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..it has vast 'databanks' (as these TV shows often call it, and no pun intended).
Data can't, because it's not alive, have any 'morals', and that makes it potentially (and as we've seen, also actually) dangerous. It has no humanity to stop it from doing any kind of actions against living beings, and it has no capacity for regret, guilt, etc.
For these reasons, a machine like this should not have been let freely roam in an advanced spaceship, no matter how 'well-meaning' it 'thinks' it is. It can be turned off, it can be reprogrammed, it can be 'remote-controlled', it has the power to swiftly take over the Enterprise in such a situation (proven in certain episodes)..
Data's existence, although understandable from the writer's viewpoint of wanting to re-create Spock in some more 'futuristic' way, is really telling about how limited this show's viewpoint of life is. For a show about a spaceship, whose mission supposedly IS to seek life, this is quite appalling.
Also, in Star Trek, even in the old series, their MISSION is completely disregarded for the most part, except for some throwaway lines here and there.
When does the Enterprise ACTUALLY seek out new life and new civilizations? Isn't it almost ALWAYS on some 'medical mission' or 'doing a survey' or 'helping to delay a moon's orbit decay' or some such thing? Rarely it just 'seeks out new life and new civilizations'. Which is a pity, because I'd watch THAT show..
I used to share the OP's sentiment, but when re-evaluating all this, I have changed my mind a little bit.
The Original Series has lots of greatness to it that will probably never be surpassed by any show, and TNG certainly has very boring, agonizingly tedious sections that slowly plod through a dull and politically-correct social landscape instead of bringing us something exciting and interesting.
However, from another point of view, you could see that TNG has sometimes a bit more cerebral atmosphere and thought-provoking, almost philosophical dilemmas that force the viewer to think, reflect and form their own opinions about these deeper issues in life.
Of course all this is limited to the typically nihilistic, materialistic and almost utilitarian viewpoint of the physical body instead of soul, and muscles instead of meridians, and so on. For a 'cosmic' show like this, it's a bit appalling that life is basically still only appreciated when it has a 'physical form', unless it's some kind of 'interesting alien' - but in any case, no thought is given to what life really is, where soul goes when the body dies, and so on.
Data is a sore point in this manner; it is considered 'alive', just because it's a COMPLEX physical form. But complexity does not equal life.
Because the writers and people in general on this planet do not seem to know what life ACTUALLY is, they always have this dusty viewpoint that anything complex enough is life. Thus, Enterprise's A.I. can be alive, a holodeck character can be alive, Data can be alive, and so on.
I would actually be happy to see that a soul actually incarnated into Data, and THAT makes Data alive. In 'reality' (of the show), however, Data is no more alive than a laptop or a USB memory stick. It's just a complex, autonomously active machine, that should never have been accepted into Starfleet as an officer just because it can look like a human, it can mimic human behaviour, speech and thought, and..
In modern operating systems on planet Terra, it's possible to create 'restore points' or 'backup points', so in case anything goes wrong, you can just restore to a point when everything worked perfectly.
There are plenty of ways to do this nowadays, and many variations of this kind of 'reset back to functional system' exist.
Now, why couldn't a spaceship like the Enterprise have a futuristic, sci-fi-version of something like this? Alien attacks and takes over? Computer detects intrusion, resets the whole ship back to a point when no alien or virus was in the system, and BAM! everything is perfect again.
The most logical thing would be to have GERTY observe Sam's health and as soon as sufficient health deteroriation is detected, the clone-replacement procedure is activated, so it would be more determined by what's actually happening, and everyone would still work as long as they're 'viable' and then immediately discarded to be replaced with a new clone.
It's kind of illogical to let them work so long that they become as weak as shown in the movie, but then, maybe it's just to point out the absolute greed of the corporate suits - even financial sense (more efficient and streamlined facility and staff) doesn't override the 'let's save a few pennies'-attitude. Go figure.
I would love to see a well thought-out movie that doesn't depend on relying upon things that even a dumb audience can figure out doesn't make sense.
