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…

Week 6 Blog 1

We began to watch The Thing. I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t make the connection (or lack thereof) between the opening slide stating the setting was winter in Antarctica and the fact that the movie was set in daytime. I’ve been to Antarctica, so I should’ve been the first to notice this incongruity. As the movie progressed, it grew dark. The only time this happens is during Fall or Spring in Antarctica. Someone forgot to mention that to the Producer. I assume they added the “winter” part to make the setting seem more remote. Maybe. I’m pretty sure the movie was filmed in Canada though.
My first thought upon seeing the men shooting at the husky from the helicopter was “Oh God! Sarah Palin has branched out and is now advocating the shooting of dogs from helicopters along with wolves! I hate that woman. If she ever becomes president or vice president I’m moving to another country. Maybe Germany, they have some good tech firms there, although that might involve learning another language…
I hate it when movies such as this one disregard scientific fact. Nothing can simply grow larger and larger while maintaining a constant density and not obtain materials from outside sources. This means that for the dog-Thing to grow, it needed to consume more raw material, which it wasn’t doing.

Week 5 Blog 2

Thoughts of a Sandking:
We have been moved to a new world. We have explored this new territory. It is about twice the size of our old world. The sand here is the same, however. The Others are here as well. They are beginning to build their castles, just as we are. Ours will be better. Ours will be bigger. We will impress our God and She will feed us.
Our God no longer feeds us. There is a new God in Her stead. He is larger than She. He seems to have taken up the duties of the old God.

The food is the same. We are fed well, and we are beginning to build up an army. Soon we will be ready for war. But we still have time to grow larger and stronger. We like this new God. We will build our castle with His face on it in order to please Him.

Our army is getting near ready for an attack. The Others are strong, but if taken one at a time, we can beat them. Soon we will be masters of this world.
Our buildup of an army has slowed to a crawl. Food has become scarce; our God is not feeding us. We sense he is displeased.

No food for quite awhile. We are starving.

We have begun to fear this new God. He is not like our old God. He is cruel; He does not give us food. He is an evil God.

We must feed if we are to survive. We must fight.

Week 5 Blog 1

After watching Jurassic Park the movie I realize now how much Spielberg screwed with the story. It’s no longer the science fiction story with a message, it’s now just a science fiction Hollywood story. Malcolm is a much more scaled-down version of the book-Malcolm. That might be Spielberg, but that also might be Goldbloom. As much as I (and Colbert) like Goldbloom, he tends to always play the same character. The end of the movie is very, very different from that of the book. In the movie, the remaining people fly off to safety in a helicopter. They will, the movie implies, go back to their normal lives. That’s a far cry from the characters being held by Costa Rica at the end of the book. Oh yeah, and Hammond and Malcolm are still alive in the movie. In the book, Hammond gets eaten by compys (funny how he gets eaten by the smallest dinosaur in the park), and in the movie he just flies away. Malcolm in the book dies from his wounds, but in the movie he survives to see another day. In a Hollywood movie, one can’t kill of Goldbloom, it just doesn’t work. Maybe Spielberg should have thought of that before he cast Goldbloom as Malcolm.

Week 4 Blog 2

I finished Jurassic Park (the book). It was, as a whole, a great book. What I don’t understand is why Dr. Grant doesn’t destroy the velociraptor nests at the end. That’s what they went to the nests to do, yet they didn’t destroy them. It makes no sense to me.
The velociraptors watching the boat at the end amazes me. The concept that another creature could understand that to get across the water it needs to ride on something impresses me. As far as I can recall, no animal knows how to do this. I realize that the velociraptors are fictional, but it is possible they really were that smart. Animals that wish to migrate have to stay on land if they’re land-bound creatures, in the air if their aerial creatures (discounting landing every so often) and in the water if they’re aquatic. To go from one habitat to another to get to another habitat the same as the first, though in a different place is not something seen in the animal world. Boats are a purely human invention; no other animal has used the concept of a boat.
Oh, small comment on Hammond: he’s a dumbass. Hmm, this Park’s failed, the dinosaurs have escaped, a lot of people have died; I think I’ll go somewhere else and open another park. I’m glad he’s dead.

