Mission Impossible Compu-Goofs
Lee S. Bumgarner
grin...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
> Lee S. Bumgarner wrote:
> >
> > > Complaining about the technology in "Mission Impossible" is as pointless
> > > as standing up during a screening of "Star Wars" and proclaiming that you
> > > can't really hear explosions in outer space.
> >
> > I always wanted to do that.
> >
> > -l
> >
> Dumb question, but is that because space is a vacuum? so then how
> would that affect what the explosions would look like?
Yep. It's not what it looks like, but the SOUND that bothers me. In outer
space there ain't no where for the sound to travel through.
-l
is this a troll?
__
Undertoad: http://falcon.jmu.edu/~bumgarls/ "Klaatu barada nictow" * "Usenet
is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to
redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts
of excrement when you least expect it. " --sp...@cs.purdue.edu (1992) * Jesus
loves you, but everyone else thinks you're an asshole * Kibo/Furr in '96!
Chris Becke
> bumg...@falcon.jmu.edu (Lee S. Bumgarner) wrote in article
<4okkv3$q...@doc.jmu.edu>...
I try hard to shut down all rational thought processes when watching
movies that feature "Computers".
I think it was the NET in which Sandra Bullok claimed she had the latest
Pentium system, and then seconds later booted up MacOS. She also seemed
not to realize that IP numbers are 4 bytes, and hence numbers like
1.376.100.3 are total rubbish. Despite this she uses some odd tool not
called nslookup to do a nslookup on such a number.
Ah, and computer viruses, as seen in the NET, and hackers, and others, are
always very graphical devices that demonstrate how far they are through
"eating" the database by flashing lots of colours on the screen. hmm, some
of those movie "viruses" would make cool screensavers methinks.
And the producers of Hackers seemed to think that UNIX has a 3D total
immersion style shell, and expect us to believe that hacker style
characters would actually use this while um hacking... (the planet?)
The point is, Explosions must sound cool, technology must look cool and
sound cool. A green screen of scrolling text without sound effects is
_not_ cool.
> > > > Complaining about the technology in "Mission Impossible" is as
pointless
> > > > as standing up during a screening of "Star Wars" and proclaiming
that you
> > > > can't really hear explosions in outer space.
> > >
> > > I always wanted to do that.
>
> > Dumb question, but is that because space is a vacuum? so then how
> > would that affect what the explosions would look like?
>
> Yep. It's not what it looks like, but the SOUND that bothers me. In
outer
> space there ain't no where for the sound to travel through.
>
> is this a troll?
Mike Hammond
Lee S. Bumgarner (bumg...@falcon.jmu.edu) wrote:: > > > Complaining about the technology in "Mission Impossible" is as pointless
: > > > as standing up during a screening of "Star Wars" and proclaiming that you
: > > > can't really hear explosions in outer space.
: > Dumb question, but is that because space is a vacuum? so then how
:
: Yep. It's not what it looks like, but the SOUND that bothers me. In outer
: space there ain't no where for the sound to travel through.
Yes, but this is the movies. Without sound, it would be boring.
And it is science-FICTION. I don't think I'll see anyone complaining about
the non-existance of dragons when I go see Dragonheart.
Stars Wars and its ilk never claimed they were being realistic.
--
Cardinal Fang mham...@access.digex.net +<:)>
**************************************************************************
"Ever notice how people always find Jesus after they've painted their
entire lives into a corner? Nobody ever finds Jesus on Prom Night, do
they?" ----- D. Miller
Neale Grant
In article <4okkv3$q...@doc.jmu.edu>,
Lee S. Bumgarner <bumg...@falcon.jmu.edu> wrote:
>grin...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
>> Lee S. Bumgarner wrote:
>>>
>>>>Complaining about the technology in "Mission Impossible" is as pointless
>>>>as standing up during a screening of "Star Wars" and proclaiming that you
>>>> can't really hear explosions in outer space.
>>>
<aol>Me too!</aol>
>> Dumb question, but is that because space is a vacuum? so then how
>> would that affect what the explosions would look like?
>
>Yep. It's not what it looks like, but the SOUND that bothers me. In outer
>space there ain't no where for the sound to travel through.
Both of them bother me. Shouldn't an explosion with no atmosphere have
fewer rounded, mushroomy bits than an explosion on Earth? I realize this
would cost a bit (but not much) to reproduce, as you'd have to blow up
your little models in a vacuum chamber, but it would nice to see
something much more spherically symmetric (except that the atmosphere on
a ship would escape through the weak points in the ship's structure first).
Okay, I'm getting lost here. But can someone confirm for me that
explosions look rounded and cool the way they usually do because there's
oxygen *around* them as well as inside the ship?
Neale (who knows a million other daft ways to annoy people watching Star
Wars)
Brit(S) H++: a20 s+++:- hf+>++ b++ y!:--- P-- S++ M--
R--->$ !A@ C- T! TV- MuR+++ACIPZ+ Am+++ B+>+++ V--
<a href="http://users.ox.ac.uk/~univ0155/>Home of TQE and the BritCode</a>
"The universe is already mad. Anything else would be redundant." - Londo, B5
** Good Times sig virus - the only one you can get via e-mail! Copy me! **
Geoffrey A. Landis
In article <4om9b0$t...@news.ox.ac.uk> Neale Grant,
univ...@sable.ox.ac.uk writes:
>>> Dumb question, but is that because space is a vacuum? so then how
>>> would that affect what the explosions would look like?
>
>Both of them bother me. Shouldn't an explosion with no atmosphere have
>fewer rounded, mushroomy bits than an explosion on Earth? I realize this
>would cost a bit (but not much) to reproduce, as you'd have to blow up
>your little models in a vacuum chamber, but it would nice to see
>something much more spherically symmetric (except that the atmosphere on
>a ship would escape through the weak points in the ship's structure first).
A nuclear explosion in space would have a bright flash of gammas as the
bomb went off, and then a spherically expanding fireball that fades from
blue-white to orange to red to brick as it expands.
The movie "Silent Running" made an attempt to get this right. No other
movie even tries.
____________________________________________
Geoffrey A. Landis,
Ohio Aerospace Institute at NASA Lewis Research Center
physicist and part-time science fiction writer
Erik Max Francis
Neale Grant wrote:
> Okay, I'm getting lost here. But can someone confirm for me that
> explosions look rounded and cool the way they usually do because there's
> oxygen *around* them as well as inside the ship?
Yes. In vacuum, the explosion would be much more spherical. Taken to
extremes, you don't get mushrooms clouds in space.
Also, secondary explosions are much less likely in space.
You brought up the escaping breathing-air possibly contributing to the
explosion, which probably isn't very likely; if we're talking about a
catastrophic explosion that can essentially utterly destroy a ship, then its
escaping breathing-air is going to contribute very little.
--
Erik Max Francis &tSftDotIotE && http://www.alcyone.com/max && m...@alcyone.com
San Jose, California, U.S.A. && 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W && the 4th R is respect
H.3`S,3,P,3$S,#$Q,C`Q,3,P,3$S,#$Q,3`Q,3,P,C$Q,#(Q.#`-"C`- && 1love && folasade
Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt. && Dominion, GIGO, GOOGOL, Omega, Psi, Strategem
"Out from his breast/his soul went to seek/the doom of the just." -- _Beowulf_
Ian M. Smith
Chris Becke (chr...@vironix.co.za) wrote:
> I think it was the NET in which Sandra Bullok claimed she had the latest
> Pentium system, and then seconds later booted up MacOS. She also seemed
> not to realize that IP numbers are 4 bytes, and hence numbers like
> 1.376.100.3 are total rubbish. Despite this she uses some odd tool not
> called nslookup to do a nslookup on such a number.
This happened in Mission Impossible as well, IP addresses with numbers
greater than 255. I somehow suspect this is done for the same reason
they use 555 exchanges for phone numbers. That way some poor innocent
doesn't get 1000000 phone calls/telnet attempts when the movie is shown.
--
IanS...@ncinter.net Visit Below!
My HP48/Imagine/ImageMaster Page --> http://www.ncinter.net/~iansmith/
Come and stop by Africa Imports --> http://www.cyberenet.net/~africa/
Douglas E. Berry
In article <4om9b0$t...@news.ox.ac.uk>,
univ...@sable.ox.ac.uk (Neale Grant) wrote:
>Both of them bother me. Shouldn't an explosion with no atmosphere have
>fewer rounded, mushroomy bits than an explosion on Earth? I realize this
>would cost a bit (but not much) to reproduce, as you'd have to blow up
>your little models in a vacuum chamber, but it would nice to see
>something much more spherically symmetric (except that the atmosphere on
>a ship would escape through the weak points in the ship's structure first).
There's also the fact that somethings burn at a higher speed than others.
When your TIE fighter goes "PLONK", You have several problems: first off,
there are now several additional holes in the hull that the designer didn't
expect. Second, the ship mounted energy weapons in SW seem to transfer more
than enough energy to disintegrate the ship, or the Imperium is flying the
space-borne equivilant of the old Catalina, which blew up when a crew member
sneezed hard.
Some of what you see burning is the pilot's O2 supply.. beyond that.. maybe
the Empire didn't read the instructions on the reactive armor plates they
picked up and install them on the insides in the hull...
>
>Okay, I'm getting lost here. But can someone confirm for me that
>explosions look rounded and cool the way they usually do because there's
>oxygen *around* them as well as inside the ship?
>
>Neale (who knows a million other daft ways to annoy people watching Star
>Wars)
> Brit(S) H++: a20 s+++:- hf+>++ b++ y!:--- P-- S++ M--
> R--->$ !A@ C- T! TV- MuR+++ACIPZ+ Am+++ B+>+++ V--
> <a href="http://users.ox.ac.uk/~univ0155/>Home of TQE and the BritCode</a>
>"The universe is already mad. Anything else would be redundant." - Londo, B5
> ** Good Times sig virus - the only one you can get via e-mail! Copy me! **
# ------------------------------------------------- #
# Douglas E. Berry dbe...@hooked.net #
# Writer, Professional Driver, Traveller Guru #
# #
# "Timothy Leary is dead -- No...he's outside, #
# looking in...." -The Moody Blues #
# 1920-1996 - RIP #
# ------------------------------------------------- #
Richard A. Schumacher
>And it is science-FICTION. I don't think I'll see anyone complaining about
>the non-existance of dragons when I go see Dragonheart.
Ugh! Good science fiction tries to remain plausible and not at odds
with our understanding of the universe. Fantasy and bad science
fiction don't give a shit. So _Star Wars_ et alia are fantasies.
Lee S. Bumgarner
> : Yep. It's not what it looks like, but the SOUND that bothers me. In outer
> : space there ain't no where for the sound to travel through.
> Yes, but this is the movies. Without sound, it would be boring.
> And it is science-FICTION. I don't think I'll see anyone complaining about
> the non-existance of dragons when I go see Dragonheart.
What about 2001? There was no sound (great music, though) and it wasn't
boring.
> Stars Wars and its ilk never claimed they were being realistic.
Never underestimate the need for people to rationalize things into
reality.
-l
--
Erik Max Francis
Lee S. Bumgarner wrote:
> What about 2001? There was no sound (great music, though) and it wasn't
> boring.
Depends on who you talk to. 2001 is a very slow movie; it's _supposed_ to be,
of course, since it sets the mood. Audiences today would be put off by its
slowness.
Mike Hammond
Chris Becke (chr...@vironix.co.za) wrote:
:
: And the producers of Hackers seemed to think that UNIX has a 3D total
: immersion style shell, and expect us to believe that hacker style
: characters would actually use this while um hacking... (the planet?)