At least this 'culture with highly-developed tech need humans for very basic things' (common in all three movies)-thing should stop, it has been done to death already. That kind of culture/society/group/whatever would NEVER need humans for ANYTHING (other than entertainment, possibly, or that whole original The Matrix idea of some kind of 'neural network processing' stuff would've been refreshingly plausible).
It's a typical movie flaw, so many movies wouldn't work, if they had any common sense or logic to them.
The whole clone-thing is SO convoluted and unnecessary, considering the tech level they already have (as we are shown). They could SO easily make the whole base completely autonomous and automated, eliminating the need for zillions of complications that the silly 'clone'-thing brings.
In many movies, the question "if they have THIS kind of tech, then why can't they just...?" is never answered.
Another movie with very similar logic flaw is Oblivion - extra-terrestrials with super advanced A.I. and hovering drones somehow NEED human beings (or clones) for maintenance (and of course those beings need an enormous amount of maintenance, atmosphere, nourishment, some kind of sewer systems, entertainment, psychological and physical healthcare, etc. etc.).
It doesn't make one iota of sense - any culture with THAT high tech level would definitely not need any clones or human beings for something as basic as MAINTENANCE, for crying out loud.
Even The Matrix is guilty of this; machines with such super high tech level shouldn't need something as inefficient as 'growing humans as batteries' for energy/electricity. The 'combined with a form of fusion' doesn't really make it any more plausible. Why not just use that fusion?
Why not develop a better energy source? Why not just access the sun that's right above the clouds? (If a human-made / stolen / whatever ship can rise above the clouds, then surely an efficient machine-made drones should be able to do it, too, and collect solar energy)
Why not devote all those VAST resources needed to 'farm humans' to research and development of alternate and better energy sources (even just talking about Nikola Tesla, the machines should have found 'all the energy they would ever need' from a plethora of other sources)?
Movies can't make sense for some reason.. they have to break the logic to create some kind of excitement.
"bathroom
loo or WC"
toilet
John
How DARE Americans make American movies! They should make Norwegian classics!
Do you hear yourself, and how absurd your argument is? Why would you expect an american movie to NOT be american? What does 'too american' mean anyway? And how can a movie about stock markets and wall street manipulations NOT be 'too american' for ya?
I have never lived in America, and when I saw this first, I had never even visited America, or USA, as I prefer to call it. Yet, me and my friends found this absolutely hilarious and relatable, and I appreciated its atmosphere, intensity and good musics as well as the brilliant acting performances.
So, obviously this movie was not 'too american' for us non-americans back in the day, and it has never felt 'too american' for me ever since, either. It's actually really cool to see movies from other cultures, and to be able to immerse yourself in the story in a different type of setting than you see every day.
What's 'too american' about it? It's not that sappy, when you compare to many other movies, and the scenes with Steve Martin and John Candy are such gold, you could forgive even more sappiness.
This movie couldn't have been more fully appreciated in the non-american country where I have been living, and I assure you, it wouldn't have been possible for me to appreciate this movie than I have.
You are simply wrong in your completely absurd and ludicrous accusation. This movie breaks all cultural bounds, and so what if it shows a little bit of american lifestyle, that's very interesting to see for those that do not live it every day. So if anything, it's PLEASANTLY american, not TOO american.
He did get on the flight, so obviously not all flights were cancelled. Remember the 'my dogs are barking'-scene? That happened inside an airplane.
The 18:00 flight was not cancelled, it was DELAYED.
"“The light is the left hand of darkness” "
No, it isn't.
Are you saying darkness is the body, and light is the left hand? So what's the right hand? More darkness?
Darkness doesn't exist. Light does. You can't measure 'speed of darkness', you can only measure speed of things that actually exist. The word 'darkness' only exists because it's practical, but in actual reality, darkness is nothing but LACK of light. That's all it is (so it isn't really anything).
Therefore, it's not only completely absurd to claim that light is somehow sub-genre of darkness, or that darkness somehow gives birth to light, when it's completely wrong.