Week 4 Blog 1

I am now in the middle of Jurassic Park. I like the book; it’s much more interesting than the movie. Malcolm’s character is especially interesting. Using math and reason to describe how things work simply makes sense to me. Fractals are by far my favorite concept so far. We watched a video of a demonstration of a fractal, and it was mesmerizing. Maybe it’ll be my next screensaver. Fractals make sense in some situations, such as a tree. The shape of the tree is approximately the same shape as the branches and then the veins running through the leaves (assuming it’s a deciduous tree). Also, the moon is a great example of a fractal. The shape of the moon is about the same shape as the craters on the moon, which are about the same shape as the particles of moon dust. However, I can’t see fractals applying to animals. If say, one were to look at a penguin, and then one was to zoom in and look at the feathers, one would determine that the shapes of the feathers and of the bird are far from similar. Similarly, a cheetah looks nothing like a hair growing on its body. So, fractals can be applied in real life, but only in some cases, mostly inanimate object cases.

Week 3 Blog 2

I’ve always loved Young Frankenstein. I mean, who wouldn’t? It’s still as hilarious as the first time I saw it. Gene Wilder is a brilliant actor. Much of the beginning of YF is very similar to the beginning of the previous Frankenstein movie, although it’s much more amusing. The reaction of Frederick (Frodrick according to Igor, although maybe it’s Egor…) is very different from Victor’s upon the realization that he created life. Frederick is very happy, whereas Victor is disgusted and horrified. Although, that may have something to do with how horrible Victor’s monster looks as opposed to Frederick’s completely human-looking monster. Another difference between the movies is the problem with the monster’s mind. Victor’s monster had a brilliant brain. However, the bump, or rather slamming hit on the head along with near strangulation probably ruined the brain a bit, allowing the evil bits of the body to influence the creature’s actions. In YF, Igor grabbed a bad brain, an “Abby Normal” brain. At the end of YF, the monster’s brain has been fixed by correcting the chemical imbalances in the brain. In both movies, the monsters’ mental problems are not their own faults, caused by either a smack in the head and horrible treatment by humans, or a naturally occurring mental retardation. Unfortunately for Victor’s monster, there was no fix available for the monster’s evilness and ugliness.

Week 3 Blog 1

We finished watching Frankenstein. I enjoyed the movie, although it had some minor problems with it. During the movie, whenever a monster was created, whether it was the original monster or Frankenstein’s wife brought back to life, it seemed that the Doctor hacked it up far more than was necessary. For instance, his wife’s face was perfect (except, of course, for the hair) yet he still hacked it up and sewed it back together for no particular reason. If simply sewing a head to a body will work, why should there need to be any alteration to a fully-functioning face? This gave her an utterly horrible appearance. I wonder how the Doctor could stand her, let alone dance with her. And does it not seem extremely selfish of him to try to bring her back from the dead? True, some people should have lived longer and not died an untimely death, but to reach into the gaping chasm that is death and to bring back a person, placing them in a horribly disfigured body seems cruel and selfish. If I were to die tomorrow, I would not want to be brought back to life if it meant permanently disfiguring me. For the life I would lead could hardly be called a life at all. Gaping strangers, people purposefully avoiding me… How could one live like that?

