular physics to be very accurate in these
products.

  On the "hardest" end we have products which take place just a few decades
in the future, and where there's very little, if anything, that current
science wouldn't take for granted or at least very possible. For example
no faster-than-light travel (which means the story is located entirely
inside the Solar system), no aliens, no artificial gravity (unless you
count centrifugal gravity, which of course is completely ok), realistic
spaceships, realistic traveling times, and not even exotic modes of
propulsion (unless it has been seriously proposed by scientists).

  Of course we have all kinds of nuances in-between those two extremes.

  So where is the line between "real" sci-fi and "a bad joke"?

  For example, some people consider the Terminator series to be sci-fi,
even if slightly on the softer half of the scale. Others don't.

  Maybe the definition of "sci-fi" is not so much about the science part,
but about the fiction part, in other words, the storytelling. But that
becomes even harder to define accurately.

  Sometimes I get the feeling that "sci-fi purists" consider "true sci-fi"
only those stories which are really obscure and next to incomprehensible,
a bit like an artist who thinks that "true art" is something that a regular
person cannot understand. Of course the problem with this that this kind of
abstract storytelling doesn't sell, so why would movie companies even bother
to try making them?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

I kinda enjoyed it even though it was pretty predictable, perhaps because of
"2001" heritage:  lone guy on space with an AI, something's gonna break.  The
main point of tension was that for the most part it was not known if the AI was
evil or not.

It also draws from "Blade Runner":  the older clone seems to deteriorate
rapidly, which suggests they got a short time limit to their lives akin to those
of the replicants.  This was never explained in the movie though.  Another
possible explanation:  radiation from being out there for too much time?  But he
was on his gear...

It was kinda obvious he was a clone even from before he met the other guy:
edited recordings, memory issues akin to memory implants.  At first I thought
it'd be another horror-in-space like in "Event Horizon", but it rapidly became
obvious it was all about clones and evil corporations.  Even the AI showed up
less...

For some reason it was still enjoyable though.  Perhaps low expectations?

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   Maybe the definition of "sci-fi" is not so much about the science part,
> but about the fiction part, in other words, the storytelling. But that
> becomes even harder to define accurately.

I know I've said this before, but I usually define sci-fi as needing to be 
about the science and technology rather than the personalities. An 
exploration of "what would the world be like if this science were 
available." If you can tell essentially the same story without the science 
element, it isn't sci-fi.

In the case of Moon, you would have a very hard time telling the story 
without the cloning aspect. Avatar, on the other hand, is Pocohantas in 
space, so it doesn't really count as sci-fi in my book.

It's a little easier to figure out with books and such than it is with 
movies, unless it's really extreme.

I haven't decided how I feel about fantasy that's consistent and the story 
is about the fantastic element. Something like "Master of the Five Magics" 
seemed very sci-fi'ish to me, even though the story was about the apprentice 
learning the "technologies" of all five types of magic.

-- 
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.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> I know I've said this before, but I usually define sci-fi as needing to be 
> about the science and technology rather than the personalities. An 
> exploration of "what would the world be like if this science were 
> available." If you can tell essentially the same story without the science 
> element, it isn't sci-fi.

  There's a difference between not being good sci-fi and not being sci-fi
at all. Just because the storytelling doesn't rely heavily on the sci-fi
elements doesn't mean that story is not sci-fi. You might argue it's poor
sci-fi (because the sci-fi part is more or less just decoration), but it's
quite a stretch to say that it's not sci-fi at all.

  If the story told by an action movie could be quite well told in a story
belonging to a different genre (such as film noir), that doesn't make the
movie less of an action movie. It might make the story more detached from
the genre, but it doesn't destroy the genre per se. Likewise with sci-fi:
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.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:4c150d75@news.povray.org...
> John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:

>   For example, some people consider the Terminator series to be sci-fi,
> even if slightly on the softer half of the scale. Others don't.

I don't mind speculative sci-fi, where science and technology goes
explicitly far beyond present and even the plausible. Terminator may be soft
on the sci part in that respect, but it's at least not horribly wrong. I
don't have a problem with time travel, FTL... etc. But communicating FTL,
when such technology is not explicitly given or deducible, is simply wrong.
Not accounting differences between moon and earth gravity, when artificial
gravity is not explicitly specified and really infeasible given the
timeline, is plain wrong. I can live with sound in space, for it's not hard
to imagine an observer shift, but how do we explain away these other obvious
and lazy blunders? Further, making people and corporations behave contrary
to common sense in order to introduce a plot, is lazy and wrong.

