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I just thought of something..
..since this society toys around with 'energy transporting' so much, why do they even need spaceships? Aren't those REALLY CLUMSY physical objects that are completely unnecessary in a 'world' (well, more like gillion worlds) that can even convert PEOPLE to energy and transport them safely in a blink of an eye?
I mean, from a planet to an orbit is pretty big a leap. They can do this in a few seconds. What are the limitations, and why do those exist for basically pure energy? Let's say there IS some 'reasonable limitation' so they can't just planet-hop using transporters alone. However, couldn't this limit be surpassed more easily than move SUPER HEAVY HUGE SHIPS very fast in space?
Couldn't they ALSO implement a system, where a tiny probe moves as fast as possible, and keeps the 'energy flow' alive, so they could basically SHOOT some photon torpedo as fast as it can go (and if it's a 'photon' torpedo, it should be able to move at least the speed of light), or at least have some kind of 'cosmic telephone pole' system, that keeps sending the pattern/human/energy/molecule bunch forward, so that you CAN basically planethop in a few seconds using this transporter technology? After all, you don't have MASS, when you are in the 'energy form', before you materialise, right? So without mass, how _FAST_ could you travel? With a little help of the transporter devices along the way, you should be able to move RIDICULOUSLY fast.
I think they invented the whole 'warp speed' stuff just to circumvent this problem..
Obviously, more detail and interesting things can be added to that holodeck lifestyle, anything you want would basically be yours, only your own imagination would be the limit. Perhaps you could make the computers somehow hypnotize you to even expand your mind and imagination to magnificent magnitudes...
(Of course, if sitting in a grey, dark box and staring at the wall is your fantasy, then you could have that, too - there would basically be no limitations)
It would all be perfectly safe, as well as perfect in all possible ways according to your own specifications. Wanna swim with dolphins? You can swim with dolphins. Wanna be a Galactus and destroy a whole city while everyone tries to flee, but you crush them with your gigantic feet and laugh? You can do that in the most realistic way possible. Wanna see psychedelic, interdimensional colors, create whole nebulae, play any kind of 'God-Simulator' if you are megalomanic that way.. you name it.
Why would ANYONE ever leave Holodeck? Tell me a reason that's more compelling than being able to live 'any life you want as long as you want in any way you want'?
The only thing I can think of is 'maintenance of Holodeck', but other than that, how could being a meaningless cog in some exophobic militaristic organization be better than just living in the holodeck?
So your teleporters would 'rejuvenate' your body (recreate a youthful, vibrant, vitality-brimming body for you ANY time you want), Holodeck would provide life, entertainment, freedom and even food and toilet facilities for you, you would never even need to shower, because why shower, when you can just simply recreate a new, clean body for yourself by using the teleporter?
The implications are _STAGGERING_!! and they are not addressed. That's the world of writers for you..
..they should NEVER have gone that lazy 'transporter route' to solve their tiny problem about transportation, if they weren't willing to deal with the ramifications and implications better.
Would the toddler suddenly be able to speak and act like an adult, or would it be a drooling idiot in a body with good brain capacity and..
..well, you get the idea. Why didn't the writers consider any (let alone all possible) implications of this kind of tech and the things it would render obsolete, like doctors?
Sure, I can get people sometimes 'manufacturing food manually' (I am sure a term like 'cooking' would've been forgotten in that era), as it can be fun, and act as a hobby of sorts.
But why would anyone do it in REAL LIFE, when they can do it optimally in a holodeck? Think about all those 'cooking games', like 'Cooking Mama', that people love to play ALTHOUGH they don't like to cook anything for real. It would be the same situation with a much larger scale and more detail, but basically lots of people would 'love cooking', as long as it's not dirty, messy and cumbersome - the way it would inevitably be in real life'.
Consider this; would YOU rather sit on a couch, watch your kids fight over something stupid, while your wife nags you to death, knowing you have only a couple of hours of brain-numbing televisional programming to consume before you get to pass out, after which you have to commute to some boring office wage slavery...
..OR!!...
..roam around freely from planet to planet, meeting interesting civilizations, all of which love you dearly and want to do anything and everything from you, from simple physical pleasures to amazing druglike mental and spiritual stimulation of your whole being, while you are able to witness amazing sceneries, while flying like Superman all over all kinds of interesting sceneries of amazing planets, and the variety and diversity of all of this wonder and beauty would never cease, it would be fantasy-worlds, realistic worlds, anything inbetween and beyond, anything you desire and want to see and visit.. you could explore and create to your heart's content with PERFECT people around you that love you..?