You can have a house full of darkness, and open the doors and windows to a well-lit world - the darkness won't pour out, light pours in.
You can have a house full of light in a world surrounded by darkness, and open the doors and windows - darkness won't pour in, light pours out.
These are not metaphors, they're examples of how real life and reality work. Light is always something, and it always removes darkness, it's always 'stronger than darkness', because darkness doesn't really exist. In real terms, darkness is just 'perceived small amount of light'.
Light always exists, as the spirit that forms the Universe is fundamentally light. No matter how tiny amount it is, there's always some light, even if only on higher levels, like etheric or astral planes.
So any darkness is always just lack of light, and thus, doesn't exist as its own thing at all. Bring any light, and the darkness goes away. There's no big enough darkness to make the smallest candle in the world lightless.
"They're" and "they're".
Unbelievable... the internet is right there, why can't you spend 2 seconds to check the difference between 'there', 'their' and 'they're' before commiting word crimes?
I don't really agree about the movie - it's pretty lackluster in all levels, and has almost no charm beyond Chris Farley's charisma.
However, I think Chris Farley was too talented and capable for ending up like he did so quicky. I am sure that if he hadn't become such a mess, he could've given the world some brilliant movies.
So I agree that his fate was really, really sad, I can't get over it, how someone like him can end up like that. It's heartbreaking.
This movie is a little empty. It doesn't have that much going for it.
Chris Farley is great, of course, and none of the actors are anything to complain about, really. The plot is OK-ish, but lacks any real surprises, it's very run-of-the-mill, paint-by-the-numbers-style affair.
It was shot during a leafless season (might've been late autumn), so the sceneries are not pleasing. Basically, what this movie amounts to is a poor man's Planes, Trains and Automobiles. The musics are pretty awful, David Spade seems to suck all the energy and fun out of every scene, most of the jokes, like his 'baldness' do not really work as humor.
The movie tries to have a big heart, and be a well-meaning comedy, but it sort of falls flat on its face, because there's really nothing that would keep the audience engaged, even visually (winterlike sceneries, cold factories, etc., ugly waitresses, etc.), let alone storywise. The audience knows exactly how the story is going to unfold after a certain point, and it's just boring to wait for it to plod along.
They add some 'wacky' stuff to fill in the blanks and to waste time, but even that comes off as just unnecessary and irrelevant to the story.
This is not as empty or bad as 'Almost Heroes', but it's like someone took 'P,T&A' and removed all the brilliant/comic/fun/energetic/atmospheric/funny parts and dumped the rest through some machine the churns out clichés.
Whereas P,T&A is engaging from the beginning to the end, this movie doesn't even have steam to lose. If it wasn't for Chris Farley's charisma, I don't think anyone would want to watch this movie.
3 or 4 funny parts? I know this comes kind of late, but I am curious to know what those parts are. So many seem to think the 'egg' bit is funny, but to me, it was just unrealistic and frustrating.
I don't mind unrealistic things in a comedy, when they're funny.
This movie just doesn't know how to be funny, at least Men in Tights had one funny bit, this movie doesn't even have that.
It definitely isn't. There's not even one laugh in this movie for the audience.
I don't know how people can like this movie and be so blind to the obvious lack of anything that a movie should have.
I understand the movie has charm, it has good performances, likable characters, gorgeous scenery, even relatable situations (sort of).
It just doesn't DELIVER what it promises.
I WANT to like this movie so much, because it has so many things done right, even down to atmosphere and visuals. The premise is great, and basically -everything- is fine - except the movie just doesn't deliver.
It doesn't give you actual humor. It doesn't give you entertainment. It doesn't give you an interesting story, everything is predictable, the 'humor' is sub-par, on the level of fart jokes at best, and just confusing and boring at worst.
This is not so much a movie, as it is a 'things just happen that do not do anything for anyone', and then it ends.
I want to like this movie, just like 'Men in Tights' - but neither movie delivers. There's nothing to latch on to or grasp. Give me at least a couple of good jokes, give me something that moves me, give me an interesting adventure, excitement, a plot twist, ANYTHING. These movies just don't.