Um, I'm not sure I'm thinking of the same movie, but I understand that the
"shell" you speak off wasn't actually supposed to be "real". More a
representation of the imagination of the individual hacker.
Franklin Jordan
Richard A. Schumacher wrote:
>
> >And it is science-FICTION. I don't think I'll see anyone complaining about
> >the non-existance of dragons when I go see Dragonheart.
>
> with our understanding of the universe. Fantasy and bad science
> fiction don't give a shit. So _Star Wars_ et alia are fantasies.
Remember Arthur C Clarke's quote, however. Any sufficiently advanced
science of others would seem like magic to us. Would the people of the
18th century believe that we could send pictures through the air or even
begin to comprehend the Internet?
No, GOOD science fiction starts by being a good story with a science or
scientific background. Bad science fiction stories are bad stories. The
same goes of course for any literary genra.
Alastair Ward
In article <31B124...@netten.net>, Franklin Jordan (fjo...@netten.net) writes:
>Richard A. Schumacher wrote:
>>
>> >And it is science-FICTION. I don't think I'll see anyone complaining about
>> >the non-existance of dragons when I go see Dragonheart.
>>
>> Ugh! Good science fiction tries to remain plausible and not at odds
>> with our understanding of the universe. Fantasy and bad science
>> fiction don't give a shit. So _Star Wars_ et alia are fantasies.
>
>Remember Arthur C Clarke's quote, however. Any sufficiently advanced
>science of others would seem like magic to us. Would the people of the
>18th century believe that we could send pictures through the air or even
>begin to comprehend the Internet?
I think they would have had no difficulty in believing it. In fact they would
have had no difficulty in believing you could send people through the air as
well. The difference is that they would have burned you at the stake for trying
it.
>No, GOOD science fiction starts by being a good story with a science or
>scientific background. Bad science fiction stories are bad stories. The
>same goes of course for any literary genra.
>
Yes.
Al.
David L Evens
Erik Max Francis (m...@alcyone.com) wrote:
: Lee S. Bumgarner wrote:
: > What about 2001? There was no sound (great music, though) and it wasn't
: > boring.
: Depends on who you talk to. 2001 is a very slow movie; it's _supposed_ to be,
: of course, since it sets the mood. Audiences today would be put off by its
: slowness.
I was put off by the fact that large parts of it really DON'T make sense.
--
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
Ring around the neutron, | "OK, so he's not terribly fearsome.
A pocket full of positrons,| But he certainly took us by surprise!"
A fission, a fusion, +--------------------------------------------------
We all fall down! | "Was anybody in the Maquis working for me?"
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
"I'd cut down ever Law in England to get at the Devil!"
"And what man could stand up in the wind that would blow once you'd cut
down all the laws?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message may not be carried on any server which places restrictions
on content.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
e-mail will be posted as I see fit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tony Buckland
In article <4ot5lo$f...@ccshst05.uoguelph.ca>,
David L Evens <dev...@uoguelph.ca> wrote:
>Erik Max Francis (m...@alcyone.com) wrote:
: Lee S. Bumgarner wrote:
: > What about 2001? There was no sound (great music, though) and it wasn't
: > boring.
: Depends on who you talk to. 2001 is a very slow movie; it's _supposed_ to be,
: of course, since it sets the mood. Audiences today would be put off by its
: slowness.
>
>I was put off by the fact that large parts of it really DON'T make sense.
Name some. If you grant the existence of the alien intelligence[s]
and their technology, I can't recall anything that didn't fit.
K C Moore
>
> In article <31B124...@netten.net>, Franklin Jordan (fjo...@netten.net)
> writes:
> > Would the people of the
> >18th century believe that we could send pictures through the air or even
> >begin to comprehend the Internet?
>
> I think they would have had no difficulty in believing it. In fact they would
> have had no difficulty in believing you could send people through the air as
> well. The difference is that they would have burned you at the stake for trying
> it.
I think you're being a bit unfair to the 18th C. The last execution
for witchcraft in England was in 1712, in Europe (at Dornoch) in 1722.
I doubt whether these unfortunates were burnt.
--
Ken Moore
k...@hpsl.demon.co.uk
John August
Erik Max Francis (m...@alcyone.com) wrote:
: Lee S. Bumgarner wrote:
:
: > What about 2001? There was no sound (great music, though) and it wasn't
: > boring.
:
: Depends on who you talk to. 2001 is a very slow movie; it's _supposed_ to be,
: of course, since it sets the mood. Audiences today would be put off by its
: slowness.
I recall that 'Alien' had no sound in space, particularly when the Nostromo
blew up. Also, 'Outland' had no sound in space.
Still, Alien made atmospheric use of this : "In space no-one can hear you
scream", and Outland relied on the nasty effects of vaccum (I seem to recall
reading they'd got this wrong). So was it good science advisers or realizing
something that would be useful for plot or atmosphere ?
In any case, I think you could say both of these films developed at a decent
pace.
John August.
Erik Max Francis
John August wrote:
> I recall that 'Alien' had no sound in space, particularly when the Nostromo
> blew up. Also, 'Outland' had no sound in space.
Don't recall Outland offhand, but Alien had sound. Plus it had secondary
explosions, which is rather strange if the Nostromo detonated from a nuclear
explosion.
> Still, Alien made atmospheric use of this : "In space no-one can hear you
> scream", and Outland relied on the nasty effects of vaccum (I seem to recall
> reading they'd got this wrong).
Yes; Outland had the mother-of-all-science-fiction-movie-goofs, someone blowing
up when exposed to vacuum.
Wolfgang Schwanke
Franklin Jordan <fjo...@netten.net> writes:
>Remember Arthur C Clarke's quote, however. Any sufficiently advanced
>science of others would seem like magic to us.
That doesn't mean that any "magic" is science.
Greetings
Wolfgang
--
Elektropost: wo...@cs.tu-berlin.de | wo...@berlin.snafu.de | wo...@techno.de
WeltweitesSpinnweb: http://www.snafu.de/~wolfi/
IRC: wolfi |
RealLife: Wolfgang Schwanke | Royaume Uni douze points
David Bofinger
In article <01bb4e70.1b42ffe0$d26506c4@ariel> "Chris Becke"
<chr...@vironix.co.za> complains:
> I think it was the NET in which Sandra Bullok [...] seemed
> not to realize that IP numbers are 4 bytes, and hence numbers like
> 1.376.100.3 are total rubbish.
It might just be the 555 effect: they didn't want to use a real IP
number in case it (now or later) turned out to be a real one, and its
owner got pissed off.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Bofinger David.B...@dsto.defence.gov.au
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maritime Operations Division
(Australian) Defence Science and Technology Organisation
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard A. Schumacher
>> >And it is science-FICTION. I don't think I'll see anyone complaining about
>> >the non-existance of dragons when I go see Dragonheart.
>>
>> Ugh! Good science fiction tries to remain plausible and not at odds
>> with our understanding of the universe. Fantasy and bad science
>> fiction don't give a shit. So _Star Wars_ et alia are fantasies.
>Remember Arthur C Clarke's quote, however. Any sufficiently advanced
>science of others would seem like magic to us. Would the people of the
>18th century believe that we could send pictures through the air or even
>begin to comprehend the Internet?
Clarke said "any sufficiently advanced technology", but OK, let's run with
that. A device to receive invisible radiation around one's ship and down-
shift it into the audible might be a useful thing. Then one could "hear"
and be made aware of a number of things: EMP from explosions out of one's
line of sight, the condition of the stellar wind, gamma and neutron radiation
in the immediate environment, etc. This would make explosions and the like
"audible". Of course we both know that no filmmaker except Stanley Kubrick
or possibly James Cameron or that guy Straczynsky of "Babylon 5" is clever
enough to explicitly introduce such a device. And no technology will allow
sound (pressure wave vibrations) to carry through a vacuum.
Now, what "advanced science" explanation can we construct for dragons in
medieval England? :->
Craig Berry
David L Evens (dev...@uoguelph.ca) wrote:
: Erik Max Francis (m...@alcyone.com) wrote:
: : Lee S. Bumgarner wrote:
:
: : > What about 2001? There was no sound (great music, though) and it wasn't
: : > boring.
:
: : Depends on who you talk to. 2001 is a very slow movie; it's _supposed_ to be,
: : of course, since it sets the mood. Audiences today would be put off by its
: : slowness.
:
Oh, come now...you can't make a statement like that without citing at
least two or three examples! What didn't make sense to you in 2001?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Craig Berry - cbe...@cinenet.net
| Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
--*-- Member, CyberDesigns Team: http://www.cyber-designs.com/
| Member, HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/
"Every man and every woman is a star."
Craig Berry
John August (jo...@triode.apana.org.au) wrote:
: Erik Max Francis (m...@alcyone.com) wrote:
: : Lee S. Bumgarner wrote:
: :
: : > What about 2001? There was no sound (great music, though) and it wasn't
: : > boring.
: :
: : Depends on who you talk to. 2001 is a very slow movie; it's _supposed_ to be,
: : of course, since it sets the mood. Audiences today would be put off by its
: : slowness.
:
: blew up. Also, 'Outland' had no sound in space.
: Still, Alien made atmospheric use of this : "In space no-one can hear you
: something that would be useful for plot or atmosphere ?
:
: In any case, I think you could say both of these films developed at a decent
: pace.
My favorite (rather astonishing) example of getting things right with
regard to space phenomena occurred in the pilot for a never-produced TV
series called "Plymouth", about the first moon colony. The plot driver
for the show was large flare on the sun, which would bathe the moon in
high radiation levels in X hours when plasma hit...you can picture the
countdown-to-disaster texture of the thing, I'm sure, with folks stuck
far from shelter, and time-critical things to be done on the surface down
to the last minutes, and...
Anyway, finally everyone was deep underground or otherwise shielded, with
mere minutes to spare. The camera starts this slow pan around the
deserted control room, and I brace myself for bright light, a booming
noise, the usual over-the-top utterly unrealistic effects...and they
don't happen. Instead, a bunch of screens start showing bar graphs,
gradually getting bigger, and turning yellow, then red...while in the
background you hear a faint hiss, like a geiger counter, perfectly
believable as an adjunct to the video displays. And that's it.
I was floored.
Sea Wasp
In article <4oq9df$l...@doc.jmu.edu>,
Lee S. Bumgarner <bumg...@falcon.jmu.edu> wrote:
>> : Yep. It's not what it looks like, but the SOUND that bothers me. In outer
>> : space there ain't no where for the sound to travel through.
>> Yes, but this is the movies. Without sound, it would be boring.
>> And it is science-FICTION. I don't think I'll see anyone complaining about
>> the non-existance of dragons when I go see Dragonheart.
>
>What about 2001? There was no sound (great music, though) and it wasn't
>boring.
Matter of opinion, dude. 2001 was one of the most achingly boring
movies I've ever had the misfortune to watch. Sound in the space scenes
probably wouldn't have helped. Cutting some of the scenes would certainly
have helped.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Steve Hix
In article a...@wizvax.wizvax.net, sea...@wizvax.wizvax.net (Sea Wasp) writes:
:In article <4oq9df$l...@doc.jmu.edu>,
:Lee S. Bumgarner <bumg...@falcon.jmu.edu> wrote:
:
:>> : Yep. It's not what it looks like, but the SOUND that bothers me. In outer
:>> : space there ain't no where for the sound to travel through.
:
:>> Yes, but this is the movies. Without sound, it would be boring.
:>> And it is science-FICTION. I don't think I'll see anyone complaining about
:>> the non-existance of dragons when I go see Dragonheart.