I hate the holodeck / transporter / replicator-tech.
I mean, it's cool technology, and I would love that in real life, but it's the IMPLICATIONS that the writers obviously didn't consider that I hate. I guess, I hate the stupidity of writers.
Think about it - why would they EVER need any 'medical staff', 'doctors' or ANYTHING 'medical', beyond 'scanning device' to tell you what illness you have, when they can just RECREATE your physical body?
Also, did anyone ever consider ages - why would anyone ever AGE, when you can basically reset your body to its prime any day you feel a little old? Realistically, with this tech, no one would EVER age much over 20, maybe 22 or so.
Why would the transporters ever recreate an OLD, diseased body, when they control energy and atoms completely? It makes no sense!
They can create, recreate and constitute bodies, food, objects, YOU NAME IT, basically from thin air. If you could 'forever live in a 20-year old body', would you choose to let your body age?
Also, holodeck by itself would destroy all life in the Universe. No one would ever bother doing ANYTHING menial or boring, as we can see from the cellphone zombie-phenomenon; most people are glued to the glowing screen of a rectangle most of the time, and simply can't stop 'checking' it constantly.
If you extrapolate future situation from our situation, there would never be any new tech after holodecks are invented, people would just spend their lives in 'optimal life' instead of 'boring and mundane reality'.
There are just SO many implications, it boggles the mind, and this show addresses practically none of them.
What happens, if you send a toddler through a transporter, and then the transporter decides to 'optimize' that body (which should be the default setting, as no one would want to arrive anywhere in a sick body, when the transporter could optimize, heal, recreate a perfect body every single time anyone uses it), and now you have a toddler in a 20-year old body..
Yeah, I remember something about 'weeks' when it comes to that, so you are probably correct. Their fake marriage is only a few weeks old (although technically, six weeks would be one and a half months - I don't get why people say things like 'six weeks' when they could say 'one and a half months' - that's like saying 21600 seconds instead of 'six hours').
If it's all real, who knows. If it's a lobotomy-preceding hallucination', then it's probably weeks.
I hate this movie for making both explanations impossible, though... I wish it would make them both possible, instead.
So what is the REAL reason?
Why can't women be hit, but men can, even when women are stronger?
This type of apelike piss-for-brains-type female often starts with this 'you can't hit women' crap, but when questioned and asked why, they start backpeddling, and reach the 'stronger shouldn't hit weaker', but then have trouble with the scenario I present with stronger woman and weaker man, so then they reach the INEVITABLE stupidity, "no one should hit anyone", and call it a day..
..without realizing what they just said, admitted and revealed.
It's so predictable and stupid, you never get anywhere beyond that point, and they will never tell you the truth.
Honestly, in a world where EQUALITY is paramount, I don't see a reason why GENDER would divide anything like this, especially if it's just a social construction that can't be defined, and at the same time, there are 8 gillion of them.
Lawfully, no one is allowed to hit anyone anyway, except in some extreme cases. However, Cosmically thinking, not even then - the Cosmic Messenger once said something about turning the other cheek.
In any case, this is why female youtubers are not great philosophers of the Universe... they can't even understand WHAT THE F THEY ARE SAYING.
Think about it genders reversed, how weird it would sound.
'I don't condone hitting men, but in this case, it was justified'.
We are SO used to men getting punched especially on our screens, we don't even think about how awful it IS to be punched, regardless of your bodily gender. Are you saying that YOU, the same, exact soul, are somehow more valuable if you live in a female body than if you live in a male body? Let's say you live in a male body, then the body dies, then you incarnate to a female body, and _NOW_ you can't be hit?
Isn't this then the same as saying 'your physical body dictates YOUR value'?
I mean, think about ALL the implications of what this stupid hag was saying in the video... so easily, casually and thoughtlessly.
It would've been better if the boy's story wasn't so dark, and if the jokes were actually funny and done in an organic way instead of the forced stuff we see.
You are right, it comes off as trying too hard, like someone hitting their head with some rubber hammer and screaming "look how funny I am, laugh at me, damnit!!1".
It's not organic, it's so fake and manufactured. No action movies show ridiculous silliness on the level this movie does (as you said, live-action cartoon rather than action movie), and yet it isn't even funny at all. When you're too self-referential, you lose the genuity (?). It's hard to believe someone that's screaming to you 'I am so fake, haha' constantly.
It comes off as corny and incongruent, it looks like you are TRYING to act badly, of being a bad actor trying to do his best. In actual B-movies, the fun comes from everyone trying their best and failing. You can't replicate that intentionally, it just doesn't work. You can't fake being bad by trying to be bad so everyone will laugh at you because you act so badly.