>   Sometimes I get the feeling that "sci-fi purists" consider "true sci-fi"
> only those stories which are really obscure and next to incomprehensible,

I don't have a problem with Dali's clocks. It's a different premise,
different context than realism. I can buy that. But if some artist is
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.

> a bit like an artist who thinks that "true art" is something that a
regular
> person cannot understand. Of course the problem with this that this kind
of
> abstract storytelling doesn't sell, so why would movie companies even
bother
> to try making them?

Post a reply to this message

Well done you.

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

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.

Post a reply to this message

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.

Post a reply to this message

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).

Post a reply to this message

"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.

Post a reply to this message

"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.

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

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.

Post a reply to this message

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.

Post a reply to this message

"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...

Who said they can't afford it?

> 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.

Who said it was cash strapped?

>> > 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.

An opinion is not a fact.

> 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?

Well, let's see. You start off a thread complaining about a science
fiction movie, and then you insist on rules that follow a subset of
today's businesses.

Who's being uncreative here?

>> > 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

"We"? 

You must live in a small world.

> 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.

So, there's little that goes on that is "unacceptable" in our world?

>> Why assume it is cheaper?
>
> It's cheaper in the long run when you consider the risks. Granted, I'm not

The risks have not been established. What risks?

> 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.

It seems you're making wild assumptions about the costs. 

>> > 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. 

You are assuming.

> If anything, the clones would function better if "HAL"
> stuck to the official company line. Also, it can be argued that even an

I take it you're an expert on clones?

> Asimovian robot would lie in that situation to maximize the happiness of the
> poor soul before his inevitable death.

I don't recall: Did they say anywhere in the movie that it has to follow
the three laws of robotics?

>> > 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?

Your assumption that they were trying to rip off much from other
movies. 

>> > 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.

Yes, and it takes a wise person to know when not to analyze if there
isn't sufficient information.

>> 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,

If the moviemakers had deemed your knowing that as relevant, yes. 

>> > 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.

Frankly, don't recall whether there was a delay or not. But still,
perhaps a valid flaw. I'll take it over loud explosions in space any
day.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> 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.

This.

Post a reply to this message

"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> a écrit dans le message de news: 
4c1547ff$1@news.povray.org...
> 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.
The problem with that definition is that is probably excludes most of what 
has been produced, sold and accepted by the public under that name, from the 
pulp stuff written to titillate teenage boys (monsters! titties!) to the 
works of many famous SF writers. Bradbury was never about science, and 
neither were Dick, Farmer, Herbert, Van Vogt etc. Hard SF where science is 
the topic rather that the facilitator / pretext is really a subgenre rather 
than the norm. Likewise, movie SF is rather about eye candy and occasionally 
challenging ideas than science. "A clockwork orange" is one of the most 
powerful and influential SF movie ever, except that there's 0 science in it. 
There's not much science in 2001 either, btw.
Really, the label "science fiction" was basically a marketing trick design 
to attract readers at a time when "science" was a catch-all term (see 
"scientology" or "Christian science" for similar abuses of the word). In 
other words, the "science" in science fiction never actually meant science, 
except for a few science-minded writers.

G.

Post a reply to this message

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

> > 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...

> Who said they can't afford it?

If it's not a monetary decision, what then?

> > 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?

> Well, let's see. You start off a thread complaining about a science
> fiction movie, and then you insist on rules that follow a subset of
> today's businesses.
>
> Who's being uncreative here?

Today's business rules, human and corporate behaviour evolved for a reason.
They will surely keep evolving. However, fundamentals don't change.
Operating with utmost safety in mission critical applications is not ever
going to go out of fashion. Sci-fi is not to be a genre where anything goes,
however illogical.

> >> 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

> "We"?

Yes. I posit that 99.9% of surveyed would say that that's not ethical, and
that warrants the generalization of "we".

> > 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.

> So, there's little that goes on that is "unacceptable" in our world?

No. But I'm pretty certain that, say, MS does not kill off its programmers
who are past their prime productivity to avoid costs. In fact, give me one
example of a company that actually did that at any point. If it's not
something I can buy today, it's not something I can buy tomorrow, not
without an extraordinarily solid explanation and backstory, no matter how
paranoid one is of megacorps.

> > If anything, the clones would function better if "HAL"
> > stuck to the official company line. Also, it can be argued that even an

> I take it you're an expert on clones?

At least as much as the makers of that movie.

> > Asimovian robot would lie in that situation to maximize the happiness of
the
> > poor soul before his inevitable death.

> I don't recall: Did they say anywhere in the movie that it has to follow
> the three laws of robotics?

You were the one who suggested clones might function better with such caring
robots.

