Hello fellow dakkanauts. Let's dedicate a thread to what we all do best, our first and foremost skill, nitpick the living daylight out of movies, tv shows and other media of the sort.
I'd like to nitpick the following. In the two most recent Godzilla movies, why in the hell are the soldiers shooting at Godzilla and cie with their standard rifles? These things couldn't probably kill a rampaging bull elephant and now you are shooting at a monster the size of a sky scrapper. It would be like shooting at an actual sk scrapper thinking that it's going to fall down. If you don't have the kind of cannons or missiles designed to destroy bunkers and topple sky scrappers don't even try. At best you'll make him notice you and reduce you to atom.
Going to be Dragon Prince again.
Multiple armies and groups, all converging on one location for the climatic show down.
Except, most of them _don't_ know they're going there, they leave at different times, the protagonist group's travel is shown as long and difficult with obstacles (including a 'go around or die' desert, which is explicitly a week detour, except the way they did it, which isn't replicable with an army)
Yet somehow three different armies and a couple different groups all show up within 24 hours of each other. There's even flashbacks of another group making the same journey years earlier, and they didn't have any of the difficulties either. Despite it being explicitly hostile territory for humans.
Its all to force a show down that doesn't make much sense, and the apparent villain is on the list of people who don't even know they're going to the final location when the journey starts! His adversaries can't possibly know where to intercept him, because HE didn't know when they started out!
The thing that always ruins “The Lost World Jurassic Park” is the freighter scene.
How the hell did the t-rex kill the crew of the ship? The Dino is massive and yet it seemed to eat everything of the guy driving the ship except his hand. The issue here is that this is in a confined space on the bridge which shows absolutely no damage on it. There was no way the Dino could’ve eaten him because it couldn’t fit it’s head into the room. I’d say it was the baby t-rex, but they make a point of saying how they brought it back to San Diego on a helicopter.
The ironic thing is only realized it because of how effective the scene was. I was thinking how it would’ve been great to have a whole movie about it and I suddenly saw the plot hole.
No nitpicking movies, books, comic books, etc is not fun, it is tedious, annoying and potentially toxic. It is not clever. It is the shallowest form of film criticism as it puts minutia over theme, story, character, and plot.*
*= Please note, this statement is intentionally controversial in order to drive discussion and dialogue.
Indy gets the treasure, having lost two assistants of dubious moral virtue. Flees to the sea plane.
The two seater sea plane.
That's pretty easy. The two assistants were not leaving the country with Indy in the initial plan, or Indy had all ready planned to ditch them anyway.
The whole idea of the opening was to be a slam bang open with serial style adventure. To ignore that is.... missing the point entirely. Nitpicking is often to miss the point entirely.
Johnny Knoxville’s character. Either the film is just so bad (and it is pretty bad) my mind has blocked it, but I swear his character just sort of.....stops being in the film.
Easy E wrote: No nitpicking movies, books, comic books, etc is not fun, it is tedious, annoying and potentially toxic. It is not clever. It is the shallowest form of film criticism as it puts minutia over theme, story, character, and plot.*
*= Please note, this statement is intentionally controversial in order to drive discussion and dialogue.
Isn't that nitpicking on etiquette in and on itself?
Easy E wrote: No nitpicking movies, books, comic books, etc is not fun, it is tedious, annoying and potentially toxic. It is not clever. It is the shallowest form of film criticism as it puts minutia over theme, story, character, and plot.*
*= Please note, this statement is intentionally controversial in order to drive discussion and dialogue.
I disagree, to a point.
If the movie is doing it's job and entertaining me, I won't notice the things to nitpick in the first place. Something like Aliens is a great example. Some little nitpicks (why does a gun firing caseless ammo spew brass everywhere when firing?) and even outright plot holes (nuclear plants do not detonate like a nuke no matter how bad the failure is) are ignored because the movie is highly entertaining.
If the movie is NOT doing it's job and entertaining me, I'll entertain myself BY nitpicking it to death. Thus, the SW sequels...
In the 1999 Mummy movie (the one with Brendan Fraser). Imhotep is shown to be buried alive with a bunch of flesh eating scarabs. He even clawed at his sarcophagus when burried alive. Yet, one of the main plot of the movie is him...running after his organs. How the hell was he alive without all his organs? If they removed the organs later, how did they survived the ravenous flesh eating scarabs?
Easy E wrote: No nitpicking movies, books, comic books, etc is not fun, it is tedious, annoying and potentially toxic. It is not clever. It is the shallowest form of film criticism as it puts minutia over theme, story, character, and plot.*
*= Please note, this statement is intentionally controversial in order to drive discussion and dialogue.
I mostly agree. It's a problem related to the need to jam everything into a scientific method. Trying to quantifiably prove the quality of things that exist largely in the realm of the psyche. There's probably a real way to do this involving brain chemistry, but trying to measure something like that while accounting for the wildly unique state of each brain is like trying to do chemistry without deionized water.
DeathKorp_Rider wrote: The thing that always ruins “The Lost World Jurassic Park” is the freighter scene.
How the hell did the t-rex kill the crew of the ship? The Dino is massive and yet it seemed to eat everything of the guy driving the ship except his hand. The issue here is that this is in a confined space on the bridge which shows absolutely no damage on it. There was no way the Dino could’ve eaten him because it couldn’t fit it’s head into the room. I’d say it was the baby t-rex, but they make a point of saying how they brought it back to San Diego on a helicopter.
The ironic thing is only realized it because of how effective the scene was. I was thinking how it would’ve been great to have a whole movie about it and I suddenly saw the plot hole.
I had a chat with someone about this one the other day.
Supposedly, the original plan was for the freighter to have Raptors running amok on it, those bits never made it into the movie but the ship still needed to crash, so they just kinda gloss over it.
One from a movie I watched a little while ago - "Scary stories to tell in the dark", at the end
Spoiler:
where the film just forgets that not only are the two main characters suspects in the disappearances of three people, they also escaped from jail leaving behind a dead Sheriff.
This one's annoying because the solution is so simple, don't kill the Sheriff.
Easy E wrote: No nitpicking movies, books, comic books, etc is not fun, it is tedious, annoying and potentially toxic. It is not clever. It is the shallowest form of film criticism as it puts minutia over theme, story, character, and plot.*
*= Please note, this statement is intentionally controversial in order to drive discussion and dialogue.
Isn't that nitpicking on etiquette in and on itself?
Maybe? I honestly do not know!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Compel wrote: This thread just reminds me of this video essay about Shazam.
Voss wrote: Going to be Dragon Prince again.
Multiple armies and groups, all converging on one location for the climatic show down.
Except, most of them _don't_ know they're going there, they leave at different times, the protagonist group's travel is shown as long and difficult with obstacles (including a 'go around or die' desert, which is explicitly a week detour, except the way they did it, which isn't replicable with an army)
Yet somehow three different armies and a couple different groups all show up within 24 hours of each other. There's even flashbacks of another group making the same journey years earlier, and they didn't have any of the difficulties either. Despite it being explicitly hostile territory for humans.
Its all to force a show down that doesn't make much sense, and the apparent villain is on the list of people who don't even know they're going to the final location when the journey starts! His adversaries can't possibly know where to intercept him, because HE didn't know when they started out!
Didnt they have to take the long way around? First i think they had to go to the lodge, then sevveral other places. And wasnt that place the Sun Elfs guarded the entrance to elf land proper? ISnt that why they where able to make it when the other group ended up all turned around?