:>
:>What about 2001? There was no sound (great music, though) and it wasn't
:>boring.
:
: Matter of opinion, dude. 2001 was one of the most achingly boring
:movies I've ever had the misfortune to watch.
Which was the *exact* point that Kubrick was trying to get across.
Spaceflight should be *boring*. It should not be risky.
:Sound in the space scenes probably wouldn't have helped. Cutting some of the
:scenes would certainly have helped.
Large segments *were* edited out.
The running sequence on the Discovery at the beginning of its voyage
was originally over 20 minutes long.
James Nicoll
In article <4ov68h$c...@flare.convex.com>,
Richard A. Schumacher <schu...@convex.com> wrote:
>
>Now, what "advanced science" explanation can we construct for dragons in
>medieval England? :->
Two: It's not really England, but a disney on a low-grav world. The
dragon is biotech.
: It's really England, but a possible past in which dragons
existed but left no traces: one of those low, low probablity worlds, like the
possbilbe past in which the God Fred created the universe last Tuesday.
--
" The moral, if you're a scholar don't pick up beautiful babes on deserted
lanes at night. Real Moral, Chinese ghost stories have mostly been written
by scholars who have some pretty strange fantasies about women."
Brian David Phillips
Mark Schlegel
Chris Becke (chr...@vironix.co.za) wrote:
: > bumg...@falcon.jmu.edu (Lee S. Bumgarner) wrote in article
: <4okkv3$q...@doc.jmu.edu>...
: I try hard to shut down all rational thought processes when watching
: movies that feature "Computers".
: I think it was the NET in which Sandra Bullok claimed she had the latest
: Pentium system, and then seconds later booted up MacOS. She also seemed
: not to realize that IP numbers are 4 bytes, and hence numbers like
: 1.376.100.3 are total rubbish. Despite this she uses some odd tool not
: called nslookup to do a nslookup on such a number.
Ah, this was actually done on purpose, this is the internet
equivalent to movie producers using phone numbers like
555-2348 when someone reads off their phone number in the show.
This is because the studios got bitched out when someone
actually had the random number they picked and got
prank calls. In the Net, they used nonsense IP's like
126.23.278.3 (made up example) since any dotted quad with
a digit over 255 is an impossible ip number. That way
they can't get blamed for pranks being caused by the movie.
: Ah, and computer viruses, as seen in the NET, and hackers, and others, are
: always very graphical devices that demonstrate how far they are through
: "eating" the database by flashing lots of colours on the screen. hmm, some
: of those movie "viruses" would make cool screensavers methinks.
: And the producers of Hackers seemed to think that UNIX has a 3D total
: immersion style shell, and expect us to believe that hacker style
: characters would actually use this while um hacking... (the planet?)
: The point is, Explosions must sound cool, technology must look cool and
: sound cool. A green screen of scrolling text without sound effects is
: _not_ cool.
Exactly, some of the funniest parts of Hackers are the parts where
they connect up their slow acoustic modems to the phones
but still get real-time, color, 3-d images from the hosts
they connect to. Even odder is when they are typing away
stuff into their machine but the screensaver is still THERE.
Brian Trosko
Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
: Yes; Outland had the mother-of-all-science-fiction-movie-goofs, someone blowing
: up when exposed to vacuum.
I thought the bit about blood dripping *upward* in a weightless
environment, instead of forming drops that float around willy-nilly, was
worse.
Alan Sargent
Geoffrey A. Landis (geoffre...@lerc.nasa.gov) wrote:
: In article <4om9b0$t...@news.ox.ac.uk> Neale Grant,
: univ...@sable.ox.ac.uk writes:
: >>> Dumb question, but is that because space is a vacuum? so then how
: >>> would that affect what the explosions would look like?
: > ...
: >Both of them bother me. Shouldn't an explosion with no atmosphere have
: >would cost a bit (but not much) to reproduce, as you'd have to blow up
: >your little models in a vacuum chamber, but it would nice to see
: >something much more spherically symmetric (except that the atmosphere on
: >a ship would escape through the weak points in the ship's structure first).
: A nuclear explosion in space would have a bright flash of gammas as the
: bomb went off, and then a spherically expanding fireball that fades from
: blue-white to orange to red to brick as it expands.
: The movie "Silent Running" made an attempt to get this right. No other
: movie even tries.
But /Silent Running/ had "artificial gravity" inside the spaceship. A
much bigger blooper.
John L Redford
Franklin Jordan <fjo...@netten.net> writes:
>Remember Arthur C Clarke's quote, however. Any sufficiently advanced
>science of others would seem like magic to us. Would the people of the
>18th century believe that we could send pictures through the air or even
>begin to comprehend the Internet?
Why wouldn't they? There were lots of smart cookies around in the
18th century. They started this whole Industrial Revolution stuff
after all. What's so astounding about mechanical communication?
There were semaphore systems already in place across France by the end
of the 18th century. In 1773 the Swiss watchmaker Jacquet-Droz built
a mechanical doll that could write characters with a quill pen. Put
wires and linkages between two of them and you'd have a teletype.
I don't buy this advanced technology = magic line anyway. The
mechanisms that make my fingers type are far beyond any technolgy we
have, but no one thinks of it as magic. It /used/ to be called magic,
to be called the Life Force, but ever since watchmakers could make
toys that moved like hands, those mechanisms lost their mystery.
Treating something as technology or magic is a matter of attitude, not
ignorance.
--
/jlr (John Redford, j...@world.std.com, http://world.std.com/~jlr)
See http://world.std.com/~jlr/doom/doom_eng.htm for:
"Doomed Engineers" - Careers even worse than yours
TrueJim
In article <4ov68h$c...@flare.convex.com>, schu...@convex.com (Richard A.
Schumacher) wrote:
> Now, what "advanced science" explanation can we construct for dragons in
> medieval England? :->
Hmmmm.....a medieval alchemist discovers a piece of Jurassic
amber with a prehistoric fly caught in it...
*snicker*
--
tru...@dreamscape.com http://www.dreamscape.com/truejim/
tru...@aol.com http://members.aol.com/truejim/
Visit http://www.babylon5.com/support/ to learn how to support Babylon 5. I wrote my letter!
William Sommerwerck
>> I was put off by the fact that large parts of it really DON'T make sense.
> Name some. If you grant the existence of the alien intelligence[s] and their technology, I can't recall anything that didn't fit.
Agreed. Although there is an intentional "metaphysical" element in the
film, it is otherwise conventional science fiction.
When 2001 came out, The Christian Science Monitor (which was then a
full-size newspaper) gave it a FULL-PAGE review. The reviewer lavishly
praised the film, and elaborated on its plot, philosophy, science, and
metaphysics in great detail. No one had "explained" the film to him, and
he didn't have access to Clark's novelization. But he knew what it was
about. (Can you pronounce Nietzsche? Sure ya can.)
At the risk of offending the original poster, 2001 assumes an educated
viewer. I remember the really stupid review of (Pauline Kael?), for whom
the film meant nothing at all. She saw nothing in the film, because she
brought nothing to it.
William Sommerwerck
One of my all-time favorite goofs was in "Brainstorm." These scientists
had created a machine which could record and play back thoughts, images,
and emotions. Okay?
The machine (and its recordings) were available via modem. In those
days, most modems ran at 300 bps. Imagine that -- transferring someone
else's brain patterns at 300 bps!
Not likely.
Kevin Kramer
Speaking of movie goofs, Has anyone ever seen a movie or television
show that reflected the fact that you can't see stars with the naked
eye in space? I haven't. I guess they make too pretty a background.
*** Kevin ***
kevin....@wcom.com
Raymond Swartz
In article <4p1k8m$u...@gateway.wiltel.com>,
Kevin Kramer <kkramer@kestrel> wrote:
>Speaking of movie goofs, Has anyone ever seen a movie or television
>show that reflected the fact that you can't see stars with the naked
>eye in space? I haven't. I guess they make too pretty a background.
Excuse me? Why do you believe you can't?
Mark Grant
Dunno, but I'm pretty sure he's wrong. There was a TV documentary about
the Russian space program a few months ago, where a cosmonaut talked about
watching the stars from Mir. He claimed that when they turned the interior
lights off on the dark side of the Earth they could see so many stars that
space was gray rather than black. I'd guess it depends a lot on the lighting.
Mark
(Mark....@isltd.insignia.com)
Geoffrey A. Landis
In article <4ovh74$a...@wizvax.wizvax.net> Sea Wasp,>movies I've ever had the misfortune to watch. Sound in the space scenes
>probably wouldn't have helped. Cutting some of the scenes would certainly
>have helped.
Did you see it on video, or on the big screen?
If you saw it on video, you're right, it was boring. This is a movie
which really needs the big screen. The teeny-weeny ittle Discovery and
miniscule little pods don't impress, and the box-sized "psychedelic"
ending is an anticlimax.
Try it again as a honest-to-god movie.
By the way, I couldn't figure out what alt.religion.kibology was doing on
the list of groups this was being posted to, so I deleted it and
substituted rec.arts.sf.movies, which seems a bit more appropriate.
____________________________________________
Geoffrey A. Landis,
Ohio Aerospace Institute at NASA Lewis Research Center
physicist and part-time science fiction writer
Matthew J. McIrvin
In article <31b2a...@202.76.19.19>, sar...@gateway.net.hk (Alan
Sargent) wrote:
> But /Silent Running/ had "artificial gravity" inside the spaceship. A
> much bigger blooper.
And gaseous rings of Saturn, and a world's greatest botanist who can't
remember that plants need light, and why the heck did they put all those
encapsulated forests at Saturn anyway, and why blow them up, and... and...
and... well, Harlan Ellison deconstructed it better than I could, in
_Watching_.
--
Matt McIrvin http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/
Brian Trosko
Kevin Kramer <kkramer@kestrel> wrote:
: Speaking of movie goofs, Has anyone ever seen a movie or television
: show that reflected the fact that you can't see stars with the naked
: eye in space? I haven't.
That's probably because you can see stars with the naked eye in space.
Jonathan Silverlight
(I've dropped sci.astro as it's not relevant)
In that case the publicity department missed a trick - they should
have used the ip number for the film's web site - I assume there
is one. There's a 60's MGM film in which Elizabeth Taylor's phone
number on screen is the MGM press office.
Erik Max Francis
Raymond Swartz wrote:
> In article <4p1k8m$u...@gateway.wiltel.com>,
> Kevin Kramer <kkramer@kestrel> wrote:
> >Speaking of movie goofs, Has anyone ever seen a movie or television
> >show that reflected the fact that you can't see stars with the naked
> >eye in space? I haven't. I guess they make too pretty a background.
>
> Excuse me? Why do you believe you can't?
He's wrong, obviously; if we can see them from inside a gravity well through a
few hundred kilometres of atmosphere, why wouldn't you be able to see them in
complete vacuum?
What he _might_ be referring to is the fact that there aren't any (or at least
very few) stars visible in photographs taken from the surface of the Moon.
This has to do with exposure times and film sensitivities, of course, not that
some Magical Force prevents stars from being seen beyond the Earth.
Tim Poston
K C Moore (k...@hpsl.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: In article <3...@eildon.win-uk.net> aw...@eildon.win-uk.net writes:
: >
: > In article <31B124...@netten.net>, Franklin Jordan (fjo...@netten.net)
: > writes:
: > > Would the people of the
: > >18th century believe that we could send pictures through the air or even
: > >begin to comprehend the Internet?
: >
: > I think they would have had no difficulty in believing it. In fact they would
: > have had no difficulty in believing you could send people through the air as
: > well. The difference is that they would have burned you at the stake for trying
: > it.