> >> > 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?

> Your assumption that they were trying to rip off much from other
> movies.

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

> >> 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.

> Yes, and it takes a wise person to know when not to analyze if there
> isn't sufficient information.

It's a movie. It's self contained. And it's sufficient information. If I'm
presented with "insufficient information" in a movie, it's the director's
fault. I'm not about to pull him out of the water by assuming that the
"sufficient information" would make the movie make sense, had he bothered
show it to me.

> >> 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,

> If the moviemakers had deemed your knowing that as relevant, yes.

Exactly. We can conclude that the director though out guy doesn't do
anything else relevant. We see him sleeping, working out (several times),
building models (several scenes), banging an alarm clock (couple of
different times)... etc. Obviously, it's not as if the director ran out of
celluloid before he could show us the really "important" jobs he does on the
base. We thus conclude that he has shown all that is relevant, and he
doesn't really do anything more demanding than carrying canisters back and
forth.

Post a reply to this message

Gilles Tran wrote:
> The problem with that definition is that is probably excludes most of what 
> has been produced, sold and accepted by the public under that name, 

Sadly true.

> "A clockwork orange" is one of the most 
> powerful and influential SF movie ever, except that there's 0 science in it. 

I've never heard that called science fiction.  Is 1984 also considered to be 
science fiction?

> There's not much science in 2001 either, btw.

In the book there is, certainly. You can't tell the story of 2001 without 
aliens setting up a monolith.

> Really, the label "science fiction" was basically a marketing trick design 
> to attract readers at a time when "science" was a catch-all term (see 
> "scientology" or "Christian science" for similar abuses of the word). In 
> other words, the "science" in science fiction never actually meant science, 
> except for a few science-minded writers.

Sadly true.

-- 
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.

Post a reply to this message

"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> a écrit dans le message de news: 
4c17a43c$1@news.povray.org...
> Gilles Tran wrote:
>> The problem with that definition is that is probably excludes most of 
>> what has been produced, sold and accepted by the public under that name,
>
> Sadly true.

Really I don't feel that sad at all. As a literary genre, what makes SF 
special is that it does not have the formal constraints of other genres when 
it comes to describe a particular universe, though it can freely borrow 
tropes from other genres. At its best, it's a playground for ideas and 
concepts that cannot be expressed in other normal settings. For instance, 
Dick's SF is mostly about what defines reality and our perception of it. 
People use spaceships in his novels but that's ancillary: SF was just the 
best vessel for what he had to tell. Ditto for Bradbury (who doesn't like to 
be called a science fiction writer) and a whole lot of major SF authors. 
Science are just one of the topics that SF can talk about. Most SF is using 
handwavium and unobtainium because it's usually about something else, and 
more than often that something is related to the issues of the time.

>> "A clockwork orange" is one of the most powerful and influential SF movie 
>> ever, except that there's 0 science in it.
> I've never heard that called science fiction.  Is 1984 also considered to 
> be science fiction?

It's right there in Wikipedia in any case, filed both under "social SF" or 
"dystopian  SF". Of course everybody knew in 1948 that 1984 was all about 
communism and fascism so it's better known as a political work.

> In the book there is, certainly. You can't tell the story of 2001 without 
> aliens setting up a monolith.

True, but lots of the sci-fi thingies described in the novel, like the alien 
Grand Central Station and the atomic bomb at the end, were left out of the 
movie for a good reason: this made the movie more puzzling, ambiguous and 
intellectually stimulating than the novel ever was.

G.

Post a reply to this message

"somebody" <x### [at] ycom> writes:

> "Neeum Zawan" <fee### [at] festercom> wrote in message
> news:87w### [at] festercom...
>> "somebody" <x### [at] ycom> writes:
>
>> > 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...
>
>> Who said they can't afford it?
>
> If it's not a monetary decision, what then?

I didn't say I knew. Nor do I see the relevance. It's not really a major
aspect of the plot. 

Sure, if you make unneeded assumptions, the movie will indeed seem
stupid.

>> Well, let's see. You start off a thread complaining about a science
>> fiction movie, and then you insist on rules that follow a subset of
>> today's businesses.
>>
>> Who's being uncreative here?
>
> Today's business rules, human and corporate behaviour evolved for a reason.

Yes, because business rules the world over are uniform, right?

> They will surely keep evolving. However, fundamentals don't change.
> Operating with utmost safety in mission critical applications is not ever
> going to go out of fashion. Sci-fi is not to be a genre where anything goes,

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.

>> >> 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
>
>> "We"?
>
> Yes. I posit that 99.9% of surveyed would say that that's not ethical, and
> that warrants the generalization of "we".