Voss wrote: Going to be Dragon Prince again.
Multiple armies and groups, all converging on one location for the climatic show down.
Except, most of them _don't_ know they're going there, they leave at different times, the protagonist group's travel is shown as long and difficult with obstacles (including a 'go around or die' desert, which is explicitly a week detour, except the way they did it, which isn't replicable with an army)
Yet somehow three different armies and a couple different groups all show up within 24 hours of each other. There's even flashbacks of another group making the same journey years earlier, and they didn't have any of the difficulties either. Despite it being explicitly hostile territory for humans.
Its all to force a show down that doesn't make much sense, and the apparent villain is on the list of people who don't even know they're going to the final location when the journey starts! His adversaries can't possibly know where to intercept him, because HE didn't know when they started out!
Didnt they have to take the long way around? First i think they had to go to the lodge, then sevveral other places. And wasnt that place the Sun Elfs guarded the entrance to elf land proper? ISnt that why they where able to make it when the other group ended up all turned around?
The exact geography is pretty unclear. But the kids got to fly on a phoenix for a bit, got to cut across a bay on ship while everybody else walked, got to take the secret moon elf route through the divide, got to cut across the uncrossable desert, so I'm not really sure they got stuck with the 'long way.' And the 1st human army didn't set out until a couple days after Ezran, Claudia and Soren got back (replicating the journey the kids took in season 1), so the kids were already well into the journey (basically at the border) by the time the 1st human army left (as nothing really kicked off until after Ezran got back).
The rougher part is that the 1st army was outside the sun elf city, which got thrown into chaos, but the sun elf army got to the battle site first.
Meanwhile, the second human army had to be contacted, be organized and set out from another kingdom, basically replicate their route, and the only messengers didn't set out until just before the 1st army left, and couldn't have known where the first army was going at that point, so having them show up mid battle was just...
epronovost wrote: In the 1999 Mummy movie (the one with Brendan Fraser). Imhotep is shown to be buried alive with a bunch of flesh eating scarabs. He even clawed at his sarcophagus when burried alive. Yet, one of the main plot of the movie is him...running after his organs. How the hell was he alive without all his organs? If they removed the organs later, how did they survived the ravenous flesh eating scarabs?
Magic, I suppose. I was entertained enough to not worry about it.
epronovost wrote: In the 1999 Mummy movie (the one with Brendan Fraser). Imhotep is shown to be buried alive with a bunch of flesh eating scarabs. He even clawed at his sarcophagus when burried alive. Yet, one of the main plot of the movie is him...running after his organs. How the hell was he alive without all his organs? If they removed the organs later, how did they survived the ravenous flesh eating scarabs?
Magic, I suppose. I was entertained enough to not worry about it.
Me too. I actually loved that movie. It was an excellent popcorn flick while the "remake-ish" was pretty darn bad.
Watch from 1:00 to 1:25. You jump out of the back of the Pelican which is accelerating away. You fall down a slope, look up and the Pelican then flies over you again. How could the Pelican then reappear as if it was behind you? I very much doubt he did a turn just to fly over again as he's being pursued by Banshees.
It's a minor, minor thing in what is an overall great game, but I've always nitpicked that particular bit.
More a general nitpick brought on by the last episode of new Sabrina, that being characters totally forgetting about previous tech, magic or other macguffin that would totally fix this week's moment of peril
Spoiler:
Sabrina dies and the Aunties totally forgetting that they have a Lazarus pit
Time was, the Doctor just did the old maxim of “enter building and act like you’re meant to be there”.
I really do not like nor appreciate psychic paper.
Yes I agree. I kinda liked it when I first saw it, but now they just seem to use it as a master key, and the Doc can get in anywhere with the paper without question. I remember they ballsed up in the Canary Wharf ones where the guy had psychic training and saw it was blank, but IIRC no one has questioned it since.
epronovost wrote: In the 1999 Mummy movie (the one with Brendan Fraser). Imhotep is shown to be buried alive with a bunch of flesh eating scarabs. He even clawed at his sarcophagus when burried alive. Yet, one of the main plot of the movie is him...running after his organs. How the hell was he alive without all his organs? If they removed the organs later, how did they survived the ravenous flesh eating scarabs?
Magic, I suppose. I was entertained enough to not worry about it.
Dysartes wrote: Well, unless the two companions reappear, or they do a spin-off (which I think is unlikely), there's no reason for it to matter, is there?
Well, its a Chekov's Gun situation. Narratively, there isn't any reason to do it unless it does contribute to a reappearance (or a plot point- ie someone kidnaps them or steals the papers). But the current Who writers are... not all that together with narrative structure (or interesting plots), so I can see them just handing out story seeds and never addressing it.
Sometimes in a series, you have to litter the place with story seeds just IN CASE you want to pick them up somewhere later. Series do not have to be as self-contained narratively as a play or one-off.
If you do not scatter seeds, you can easily write yourself into a corner. We have seen it on many other serialized TV shows.
Honestly a world where cold is the real enemy so they build a long thin train that will lose heat terrible due to it's shape and surface/volume ration, and lose it even faster due to moving rapidly thru air, and use energy to move the train instead of just converting it to heat?
Yeah, i heard the 'rational" of a perpetual motion engine which anyone with a 6th grade understanding of science would reject, and got that it was all about keeping the 99% down but saying the train was the only liveable spot on earth.
I get the movie was a slam on the 1% dominating and enslaving the 99%, but the plot is just too ridiculous for me to even try watching it.
Honestly a world where cold is the real enemy so they build a long thin train that will lose heat terrible due to it's shape and surface/volume ration, and lose it even faster due to moving rapidly thru air, and use energy to move the train instead of just converting it to heat?
Yeah, i heard the 'rational" of a perpetual motion engine which anyone with a 6th grade understanding of science would reject, and got that it was all about keeping the 99% down but saying the train was the only liveable spot on earth.
I get the movie was a slam on the 1% dominating and enslaving the 99%, but the plot is just too ridiculous for me to even try watching it.
The irony of the plot is that with some very minor adjustment it could have taken place in a bunker or some sort of dome without much problem.
I personnaly was concerned about the fact that the track system would et damaged pretty quick without anbody to repair it and, even worse the idea that trains needs to pass through a lot of dangerous unstable zones like mountain ranges prone to avalanches instead of making a roundabout some plains without much geological activies or danger.
Or given its a allegorical fairy tale the practical or otherwise doesn't matter as it's just a stand in for the world
My biggest nitpick was how Ms Swinton somehow based her character on Pauline from League of Gentlemen and nobody in the production noticed, bless her, most likely mismatched, socks
once a vault is know it will attract all sorts of scavengers and local kingpins who might hesitate to attack a normal settlement (too risky, they've just got what we have)
but a vault with all that tech/slaves/energy and other riches that might be worth a major battle (after all if the settlement gets too strong they'll come after us anyway, better to fight them now)
Couple other reasons too.
The Vaults are, by and large, designed to fail.
They're laboratories, not viable long-term habitats. In many, resources are designed to run out, and there they aren't set up with manufacturing, raw materials or even in some cases, accessible supplies of food and water once equipment start to break down.
VaultTech are monsters
As for no one getting their poop together, that's a central premise of the setting. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold.
Voss wrote: As for no one getting their poop together, that's a central premise of the setting. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold.