You have to try your best to act well.
The Last Action Hero, in my view, falls to a similar trap; it tries too hard to laugh at itself and movie tropes, while still being full of said tropes - but because it's intentional, you are supposed to find it funny somehow. It just doesn't work. Manufactured irony just doesn't work any more than manufactured 'bad B-movie'.
So much money wasted to give us basically 'tepid water' instead of some amazing new drink.
What a shame.. so much resources, potential, big names, acting performances, editing, location scouting, you name it.. just to give us THIS.
Such a shame.
I guess what I am trying to get at is that this movie is 'boring without seeming boring'.
It doesn't go the extra mile to really reach the depths of your soul and make you feel something exciting and extraordinary. Everything is a bit off, a bit out of whack, and nothing leaps out at you, which is a real shame, because for a premise like this, something absolutely should.
They could've made it a bit more meta, perhaps. They could've had funnier jokes, more extreme situations, and more annoying movie tropes, but they basically played it too safe.
This movie is superficially flashy and glittery, full of noise and explosions, action and even a 'story with a heart', but on a deeper level, it ends up being the most predictable junk food you've ever consumed, it ends up being 'just another these type of movies' instead of saying something of its own, doing something unexpected or unpredictable, or giving the villain more to do.
The Last Action Hero is unique in that it seems to check all the right marks, but yet fails to deliver. It just doesn't deliver despite its big star, 'funny-on-paper'-moments, like Slater meeting Arnold and the villain having a 'have a nice day'-eye. There should have been something more, something better, funnier, more original - there should've been an ACTUAL PERSONALITY, like so many other movies have.
It's a big-budget hollywood romp that's trying to make fun of big-budget hollywood romps, and as such, it reminds me of those 'low-budget B-movies that try to be low-budget B-movies', like the AVGN movie and 'Space Cop'. I can't believe how the people that have given us amazing entertainment can produce such garbage.
You can't intentionally create a 'good low-budget B-movie' just by having a low budget and trying hard to make that. It has to happen organically, while you are genuinely trying to make a good movie, but fail. THEN it becomes 'so bad, it's good', but not before. You can't intentionally make something look bad or 'act badly'
..but it just doesn't work. The well-polished parts just do not click. The parts do not fit together as a cohesive, coherent movie experience. It's a shame, because the movie is even entertaining, it's not completely boring or anything.
It could partially be that they played it a bit too safe. The plot is so predictable, your brain knows you're watching something boring even if you think you are being entertained by the action, the jokes and the noise.
In the end, this movie doesn't tell us anything new, it doesn't give us any kind of uplifting message, it only leaves you slightly confused as to what you just watched. It's very paint-by-the-numbers-stuff.
The kid's life with the single mom also seems pretty dark, his story is actually terrifying; being robbed in his OWN HOME? Not being school but hanging in some dilapitated theater with some old guy all day long? His life is out of whack, and it makes you worry for him in the back of your mind when you're supposed to laugh at some not-too-funny-joke.
This movie doesn't seem like it 'needed' to be made - it doesn't DARE anything unexpected or visionary, there's no personality or personality. It doesn't give the viewer enough. It's like oatmeal or vanilla ice cream - sure, it can hit the spot, but there's SO much more that could have been done. There's a world of crazy flavors, and all you get is this safe, pre-chewed stuff that doesn't let you feel anything. The movie doesn't dare provoke you on any level, or tell any hard truths.
It's just popcorn-'entertainment' at the its mildest, most predictable dimension imaginable.
A premise like this could've been really exciting - it is a pretty unique movie that way, but it falls so short of its potential. What could have been, what more interesting story could've been told.. Heck, they could've visited classic movies, like 'E.T.' and 'Short Circuit' and brought those entities to the real world!
But nope.. just some cliché 'death' from an old movie, etc.
Yeah, this is an interesting movie - as a phenomenon, not as entertainment.
It's more interesting to analyze this movie and why it doesn't work, how and why it failed so hard, than to actually watch it.
If some A.I. analyzed movies, and found this one, they would probably think it was a big success. On paper, everything seems fine, and there's a lot of polish in this movie, it's 'competently made'. In some ways, it's a lot like Roger Rabbit, with the walking cartoon characters and all.
It's like you have perfectly polished and shiny, new parts to make a car, but then you give the job to someone that has never put a car together, and the end result just doesn't work, the car doesn't run. It looks good on the outside, and judging from the separate parts, everything should be perfect - but it just doesn't click together 'as a car'.