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. 

Torture, any one?

After all, are clones really people? 

>> > 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.
>
>> So, there's little that goes on that is "unacceptable" in our world?
>
> No. But I'm pretty certain that, say, MS does not kill off its programmers
> who are past their prime productivity to avoid costs. In fact, give me one

1. MS not doing so is fairly irrelevant.

2. Killing the clones may in fact be quite humane, given that they're in
poor health at that point. 

> example of a company that actually did that at any point. If it's not

Lots of enterprises in history have cut off people when they're no
longer useful. Perhaps you should read up on Spanish history.

>> > If anything, the clones would function better if "HAL"
>> > stuck to the official company line. Also, it can be argued that even an
>
>> I take it you're an expert on clones?
>
> At least as much as the makers of that movie.

Let's see. You're positing a theory on what's good for clones. They are
not. Your theory is inconsistent with how the clones behave. Who shall I
ignore?

>> > Asimovian robot would lie in that situation to maximize the happiness of
> the
>> > poor soul before his inevitable death.
>
>> I don't recall: Did they say anywhere in the movie that it has to follow
>> the three laws of robotics?
>
> You were the one who suggested clones might function better with such caring
> robots.

Yes. I fail to see what's so Asimovian about my statement.

>> > Huh?
>
>> Your assumption that they were trying to rip off much from other
>> movies.
>
> 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.

>> Yes, and it takes a wise person to know when not to analyze if there
>> isn't sufficient information.
>
> It's a movie. It's self contained. And it's sufficient information. If I'm

Movies are self contained? 

I'm beginning to understand why we're not seeing eye to eye. You view a
movie as a fundamentally different concept than I. The same is also true
for your views on SF, and perhaps stories in general.

>> > 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,
>
>> If the moviemakers had deemed your knowing that as relevant, yes.
>
> Exactly. We can conclude that the director though out guy doesn't do
> anything else relevant. We see him sleeping, working out (several times),
> building models (several scenes), banging an alarm clock (couple of
> different times)... etc. Obviously, it's not as if the director ran out of
> celluloid before he could show us the really "important" jobs he does on the
> base. We thus conclude that he has shown all that is relevant, and he
> doesn't really do anything more demanding than carrying canisters back and
> forth.

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/? 

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.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> writes:

>> "A clockwork orange" is one of the most powerful and influential SF
>> movie ever, except that there's 0 science in it. 
>
> I've never heard that called science fiction.  Is 1984 also considered
> to be science fiction?

Yes and yes. Although I hear it less frequently for the latter. The
former's case is not that rare.

Post a reply to this message

Neeum Zawan wrote:
> Yes and yes. Although I hear it less frequently for the latter. The
> former's case is not that rare.

I guess I just object to taking a movie like ZombieLand or something, and 
turning it into a fantasy by having the character say "Nobody is sure where 
zombies came from, maybe a wizard in China." Or turning it into science 
fiction by having him say "Nobody is sure where zombies came from, maybe an 
escaped science lab."  Yet having them otherwise be exactly the same movie.

-- 
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.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> writes:

> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> Yes and yes. Although I hear it less frequently for the latter. The
>> former's case is not that rare.
>
> I guess I just object to taking a movie like ZombieLand or something,
> and turning it into a fantasy by having the character say "Nobody is
> sure where zombies came from, maybe a wizard in China." Or turning it
> into science fiction by having him say "Nobody is sure where zombies
> came from, maybe an escaped science lab."  Yet having them otherwise be
> exactly the same movie.

I'm often not too happy at a lot of things labeled SF. But I have to be
honest with myself and say that I like a number of stories that are
considered SF, that I consider to have an SF "feel" about them, but yet
have little to do with science (you know, lots of space stories,
including a lot of Asimov's stuff). 

Although I'm not sure why you'd object to 1984 as SF. It wasn't the
point of the book, but science/technology played a key role.

Post a reply to this message

Neeum Zawan wrote:
> I'm often not too happy at a lot of things labeled SF. But I have to be
> honest with myself and say that I like a number of stories that are
> considered SF, that I consider to have an SF "feel" about them, but yet
> have little to do with science (you know, lots of space stories,
> including a lot of Asimov's stuff). 

Sure, me too. I also enjoy a lot of stories about magic.  Or about 
technology that might as well be magic.  Or about stuff that isn't magic or 
technology but might as well be either. (Like "Hopscotch" (apparently not 
the popular one tho) wherein most everyone in the world in their teens 
learns to voluntarily swap bodies with whomever they touch.)