That's actually a premise of the entire post-apocalyptic genre. It explores a world in which humans have, for some reason, completely forgot how or lost the instinct to live in society. Just like wizards, it doesn't make any sense, but it has to be accepted for the genre to work.
Voss wrote: As for no one getting their poop together, that's a central premise of the setting. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold.
That's actually a premise of the entire post-apocalyptic genre. It explores a world in which humans have, for some reason, completely forgot how or lost the instinct to live in society. Just like wizards, it doesn't make any sense, but it has to be accepted for the genre to work.
It makes too much sense, actually. The genre is very grounded in real and rational fears about society and crises.
You can trace those fears back centuries, if not longer, and the struggles and failures of people to put things back together only to have it all fall apart again give those fear validation.
How can an x wing fighter have 4 very large engines in relation to it's total size and cannot easily outrun a tie fighter with two tiny in relation to its total size engines on it?
Note on the tie fighter the two tiny red lights are the engines, not the hole between them.
We don’t really know how Star Wars thrust technology works. Perhaps the X-wing’s engine housings are outbound for redundancy and ease of maintenance while the TIE fighter’s engines are integral to the ship and thus more efficient...even if it costs as much to repair a TIE as it would to scrap and replace it.
TIEs are much smaller by volume, so the difference in mass might account for that.
Since most fights happen near moons, planets or amidst hugh jass capital ships, perhaps we are not seeing a difference in capability so much as a difference in doctrine. We know X-Wings can accelerate from a Jovian moon’s surface to space and then around the gas giant in an incredibly short time frame. We never see this kind of linear-ish acceleration during combat.
That is, if those cylinders in front of the 4 X-wing exhausts are even related to the engines at all. We just assume that they work as a unit because they look like our primitive jet engines. For all we know they are heat radiators or hyperdrive components or part of the S-foil system. And by comparison, the TIE appears to have larger radiator/S-foil space.
The X-Wing miniature game actually handles this fairly well. A TIE Fighter is only moderately faster in a straight line than an X-Wing (shown by having a 5-straight move on its dial) while the X-Wing can "Boost" at the cost of combat efficiency to technically be faster overall. Also, the TIE is more nimble and manoeuvrable than the X-Wing, which makes the X-Wing seem "slower" and more cumbersome.
X-Wings of course pack a hyperdrive. TIE Fighters typically do not (though Kylo’s return to Exegol seems to suggest at least some did). So the larger engine may well be part of that design logic.
X-Wings are apparently kitted out with four ‘fusial thrust’ engines, TIE of course have Twin Ion Engines. What’s the difference? I honestly don’t know myself. Maybe Ion engines are more advanced. Consider the difference in scale between modern petrol engines and steam engines. Larger does not mean better!
Matt Swain wrote: How can an x wing fighter have 4 very large engines in relation to it's total size and cannot easily outrun a tie fighter with two tiny in relation to its total size engines on it?
Probably in much the same way a sports motorcycle can out-accelerate a muscle car.
I suppose one could also postulate that a TIEs engines are hypercharged and burn out fairly often, mandating regular replacement, but that's ok as the empire has the industrial base to treat their fighters like disposable lighters. (Pilots too) whereas other forces had to maintain their fighters.
The nazi jet fighter the Me-262 had an issue with its engines failing regularly due to excess power and needing frequent replacement, which limited their use thankfully. There was a soviet jet fighter that could attain extreme speed but generally needed it's engines survived or replace afterwards, so there is some historical precedent for this idea.
It's also worth remembering a lot of those combat scenes were inspired by WWII fighter footage, and the speed vs. maneuverability reflects the corsair vs. zero situation in the Pacific.
In the empire strike back, the rebels had a forcefield that could protect their base from "any bombardment" a super star destroyer, like, what, 6-8 regular star destroyers and their massed force of fighters could inflict, but they could not put a shield around their generator to stop the ATATs from destroying it?
Matt Swain wrote: In the empire strike back, the rebels had a forcefield that could protect their base from "any bombardment" a super star destroyer, like, what, 6-8 regular star destroyers and their massed force of fighters could inflict, but they could not put a shield around their generator to stop the ATATs from destroying it?
It was a planetary shield generator, just like the ones we see in operation in Rogue One. But instead of having enough to cover Hoth entirely, they only had one and therefore could only protect a relatively small area.
As I understand it, it projects a dome above the atmosphere, but that shield loses strength rapidly in atmosphere. With proper overlap of coverage this isn't a problem. So it becomes possible to get around a single, isolated generator by going around and then under it. Which is what the Empire did.
And the Rebels knew that was what the Empire would do, so they had set up their base in such a way that the Empire had to attack along a predictable route, which then allowed the Rebels to evacuate their forces in the other direction.
Ok, i guess that is why they stunned the one sd covering that vector with the ion cannon so they could get away in that direction.
Still it seems odd they couldn't put a shield over their generators that would block the shots from that walker.
Maybe i should quit picking on star wars, but i just can't help thinking it odd that the original death star had within its gigantic bulk just enough TIE fighters to more or less evenly engage the 30 or so rebel fighters launched from Yavin 4. As it seemed to be at the end there didn't appear to be any TIEs left, vaders advanced prototype was knocked off into space and away from the DS and like 3-4 rebel ships managed to get back to Yavin, implying the DS had just enough fighters in it's massive volume to engage about 30 enemy fighters.
Maybe Solo picked off some on his way to help luke. There seemed to be none left around the DS or pursuing the withdrawing rebel forces.
I know i know, plot. Just like how solo could have vaped vader but instead shot his wingman even tho vader was the only one firing on luke. Looking at it tactically i'm surprised solo didn't target vader, especially as from above his fighter likely had a larger target aspect. But vader had his plot armor, or maybe this was an early draft of the 'look out sir!" rule...
The TIE fighter thing actually is kind of covered in the movies dialogue (and is expanded upon in the EU materials).
Tarkin was *so* incredibly arrogant that he straight up refuses to launch the TIE Fighters under his command. He wants to prove the Death Star is invulnerable just by itself without needing help from anyone.
Then (explained by EU), ultimately the only TIE Fighters that launch are Black Squadron, the ones under Vaders direct personal command, as his bodyguard escort. So only like 12 TIE Fighters launch in the fight.
Indy gets the treasure, having lost two assistants of dubious moral virtue. Flees to the sea plane.
The two seater sea plane.
How about the Fact that Indiana Jones slept with an underage girl. The female lead was supposed to be in her late 20's, it's stated that he had previously seduced her, and it has been over 15 years since they last saw each other.
Yeah, the 'it was wrong and you knew it (I was a child!)' conversation is incredibly fethed up. I don't know why its in there.
Someone clearly decided that he needed a reason to be estranged from his old mentor (that we never see, as he's dead), but she could have easily been an appropriate age, and he decided not to marry her or left her at the altar or something. That would have created the same rift, but... you know, not made him monstrous in a way that's extra creepy because no one cares.
Its something of a terrible tribute to 1981 (and the 30s/40s) that it gets glossed over as not a big deal.
It doesn't help that this was an actual problem in early archaeology (and honestly never entirely stopped), with grad students and professors seducing high school and college students on digs. At a job some years back, while going through archival records for a site in New Mexico, we came across the journal and notes for an archaeologist in the 1930s. It included a recipe for an an alcoholic beverage that he had dubbed the 'Pants-sneaker' (ie, for getting into pants), and he recorded his expenses in paying for day labor among the local native american tribe- the bottles of whiskey he bought them in lieu of paying in cash. Classy, classy guy.
meh, it would have fit in with indy's attitude towards women seen in the movie that shall not be named.