: I think you're being a bit unfair to the 18th C. The last execution
: for witchcraft in England was in 1712, in Europe (at Dornoch) in 1722.
: I doubt whether these unfortunates were burnt.
So maybe they wouldn't have burned people for trying it.
Succeeding, on the other hand, might have set the clock back.
____________________________________________________________________________
Tim Poston Institute of Systems Science, National University of Singapore
A billion dollars here, a billion dollars there,
and pretty soon you're talking Orbital Yen.
Tim Poston
Tony Buckland (buck...@ucs.ubc.ca) wrote:
: In article <4ot5lo$f...@ccshst05.uoguelph.ca>,
: David L Evens <dev...@uoguelph.ca> wrote:: : > What about 2001? There was no sound (great music, though) and it wasn't
: : > boring.
: : Depends on who you talk to. 2001 is a very slow movie; it's _supposed_ to be,
: : of course, since it sets the mood. Audiences today would be put off by its
: : slowness.
: >
: Name some. If you grant the existence of the alien intelligence[s]
: and their technology, I can't recall anything that didn't fit.
Just so: anything could _fit_, because it was not required,
in human terms, to make sense. That is very likely what
an encounter with superior alien technology would be like:
but it made a lousy story, because anything else could have
happened instead, and fit just as well.
The universe is not required to make sense to humans.
A good story, on the other hand, should.
Richard A. Schumacher
>Speaking of movie goofs, Has anyone ever seen a movie or television
>show that reflected the fact that you can't see stars with the naked
>eye in space? I haven't. I guess they make too pretty a background.
Is this a troll? Human eyes in space can certainly see stars. Are
you being misled by the fact that most photos and videos taken in
space don't show stars in the background? (Hint: eyes have much
more dynamic range than cameras.)
Daniel Pawtowski
In article <4oq9df$l...@doc.jmu.edu>,
Lee S. Bumgarner <bumg...@falcon.jmu.edu> wrote:
>
>What about 2001? There was no sound (great music, though) and it wasn't
>boring.
Although I like that film myself, I know plenty of people who consider
2001 to be one of the dullest movies of all time.
Daniel Pawtowski
dpaw...@vt.edu
Sea Wasp
In article <4p20vm$j...@sulawesi.lerc.nasa.gov>,
Geoffrey A. Landis <geoffre...@lerc.nasa.gov> wrote:
>In article <4ovh74$a...@wizvax.wizvax.net> Sea Wasp,
>sea...@wizvax.wizvax.net writes:
>> Matter of opinion, dude. 2001 was one of the most achingly boring
>>movies I've ever had the misfortune to watch. Sound in the space scenes
>>probably wouldn't have helped. Cutting some of the scenes would certainly
>>have helped.
>
>Did you see it on video, or on the big screen?
>
>If you saw it on video, you're right, it was boring. This is a movie
>which really needs the big screen. The teeny-weeny ittle Discovery and
>miniscule little pods don't impress, and the box-sized "psychedelic"
>ending is an anticlimax.
>
>Try it again as a honest-to-god movie.
Makes no bloody difference. It's like Star Trek I: The Motionless
Picture. However, ST had the redeeming quality that I'd been waiting for
many years to see Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise again, so the long
survey of the Enterprise was worthwhile the first time through. The
400 minute sequence of V'Ger wasn't, though. Cool effect, but I didn't
need THAT much of it.
2001 didn't have the redeeming quality of having something to
show me that I'd been waiting ten years to see. It had really unexciting
music in the long scenes (Strauss WALTZES? For ALL THAT TIME? Gimme
a break!), and the realism in space was just a cutesy affectation for
me. Sure, yeppers, that's realistic. Now let's get to the STORY,
shall we? No, we've got more inert scenes to go through. And we'll make
sure that all the plot scenes are opaque, so in order to understand
what's going on, you really do need to read the book... feh.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Geoffrey A. Landis
In article <4p3595$q...@flare.convex.com> Richard A. Schumacher,
schu...@convex.com writes:
>>Speaking of movie goofs, Has anyone ever seen a movie or television
>>show that reflected the fact that you can't see stars with the naked
>>eye in space? I haven't. I guess they make too pretty a background.
>
>Is this a troll? Human eyes in space can certainly see stars.
He may be referring to the fact that you can't see stars in the sunlit
part of the orbit.
I recall one of the Apollo astronauts mentioning this when asked by a
reporter; the glare from the sun apparently makes it impossible to see
the stars.
In article <4p28ed...@aston.insignia.uucp> Mark Grant,
ma...@aston.insignia.uucp said:
>There was a TV documentary about
>the Russian space program a few months ago, where a cosmonaut talked about
>watching the stars from Mir. He claimed that when they turned the interior
>lights off on the dark side of the Earth they could see so many stars that
>space was gray rather than black. I'd guess it depends a lot on the lighting.
Just so.
--again, I deleted "alt.religion.kibology" from the list of places this
is posted to--
William Sommerwerck
Kevin Kramer <kkramer@kestrel> wrote:
> Speaking of movie goofs, Has anyone ever seen a movie or television
> show that reflected the fact that you can't see stars with the naked
> eye in space? I haven't. I guess they make too pretty a background.
At night, I can sees LOTS of stars. Why shouldn't I still be able to see
them outside the Earth's atmosphere? If anything, I'd be able to see
more and fainter stars.
Erik Max Francis
Tim Poston wrote:
> The universe is not required to make sense to humans.
Of course not. But a movie had better make sense to humans if it is to make a
profit.
Wolfgang Schwanke
sea...@wizvax.wizvax.net (Sea Wasp) writes:
> 2001 didn't have the redeeming quality of having something to
>show me that I'd been waiting ten years to see. It had really unexciting
>music in the long scenes (Strauss WALTZES? For ALL THAT TIME? Gimme
>a break!), and the realism in space was just a cutesy affectation for
>me. Sure, yeppers, that's realistic. Now let's get to the STORY,
Hmm, you obviously don't know how to enjoy movies.
Good film is about visuals. The part with the dancing spaceships
to waltzes could've lasted half an hour for me. It's like a
video clip, only much better. Just beautiful music and beautiful pictures
in perfect harmony.
BTW I don't know if this is correct, but 2001 is said to be the
first movie that features "realistic" shots of ships ins space.
Older ones just have shots of a motionless black background with
withe dots, with some plastic model whizzing over it.
2001 has both the camera and the spaceship moving, which creates
a good illusion of space and motion. That technique is common
nowadays, but 2001 did it first.
>shall we? No, we've got more inert scenes to go through. And we'll make
>sure that all the plot scenes are opaque, so in order to understand
>what's going on, you really do need to read the book... feh.
Hmm. Maybe you dislike that it's "artsy". Other people dislike films
that are not.
Greetings
Wolfgang
--
Elektropost: wo...@cs.tu-berlin.de | wo...@berlin.snafu.de | wo...@techno.de
WeltweitesSpinnweb: http://www.snafu.de/~wolfi/
IRC: wolfi |
RealLife: Wolfgang Schwanke | Royaume Uni douze points
Jonathan Silverlight
It's certainly true that you can't see stars from inside a
well-lit room ( as in Star Trek ) or from the surface of the Moon
in daylight ( no-one's been there at night yet ).
However, astronauts have been looking at stars in space at least as
far back as Scott Carpenter - "though I do not believe that I saw as
many of them through the windowas I might have seen on a clear night
down on earth,I found that I could track them easily" (Into Orbit)
; this was from the night side.
In "A Fall of Moondust" Arthur Clarke has a video camera with a
Star Gate circuit which will show stars in daylight - as he says
"the public expected to see stars in the lunar sky even during the
daytime, because they were there."
In article
<4p1k8m$u...@gateway.wiltel.com>, Kevin Kramer (kkramer@kestrel)
writes:
>Speaking of movie goofs, Has anyone ever seen a movie or television
>show that reflected the fact that you can't see stars with the naked
>eye in space? I haven't. I guess they make too pretty a background.
>
>*** Kevin ***
>kevin....@wcom.com
>
Rich Travsky
Geoffrey A. Landis <geoffre...@lerc.nasa.gov> writes:
>Sea Wasp, sea...@wizvax.wizvax.net writes:
>> Matter of opinion, dude. 2001 was one of the most achingly boring
>>movies I've ever had the misfortune to watch. Sound in the space scenes
>>probably wouldn't have helped. Cutting some of the scenes would certainly
>>have helped.
>
>Did you see it on video, or on the big screen?
>
>If you saw it on video, you're right, it was boring. This is a movie
>which really needs the big screen. The teeny-weeny ittle Discovery and
>miniscule little pods don't impress, and the box-sized "psychedelic"
>ending is an anticlimax.
>
>Try it again as a honest-to-god movie.
Um, don't be too concerned about Seawasp and 2001. I recall posts of about
a coupla years ago where she talked about not being able to follow
the movie.
"Sound in space" wouldn't help it? >koff koff<
rich
Johnny Lamar Rhyne
In <4p3spt$u...@wizvax.wizvax.net> sea...@wizvax.wizvax.net (Sea Wasp)
writes:
>In article <4p20vm$j...@sulawesi.lerc.nasa.gov>,
>Geoffrey A. Landis <geoffre...@lerc.nasa.gov> wrote:
>
>>sea...@wizvax.wizvax.net writes:
>
>>> Matter of opinion, dude. 2001 was one of the most achingly boring
>>>movies I've ever had the misfortune to watch. Sound in the space
scenes
>>>probably wouldn't have helped. Cutting some of the scenes would
certainly
>>>have helped.
>>
>>Did you see it on video, or on the big screen?
>>
>>If you saw it on video, you're right, it was boring. This is a movie
>>which really needs the big screen. The teeny-weeny ittle Discovery
and
>>miniscule little pods don't impress, and the box-sized "psychedelic"
>>ending is an anticlimax.
>>
>>Try it again as a honest-to-god movie.
>
>
for
>many years to see Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise again, so the long
>survey of the Enterprise was worthwhile the first time through. The
>400 minute sequence of V'Ger wasn't, though. Cool effect, but I didn't
>need THAT much of it.
>
>show me that I'd been waiting ten years to see. It had really
unexciting
>music in the long scenes (Strauss WALTZES? For ALL THAT TIME? Gimme
>a break!), and the realism in space was just a cutesy affectation for
>me. Sure, yeppers, that's realistic. Now let's get to the STORY,
make
>sure that all the plot scenes are opaque, so in order to understand
>what's going on, you really do need to read the book... feh.
>
Trek 1 that sucks! Kirk, Spock and McCoy (played by regonized
celbites[Shatner,Nimoy, Kelly]) were in Star Trek and it was still
boring, but 2001 had actors that no one had heard of until that point
(Dullea, Lockwood, Rain) and it was a materpiece. And you are
complianing about the sound and music in the movie?! I suppose Heavy
metal would have been good for the space scenes, huh? Or maybe you
would like to hear the egine noises coming from the spacecraft(i.e.
star trek, star wars, every space sci-fi movie ever made), beides the
fact that sound cannot travel though space( most sci-fi movies ignore
this fact). And what do you mean that there is no plot, open your eyes(
and use your brain). All you have to do is one thing, THINK!!!!!!!!!!
