More disappointment

[gauchecritic]

Went to see The Matrix: Revolutions (That's Mat-rix) last night and chuff me was I disappointed. It went all curly and holy and kissy-i'm-in-love-and-can-take-on-the-world and was completely awful. I should have expected it from the way Re-loaded was going, but like a fool (not The Fool) I paid my £5.50 ($8.25 approx) and came away totally deflated. I like sci-fi, I know what hard sci-fi is about but this wasn't even fantasy, it was just shit.

Point of thread: Like Arnie exploding when he fell onto the low-pressure surface of Mars, what sort of crap sci-fi do you hate? Is it just taking 3 light years to get to Alderberan or does the entire movie have to suck? Before it's a bad film.

Gauche

 

[Quasimodem]

All kinds of stuff:

The sound of the planet you have just escaped from, exploding, as you blast through space away from it. The sound of the ship you have been fighting, exploding (or imploding.)

Creatures that ‘mutate' from quarter-inch insect into twenty-foot monsters, overnight.

The portable gravity unit that permits the crew to travel at warp ten without being smeared against a wall, while a single photon torpedo's force can bounce said crew around as if somebody shook the camera.

A wireless laptop in a motorcycle sidecar that can power up, connect, and download the entire Russian/Chinese/Terrorist mainframe's database in twenty seconds, without a password.

Nearly immortal entities who have long since given up all physical pleasures, suddenly seduced by the wonderful diversity of sights, smells, tastes, and sensations as are found upon earth. [ Not only bad Sci-Fi, but it is SUCH a cliche.]

Anything which involves psionic powers – mental telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, mind control, or clairvoyance – labelled as anything other than fantasy.

AND MY ALL TIME MOVIE PEEVE - ANY GENRE!

The sound of automobile tires screeching, while turning a corner on a dirt road.

 

[Guest]

More Disappointment

 

[Icingsugar]

Re: All kinds of stuff:

The sound of the planet you have just escaped from, exploding, as you blast through space away from it. The sound of the ship you have been fighting, exploding (or imploding.)

Aye. Repeat after me. "In space, no one can hear you scream. Or explode. Or fart." It's vacuum, for crying out loud.


Also: Technically advanced alien invaders (they must be, they build friggin space ships) who is defeated because of some silly little detail, like forgetting to bring on the umbrella (Signs) or having such a transparent compter interface that a geek with a Mac can whip up a virus in no-time (Independence Day).

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Me, I'm tired of aliens who either come here to kill us or come here to help us. I think if they come it'll be to laugh at us and shop.

I remember one refreshing story where the only thing aliens wanted from the planet earth was that they loved cigarettes and they loved Coca cola. They couldn't have been less interested in the rest.

But by far the most jaw-droppingly asinine and inane thing I've ever seen in a Sci-Fi flick--and I include Ed Wood's flaming pie plates full of gasoline--was in Independence Day when Jeff Goldbloom interfaces his Apple laptop into the aliens' master computer and blows them up.

---dr.M.

 

[Seattle Zack]

The two forty-watt headlights bolted to the back of the miniature representing an engine powerful enough to propel the craft from one end of the galazy to the other in seconds.

The "elite squad" of bad guys (Stormtroopers) that are so inept with their laser weapons they can't hit the side of a barn.

The unexplained "gravitational machine" that lets everyone in zero-g deep space wander around the ship like they're at a picnic.

The inside-the-helmet lights that illuminate the actor's face but, in real life, would make it impossible to see anything.

 

[Icingsugar]

But by far the most jaw-droppingly asinine and inane thing I've ever seen in a Sci-Fi flick--and I include Ed Wood's flaming pie plates full of gasoline--was in Independence Day when Jeff Goldbloom interfaces his Apple laptop into the aliens' master computer and blows them up.

I'll bet my lunch money on that that is nothing but a plot decive paid for with product placement money.

 

[*Catbabe*]

Incredibly advanced aliens who plan on taking over the Earth but can't figure out how to get into a house when the windows are boarded up or out of a pantry if there is a chair leaning against the door.

 

[Quasimodem]

. . . in Independence Day when Jeff Goldbloom interfaces his Apple laptop into the aliens' master computer and blows them up. ---dr.M.

Since I do not have an Apple, I can't say this positively, but that may not be so unbelievable.

On fairly good authority, I have been assured that anything you hook up to an Apple, will blow up!

 

[Guest]

 

[Quasimodem]

. . . Many of the models for the original Star Wars were pill bottles for engines. You can see the child proof lid's latch.

Boldly go where no man has gone before, as soon as we get these r%&f$^*%# i*&%*((%##%^^ engines started.


Now we know, "Di-lithium" is Vulcan for "||C|E|N|S|O|R|E|D||"

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Incredibly advanced aliens who plan on taking over the Earth but can't figure out how to get into a house when the windows are boarded up or out of a pantry if there is a chair leaning against the door.

That was that crop-circle movie, right? Where they locked an alien in the pantry?

I like the idea that the best way aliens have found to communicate with each other is by knocking down stands of corn and wheat. I guess crop circles are supposed to be interplanetary Post-It notes and the earth is just one big refrigerator door.

---dr.M.

 

[*Catbabe*]

Yep, it was "Signs".