He kidnaps willie at knifepoint, threatens her life, drags her thru hell, helps put her in the sacrificial cage then he saves her, after being responsible for her being in that terrifying situation in the first place and at the end uses his whip in her to drag her back to him for his kiss?
She should have kneed him so hard his 'nads flew out his ears and then asked a british officer for help getting to the american embassy. I'm sure a proper elgniosh gentleman would have seen her on her way to the embassy.
As to Tarkin, yeah, that makes sense.
I kind of wish they'd done a scene in star wars featuring tarky in the deathstar after the torpedoes had been launched and having just enough time to hear they were heading for the reactor and there was nothing he could do, maybe madly rushing towards an escape pod just as it blew.
I watched the Legal Eagle episode about Indiana Jones the other day and apparently it’s even in the script that Marion was 15. Indy would have been around 20? Now I have to say, my interpretation of the dialogue is more that Marion had a huge crush on Indy and he allowed that to become a relationship, rather than him actively seducing her. Still absolutely wrong and abuse of a position of trust, but marginally less sleazy and definitely a whole lot less predatory.
The ToD thing with Willie is sadly just standard-issue action movie stuff, which happens right through even into the 90’s (at least) so I don’t think that is intended as a deliberate statement about the character; it’s just the default, very problematic, “the girl is your prize Hero” thing that everyone just accepted/expected.
My dad is measuring his life expectancy with a stopwatch, so I've been trying to spend more time with him, which includes watching a lot of old John Wayne movies. Man, there are movies that just can't be made today.
Near the end of McClintock, a man kicks in the hotel room door of his estranged, soon to be ex wife, threatens her, scares her enough to fall off a balcony, then chases after her through the town while she's just wearing only underwear until he catches her, and then publicly spanks her in front of cheering townspeople. And yes, this wins her back.
Indy gets the treasure, having lost two assistants of dubious moral virtue. Flees to the sea plane.
The two seater sea plane.
Sorry, just started to read this interesting thread. While very hard to defend the plot holes in my favorite movie of all time, I totally agree with Easy E - Indy's guides were local and they never had any plans to leave the jungle with him.
Being a big fan of BBT, I found this hilarious, but it still did not tarnish my favorite movie!
OK, here are my nitpicks:
Might have been the first Fast & Furious where a car ignites and Vin yells, "NOS!!" and they all jump to cover so they car can explode in glorious, fashionable flames. NOS is not flammable, while the container is pressurized, it would still not explode in flames like that if heated. I am not sure of the exact science, but I believe NOS simply allows the fuel-filled air to incredibly condense to enrich the turbo charged air already being super compacted and forced into the combustion chamber. Kind of like a cold-air intake will allow your car to accelerate faster as cold air is more dense, so carries more fuel with it.
Nearly every single Hollywood military explosion where you see an enormous ball of flame from C4 or a grenade. These are concussive explosions providing maximum expansion blasts to cause damage - there is no 'fuel' to cause flames.
I guess everyone just needs to see balls of flame to know an explosion has occurred.
My favorite explosives nitpick is from Tristan and Isolde, and very generic love story set in vaguely dark ages Britain. The ending climatic battle has explosive barrels of... Stuff, just positioned around the village. No rhyme or reason, the director apparently just wanted explosions for the swords and arrows battle.
It is, iirc, never explained or rationalized. Just multiple fiery balls.
Indy gets the treasure, having lost two assistants of dubious moral virtue. Flees to the sea plane.
The two seater sea plane.
Sorry, just started to read this interesting thread. While very hard to defend the plot holes in my favorite movie of all time, I totally agree with Easy E - Indy's guides were local and they never had any plans to leave the jungle with him.
Being a big fan of BBT, I found this hilarious, but it still did not tarnish my favorite movie!
OK, here are my nitpicks:
Might have been the first Fast & Furious where a car ignites and Vin yells, "NOS!!" and they all jump to cover so they car can explode in glorious, fashionable flames. NOS is not flammable, while the container is pressurized, it would still not explode in flames like that if heated. I am not sure of the exact science, but I believe NOS simply allows the fuel-filled air to incredibly condense to enrich the turbo charged air already being super compacted and forced into the combustion chamber. Kind of like a cold-air intake will allow your car to accelerate faster as cold air is more dense, so carries more fuel with it.
Nearly every single Hollywood military explosion where you see an enormous ball of flame from C4 or a grenade. These are concussive explosions providing maximum expansion blasts to cause damage - there is no 'fuel' to cause flames.
I guess everyone just needs to see balls of flame to know an explosion has occurred.
I have a nitpick on that Big Bang nitpick; the only reason that the Nazis know where Marion is, is because they follow Indy (the Gestapo agent is watching him on the aircraft).
Matt Swain wrote: Still it seems odd they couldn't put a shield over their generators that would block the shots from that walker.
Well, we know the Gungans/Naboo have that sort of technology. Now whether the Rebellion had access to it, that's a different question entirely. It may well be the opportunity to acquire that sort of 'mid-range' shield - smaller than a planetary defense shield, larger than the shield of a starfighter or vehicle - never came up, and they sure weren't going to strip the shield generator out of a starship for it. By the time the Empire reached and destroyed the power plant, they were already overrunning the base anyway.
Maybe i should quit picking on star wars, but i just can't help thinking it odd that the original death star had within its gigantic bulk just enough TIE fighters to more or less evenly engage the 30 or so rebel fighters launched from Yavin 4. As it seemed to be at the end there didn't appear to be any TIEs left, vaders advanced prototype was knocked off into space and away from the DS and like 3-4 rebel ships managed to get back to Yavin, implying the DS had just enough fighters in it's massive volume to engage about 30 enemy fighters.
Yeah, the Empire was being unusually sporting there. Various sources say that the Death Star had several thousand squadrons of TIE fighters. They could have launched ALL of them, and just buried the Rebel force. Apparently Tarkin really was that confident that there was nothing the Rebellion could do to stop him.
Maybe Solo picked off some on his way to help luke. There seemed to be none left around the DS or pursuing the withdrawing rebel forces.
It's possible, maybe even likely, that Han did pick off a few. The rest died in the explosion they didn't know was coming, I guess? No idea why they didn't try to pursue those last three survivors plus Han.
I know i know, plot. Just like how solo could have vaped vader but instead shot his wingman even tho vader was the only one firing on luke. Looking at it tactically i'm surprised solo didn't target vader, especially as from above his fighter likely had a larger target aspect. But vader had his plot armor, or maybe this was an early draft of the 'look out sir!" rule...
Remember the angles. Han wasn't coming in from directly overhead. He was coming in from the viewer's right, Vader's left. The TIE on the right was slightly higher and therefore much more exposed than the other two. Han took the shot, hoping... well, ideally, for the results he mostly got.
Maybe i should quit picking on star wars, but i just can't help thinking it odd that the original death star had within its gigantic bulk just enough TIE fighters to more or less evenly engage the 30 or so rebel fighters launched from Yavin 4. As it seemed to be at the end there didn't appear to be any TIEs left, vaders advanced prototype was knocked off into space and away from the DS and like 3-4 rebel ships managed to get back to Yavin, implying the DS had just enough fighters in it's massive volume to engage about 30 enemy fighters.