Johnny Lamar Rhyne
In <4p4sgo$l...@brachio.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE>
wolf...@w250zrz.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE (Wolfgang Schwanke) writes:
>sea...@wizvax.wizvax.net (Sea Wasp) writes:
>
>> 2001 didn't have the redeeming quality of having something to
>>show me that I'd been waiting ten years to see. It had really
unexciting
>>music in the long scenes (Strauss WALTZES? For ALL THAT TIME? Gimme
>>a break!), and the realism in space was just a cutesy affectation for
>>me. Sure, yeppers, that's realistic. Now let's get to the STORY,
>
>Good film is about visuals. The part with the dancing spaceships
>to waltzes could've lasted half an hour for me. It's like a
>video clip, only much better. Just beautiful music and beautiful
pictures
>in perfect harmony.
You took the words right out of my mouth.
>BTW I don't know if this is correct, but 2001 is said to be the
>first movie that features "realistic" shots of ships ins space.
>Older ones just have shots of a motionless black background with
>withe dots, with some plastic model whizzing over it.
>2001 has both the camera and the spaceship moving, which creates
>a good illusion of space and motion. That technique is common
>nowadays, but 2001 did it first.
Yes, it was the first one ( and in my opinon, the most realitic
sci-fi movie I have ever seen.
barbara haddad
Brian Trosko <btr...@primenet.com> writes:
> Kevin Kramer <kkramer@kestrel> wrote:
> : Speaking of movie goofs, Has anyone ever seen a movie or television
> : show that reflected the fact that you can't see stars with the naked
> : eye in space? I haven't.
>
> That's probably because you can see stars with the naked eye in space.
....As long as you're not looking at something highly reflective or
light emitting. I.E. you cannot see stars if you are staring at the full
moon, at Earth, at the Sun - but can see stars if you look away from them
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just a thought from barbara haddad -> (bha...@LunaCity.com)
LunaCity BBS - Mountain View, CA - 415 968 8140
Brian Trosko
Wolfgang Schwanke <wolf...@w250zrz.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE> wrote:
: Hmm, you obviously don't know how to enjoy movies.
: Good film is about visuals.
Sorry, but I'm going to call 'bullshit' on that one, because if that were
the case, it would never have progressed past silent movies.
A good movie is much more than just stunning visuals. Visuals without
plot, character, or sound would just be a big Bob Ross painting. I don't
know about you, but I'm not going to spend 6 bucks just to sit in a seat
for 2 hours and look at visuals.
The visuals in 2001 were good for the time. They certainly don't compare
with the visuals in The Abyss, or Twister, or even in 2010. Since I had
read the book, and was able to appreciate the scientific accuracy of much
of the movie, I found 2001 to be enjoyable. But the movie really didn't
do a good job in and of itself of explaining the plot events, and
scientific accuracy doesn't necessarily make a movie good.
Given 100 dollars to spend on the definitive laserdisc of my choice, I'd
tend towards _Apocalypse Now_.
Brian "Yeah, I read Heart of Darkness" Trosko
Aaron R. Kulkis
news:31B467...@nwlink.com
Ah, if your organization could afford a brain-pattern tranciever system,
I'm sure they could afford high-speed modems.
ARPANET (which eventually became the Internet) was running at 56.6kbits/second
in 1968. MILNET was probably running faster (no proof on this, though...
it's just a guess).
The reason for the ubiquitous 300 bit/sec modem is that Bell 103A standard
was 300 baud that is all that AT&T would guarantee for switched lines.
Direct-connect circuits have always been able to carry much higher rates,
becuase you don't have to slow down to prevent swithching gliches.
(In fact, today's 28.8 modems still only use 1200 baud--massive data coding
systems push the rates higher)
--
Aaron R. Kulkis aku...@wae.gmpt.gmeds.com
Unix Systems Administrator
EDS/GM Powertrain
GM Warren Technical Center
Warren, Michigan, USA
--------------------------------------------
There are 2 Kinds of planes: Fighters, and targets
There are 2 Kinds of boats: Submarines, and targets
There are 2 Kinds of O/S's: Unix, and cpu-rot
--------------------------------------------
Sea Wasp
In article <4p4sgo$l...@brachio.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE>,
Wolfgang Schwanke <wolf...@w250zrz.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE> wrote:
>sea...@wizvax.wizvax.net (Sea Wasp) writes:
>> 2001 didn't have the redeeming quality of having something to
>>show me that I'd been waiting ten years to see. It had really unexciting
>>music in the long scenes (Strauss WALTZES? For ALL THAT TIME? Gimme
>>a break!), and the realism in space was just a cutesy affectation for
>>me. Sure, yeppers, that's realistic. Now let's get to the STORY,
>Hmm, you obviously don't know how to enjoy movies.
Sorry, but the above comment just screams out for me to say
"Obviously you're an elitist."
Since I manage to enjoy a large number of movies, I obviously
DO know how to enjoy movies. The fact that I don't enjoy the same ones
you do implies that we enjoy them in different ways.
>Good film is about visuals.
Since you apparently enjoy stating your opinions as God-given
facts, I'll take that as permission to do the same...
Good film is about telling a story with moving pictures as
well as words.
The part with the dancing spaceships
>to waltzes could've lasted half an hour for me. It's like a
>video clip, only much better. Just beautiful music and beautiful pictures
>in perfect harmony.
That's called a "Music Video", and we now do those much better.
Some of them even manage to have a plot woven into just the few minutes
of a standard pop song.
I go to movies to be entertained. If I want philosophy, I've
got plenty of philosophy books available. If you can manage to entertain
me while giving me philosophy or other "deep thought", fine, but your
first job as a moviemaker is to give me a fun time. A GREAT film, in
my completely godlike opinion, should be equally fun to watch with
your brain switched off to the level of Rambo, or with your every
faculty concentrated on it like Albert Einstein figuring out the
Theory of Relativity. But it's the FIRST level -- entertain even
with brain switched off -- that's the important one to me. First
get the entertainment done. THEN see if you've got the ability to
insert more "cool stuff" into the mix.
>>shall we? No, we've got more inert scenes to go through. And we'll make
>>sure that all the plot scenes are opaque, so in order to understand
>>what's going on, you really do need to read the book... feh.
>
>Hmm. Maybe you dislike that it's "artsy". Other people dislike films
>that are not.
No, I dislike films that are inert and boring. "The Crow" was
pretty darn artsy in a number of places, but it refused to be boring.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Rich Travsky
wolf...@w250zrz.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE (Wolfgang Schwanke) writes:
>sea...@wizvax.wizvax.net (Sea Wasp) writes:
>> 2001 didn't have the redeeming quality of having something to
>>show me that I'd been waiting ten years to see. It had really unexciting
>>music in the long scenes (Strauss WALTZES? For ALL THAT TIME? Gimme
>>a break!), and the realism in space was just a cutesy affectation for
>>me. Sure, yeppers, that's realistic. Now let's get to the STORY,
>
>Hmm, you obviously don't know how to enjoy movies.
>to waltzes could've lasted half an hour for me. It's like a
>video clip, only much better. Just beautiful music and beautiful pictures
>in perfect harmony.
>BTW I don't know if this is correct, but 2001 is said to be the
>first movie that features "realistic" shots of ships ins space.
>Older ones just have shots of a motionless black background with
>withe dots, with some plastic model whizzing over it.
>2001 has both the camera and the spaceship moving, which creates
>a good illusion of space and motion. That technique is common
>nowadays, but 2001 did it first.
Kubrick did not use just random dots of lights; he used actual star
"charts" (whatever they're called) as his backgrounds.
>>shall we? No, we've got more inert scenes to go through. And we'll make
>>sure that all the plot scenes are opaque, so in order to understand
>>what's going on, you really do need to read the book... feh.
>
>Hmm. Maybe you dislike that it's "artsy". Other people dislike films
>that are not.
Less artsy and more true to life. Lots of tension in what the characters
were doing; routine, but danger was inherent nonetheless (space walking
untethered - brrrr).
rich
Mark Schlegel
Aaron R. Kulkis (akulkis) wrote:
: news:31B467...@nwlink.com
: will...@nwlink.com (William Sommerwerck) wrote:
: >One of my all-time favorite goofs was in "Brainstorm." These scientists
: >had created a machine which could record and play back thoughts, images,
: >and emotions. Okay?
: >
: >The machine (and its recordings) were available via modem. In those
: >days, most modems ran at 300 bps. Imagine that -- transferring someone
: >else's brain patterns at 300 bps!
: >
: >Not likely.
: Ah, if your organization could afford a brain-pattern tranciever system,
: I'm sure they could afford high-speed modems.
: ARPANET (which eventually became the Internet) was running at
56.6kbits/second
: in 1968. MILNET was probably running faster (no proof on this, though...
: it's just a guess).
: The reason for the ubiquitous 300 bit/sec modem is that Bell 103A standard
: was 300 baud that is all that AT&T would guarantee for switched lines.
: Direct-connect circuits have always been able to carry much higher rates,
: becuase you don't have to slow down to prevent swithching gliches.
: (In fact, today's 28.8 modems still only use 1200 baud--massive data
coding : systems push the rates higher)
to give an idea of what sort of speed would be needed, it's
been estimated that an optic nerve to the brain hauls about
1 Gbps and that's for each one. On Brainstorm they imply
that smell, touch, etc are included on the 'experiences'
on the connection, so you might need about 10 or so to
pull off the connection (not even including what data
rate you'd need to convey the thoughts themselves if
that's possible). But it's interesting that current
single optical fibers are carrying well above this range
by mixing many laser frequencies then running each color
at high speed (frequency division multiplexing).
Mark
David DeLaney
>bomb went off, and then a spherically expanding fireball that fades from
>blue-white to orange to red to brick as it expands.
And, of course, this means it's exactly the inverse of a black hole finally
committing suicide.
Dave "Daniel Keys Moran has already notified us of what the sound of a nuclear
bomb exploding in reverse is" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney d...@panacea.phys.utk.edu "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://enigma.phys.utk.edu/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Chris Becke
> bha...@LunaCity.com (barbara haddad) wrote in article
<Vsa5oD...@LunaCity.com>...
> Brian Trosko <btr...@primenet.com> writes:
>
> > Kevin Kramer <kkramer@kestrel> wrote:
> > : Speaking of movie goofs, Has anyone ever seen a movie or television
> > : show that reflected the fact that you can't see stars with the naked
> > : eye in space? I haven't.
> >
> > That's probably because you can see stars with the naked eye in space.
>
> ....As long as you're not looking at something highly reflective or
> light emitting. I.E. you cannot see stars if you are staring at the
full
> moon, at Earth, at the Sun - but can see stars if you look away from
them
So what you're saying is that we must actually be looking at the stars
themselves to see them. erm. I see.
Well gosh, now that does make sense.
Chris.
t...@hplb.hpl.hp.com
Brian Trosko (btr...@primenet.com) wrote:
|The visuals in 2001 were good for the time. They certainly don't compare
|with the visuals in The Abyss, or Twister, or even in 2010.
The visuals are excellent even now. My definition of good is
"believable"; what's your definition?
2001 visuals can be contrasted with examples of bad visuals:
- anything where spaceships fly like WW2 fighters
(Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, etc, etc, etc)
- anything with very pretty space skyscapes (e.g.
Babylon 5, 2010)
- assumptions of artifical gravity (all other movies!)
--
===============================================================================
The above are my own views, not the views of HP
Tom Gardner Hewlett Packard Laboratories, Filton Rd,
t...@hplb.hpl.hp.com Stoke Gifford, Bristol, Avon, BS12 6QZ, ENGLAND.
Fax: +44 117 9228920 Tel: +44 117 9799910 ext. 28192
===============================================================================
David Thomas Richard Given
In article <31B4ECAA...@alcyone.com>,
Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
>He's wrong, obviously; if we can see them from inside a gravity well through a
>complete vacuum?
