Week 9 Blog 2 (Movie Blog 2)

It really bugs me when a star ship in some SciFi movie crash lands, or even lands on purpose, on a completely random planet and there happens to be oxygen there. Not once throughout the whole of Pitch Black did I see a single plant or other living thing that might produce oxygen.
Another issue with the movie: there were thousands upon thousands of those flying alien things. Now, I’d like to know how they survive down in the depths where there probably isn’t any food. They can’t be hibernating, as there are small versions, what I assume are babies flying through the coring room. The babies show that the creatures are breeding, and as far as I know, nothing can mate and reproduce while completely asleep.
Otherwise, I like the movie. There are a few more problems I have with the movie, but I think I’ll stop complaining. The other movie in the series is awesome. The Chronicles of Riddick is great. It’s a better SciFi story than Pitch Black, but we decided to do Pitch Black because The Chronicles of Riddick didn’t have anyone being eaten in it. To put in Soylent Green elements, we needed people to get eaten.

Week 9 Blog 1 (Movie Blog 1)

My group watched Soylent Green on Saturday. That was a weird movie. Much of it didn’t make sense, as in it didn’t make sense that human society would evolve (or rather devolve) into such a society. People can be books, or furniture. That sounds more like slavery than life. What’s the point of a “Book?” To sort through actual books and find information or something? Why can’t the people do it themselves? And the “Furniture.” Are they a new type of prostitute that hires themselves out for a room? That’s messed up.
How did many of the characters get so healthy and strong looking? They probably ate a diet of mostly Soylent-whatever. There’s not a lot of nutritional value to decomposed dead people I don’t think.
For the record, as soon as the “Book” character went into the pleasant place to die, I said he must eventually be turned into Soylent Green. No, I had never seen the movie. It just made sense. The people running the place seemed to be giving the “Book” very nice treatment with no monetary gain. They had to use his body for something, and Soylent Green just seemed like the right type of thing.

Week 8 Blog 2

We just started watching Star Trek. I have to say, I quite like Star Trek. I think I may have already seen this particular movie, probably on AMC, but I don’t think I’ve seen it all the way through without missing parts. Although, with the DVD skipping like a little kid down a sidewalk, I get the feeling I’ll be missing rather a lot of the important bits of the movie.
Now on to comments on the movie. How is it that the Borg ship was so weak, that a few little ships could blow up the Borg ship? It should have much better defenses. And a cube? Why would anybody make a spaceship into the shape of a cube? I know there’s no air in space and thus no drag, but a cube? Something a little more creative would have been nice. Maybe a football-shaped craft at least. Also, why is there no defense against people/Borgs transporting themselves to other ships? The easiest way to take a ship would simply be to board it through beaming. Or maybe just beam part of the ship out of the ship. Then the ship’s dead in the water.

Week 8 Blog 1

We finished watching the movie Contact. I liked contact. I liked that the science behind everything mostly worked. I have trouble with the television signals though. I doubt another civilization would have been able to determine that the signals we broadcasted were television signal and actually tune in to them. It’s unlikely that another civilization would have developed TVs that tuned in to signals and display signals the same way we built our TVs to do. Maybe they could adjust the signal, but what if they all made their TVs in a circular shape? It would be hard for them to understand why there was extra data and maybe they’d distort the image to make it fit. There are simply too many variables to know how this would work, if it would work at all.
The worm hole transport thing was interesting. I don’t understand how the metal of the sphere turns transparent. And yet the rest of the sphere doesn’t? If the sphere turns transparent, it’s unlikely that it turns transparent in only the visible spectrum. If it doesn’t filter radiation, the doctor (forgot her name, I’m bad with names) would have been fried or at least highly irradiated.

Week 7 Blog 2

Contact’s good so far. I find the debate between religion and science annoying. I am not religious at all. I think religion is good, as long as it is limited to what it really is: a moral code. If we want peace on Earth we need to recognize that we are all human beings. A difference of religion is not a legitimate justification for any sort of violence or hate. If you can’t prove your religion is the correct one with actual proof, how do you know that the other religion is wrong? You can’t know. There is no way to prove any of the religions true or false. This is why I love science and mathematics. Everything is set. There may be random variables that we can’t account for, say the movement of air molecules, but otherwise everything is completely proven or determined to be a theory. Scientists admit that theories may not be correct. This is one huge advantage over religion. Most people will not believe or even admit that maybe another religion got it right. Scientists are required to have a flexible base of beliefs that can be changed with a single theory or experiment.

Week 7 Blog 1

Ah, the X-Files. Why is it that there are so many moves that involve something landing in the Antarctic? The Thing had a craft landing in the Antarctic, and now X-Files does too. A ship of that scale, burying into the ground would make a lot of noise, and vibrate the ground a lot. Any Antarctic station would have noticed it. I don’t care what kind of alien technology you have at your disposal, the removal of millions of tons of earth would make enough of a disturbance for someone to notice. Also, the humans are creating a bunch of bees to spread the virus. Why would they willing help out the invaders? Without the bees spreading the virus, the aliens would be forced to invade. If it comes to a fight, we might actually have a chance of surviving. But if we help out the invaders with the spreading of the virus with the tiny hope that a vaccine might be developed, we may very well not survive. Personally, I’d rather fight.

Week 6 Blog 2

We finished The Thing. Interesting movie to say the least. I liked the test MacReady (weird name) used to determine which of the humans were infected. One thing he did say was that only a few cells were needed to infect a host. When the blood exploded in the glass he was holding, it splattered on his face. Therefore he must be infected. Yet, for the rest of the movie he shows no sign of being infected. Maybe he just got really lucky? Somehow I fell the director overlooked that small detail.

Another problem I have with the test scene (I seem to complain a lot…) was that the blood moved. Blood is just blood, even if it has been altered by some alien-thing. There are no muscles in blood no way for it to move by itself. It could hardly exhibit such a huge burst of energy as was shown when it exploded. Also, how was the blood aware that it was being burnt? Only the cells touching the hot wire would be harmed, the rest would be alright, not even feeling any effects of the heat.

Assuming that they could all somehow know that they’re getting burnt, where is the brain of this mass of cells? What determines okay, now we’re all going to push down, somehow linking our cells together and launch all of us into the air? It’s just not possible. After analyzing some of the scientific points of the movie, I feel pretty safe…