Uh huh, the mainstays of alien communication are apparently crop circles and baby monitors.

 

[Chimney Sweep]

One of my favorites is in the first Star Trek movie.

The V-ger cloud enterst eh solar system and takes up orbit around the earth, as stated in the dialogue. The size of the cloud is 47 astronomical units.

An astronomical unit is the distance from the earth to the sun.

A buddy of mine in teh Physics department back at Purdue figured this one out - the cloud would have to be moving at someting like 4 times the speed of light at the outer edge and would have more mass than the entire solar system, thus pulling all planets out of orbit and destroying everything we have ever known. I hate it when that happens.

 

[Guest]

INSULTINGLY STUPID MOVIE PHYSICS

 

[OldnotDead]

Since I do not have an Apple, I can't say this positively, but that may not be so unbelievable.

On fairly good authority, I have been assured that anything you hook up to an Apple, will blow up!

Hey!!!! I resemble that remark!

I have actually 'smoked' a Mac to the point of a partially charred case.

But I love my Macs - all 9 that I have owned at one time or another, including a Lisa II - so what do I know?

 

[dee1124]

I'm with you, Old. "Anything you hook up to an Apple, will blow up," indeed. I still have my ancient and venerable 128K Mac, with the signatures of everyone who worked on the project inscribed inside the case. My PC at work blows once a week. Actually, it pretty much blows.

::sigh:: Another subject I need to stay away from if I'm not to have a stroke.

-- Dee

 

[The_Fool]

Went to see The Matrix: Revolutions (That's Mat-rix) last night and chuff me was I disappointed. It went all curly and holy and kissy-i'm-in-love-and-can-take-on-the-world and was completely awful. I should have expected it from the way Re-loaded was going, but like a fool (not The Fool) I paid my £5.50 ($8.25 approx) and came away totally deflated. I like sci-fi, I know what hard sci-fi is about but this wasn't even fantasy, it was just shit.

Point of thread: Like Arnie exploding when he fell onto the low-pressure surface of Mars, what sort of crap sci-fi do you hate? Is it just taking 3 light years to get to Alderberan or does the entire movie have to suck? Before it's a bad film.

Gauche

*L* Been there done that.....


And I used to like Star Wars....

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Re: Re: More disappointment

And I used to like Star Wars....

Well, I don't get too curmudgeonly about it. I'll let them get away with things making noise in space because I know it's for dramatic effect and Star Wars was just a big space opera. I mean, at least it's plausible; it seems like it should work. I'll even let Superman reverse time by turning the earth backwards as if it were the button on a big analog Timex watch, because the movie was silly and it was such a charming conceit.

It's when these things crop up in what's supposed to be serious or semi-serious sci-fi that I start to whine and bitch.

Like how and why the aliens in "Close Encounters" should have bothered to learn that obscure Kodaly-Orff Hand Solfeggio System so they could teach us earth brothers that tedious little tune. Hell, no one knows that stuff except for deaf musicians, and they're pretty rare themselves. And was that their idea of music? Didn't they find that space probe with the Bach and Chuck Berry tunes on it?

---dr.M.

 

[MathGirl]

Re: Re: Re: More disappointment

It's when these things crop up in what's supposed to be serious or semi-serious sci-fi that I start to whine and bitch.

Dear Dr M,
I know what you mean. Several otherwise good books have been ruined for me when he "clicked the revolver's safety off."
Pissed,
MG
Ps. For me, a SF movie isn't really complete unless a slimy thing with lots of sharp teeth erupts from somebody's tummy.

 

[Icingsugar]

Re: Re: More disappointment

*L* Been there done that.....


And I used to like Star Wars....

Star Wars ain't science fiction (No, it's not. ... No, I said!), so I can take a little inconsistency there.

 

[gauchecritic]

Star Wars. I thoroughly enjoyed all of them except the latest. (Quite apart from a democratically elected monarch, and their kids retaining the title of princess)

I'm pretty sure that Lucas didn't let anyone take light years to get anywhere, because everbody knows a light year is a unit of distance. So he lets Solo 'make the Kesler run in 3 parsecs instead'.

Try as I might I can't find anything that annoys me in the original 'Alien'

I'm sure someone will enlighten me.

Gauche

 

[Icingsugar]

Try as I might I can't find anything that annoys me in the original 'Alien'

What annoys me is that in after two decades, nobody have managed to make a freakier monster.

What also bothers me, in an entirely different way, is that Sigourney Weaver still looks really hot.

 

[raphy]

The inside-the-helmet lights that illuminate the actor's face but, in real life, would make it impossible to see anything.

JMS (of Babylon 5 fame) comments on this on one of the special edition DVDs that I have. He said that Bruce Boxleitner kept walking into things when wearing his breathmask/helmet thing, because he couldn't see where he was going, due to those aforementioned lights.

p.s. Best part of Revolutions was the dock defense scene. I want one of those APU toys =)

 

[MathGirl]

Try as I might I can't find anything that annoys me in the original 'Alien'

Dear Gauchie,
Wasn't that the movie in which she was in some sort of garage place on a space station with the door open? Had only a few seconds of breath holding to get back inside?
MG
Ps. That wouldn't work, even if you closed your eyes really, really thight, held your nose, and kept your fingers crossed.