You can't see stars *and anything else at the same time*. The contrast's
simply too great. You *could* see them if you turned your back on the
sun, made sure that you were facing away from your space station, and
that the Earth wasn't in the way, but if there's anything at all sunlit
in your field of view, it completely drowns them out. Hence the glossy
black sky in most space photos.
--
------------------- http://www-hons-cs.cs.st-and.ac.uk/~dg --------------------
If you're up against someone more intelligent than you are, do something
totally insane and let him think himself to death. --- Pyanfar Chanur
---------------- Sun-Earther David Daton Given of Lochcarron ------------------
Geoffrey A. Landis
In article <4p7jqb$a...@nnrp1.news.primenet.com> Brian Trosko,
btr...@primenet.com writes:
>....
>Given 100 dollars to spend on the definitive laserdisc of my choice, I'd
>tend towards _Apocalypse Now_.
I wouldn't get a laserdisk of 2001 either. Repeating what I said before:
>This is a movie which really needs the big screen.
On video, even on a really good laserdisk, it's unimpressive.
Sea Wasp
In article <4p5788$e...@dfw-ixnews9.ix.netcom.com>,
Johnny Lamar Rhyne <crh...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> What are you talking about!!!!!!!?????? 2001 was great, it was Star
>Trek 1 that sucks! Kirk, Spock and McCoy (played by regonized
>celbites[Shatner,Nimoy, Kelly]) were in Star Trek and it was still
>boring, but 2001 had actors that no one had heard of until that point
>(Dullea, Lockwood, Rain) and it was a materpiece. And you are
>complianing about the sound and music in the movie?! I suppose Heavy
>metal would have been good for the space scenes, huh? Or maybe you
>would like to hear the egine noises coming from the spacecraft(i.e.
>star trek, star wars, every space sci-fi movie ever made), beides the
>fact that sound cannot travel though space( most sci-fi movies ignore
>this fact). And what do you mean that there is no plot, open your eyes(
>and use your brain). All you have to do is one thing, THINK!!!!!!!!!!
It would be MUCH easier for me to take this rant as commentary
from someone more enlightened in the ways of the intellectual world
if there was any sign of literacy in it. Incompetent spelling is now
inexcusable (spellcheckers being as ubiquitous as they are); one
or two errors in a paragraph are, perhaps, tolerable, but the above
rambling discourse exceeds that threshold by at least an order of
magnitude. Other offenses against grammar and usage are also legion.
Normally I'd refrain from criticizing such things, but when
the "point" of the above lecture is essentially that I'm a thoughtless
zombie, it seems to me that it would be more appropriate (and far
less ironic) to attempt at least SOME semblance of readable English
in the body of your polemic.
In point of fact, the above rant demonstrates that you can't
even read very well. I didn't say that STI was great; in fact, my
calling it "The Motionless Picture" should give a rather broad hint
as to my attitude towards it as a movie. I was simply giving another
example of a film that committed the same sins as 2001 -- long
musical tour sequences that contributed nothing to the film -- but
which managed to get away with them just a bit better, because
STI had a built-in draw: the return of Star Trek. If you're an ST fan
(and I was), then the sins of the moviemakers can be somewhat forgiven
simply because you're finally getting to see some of the things you've
always wanted to see on the Big Screen. 2001 didn't have that, and
therefore failed to interest me at all. The opening scenes were
fairly interesting, although the point of the Monolith wasn't at all
clear in the movie (while very, very clear in the book). However,
the middle part of 2001 was achingly boring. Many segments had little
to do with advancing the plot and a lot to do with "whee, look, this
is realistic, and after all that work to MAKE it realistic you're darn
well going to SEE a lot of it...".
From my PoV, movies like 2001 and Star Trek: The Motionless Picture
suffer from the same thing as many books; they need the equivalent of an
editor to tell them "slash this... cut that... this is wasting time; get to
the plot... you could do this in half the space...". I'm not sure who
(Director or Producer) is supposed to fill the "editor" slot in moviemaking,
but the problem is that unlike book editors, the directors and producers
these days are involved in the total creation process, so, like authors,
they can get too close to the problem to be able to see it clearly.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Brian Trosko
Even on an 80" ProScan or a 200" Sharp LCD front projector? You're a
tough man to please.
Brian "oooh...pretty..." Trosko
Stefan E. Jones
In article <4pabfa$7...@nnrp1.news.primenet.com>,
2001: A Space Oddysey was originally distributed on 70mm prints. SEVENTY
MILLIMETER. Big. Clear. Impressive. If you're lucky, you can catch a showing
of the of the original print at art cinemas.
It was also shown with an intermission.
I really don't understand some of the criticism directed at the film in
this thread. 2001 is still head and shoulders above most sf cinema. It's not
slow and poorly edited; it realistically shows the banality of a long
duration space mission, the utter silence of deep space, etc. It is not
set in a "human scale" universe where everything's cozy and predictable
and people-pleasin' (hyperdrive, aliens with slime dripping from their
mouths, deep-space dogfights). It's trying to depict space as something
big and bleak and empty (which it is) and advanced aliens as ADVANCED
and ALIEN, not John Campbell pushovers with slighly shinier popguns designed
for the humans to defeat in the last act.
--Stefan Jones,
who saw it in the first week of its release...
--
+-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+
S...@aol.com ~ sjo...@andrew.cmu.edu ~ ste...@io.com
http://www.ini.cmu.edu/~sjones/
Johnny Lamar Rhyne
Malcolm Reid
In article <4p58il$a...@dfw-ixnews7.ix.netcom.com>
crh...@ix.netcom.com(Johnny Lamar Rhyne) writes:
>In <4p4sgo$l...@brachio.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE>
>wolf...@w250zrz.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE (Wolfgang Schwanke) writes:
>>
>>sea...@wizvax.wizvax.net (Sea Wasp) writes:
>>
>>> 2001 didn't have the redeeming quality of having something to
>>>show me that I'd been waiting ten years to see. It had really
>unexciting
>>>music in the long scenes (Strauss WALTZES? For ALL THAT TIME? Gimme
>>>a break!), and the realism in space was just a cutesy affectation for
>>>me. Sure, yeppers, that's realistic. Now let's get to the STORY,
>>
>>Hmm, you obviously don't know how to enjoy movies.
>>Good film is about visuals. The part with the dancing spaceships
>>to waltzes could've lasted half an hour for me. It's like a
>>video clip, only much better. Just beautiful music and beautiful
>pictures
>>in perfect harmony.
>
>
>>first movie that features "realistic" shots of ships ins space.
>>Older ones just have shots of a motionless black background with
>>withe dots, with some plastic model whizzing over it.
>>2001 has both the camera and the spaceship moving, which creates
>>a good illusion of space and motion. That technique is common
>>nowadays, but 2001 did it first.
>
>sci-fi movie I have ever seen.
hard sf (I'm including B5 because it's pretty accurate, and comes more as hard
than soft) like it, and that people who are into soft SF (ie most tv/film sf)
dislike it.
*****************************************************************************
* Malcolm Reid * Mal...@SV.Span.Com * 85.5% on the Purity test *************
*****************************************************************************
* http://www.ourfiles.compuserve.com/homepages/Malcolm_Reid * McQ compliant *
*****************************************************************************
Tom Spain
schu...@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher) wrote:
>>And it is science-FICTION. I don't think I'll see anyone complaining about
>>the non-existance of dragons when I go see Dragonheart.
>Ugh! Good science fiction tries to remain plausible and not at odds
>with our understanding of the universe. Fantasy and bad science
>fiction don't give a shit. So _Star Wars_ et alia are fantasies.
And did anyone ever think otherwise?
Tom Spain
dev...@uoguelph.ca (David L Evens) wrote:
>I was put off by the fact that large parts of it really DON'T make sense.
Really? What parts are those?
I know of only one error of science fact in 2001 and it all makes
sense if you consider it a movie about religion and not about science.
It is, to this day, one of my all time favorite movies.
TS
Tim Poston
Brian Trosko (btr...@primenet.com) wrote:
: Kevin Kramer <kkramer@kestrel> wrote:
: : Speaking of movie goofs, Has anyone ever seen a movie or television
: : show that reflected the fact that you can't see stars with the naked
: : eye in space? I haven't.
: That's probably because you can see stars with the naked eye in space.
A naked eye in space would not explode,
but it would probably frost up on the surface.
I don't think you could see much, for long.
Tim
____________________________________________________________________________
Tim Poston Institute of Systems Science, National University of Singapore
A billion dollars here, a billion dollars there,
and pretty soon you're talking Orbital Yen.
Wolfgang Schwanke
Brian Trosko <btr...@primenet.com> writes:
>Wolfgang Schwanke <wolf...@w250zrz.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE> wrote:
>: Hmm, you obviously don't know how to enjoy movies.
>: Good film is about visuals.
>Sorry, but I'm going to call 'bullshit' on that one, because if that were
>the case, it would never have progressed past silent movies.
I didn't say it' *only* pictures. But they are the main part, obviously.
>A good movie is much more than just stunning visuals. Visuals without
>plot, character, or sound would just be a big Bob Ross painting.
Depends, but 2001 has it all. The previous poster complained specifically
that all those "tedious" scenes were boring, but I think he just didn't get
the point of it.
>I don't
>know about you, but I'm not going to spend 6 bucks just to sit in a seat
>for 2 hours and look at visuals.
Sure I would. Do you know the film "Koyaanisqatsi" (sp?). No story.
No cast! ONLY pictures and music. Do you watch music videos BTW?
>The visuals in 2001 were good for the time. They certainly don't compare
>with the visuals in The Abyss, or Twister, or even in 2010.
I disagree. Esp. 2010 is much worse.
William Sommerwerck
> Ah, if your organization could afford a brain-pattern transceiver system, I'm sure they could afford high-speed modems.
In "Brainstorm," the modem connections were clearly shown as POTS
connections. The people inserted a standard handset into an acoustic
coupler. No high-speed connections.
David Thomas Richard Given
In article <31b2a...@202.76.19.19>,
Alan Sargent <sar...@gateway.net.hk> wrote:
>But /Silent Running/ had "artificial gravity" inside the spaceship. A
>much bigger blooper.
But it *states* that artificial gravity is possible (the scene with all
the biodomes pointing in different directions, each with its own `down').
It doesn't just ignore the issue entirely, like Star Trek does. That's
allowable, the same way as FTL drives are allowable.
Ultimate-1
I dont believe you can fundamentally love both Trek and 2001.
Trek's technology /scientific background is made up according to
writers whims,inventing new things to solve plot troubles-but 2001
worked within the limits of this universe.Theres more skill in writers
working out things within the limits of science now than making the
science fit the story, 2001 /2010 must be applauded for their tech
background at least.
There are no technology limits set in Trek that the viewer can truly
understand,as its all fantasy.
The plodding,corporate style of 2001 reflects this world,not a
world where all probs get solved as a lot of sf does.
2001 's ships were actually partially designed by NASA men.
The crew never stepped off the black mats in their velcro boots.
In 2001 /2010 the rotating hulls gave artificial gravity-a scientific
fact now,that principle-and this was never even explained in the
films-only Babylon 5 as far as i know also used
this rotation thing in the form of its ONiell colony station,but B5 is
also full of fantasy tech like trek.
The 2001/2010 ships went slow,real slow,no FTL here.
The films are ironic-the most accurate tech ever shown,yet the most
mystical too.
The 'alien' elements *were* that-alien.
Only the USSR film Solaris did anything comparable with an alien.