I always assumed that it was a fleet scale battle and the action only followed one or two flights. Alternatively the Death Star is more battleship that carrier and has a negligible fighter complement purely for shuttle escort.
Matt Swain wrote: Still it seems odd they couldn't put a shield over their generators that would block the shots from that walker.
Well, we know the Gungans/Naboo have that sort of technology. Now whether the Rebellion had access to it, that's a different question entirely. It may well be the opportunity to acquire that sort of 'mid-range' shield - smaller than a planetary defense shield, larger than the shield of a starfighter or vehicle - never came up, and they sure weren't going to strip the shield generator out of a starship for it. By the time the Empire reached and destroyed the power plant, they were already overrunning the base anyway.
If I recall, the Gungan shield allowed anything in ground contact to pass through it. Presumably, the AT-ATs could have walked through a mid range Naboo type shield before reaching the planetary shield generator and a KOTOR style personal shield for the generator was useless against vehicle class weapons so was never fitted.
Maybe i should quit picking on star wars, but i just can't help thinking it odd that the original death star had within its gigantic bulk just enough TIE fighters to more or less evenly engage the 30 or so rebel fighters launched from Yavin 4. As it seemed to be at the end there didn't appear to be any TIEs left, vaders advanced prototype was knocked off into space and away from the DS and like 3-4 rebel ships managed to get back to Yavin, implying the DS had just enough fighters in it's massive volume to engage about 30 enemy fighters.
I always assumed that it was a fleet scale battle and the action only followed one or two flights.
Definitely wasn't. For whatever reason* the Death Star was wandering around without escort ships, and the Rebels launched everything they had (and given it was 'do or be obliterated,' there isn't any point in reserves). That they only had 20 or so fighters was completely reasonable for what we knew at the time- a galaxy wide rebellion would operate in cells by necessity. (Obliterating Yavin 4 is way past overkill)
*available models, filming, budget, and of course, setting things up so the plot could happen. Plus Tarkin was more than a bit of a bonehead in his arrogance.
Alternatively the Death Star is more battleship that carrier and has a negligible fighter complement purely for shuttle escort.
Not unreasonable for what's shown in the film, but the endless array of 'technical supplements' sold to fans suggest that isn't the case. And reasonable military strategy would dictate a big fighter presence for a 'station' that size, even if the builders and brass are convinced of its 'invincibility.'
I think even just going by what is portrayed in the film, it's pretty much all entirely on Tarkin.
Vader is displayed as being of a similar authority (if not slightly lower) than Tarkin in the film and is shown, I think multiple times, instructing Tarkin to launch fighters, he then outright refuses, multiple times.
Eventually Vader basically says screw it, storms off and grabs a handful of pilots that will actually listen to him. It's then only those fighters that launch.
Might have been the first Fast & Furious where a car ignites and Vin yells, "NOS!!" and they all jump to cover so they car can explode in glorious, fashionable flames. NOS is not flammable, while the container is pressurized, it would still not explode in flames like that if heated. I am not sure of the exact science, but I believe NOS simply allows the fuel-filled air to incredibly condense to enrich the turbo charged air already being super compacted and forced into the combustion chamber. Kind of like a cold-air intake will allow your car to accelerate faster as cold air is more dense, so carries more fuel with it.
While obviously not Hollywood style explosions NOS canniserters can explode quite dramatically. Generally caused by leaving the cannister heater running and leading to uncontrolled decompression it has destroyed quite a few cara and even some garages.
Maybe i should quit picking on star wars, but i just can't help thinking it odd that the original death star had within its gigantic bulk just enough TIE fighters to more or less evenly engage the 30 or so rebel fighters launched from Yavin 4. As it seemed to be at the end there didn't appear to be any TIEs left, vaders advanced prototype was knocked off into space and away from the DS and like 3-4 rebel ships managed to get back to Yavin, implying the DS had just enough fighters in it's massive volume to engage about 30 enemy fighters.
I always assumed that it was a fleet scale battle and the action only followed one or two flights.
Definitely wasn't. For whatever reason* the Death Star was wandering around without escort ships, and the Rebels launched everything they had (and given it was 'do or be obliterated,' there isn't any point in reserves). That they only had 20 or so fighters was completely reasonable for what we knew at the time- a galaxy wide rebellion would operate in cells by necessity. (Obliterating Yavin 4 is way past overkill)
*available models, filming, budget, and of course, setting things up so the plot could happen. Plus Tarkin was more than a bit of a bonehead in his arrogance.
Alternatively the Death Star is more battleship that carrier and has a negligible fighter complement purely for shuttle escort.
Not unreasonable for what's shown in the film, but the endless array of 'technical supplements' sold to fans suggest that isn't the case. And reasonable military strategy would dictate a big fighter presence for a 'station' that size, even if the builders and brass are convinced of its 'invincibility.'
There’s also the concept of too many fighters. All the time you’re worrying about where your mates are, and whether they might fly into your kill box, the enemy has some kind of advantage.
It’s also worth remembering that the Rebel’s plan only came to light relatively late in the day. And even then, it was described as a small chance of success.
Tarkin, in his assured arrogance was likely gambling on ‘take out the planet, their morale will flag, and then they’re toast”.
This is where Rogue One really comes into its own, as we find out the flaw was very much deliberate, and small enough not to be noticed unless you really knew what you’re looking for.
One can easily imagine those monitoring the Rebel attack narrowing it down as they closed in on their target. Sure, it was likely they had a target of some kind in mind (otherwise it would be an entirely futile and suicidal attack), but the Death Star is vast. The closer they get, the more the potential targets are whittled down. Closer and closer, fewer and fewer possible targets. Eventually, someone realises “oh my....that’d actually work. EVERYONE PANIC”.
It’s arguable the Rebels only found the flaw because they’d been told there was one, and it was small. Memory fails if Jyn or Galen gave specifics (such as, whatever it is could lead to a chain reaction). If they did, it’s even easier to find because you work out from the end result, looking at ways it could be triggered.
Lack of escort fleet? Well....you don’t need one, in theory. Without the flaws exploited to take out both Death Stars, how do you take one down? It’s specifically described as being armoured. And we’ve seen it’s covered in Turbolasers. And when the main cannon can blat fully shielded Capital Ships, there’s little the foe can do. You could even argue that when taking out a planet, an escort fleet risks losses from the resultant explosion, as massive chunks of debris are slung out. We see relatively slowly moving asteroids take out a Star Destroyer Bridge in ESB, so it’d a risk to men and materials you don’t really need to take.
This was the genius of Galen Erso’s overall plan. He knew the defences inside and out. So he knew it wasn’t arranged to take out fighters. From there, it’s a matter of finding ways for such a small craft to do the damage needed. Again, the main reactor remains a point of vulnerability, a universal truth of Star Wars warfare. All becomes relatively straight forward from there with his level of access.
One thing that Rogue One also adds (though its mentioned in the opening crawl) was that there IS a Rebel fleet but hours/days ago they were just involved in a massive engagement and the survivors have scattered off refuelling or rearming, with the only fighters Yavin could personally support left there
I have a nitpick on that Big Bang nitpick; the only reason that the Nazis know where Marion is, is because they follow Indy (the Gestapo agent is watching him on the aircraft).