I envy people that are SOMEHOW able to think this is a good movie (or even A movie), and like it - I just can't join them, as no rational individual that has watched more than two movies in their whole life can.
By the way, your signature makes no sense.. (which is to be expected)
It's not even impactful enough to be BAD. It just ... exists. Things sort of happen. That's about it. There's no excitement, no humor (many attempts, though), no intensity. Nothing to make you watch except the curiosity about this oddity.
As I mentioned before, another movie shares a similar problem, 'Men in Tights'.
Both movies prime the viewer with "Be ready to laugh, because we'll make fun of something famous", and.. then the laughter never comes. You are SO READY to laugh, but you never do. It's so weird how both movies manage to botch a wonderful premise that way.
'Men in Tights' actually does have one point where I laughed - the part where Robin fights Little John with the sticks, and then Little John is afraid of drowning. But they should've let him 'drown' so he could face his fears and realize nothing bad happened, and thus grown stronger.
I SO want to like this movie and Men in Tights, too, as the actors are great and charming, and the premises are so good, and both movies DO tell a coherent story, there's an actual plot you can follow, and so on. But you can't force yourself (or others) to like something that doesn't have anything you can grasp on to to like. Even a bad B-movie can have something you love about it, but these two movies are just so 'empty' in this way.
Both movies have SO much potential and promise, and neither movie DELIVERS.
I think this is the main core problem with both these movies - deliverance is the biggest thing that's missing. Even a fan movie can deliver, but these movies do not.
It's such a mystery, since the people involved HAVE been in wonderful productions that DO deliver. I can't figure it out.
I have to agree.
This movie is STRANGE.
It has a good basic premise, nothing wrong with it. It has some good ideas for jokes and humor, but the execution ALWAYS fails for some reason. Many of the jokes fall flat, have bad timing, do not work, are over-extended, or just simply resort to the lowest common denominator-pandering fart-stuff.
It's one of those mysterious cases that look good on paper - great premise, nice joke material, lots of promise, an exploration-adventure-comedy with great actors and comedic stars, good musics, and competent production (I don't know how to evaluate things like 'direction' or 'camerawork', but it all seems competent to me).
How the heck did this movie become so hollow and humorless after all this, is anyone's guess. It looks like it could've been a timeless classic, a masterpiece of comedy, on the same league as Wayne's World, with just a few tweaks and proper comedy.
It's like everything else is there, the stage is set, wonderful locations, great actors, even good performances in some ways - Chris Farley could be so funny, but somehow.. isn't here.
This movie is an enigma, a mystery, a baffling production, where everything SEEMINGLY falls into place perfectly, but the end result just doesn't work AT ALL.
I keep watching it, hoping to see something I might have missed earlier, but nope - every time, I just watch this with empty eyes, and can't get anything out of it. How can these same actors be so funny in other movies, but completely flat here?
This is not one of the worst movies I have ever seen - it's more like, the most 'empty' movie I have ever seen, because it doesn't offer the viewer anything, beside some scenery and a bit of music.
It's one of those movies that you remember later as something 'possibly fun', because the premise is great and you remember people 'adventuring in gorgeous nature' - but when you watch it again, it's just the most 'blah' experience you can have with a movie.
There have been good answers here, but here's my take.
As a kid, it was always exciting and wonderous to see these 'omnipotent, all-capable, malleable, programmable machines/systems/vehicles/computers/gadgets/devices/transportation things' in movies and TV shows.
E.T., Back to the Future, Knight Rider, Whiz Kids and Innerspace all had this 'fantastic, out-of-this-world device' or 'thing' as something important to their story.
The idea of a machine or even mount that's almost 'your friend', that can do 'anything', being almost omnipotent in the right hands, and malleable to any given situation has always been exciting to me, especially as a kid.
Of course as an adult, it's easy to see how unrealistic and silly such a concept is in the 'real world', where we have to live with taxes, groceries, bureaucracy, endless cards, govenments, daily chores, traffic, congestion, health problems, and so on.