From: 'Ultimate-1'
----------------------------------------------------
The World Of 'Ultimate-1' World Wide Web Site:
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/plaza/aaq05/
----------------------------------------------------
Mike Smithwick
In article <4p58il$a...@dfw-ixnews7.ix.netcom.com>,
>wolf...@w250zrz.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE (Wolfgang Schwanke) writes:
>
>>BTW I don't know if this is correct, but 2001 is said to be the
>>first movie that features "realistic" shots of ships ins space.
>>Older ones just have shots of a motionless black background with
>>withe dots, with some plastic model whizzing over it.
>>2001 has both the camera and the spaceship moving, which creates
>>a good illusion of space and motion. That technique is common
>>nowadays, but 2001 did it first.
>
> Yes, it was the first one ( and in my opinon, the most realitic
>sci-fi movie I have ever seen.
For all of the skill and care that went into the film there are still
many small continuity problems or inconsistancies. take for example
the docking sequence with the Hilton. Notice the central display in the
Orion's flight deck : a vector graphics display of the Hilton's docking
bay. Outside the window is the real thing. The Hilton is rotating and
so is the display, perfectly syncronized. After the Orion starts its rotation
we see the cabin again. The Hilton is now "fixed" but the display is still
rotating.
Another one is seen when theAries is landing at Clavius. The phase of the
Aries is crecent while the earth is gibbous.
Somewhere I have the book on the making of 2001, and among other things
it mentions that in order to get the sharp images and tremendous depth of
field needed for the scenes of the pod leaving the Discovery, the
camera's F-stop had to be so high that each frame took about many minutes,
the entire few seconds took a day or more to shoot.
Mike
--
"The meek shall inherit the Earth, they are too weak to refuse"
** Mike Smithwick - mi...@rahul.net, author First Light
** The above does not represent the views PsiCorp, Home Guard, or the SPEBSQSA
Fu W Chez
schu...@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher) wrote:
>Now, what "advanced science" explanation can we construct for dragons in
>medieval England? :->
See _Strata_, by the awesome Terry Pratchett.
Pity it's a pain to get the books within a decade of their U.K.
release here in the U.S.
Don Doff
ste...@io.com (Stefan E. Jones) wrote:
>2001: A Space Oddysey was originally distributed on 70mm prints. SEVENTY
>MILLIMETER. Big. Clear. Impressive. If you're lucky, you can catch a showing
>of the of the original print at art cinemas.
>It was also shown with an intermission.
>I really don't understand some of the criticism directed at the film in
>this thread. 2001 is still head and shoulders above most sf cinema.
2001 is not just head and shoulders above most sf cinema. It is head
and shoulders above all other cinema.
Before the commercial release, Kubrick trimmed 19 minutes from the
original print. He believed it did not make much difference, as the
people who liked the film wouldn't have minded it longer, and the
people who did not like the film would have preferred even more cuts.
Bruce Baugh
>I dont believe you can fundamentally love both Trek and 2001.
I do, because I do. I find 2001 an impressive work, well worth repeat viewings
(though it should _definitely_ be seen on the big screen first), with an
almost incomparable level of craft. I also like Trek a lot, which at its best
is something very different than the thing 2001 is.
Bruce Baugh <*> br...@aracnet.com <*> http://www.aracnet.com/~bruce
See my Web pages for
New science fiction by Steve Stirling and George Alec Effing er
Christlib, the mailing list for Christian and libertarian concerns
Daedalus Games, makers of Shadowfist and Feng Shui
woodelf
In article <4p9cd9$s...@wizvax.wizvax.net>, sea...@wizvax.wizvax.net (Sea
Wasp) wrote:
[snip]
> therefore failed to interest me at all. The opening scenes were
> fairly interesting, although the point of the Monolith wasn't at all
> clear in the movie (while very, very clear in the book). However,
just to clear up a point i've been wondering about: did you read The
Sentinel or the novelization of the film? i thought that The Sentinel
(which is what the movie is actually based on) was far better, even though
it makes the plot of 2001 seem crystal-clear by comparison.
> the middle part of 2001 was achingly boring. Many segments had little
> to do with advancing the plot and a lot to do with "whee, look, this
> is realistic, and after all that work to MAKE it realistic you're darn
> well going to SEE a lot of it...".
perhaps, or perhaps it was "we've got this strong theme, which the plot is
doing its share to uphold. but the plot can't do it alone; it's too
direct and simplistic. we need to carry the theme into the look and feel
more, draw the viewer into this movie so deeply that they don't just watch
it, but feel it. if we're lucky, they'll even continue to think about it
*after* they've left the theater."
>
> From my PoV, movies like 2001 and Star Trek: The Motionless Picture
> suffer from the same thing as many books; they need the equivalent of an
> editor to tell them "slash this... cut that... this is wasting time; get to
> the plot... you could do this in half the space...". I'm not sure who
> (Director or Producer) is supposed to fill the "editor" slot in moviemaking,
> but the problem is that unlike book editors, the directors and producers
> these days are involved in the total creation process, so, like authors,
> they can get too close to the problem to be able to see it clearly.
>
that's assuming that plot is the primary concern, of course. a valid
assumption, but not necessarily more supportable than others. i often
read books because of character, not plot. and then there's Dickens. the
Old Curiosity Shop is my favorite work by him, precisely because it spends
pages describing the simplest visual, and doesn't feel compelled to skip
the good stuff just to forward the plot. similarly, in films i often look
for other things besides plot. if i had to boil my taste in movies down
to one fundamental quality, it would be impact: i want a movie to get to
me somehow. sometimes the nature of the plot and the issues it raises do
this. oftentimes it's the presentation that makes the difference. i have
gone to see a movie purely because of the composer of the soundtrack. i
think that films like 2001 work precisely *because* i have to think about
it a great deal. the same message given me whole cloth wouldn't make as
much of an impact. a good plot is sufficient, but not necessary, for
getting to me. so are excellent cinematography, good scoring,
well-thought-out strange ideas, or a strong theme. the best films have
most, if not all, of these. for example, i think that powaqqatsi is one
of the more lasting films i've seen, but there is barely anything that
could be considered a plot.
you're right that sometimes the artist can't do as good of a job because
they can't step back. Batman Returns is a good example of this.
or is it? it depends on your standards. i find that the uncompromised
artistic passion of batman returns makes it the best of the batman films
to date. had the film been subject to conventional standards of what
works and editted and shot under those assumptions, you would have, at
best, ended up with the crippled vision of Batman, or, at worst, the
pandering to the public tastes that was Batman Forever. only by cutting
loose and letting the artist have her say do you end up with the best
possible end result. Batman Returns was a flawed vision in many ways, but
it was true to that vision. now, that result is best when judged on
artistic merits; critically and/or publicly it may fail miserably. it's
an age-old question often applied to more conventional art forms: is art
good if nobody likes it? i posit that there is no relationship between
the two qualities; as long as the artist believes it is good, than it is.
it is a purely economic problem if nobody else does.
woodelf
nbar...@students.wisc.edu
woo...@yar.cs.wisc.edu
http://dax.cs.wisc.edu/~woodelf
It's like I've always said, you can get more with a kind word and a
2'x4' than a kind word. --Marcus
Sea Wasp
In article <4pcfej$r...@soap.news.pipex.net>,
Ultimate-1 <aa...@dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>I dont believe you can fundamentally love both Trek and 2001.
?
What you believe isn't going to affect the fact that there ARE
people who love both, dude. Different tastes and approaches are
not always impossible to reconcile in a single mind. The fact that
*I* don't like 2001 has nothing at all to do with the technology,
and everything to do with boredom. Fantasy and SF are utterly opposed
in their approach to the real world, but I like both. I enjoy good
hard SF. I simply don't like boring movies with vague, ill-defined
plots and pretentious posturers as fans.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Brian Trosko
Johnny Lamar Rhyne <crh...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
: I just just back from seeing The Rock. I though it was a terrick
: movie. Very Good plot, Good special effects, Great Villan, Connery was
: great and Cage was good.
: Anyone care to comment of this?
I'm not sure how you can really consider the movie to be sci-fi, but I'll
comment anyway, since I thought it was a good flick. Nothing especially
deep, but a good meat and potatoes sort of movie. And considering that
the last two movies I went to see in the theater were _Mission:
Impossible_ and _Fear_(damn girl companion...next time, I'm dragging
*her* to that Pam Anderson movie), I was happy to finally get my 6 bucks
worth out of a movie.
Unlike _Mission: Impossible_ whose technical inaccuracies, geographical
rearrangements, plot holes, utterly unbelieveable characters, and poor
acting tripped my DisbeliefSuspension Bullshit-O-Meter(tm) bigtime, _The
Rock_ didn't bother me at all. If you haven't seen the movie, you might
want to skip the following.
Brief problems:
VX is a nerve agent. Okay, they got the bit about doing to Orkin Shuffle
down right, but it's not a blister agent too, and it's not going to melt
your skin off. I could easily believe a nasty blister agent would look
something like how they portrayed it, but VX ain't one of them.
While atropine can ward off the lethal effects of nerve gas if
administered in time, you don't have to inject it into your heart; they
must have gotten that confused due to the adrenaline scene in _Pulp
Fiction_. The MOPP gear that the army wears has an injector on the hip.
If you think you've been exposed, you whack it, and it adminsters the
atropine. Also, atropine itself is a very nasty poison, and it's my
understanding that if you take the dose, and you *haven't* been exposed
to a cholinesterase inhibitor, you die a somewhat less nasty, but still
fatal death.
And the bit about 'thermite plasma' slightly bothered me. I mean, napalm
burns hot enough to demolish a molecule as big as VX. Granted, it didn't
work so well on those islands off of Great Britain, but those were
contaminated with anthrax spores, which are considerably hardier. Then
there's the fact that if the rockets are inside the buildings, dropping
these 'thermite plasma' bombs on the island doesn't ensure that you'll
get them all. If you were really too cheap to spend 100 million bucks to
save San Fran, and so worried about the gas that you'd send in a team
*and* the plasma bombs, wouldn't you just pull one of those 60s-era
backpack nukes out of storage and be *sure*?
Brian "Nuke the site from orbit...it's the only way to be sure" Trosko
Johnny Lamar Rhyne
John Schilling
Brian Trosko <btr...@primenet.com> writes:
>Johnny Lamar Rhyne <crh...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>: I just just back from seeing The Rock. I though it was a terrick
>: movie. Very Good plot, Good special effects, Great Villan, Connery was
>: great and Cage was good.
>: Anyone care to comment of this?
>I'm not sure how you can really consider the movie to be sci-fi, but I'll
>comment anyway, since I thought it was a good flick. Nothing especially
>deep, but a good meat and potatoes sort of movie. And considering that
>the last two movies I went to see in the theater were _Mission:
>Impossible_ and _Fear_(damn girl companion...next time, I'm dragging
>*her* to that Pam Anderson movie), I was happy to finally get my 6 bucks
>worth out of a movie.
>Unlike _Mission: Impossible_ whose technical inaccuracies, geographical
>rearrangements, plot holes, utterly unbelieveable characters, and poor
>acting tripped my DisbeliefSuspension Bullshit-O-Meter(tm) bigtime, _The
>Rock_ didn't bother me at all. If you haven't seen the movie, you might
>want to skip the following.
>Brief problems:
>VX is a nerve agent. Okay, they got the bit about doing to Orkin Shuffle
>down right, but it's not a blister agent too, and it's not going to melt
>your skin off. I could easily believe a nasty blister agent would look
>something like how they portrayed it, but VX ain't one of them.
They also managed to overstate the lethality of VX by about five orders
of magnitude. My suspension of disbelief was destroyed about fifteen
minutes into the movie, with the absurd claim that a single teaspoon
of VX in aerosol form would "kill everyone in an eight-block radius".