Might have been the first Fast & Furious where a car ignites and Vin yells, "NOS!!" and they all jump to cover so they car can explode in glorious, fashionable flames. NOS is not flammable, while the container is pressurized, it would still not explode in flames like that if heated. I am not sure of the exact science, but I believe NOS simply allows the fuel-filled air to incredibly condense to enrich the turbo charged air already being super compacted and forced into the combustion chamber. Kind of like a cold-air intake will allow your car to accelerate faster as cold air is more dense, so carries more fuel with it.
While obviously not Hollywood style explosions NOS canniserters can explode quite dramatically. Generally caused by leaving the cannister heater running and leading to uncontrolled decompression it has destroyed quite a few cara and even some garages.
That is not the gas exploding, just the canister pressure, and an internal explosion in the car is due to the compressed air/fuel being shoved into the combustion chamber. Could the popping canister make the gas tank explode/ maybe, but not likely at all.
Compel wrote: I think even just going by what is portrayed in the film, it's pretty much all entirely on Tarkin.
Vader is displayed as being of a similar authority (if not slightly lower) than Tarkin in the film and is shown, I think multiple times, instructing Tarkin to launch fighters, he then outright refuses, multiple times.
Eventually Vader basically says screw it, storms off and grabs a handful of pilots that will actually listen to him. It's then only those fighters that launch.
Almost.
The X-Wings arrive first, and start going after the 'point-defense' weapons (that were scaled for attack by something more like a Corvette than snub fighters). They weave around doing that for a bit while the Turbo-lasers are generally ineffective. so a limited launch of fighters is ordered. The TIEs and X-Wings dogfight while the Y-Wings come in. it's at this point that Vader grabs Tag and Bink (if you read that comic) to accompany him while he deals with 'a small group of fighters that has broken off from the main force'. Note that Tarkin is not shown approving this, but neither is he ever shown denying permission to launch more fighters.
It's also worth nothing that if the Death Star launched ALL of the fighters various sources said it had against the Rebels, they'd still have to hold most of them back. Two or three times the number of Rebels is probably the most TIEs that could engage without being continuously in each other's way. Having ALL of them in that limited area where the Rebels were operating would lead to massive fratricide from missed shots and lots of collisions. In the meantime the Rebels could basically just do donuts firing as fast as they could and they'd rack up massive kill numbers.
However, given what we saw, the Empire really should have had the fighters NOT involved in the melee either nearby to reinforce it, or out as BARCAP to keep, say, a random light freighter from showing up and adding fire support at a crucial moment...
Yeah, Tarkin really dropped the ball there, almost as badly as General Hux did forty years and three movies later.
Wasn't the Death Star supposed to be super-duper secret? Having an escort fleet with it would have hindered that. For starters, every added person that knows about the Death Star is another guy that might slip up and talk about it. Second, it's known that smugglers keep regular tabs on Star Destroyers and share/sell that info to other smugglers and the Rebels. If all the sudden a whole lot of Capital ships are no longer patrolling their known paths, or are seen going to a random off-limits sector it very well might get people wondering what they are doing there.
Ok, getting back on star wars where was the death star's engine? EVERY other ship on SW had discernible engines, even the tiny red lights on TIE fighters. But the death star has no engines at all.
I suppose hardcore SW fans will say it somehow used the gravity produced by its mass to propel itself.
Matt Swain wrote: Ok, getting back on star wars where was the death star's engine?
Everywhere, or along the equator. Apparently a it is great many tiny red dots, like on TIE fighters, inconspicuous at the scale of the station.
https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/death-star.htm#pt6 wrote:The Death Star's real-space propulsion system is made up of a network of ion engines that use converters to transform reactor power into thrust. The engine thrusters are primarily lined along the equator of the station.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Death_Star/Legends wrote:Facilitating the Death Star's realspace propulsion was a network of powerful ion engines that transformed reactor power into needed thrust. In order for the Death Star to be a deadly threat, it needed to be mobile. Using linked banks of 123 hyperdrive field generators tied into a single navigational matrix, the Death Star could travel across the galaxy at superluminal velocities. The incredible energies harnessed by the station combined with its great mass gave the Death Star magnetic and artificial gravitational fields equal to those found on orbital bodies many times greater in size.
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/ds/propulsion.html wrote:The sublight drives of the Death Stars were not conspicuous when the battle stations were viewed from afar. Various sources claim that the sublight engines were housed around the equatorial waistband, but the actual nozzles were too small to be seen from more than a few kilometres away. The Mandel blueprints indicate that there are 68 "antimatter engines", which presumably are the sublight drives.
I suppose that’s another argument against an escort fleet; the backwash from that thing jumping into hyperspace would probably tear any nearby ship to pieces!
cuda1179 wrote: Wasn't the Death Star supposed to be super-duper secret? Having an escort fleet with it would have hindered that. For starters, every added person that knows about the Death Star is another guy that might slip up and talk about it. Second, it's known that smugglers keep regular tabs on Star Destroyers and share/sell that info to other smugglers and the Rebels. If all the sudden a whole lot of Capital ships are no longer patrolling their known paths, or are seen going to a random off-limits sector it very well might get people wondering what they are doing there.
Well, yeah, but then in Rogue One we see several Imperial Star Destroyers hanging around the Death Star.
You know, the ships with a total crew and troop complement of over 37,000... each?
So. Where did THEY go? They clearly knew about the Death Star already. The assumption is that Tarkin didn't want to 'risk' having the unveiling of his wonder-weapon marred by the loss of a 'vulnerable' Star Destroyer. Given what happened at Scarif that's not a totally baseless concern. Had the lore been there, a couple of Carracks patrolling the perimeter would have done wonders for the security of the Death Star, and gone through the Rebel fighters like a scythe through grass.
But had Tarkin been smart, Star Wars ends with an Imperial victory and we probably don't get ANY of the material that followed. A case of the Idiot Ball serving a useful narrative function, I suppose.
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Jadenim wrote: I suppose that’s another argument against an escort fleet; the backwash from that thing jumping into hyperspace would probably tear any nearby ship to pieces!
That's why the escort fleet jumps a second or two earlier.
I have a vague memory of seeing some plans for various floors of the Death Star wwaayy back -- West End Games d6 era time -- which seemingly implied there were no lavatories on the station whatsoever.
I know there were similar issues with the M. Falcon at one point too but this I believe was later solved in a technical manual/similar.
Look how big these gates are --- almost like they were designed to let large creatures out through them.....
That wood does not look that strong either does it eh !
Another star wars issue: if leia knew the falcon had a tracker onboard why did she go straight back to the rebel base on yavin? Why not tell solo to go somewhere else and then get a different ship to go to yavin?
Matt Swain wrote: Another star wars issue: if leia knew the falcon had a tracker onboard why did she go straight back to the rebel base on yavin? Why not tell solo to go somewhere else and then get a different ship to go to yavin?
Did she have anywhere else to go where Solo would get paid? Alternatively, if she new of the Death Star's weakness, luring it towards a fighter presence would make sense .The later "we have analyzed the DS plans" scene would then refer to "the vulnerability is written down in the comments and we checked the math on it, it should work."
Otherwise, you have to find the bloody thing and distract it with sacrificial capitol ships else the fighters will get TIE spammed for lack of anything lese to focus on. In the Battle of Yavin, the fighters were seen as a desperation measure, thus largely ignored, and Tarkin refused to evacuate when the moment of glory or victory. That cannot happen without a juicy target like rebel base acting as bait.
Frodo was wearing his Elvish mithril armor when he and Sam were walking through the Giant Spider's lair. He then got stung in the belly. Shouldn't the mithril have stopped that sting?