I'd just like to know what I'm buying.

> Although I'm not sure why you'd object to 1984 as SF. It wasn't the
> point of the book, but science/technology played a key role.

As you say, it wasn't the point of the book.

Contrast with, say, some of Niven's stories about Beowulf Schaeffer or some 
such.

-- 
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.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> writes:

> I'd just like to know what I'm buying.

Read a review.<G>

Post a reply to this message

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

> After all, are clones really people?

The movie was too simpleminded to go into that.

> > 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.

> > 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.

> 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
suspension of disbelief for granted. It's typical Hollywood attitude to
assume that the audience will eat with a spoon whatever is put in front of
them. When you ask an innocent "why" or "how", the whole storyline collapses
like a house of cards. Avatar was like that too. Spectacular technology, but
ultimately hollow inside.

> 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?

Post a reply to this message

On 6/17/2010 11:38 PM, Neeum Zawan wrote:
> Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom>  writes:
>
>> I'd just like to know what I'm buying.
>
> Read a review.<G>
>

That's too practical of a suggestion. ;)

-- 
~Mike

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:

>   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.

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.

The term "sci-fi" refers to all works having the trappings of science 
fiction (the ships, robots, aliens, etc.), but which contradicts what we 
know about the laws of nature at some point.

The third category that winds up on the same cable channel and in the 
same rack at the bookstore is fantasy; that which is clearly impossible, 
according to our understanding of nature, happens in fantasy.  The main 
distinction between fantasy and sci-fi is that in sci-fi, the amazing 
powers are the result of forces that in the tale are understood on a 
scientific basis (i.e., they can show you the math), whereas in fantasy 
the powers are the result of forces that are, for the most part, 
mysterious and not terribly well-understood.

It is my observation that science fiction (or sci-fi) is best adapted 
for tales of a political nature, while fantasy is more adapted to tales 
about good and evil; which is why Star Wars is essentially a fantasy 
tale, and Trek is primarily a political one.

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message

"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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On 24/06/2010 8:42 PM, Warp wrote:
>    I'm beginning to think that there are*no*  good sci-fi movies in existence.
>

I’ve thought that for over 40 years. The only SF films that I thought 
were worthwhile are “Forbidden Planet” {because the plot is from 
Shakespeare’s Tempest (in case anyone has missed it, I’m a Shakespeare 
freak)} and “2001” (nostalgia).

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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On 24/06/2010 8:46 PM, Darren New wrote:
>
> Alien? (I never really heard any defensible complaints about it.)

How about I fell asleep before it finished?

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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

Well, sure. Obviously, there are some books that *are* considered good 
sci-fi, at least by a large number of readers. There are even books that I'd 
consider good sci-fi but which I personally didn't enjoy.

But many of the complaints I hear about "hard" science fiction, like 
complaints about Blade Runner for example, are along the lines of "that 
wasn't the same story as the book."  Not that there was anything 
particularly wrong with the story as told, but only that it didn't meet the 
expectations set by the book.

Of course, some complaints are completely valid. Like "why didn't the 
department of pre-corrections turn off the eyeball access granted to the 
fugitive murderer that used to be allowed in?" in Minority Report. A movie 
which, I'll grant, was nothing at all like the book, and indeed completely 
missed the entire point of the actual book story.

Didn't they make a Farenheit 451 movie? Was that any good? Or an Illustrated 
Man movie?

There are huge numbers of "good" science fiction books that could be made 
into decently good movies nowadays. Even some decent sci-fi I've read that 
you could make suspenseful and all that good stuff without a huge budget.

What I want to know is why virtually every monster movie is zombies, 
vampires, or werewolves? With maybe an occasional killer robot or black 
lagoon creature thrown in.  Can't a horror writer come up with a decent 
original monster?

-- 
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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On Thu, 24 Jun 2010 21:05:39 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> On 24/06/2010 8:46 PM, Darren New wrote:
>>
>> Alien? (I never really heard any defensible complaints about it.)
> 
> How about I fell asleep before it finished?

I thought the second was better than the first, but I think the first 
could be counted as better Sci Fi.

Falling asleep doesn't mean it's bad Sci Fi, though - I fell asleep 
during Amadeus the first time I watched it, but it was still a good 
film. :-)

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> I thought the second was better than the first, but I think the first 
> could be counted as better Sci Fi.

I don't know why people really thought that. There are few movies where the 
sequel is as good as the original, and I'll grant Aliens held its own. But I 
didn't like it as much as Alien. Perhaps it was just because I was at the 
right age for Alien and too cynical by the time Aliens came out or something.

-- 
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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