In fact, even a thirty-foot radius would be stretching it, and that
would require that the victims hang around for ten minutes breathing
the stuff. LC50 for airborne VX is ~50 mg/m^3-min for exposures over
a few minutes, or 5 mg/m^3 for 50% casualties in a ten-minute period.
Not to mention that VX isn't designed for airborne use in the first
place - while most nerve agents are extremely volatile liquids, VX
very deliberately has the consistency of motor oil, and is intended
for use as an area-denial agent. Basically, you deposit the stuff
on a surface, to inflict casualties via skin absorbtion at a later
date and so deter enemy use of the contaminated terrain/equipment/
whatever until they can arrange for decontamination. In this
context, the recommended concentration is ~250mg per square meter.
In short, there is no way the terrorists could have killed more
than a tiny fraction of the population of San Francisco. Of
course, being able to kill "only" a thousand or so people, and
in the process contaminate a few hundred acres of prime urban
real estate with Really Nasty Chemicals, is a substantial
terrorist threat in its own right, and once I managed to
convince myself that nobody *really* believed all the hype
about five- or six-figure body counts and depopulated cities,
I enjoyed the rest of the movie quite thoroughly.
--
*John Schilling * "You can have Peace, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * or you can have Freedom. *
*University of Southern California * Don't ever count on having both *
*Aerospace Engineering Department * at the same time." *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * - Robert A. Heinlein *
*(213)-740-5311 or 747-2527 * Finger for PGP public key *
Jeff Smith
Tom Gardner <t...@hplb.hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>2001 visuals can be contrasted with examples of bad visuals:
Babylon 5 uses Hubble photos of real star-scapes for the backgrounds of
many of their space-scenes. Yes, they use the pretty and interesting ones
but they are REAL.
smith
--
Jeff Smith Robotics Institute, Carnegie-Mellon U.
jeff...@cs.cmu.edu http://www.cs.cmu/~jeffrey
--
"Ah, the joys of desensitization, after which a heap of corpses is but a
merry pile-up of stinking clowns, and the grave their miniature car."
- cp_...@alcor.concordia.ca
Matt Martinez
Johnny Lamar Rhyne wrote:
>
> I just just back from seeing The Rock. I though it was a terrick
> movie. Very Good plot, Good special effects, Great Villan, Connery was
> great and Cage was good.
>
> Anyone care to comment of this?
>
THE ROCK kicked more ass than any movie I have seen this summer. I
thought the scene in the beginning where the guy gets exposed to the VX
gas was somewhat unneccesary, and I found the chase scene somewhat
ridiculous, but it was outstanding! Michael Bay is one of the greatest
directors in the world.
I was sort of disappointed to see that Anthony Clark only portrayed a
wussy hairdresser (he was funny, nonetheless), but when I heard he was
going to be in it, I was hoping he'd be a Navy SeAL, or something. I
think Clark could do very well if given a serious role. (To people
who've read RELIC, I always thought Anthony Clark would make a great
Agent Pendergast. To people who don't know who Anthony Clark is, he
plays Boyd on Boston Common.)
--
Matt
This is my anti-sig file.
Thomas Womack
woodelf (nbar...@students.wisc.edu) wrote:
: In article <4p9cd9$s...@wizvax.wizvax.net>, sea...@wizvax.wizvax.net (Sea
: Wasp) wrote:
: > fairly interesting, although the point of the Monolith wasn't at all
: > clear in the movie (while very, very clear in the book). However,
: just to clear up a point i've been wondering about: did you read The
: Sentinel or the novelization of the film? i thought that The Sentinel
: (which is what the movie is actually based on) was far better, even though
: it makes the plot of 2001 seem crystal-clear by comparison.
Really? I though The Sentinel was a short story about a moon-landing, with
a very clear plot, and the 'sparkling thing I found on the mountain' being
clearly described as an artifact from the same school as the monolith,
although not equipped with the same degree of autonomy. It was described
as a fire alarm - when we broke it, they would be summoned. But they
never actually arrived.
: nbar...@students.wisc.edu
: woo...@yar.cs.wisc.edu
: http://dax.cs.wisc.edu/~woodelf
: It's like I've always said, you can get more with a kind word and a
: 2'x4' than a kind word. --Marcus
--
Tom
"The first Ariane 5 flight did not result in validation of Europe's new
launcher"
YAA (Yet Another Al)
br...@aracnet.com (Bruce Baugh) wrote:
>In article <4pcfej$r...@soap.news.pipex.net>, aa...@dial.pipex.com (Ultimate-1) wrote:
>>I dont believe you can fundamentally love both Trek and 2001.
>I do, because I do. I find 2001 an impressive work, well worth repeat viewings
>(though it should _definitely_ be seen on the big screen first), with an
>almost incomparable level of craft. I also like Trek a lot, which at its best
>is something very different than the thing 2001 is.
>Bruce Baugh <*> br...@aracnet.com <*> http://www.aracnet.com/~bruce
>See my Web pages for
> New science fiction by Steve Stirling and George Alec Effing er
> Christlib, the mailing list for Christian and libertarian concerns
> Daedalus Games, makers of Shadowfist and Feng Shui
And I like both. In fact, long after I've seen every episode of
Trek as many time as I ever want to, I'm still looking at my copy
of 2001 and enjoying it.
This doesn't mean I don't *like* Trek, and Babylon 5 and even
X-Files. I look forward to new episodes. But I still like 2001!
FWIW
YAA (Yet Another Al)
Johnny Lamar Rhyne
In <31BCDF...@bright.net> Matt Martinez <jsyj...@bright.net>
writes:
>Johnny Lamar Rhyne wrote:
>>
>> I just just back from seeing The Rock. I though it was a terrick
>> movie. Very Good plot, Good special effects, Great Villan, Connery
was
>> great and Cage was good.
>>
>> Anyone care to comment of this?
>>
>
>THE ROCK kicked more ass than any movie I have seen this summer. I
>thought the scene in the beginning where the guy gets exposed to the
VX
>gas was somewhat unneccesary, and I found the chase scene somewhat
>ridiculous, but it was outstanding!
I though the VX death Scene added horrer to the thought of that stuff
being sparyed onto millions of civilens. Most times in movies when
thousands of people are going to be killed, it goes though my mind like
"so what?". But when you see what it does to people, it adds terror to
the threat. I shows how much people are desensitized to violence in our
socity.
Matt Martinez
Good point.
Andrew C. Plotkin
jef...@cs.cmu.edu (Jeff Smith) writes:
> Tom Gardner <t...@hplb.hpl.hp.com> wrote:
> >2001 visuals can be contrasted with examples of bad visuals:
> > - anything with very pretty space skyscapes (e.g. Babylon 5, 2010)
>
> Babylon 5 uses Hubble photos of real star-scapes for the backgrounds of
> many of their space-scenes. Yes, they use the pretty and interesting ones
> but they are REAL.
We're not talking about starscapes; we're talking about giant glowing
nebulae, aurorae, bands of gorgeous light and purple waves of grain.
Taking a Hubble photograph of a nebula, brightening it, magnifying it
to cover thirty degrees of sky, and dropping it behind your pretty
rendered starships does not count as "realistic". I would go so far as
to call it "unrealistic." Terrific-looking, but not real.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
Jacob Mcguire
Excerpts from netnews.rec.arts.sf.science: 11-Jun-96 Re: THE ROCK by
Johnny Lamar Rh...@ix.ne
>thousands of people are going to be killed, it goes though my mind like
>"so what?". But when you see what it does to people, it adds terror to
>the threat. I shows how much people are desensitized to violence in our
>socity.
You really want to see something eerie about how desensitized we are?
Watch a violent movie, like maybe Pulp Fiction or something.
Now watch a football game in which someone twists his ankle and has to
leave the game.
Which one grosses you out more, the tons of people getting shot, or
the replays of the guy in slow motion coming down on his ankle and
having it twist underneath him?
God forbid the QB is running down the sideline and breaks his leg.
+------------------------------------+------------------+
| Small towns in western Germany are | Jake McGuire |
| usually about ten kilotons apart | mcgu...@cmu.edu |
+------------------------------------+------------------+
Erik Max Francis
Jacob Mcguire wrote:
> You really want to see something eerie about how desensitized we are?
>
> Watch a violent movie, like maybe Pulp Fiction or something.
>
> Now watch a football game in which someone twists his ankle and has to
> leave the game.
I wouldn't call this desensitization. It's knowing the difference between
real and make-believe.
--
Erik Max Francis &tSftDotIotE && http://www.alcyone.com/max && m...@alcyone.com
San Jose, California, U.S.A. && 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W && the 4th R is respect
H.3`S,3,P,3$S,#$Q,C`Q,3,P,3$S,#$Q,3`Q,3,P,C$Q,#(Q.#`-"C`- && 1love && folasade
Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt. && Dominion, GIGO, GOOGOL, Omega, Psi, Strategem
"Out from his breast/his soul went to seek/the doom of the just." -- _Beowulf_
Andrew C. Plotkin
Jacob Mcguire <mcgu...@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
> Excerpts from netnews.rec.arts.sf.science: 11-Jun-96 Re: THE ROCK by
> Johnny Lamar Rh...@ix.ne
>
> Watch a violent movie, like maybe Pulp Fiction or something.
>
> Now watch a football game in which someone twists his ankle and has to
> leave the game.
>
> the replays of the guy in slow motion coming down on his ankle and
> having it twist underneath him?
The football scene, I'd imagine (I can't think of an example I've
witnessed.)
I don't find this eerie. I find it hopeful. My stomach knows the
difference between fantasy and reality.
Jacob Mcguire
Excerpts from netnews.rec.arts.sf.science: 11-Jun-96 Re: THE ROCK by
>>
>> Watch a violent movie, like maybe Pulp Fiction or something.
>>
>> Now watch a football game in which someone twists his ankle and has to
>>leave the game.
>
>between real and make-believe.
I still think its kind of eerie.
Donald Bachman
Ultimate-1 (aa...@dial.pipex.com) wrote:
: I dont believe you can fundamentally love both Trek and 2001.
This rather like saying you can't fundamentally love both art which
is abstract and realistic.
: From: 'Ultimate-1'
: ----------------------------------------------------
: The World Of 'Ultimate-1' World Wide Web Site:
: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/plaza/aaq05/
: ----------------------------------------------------
Donald
woodelf
In article <4pglam$9...@news.ox.ac.uk>, mert...@sable.ox.ac.uk (Thomas
Womack) wrote:
> woodelf (nbar...@students.wisc.edu) wrote:
> : just to clear up a point i've been wondering about: did you read The
> : Sentinel or the novelization of the film? i thought that The Sentinel
> : (which is what the movie is actually based on) was far better, even though
> : it makes the plot of 2001 seem crystal-clear by comparison.
>
> Really? I though The Sentinel was a short story about a moon-landing, with
> a very clear plot, and the 'sparkling thing I found on the mountain' being
> clearly described as an artifact from the same school as the monolith,
> although not equipped with the same degree of autonomy. It was described
> as a fire alarm - when we broke it, they would be summoned. But they
> never actually arrived.
you've got the right story, and that's a very close description of the
plot. the original idea was to do a movie based on The Sentinel.
basically, they decided that that wasn't enough for the movie, so Clarke
answered the question of where the signal was sent, and they went from
there. 2001 was written expressly to be a movie (unlike 2010 and 2061
which were both novels first). so it's not a case of loosing detail when
making the movie (as often happens), but rather explanations being added
when they wrote the book.
No dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population by force of
arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need
for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies can
not stand....Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. --G'Kar