Frodo was wearing his Elvish mithril armor when he and Sam were walking through the Giant Spider's lair. He then got stung in the belly. Shouldn't the mithril have stopped that sting?
In theory, yes.
The protection of mithril mail is very... iffy. Sure, a light shirt stops cuts, but mail is pretty awful at stopping the concussive force of a blow. Really, Frodo should have severe internal bleeding after the cave troll smushes him up against the wall, but he gets away with just having the breath knocked out of him.
And it's worth noting that Shelob is a first-generation descendant of Ungoliant, effectively a godling or demi-god.
Given the way that scene is framed, it seems likely to me that they originally intended it to be a (book accurate) stab to the neck, but changed it in the effects shot.
Maybe she just hit him a little lower, around the belly or groin?
I believe it’s a Terry Prachett quote “to an arrow, chain mail is just a loosely arranged collection of holes”. Now I don’t think that’s entirely accurate, but there is definitely an element that something with a point is going to have a much better chance at penetrating compared to a blade edge. I suppose a stinger is also going to be more effective, as it doesn’t need to penetrate to a lethal depth, it just needs to break the skin.
Jadenim wrote: I believe it’s a Terry Prachett quote “to an arrow, chain mail is just a loosely arranged collection of holes”. Now I don’t think that’s entirely accurate, but there is definitely an element that something with a point is going to have a much better chance at penetrating compared to a blade edge. I suppose a stinger is also going to be more effective, as it doesn’t need to penetrate to a lethal depth, it just needs to break the skin.
Yeah, David Eddings does that with rapiers in the Elenium/Tamuli, to the point of absurdity. The characters act like mail is no defense at all, and the rings are (apparently) huge, or that rapiers are teeny-tiny (when neither is true).
For this particularly LotR example, though, book-wise I was always under the impression that she got him in the neck or arm.
It depends a lot of the size and arrangement of the rings. If they're too small, a broad enough point breaks them. If they're too broad, they don't really stop a point at all. Mail can prevent a thrust from being lethal mind because it does sort of stop a blade from going as deep as it could, but that wouldn't work if the tip is a stinger with venom so... This is why most mail was part of multi-layered armorings. Leather or hardened cloth beneath or over the mail.
Ok, getting away from star wars, in Jaws how did the shark bite the one guy's head off and leave it in his boat for the classic jump scare scene when it rolled into view thru the hole in the boat?
Also, do great white sharks have TARDIS type stomachs? After eating Quint, a large full grown man, would it still feel like eating brody?
Matt Swain wrote: Ok, getting away from star wars, in Jaws how did the shark bite the one guy's head off and leave it in his boat for the classic jump scare scene when it rolled into view thru the hole in the boat?
Could it have the shark have bitten off the body instead? If the victim went in the maw legs first, perhaps the shark chomped at the neckline and the severed head went into the boat?
Voldemort relies too heavily on magic gets a bit grim, so I’ll leave your own mind to boggle.
But.....when Harry spent all those years living with the Durselys....where the hell were social services? How did his primary school teachers not notice the outright abuse?
Once he enters the Wizarding World, one of the very, very first things we see is a stack of Treasure which very much belongs to him. Yet, we don’t see the selfish little oik even offer to help out the Weasleys - the folk that become his surrogate family. Instead we see him be tres gauche and buy the entire sweet trolley’s contents (what if one of your fellow pupils was diabetic, Harry. WHAT OF THAT!)
Sirius Black. Wrongly convicted. In a world where literal truth potion exists, he was wrongly convicted....
How has Hogwart’s not been shutdown due to health and safety violations?
When Dumbledore and newly resurrected Voldemort are duelling in the Ministry of Magic, Harry just cowers. Now, if it was guns or Muggle weapons, fair enough. But it was magic, which boils down to will and concentration. There’s Harry, in what, Year 10? With his wand. And he does nothing??? Given he’s a friend of Fred and George Weasley, and a secondary school aged Wizard, are you really telling me he didn’t know a magic version of a kick in the nads, wedgie or Chinese burn? Even a wet Willy would’ve been enough and poof the bad guy is gone.
Seriously. Just one judicious “flickus knackerus” and that’s Voldemort about as dead as can be hoped at the time in question.
Even just a cheeky poke in the eye or sudden itchy crack might’ve been enough.
Star trek 2 (Hey, I can poke at things i like too when they need it.)
When khan sets genesis to go boom and it takes 4 minutes to build up to detonation, why not have enterprise's weapons blow genesis to plasma well before it built up enough power to detonate? Lock onto it and fire main phasers at full power and disintegrate it within 30 seconds of it's 4 minute overload cycle?
Matt Swain wrote: Star trek 2 (Hey, I can poke at things i like too when they need it.)
When khan sets genesis to go boom and it takes 4 minutes to build up to detonation, why not have enterprise's weapons blow genesis to plasma well before it built up enough power to detonate? Lock onto it and fire main phasers at full power and disintegrate it within 30 seconds of it's 4 minute overload cycle?
Good catch. Best guess? They didn't know where on the Reliant Genesis was exactly, so any "minor" crippling of the ship may have just jettisoned it out, fully active. Or it may have prematurely went boom (even with a lower yield. It may be like standing 6 inches from an m-80, or 50 feet from a stick of TNT, either way it's going to hurt.
Voldemort relies too heavily on magic gets a bit grim, so I’ll leave your own mind to boggle.
But.....when Harry spent all those years living with the Durselys....where the hell were social services? How did his primary school teachers not notice the outright abuse?
They did. Dumbledore wiped their memories and sent Harry back. Repeatedly.
Once he enters the Wizarding World, one of the very, very first things we see is a stack of Treasure which very much belongs to him. Yet, we don’t see the selfish little oik even offer to help out the Weasleys - the folk that become his surrogate family. Instead we see him be tres gauche and buy the entire sweet trolley’s contents (what if one of your fellow pupils was diabetic, Harry. WHAT OF THAT!)
Meh. He's 11, and painfully warped view of the world and generally ignorant by design. I would not expect this to occur to him.
Sirius Black. Wrongly convicted. In a world where literal truth potion exists, he was wrongly convicted....
The Wizarding gov't is also corrupt, stupid and was just fighting a shadow war, and also mind control also exists.
How has Hogwart’s not been shutdown due to health and safety violations?
Wizarding society is generally pictured as Victorian at its best. They likely don't have much in the way of health and safety codes. And especially not even the concept of 'duty of care.'
When Dumbledore and newly resurrected Voldemort are duelling in the Ministry of Magic, Harry just cowers. Now, if it was guns or Muggle weapons, fair enough. But it was magic, which boils down to will and concentration. There’s Harry, in what, Year 10? With his wand. And he does nothing??? Given he’s a friend of Fred and George Weasley, and a secondary school aged Wizard, are you really telling me he didn’t know a magic version of a kick in the nads, wedgie or Chinese burn? Even a wet Willy would’ve been enough and poof the bad guy is gone.
He's a kid and bizarrely unmotivated for his circumstances. But honestly this is the proper reaction for a teenager in the equivalent of fire-fight.
But the thing of it is, despite how the first couple books set it up, Harry isn't a Hero. He's a Sacrifice.
A possibly intentionally broken child, trained and molded to walk to his death to solve a word game (in lieu of the adults around him taking any responsibility for fixing their terrible society). I honestly suspect Rowling's intentions were that he stayed dead, and the publisher balked and forced in the macguffins and the epilogue in the knowledge that the general audience would riot.