Week 2 Blog 2

The message from TDTESS was very similar to The Weapon: humans currently do not have the wisdom to deal with the weapons they create. As I previously stated in Week 1 Blog 1, I agree with this message.
One of the things I really loved about TDTESS was the way Klaatu introduced himself to Professor Jacob Barnhardt by completing an equation Barnhardt had on his chalkboard. As a future engineer and a person who thinks scientifically and mathematically, I can appreciate the cleverness of this method. One problem with this form of introduction is that the likelihood of an entirely independently developed civilization having the same, or even remotely similar, symbols for mathematics is extremely unlikely. For instance, if the alien species developed with 8 fingers instead of 10, it is likely that they will have developed a system of mathematics with a base of 8 as opposed to our 10. The aliens would have a very small chance of being able to understand our mathematics, let alone complete a complex equation.
Gort was amusing. First, he was very impractical; the human shape is really only practical for humans. There are much better methods of locomotion and moving other objects than the human body functions. More than 2 arms, say 4 arms, would be about twice as functional as the human shape. A future civilization would probably understand this and make sure their robots had more than 2 arms.

Week 2 Blog 1

We began watching The Day the Earth Stood Still. It’s interesting to see the special effects in old films. The flying saucer was just an oval-shaped light. We’ve advanced so far, utilizing special effects that, at their best, cannot be identified as being artificially created. I’m a little scared that in the future there will be no need for the actor/actress, as a digital version would be easier to manipulate and cost even less than an actor/actress. We need a human element in films. Humans can transmit minute feelings through their movements and speech variations that a computerized character would never be able to do. Take, for example, Robin Williams: he is a brilliant person, coming up with jokes and ideas that very few other people could possibly come up with; and when he acts, these jokes and ideas are transmitted to the viewer through his movements and facial expressions along with his many different voices. A digital character couldn’t hope (or rather, its creators couldn’t hope) to possibly transmit as much information in an entire movie as Williams does in 5 minutes.
One effect of having very limited special effects is the increased emphasis on the actual plot of the movie. One can tell that the people who worked on the movie paid attention to the plot, with only a few resources devoted to the special effects. This leads to a much better movie. I just wish more recent producers would realize this.

Week 1 Blog 2

To say the least, I could strangle the girl in Random Sample. She is pure evil. I can’t blame the aliens for burning up the human city, and presumably the rest of the human world. Calling the psychiatrist a Billy goat, kicking the aliens because they didn’t bow to her, blackmailing the psychiatrist in order to get some candy… Hell, I’d burn up humanity too after meeting this girl. Fortunately, she doesn’t exist, she’s fictional. If aliens somehow visit the earth, and they are intelligent, I hope, nay pray (this is unusual as I’m an atheist) that they meet reasonable, kind human beings, not a little devil child.
The Atomic Cafe video came as welcome comic relief from the evilness of Random Sample. The Duck and Cover song was really funny. I’m a little curious why many old films, such as this one, have sped up video for sections in which nobody is talking. For some reason, I find it amusing having film sped up, it makes people look all jittery. However, despite all the comedic elements, I was a little surprised and scared by the military’s willingness to send in volunteers right after a nuclear blast just to see what levels of radiation they experienced. That’s incredibly dangerous for the volunteers who will likely die early deaths due to cancer caused by radiation. Don’t send in humans. If the military really needs to see the effects of radiation, send in pigs; just not humans. Although, if the humans are stupid enough to deliberately put themselves at such enormous risk maybe they deserve their fate.

Week 1 Blog 1

After reading The Weapon, I’m a little more scared about the future. I’ve always thought that humans have far too much destructive power for their own good. Nuclear weapons should never have been made, yet their creation was inevitable. After one country creates nuclear weapons, there needs to be another country to balance it out. However, if there were no nuclear weapons, the world would be a much more peaceful place. The ability to destroy not only thousands of humans at once but to also destroy the land, making it uninhabitable is simply scary. From what I can tell about human beings, they are generally rational as individuals, but get a few together and make them a group and suddenly they can believe almost anything. If people can be convinced that blowing themselves up is good not only for them but for all their people, they can definitely be convinced that blowing up a nuclear bomb is good too. Human beings are simply not wise enough to understand that any use of nuclear weapons is bad for everyone. The peace-advocating, anti-ultimate-weapon man had the right idea, (not that I’m advocating giving mentally impaired people loaded revolvers) that people need to be shown that we are not yet capable, not yet wise enough, to be trusted with nuclear weapons.