A movie, at its best, can take us from our dreary 'reality' into a world of fantasy and whimsy, where anything is possible, and make us forget our troubles and feel the elevated magic of the 'omnipotent thing'.
"The Pod" is amazing in this regard, I loved it as a kid! It can adjust to any situation just like K.I.T.T. in its heyday, and all it requires is a little bit of programming.
I think this feeling of 'omnipotent wonder' that you get to admire for the duration of the movie trumps any illogicality of these points.
I, for one, am ready to make that sacrifice - to get a feeling of 'magical adventure', I am willing to sacrifice a bit of logic and congruency.
So when you view everything from the point of view of: "The Pod should be able to do ANYTHING (as much as possible)", it may become a bit more clear. There might be contingency plans that a meticulous doctor, such as our hero (can't remember his name at the moment) that invented the whole pod, might want to add 'just in case' anyway.
I'd like to think of "The Pod" and its equipment more as 'multi-purpose'
Yes, the original poster (no pun intended) is being a bit uninformative and vague, WHICH poster do you mean, this movie had multiple ones?
By the way, those poster links do not work.
With a quick search, I can immediately find several completely different ones.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Innerspace+1987+movie+poster&t=hk&iax=images&ia=images&iaf=size%3ALarge
So, which one were y.. never mind, that post is 6 years old, we're never going to get this mystery solved.
To describe these different posters:
01) The orange-blue-colored one with 'sparkly explosion' on the left side, with Tuck's face as the big centerpiece, with Jack inside a shopping cart on the left, with the car, truck, pod, the red-haired woman, Lydia, the old guy, Igoe, Igoe's podsuit, and a big bunch of lab people wearing orange goggles on top left, almost all fitting in a 'circle' in the middle, lots of blue on the right side, and of course our brave doctor on a bicycle as a tiny guy on the bottom of the circle (just escaping the circle's bounds)
02) The ridiculously over-sized pod JUMPS out of Jack's mouth, while Jack looks horrified. You can see Tuck's face inside the cartoonish-looking pod. This is basically all there is to this poster. Cyan-ish background with no detail.
03) Thumb and a finger hold a very tiny pod inbetween them, almost like starting to gently squeeze the pod. Tuck is standing beside the pod, holding a helmet or something (hard to see). There is a soft glow behind Tuck and the Pod.
04) Photo of Jack having a 'bewildered, amused, comical' look on his face (Martin Short is so good at this sort of thing), Tuck's face is on the bottom left, just as he's being miniaturized (you can see the rays and light effects), while Lydia's face is on the right side, a bit smaller. There's a glowing outline around Jack's body, and some hard-to-identify structure on the left side of Tuck's face.
05) The Tuck's 'starting to be miniaturized'-face is big in the middle, in front of it, Jack seemingly floats around with his hands in a 'bear-imitation-like' pose, and tiny 'bad guys' holding on to his legs (for some reason). Igoe is on the right side, pointing with his finger cun at the viewer, Lydia and Tuck are on the left side as faces, some kind of suited figure is seen sitting in a position where he seems to be ready to kick something above Igoe, the pod is seen on bottom left, and the background is mostly black, except for the big, 'explosive'-looking glowing bursts of radiation behind Jack and on the upper portion of the poster.
06) Tuck is holding the tiny pod in his giant hand that is the biggest thing in the poster, in the middle of it, and looking down on the pod, smiling. Jack and Lydia are behind him, Jack has a look of fear and wonder in his face, while Lydia is doing a photoshoot-type smile to the camera. You can see Igoe climbing into his suit-pod on the left with some bubbles rising, and you can see the truck/car-scene depicted on the right as a small image. There are two small photos from the movie on both sides of the 'Innerspace' logo on the bottom.
I also found a poster with Meg Ryan and Martin Short just posing for the camera, but that might not be an official poster.
All of those posters are pretty great in my opinion, so I don't get the original poster at all - also, WHICH of these six (or seven) did the original poster mean??