Matt Swain wrote: Ok, getting away from star wars, in Jaws how did the shark bite the one guy's head off and leave it in his boat for the classic jump scare scene when it rolled into view thru the hole in the boat?
It's still attached to the rest of his corpse, presumably Hooper's investigation of the wreck dislodges something, so the body shifts and falls so that his face is visible through the hole in the boat.
Back to Star Wars!
This time dueling in the prequels.
Firstly, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon vs Maul.
Maul only has one light saber, he can only parry one person at a time. For a large portion of the fight he's flanked on both sides by the two Jedi, they could easily attack simultaneously and there would be nothing Maul could do to parry the two attacks.
Instead what you see is one Jedi swinging (and getting parried) whilst the other Jedi literally *waits for their turn* to swing and get parried.
The same then applies to Grevious. Instead of launching simultaneous assaults from four directions he only ever uses one or two at a time, or when he does attack with all four they all attack from the same direction and get parried by a single move from his opponent.
The Clone Wars cartoon shows what he's capable of, once. He locks lightsabers using two arms, then pulls out his blaster and shoots his opponent (so dastardly!).
But in every other duel when he's up against non-disposable characters he's back to just swinging them all as one weapon. Or kicks them across the room instead of using a lightsaber.
Voldemort relies too heavily on magic gets a bit grim, so I’ll leave your own mind to boggle.
But.....when Harry spent all those years living with the Durselys....where the hell were social services? How did his primary school teachers not notice the outright abuse?
They did. Dumbledore wiped their memories and sent Harry back. Repeatedly.
Once he enters the Wizarding World, one of the very, very first things we see is a stack of Treasure which very much belongs to him. Yet, we don’t see the selfish little oik even offer to help out the Weasleys - the folk that become his surrogate family. Instead we see him be tres gauche and buy the entire sweet trolley’s contents (what if one of your fellow pupils was diabetic, Harry. WHAT OF THAT!)
Meh. He's 11, and painfully warped view of the world and generally ignorant by design. I would not expect this to occur to him.
Sirius Black. Wrongly convicted. In a world where literal truth potion exists, he was wrongly convicted....
The Wizarding gov't is also corrupt, stupid and was just fighting a shadow war, and also mind control also exists.
How has Hogwart’s not been shutdown due to health and safety violations?
Wizarding society is generally pictured as Victorian at its best. They likely don't have much in the way of health and safety codes. And especially not even the concept of 'duty of care.'
When Dumbledore and newly resurrected Voldemort are duelling in the Ministry of Magic, Harry just cowers. Now, if it was guns or Muggle weapons, fair enough. But it was magic, which boils down to will and concentration. There’s Harry, in what, Year 10? With his wand. And he does nothing??? Given he’s a friend of Fred and George Weasley, and a secondary school aged Wizard, are you really telling me he didn’t know a magic version of a kick in the nads, wedgie or Chinese burn? Even a wet Willy would’ve been enough and poof the bad guy is gone.
He's a kid and bizarrely unmotivated for his circumstances. But honestly this is the proper reaction for a teenager in the equivalent of fire-fight.
But the thing of it is, despite how the first couple books set it up, Harry isn't a Hero. He's a Sacrifice.
A possibly intentionally broken child, trained and molded to walk to his death to solve a word game (in lieu of the adults around him taking any responsibility for fixing their terrible society). I honestly suspect Rowling's intentions were that he stayed dead, and the publisher balked and forced in the macguffins and the epilogue in the knowledge that the general audience would riot.
Well....you can prove anything with facts!
Excellent counter though, and you can tell I’ve never read the books.
Well, the memory wipe is a fan theory (ish) but its heavily implied. Dumbles flat out tells Harry later on that he knew he had doomed Harry to 'dark and difficult years,' which by modern social standards is actually an admission of criminal neglect.
Despite the overall light tone of the first book or two (and Rowling's creepy take on 'comical' child abuse) the HP books are dark as feth. Lots of Fridge Horror and Nightmare Fuel.
The Clone Wars cartoon shows what he's capable of, once. He locks lightsabers using two arms, then pulls out his blaster and shoots his opponent (so dastardly!).
But in every other duel when he's up against non-disposable characters he's back to just swinging them all as one weapon. Or kicks them across the room instead of using a lightsaber.
Greivous was amazing the first time we see him in the microseries that preceded Revenge of the Sith and Clone Wars.
They did him real dirty in basically everything afterward.
The Clone Wars cartoon shows what he's capable of, once. He locks lightsabers using two arms, then pulls out his blaster and shoots his opponent (so dastardly!).
But in every other duel when he's up against non-disposable characters he's back to just swinging them all as one weapon. Or kicks them across the room instead of using a lightsaber.
Grievous was amazing the first time we see him in the microseries that preceded Revenge of the Sith and Clone Wars.
They did him real dirty in basically everything afterward.
Definitely, that's part of why I'm so disappointed in his later appearances.
He could be so badarse, but they had to throw it away. Which is silly, IMO microseries villain is a much scarier and more interesting big bad evil guy than he was portrayed as later.
They traded in a competent and deadly badass for an arrogant mustache twirling cartoon villain.
About the only time in later works we really get to see Grievous as dangerous and competent is in the one Clone Wars episode, Lair of Grievous. In basically everything else he's usually getting hoisted by his own petard.
So one just popped into my brain last night; The Rock. Now I know it’s one of the best, dumbest action movies, so realism isn’t hugely high on the agenda, but there’s one bit that has wormed its way into my brain to bug me.
When they first arrive on the island and they’re in a locked room, for which the only way out is for Sean Connery/Mason to roll through the fire blasts and whirring gears of a steam engine (side note a. That’s not how steam engines work and b. Why is that even there?! That’s Galaxy Quest smashers level of pointlessness! But, anyway). Mason then works his way round to unlock the door and let the SEAL team in. The reason only he can do this is because he memorised the timing on the “steam” engine when he escaped 40 years earlier, because they are going in the same way he came out. So when he was escaping he was travelling in the other direction. I.e. the direction he just came from to open the door. So there was absolutely no need for him to memorise the timing on the engine and risk his life, when he could just open the door from the inside and swim away! Gaaahhhh!
Jadenim wrote: So one just popped into my brain last night; The Rock. Now I know it’s one of the best, dumbest action movies, so realism isn’t hugely high on the agenda, but there’s one bit that has wormed its way into my brain to bug me.
When they first arrive on the island and they’re in a locked room, for which the only way out is for Sean Connery/Mason to roll through the fire blasts and whirring gears of a steam engine (side note a. That’s not how steam engines work and b. Why is that even there?! That’s Galaxy Quest smashers level of pointlessness! But, anyway). Mason then works his way round to unlock the door and let the SEAL team in. The reason only he can do this is because he memorised the timing on the “steam” engine when he escaped 40 years earlier, because they are going in the same way he came out. So when he was escaping he was travelling in the other direction. I.e. the direction he just came from to open the door. So there was absolutely no need for him to memorise the timing on the engine and risk his life, when he could just open the door from the inside and swim away! Gaaahhhh!
I assumed it was locked/wired when he left, opening it would have triggered an alarm.
I'm wondering why the steam engines of a prison that hasn't worked in 50 years was still running. There was an in universe explanation but I forget what it was.