The same way, this movie has some funny jokes, great observations about movie tropes, Arnold is his usual charming self, the kid is not too bad, the main villain is both hilarious and charismatic, very enjoyable and menacing on the screen.
The movie raises many really good points about how movies lie to us, and how big the difference between 'movie reality' and 'our reality' is.
In theory, this should've been a great movie, with lots of at least cult success - but it isn't. When you first watch it, you might be puzzled as to why this movie was such a failure, because it SEEMS entertaining, everything SEEMS to be just fine.
That could be one of the problems, though; this movie never seems to rise above 'fine' or 'passable', at least not very high. This movie never reaches 'excellence', and I can't detect 'genius' at any point. The jokes are 'funny', but mostly not 'laugh-out-loud'-funny. The performances are good, but nothing that makes you gasp. The plot is interesting, but it's not mind-bogglingly thought-provoking. The musics.. well, you get the idea.
There doesn't seem to be anything wrong about this movie..
In any case, if you remove the 'dreamworld levels and rules'-complexity from this movie, the story is pretty dull, predictable and boring.
If you watch Memento in chronological order, you get the same thing; a pretty dull, straightforward story with nothing much interesting about it about a crazy guy making himself kill an innocent (well, semi-innocent anyway) man.
In Leonard's case, it's the stupidest decision he could have made if he wants to keep hunting for his wife's killer(s) - with Teddy alive, he would have an endless amount of 'satisfying hunting life', but with him dead, and his license plate tattooed on his leg, there can never be another John G., Leo will always end up back to a guy he already murdered - and probably another mental hospital or some institution again, without even remembering what he has done.
It's a memorable movie (ok, pun intended), but the story is not that interesting, and I didn't find anything more "artful" (WHATEVER this means) about it than I did from a toilet glued to a wall.
"The only Nolan films that I would say are arguably artful are Memento.."
'Artful'.
Do you not realize ART is a toilet glued to the wall (to prove a point about 'art', but then people took it seriously)?
Do you not realize ART is a blank canvas called 'Untitled' that sold for millions?
Art, pff! What's good about ART? ART SUCKS!
In any case, what's so 'artful' about Memento?
Memento and this movie are basically the same thing: overly-complicated structure that hides the fact that the story is simplistic and dull.
The only thing that makes this movie seem 'mindblowing' to people, is that it's so complicated with the levels and the rules and that makes it hard for the masses to comprehend, so it's automatically 'deep'. Anything their little brains can't handle is 'deep'. Meanwhile, they can't answer a question like 'Name a country that starts with the letter 'U''.
This type of movies have a very simple core story that's BARELY a story, that's then overly-convoluted and complexified (if this is a word) to the MAX. by all kinds of gimmicks, giving it a superficial polish that blinds the audiences to think they saw something remarkable and interesting, when they only saw a COMPLICATED GIMMICK.
Watch Memento in the chronological order, and you will see what I mean - it's a really stupid 'story', that only seems interesting because we're seeing it backwards, and thus can't know what the heck is going on very easily (plus, just like this movie, it contains an enormous amount of filler).
The only good thing about that 'reverse' storytelling (though I think Seinfeld did it first - but even that episode wasn't really funny anyway, no matter which way you watch it) was that instead of being a 100% useless gimmick, it actually sort of serves the story by "putting the audience in Leonard's shoes", by basically forcing the same memory defect to happen to them.
So the viewer experiences things the same way Leonard does. But is it ART?
.. he is the better man. He shows Tuco he has the power to toy with him while having enough compassion and empathy to not kill him.
Tuco is like his little brother that he teases a little bit, whatever Blondie does to Tuco is not serious, it's just playful.
All this is easily explained, you just have to think a little bit.
1) He isn't leaving Tuco for DEAD, he knows how resilient and stubborn Tuco is, Blondie knows Tuco is capable of making it out alive. Blondie is merely toying and playing with Tuco, knowing what a vicious bstrd he is, but if he wanted him dead, he could've just let them hang him (after all, he got the money) or shot him or whatnot.
This is not leaving Tuco for dead, this is just 'playing a little game to irritate the little bugger'. After all, he does let him have a fortune in the end, and only kills the bad, not the ugly.
Besides, what doesn't kill Tuco, only makes Tuco stronger, and Blondie is like a Zen teacher, forcing Tuco out of complacency and giving him a burning drive to survive and live. This is how life teaches us, through our hardships we grow as human beings and cultivate our souls - we do become stronger, so in a way, Blondie is doing Tuco a favor by making him stronger.
2) He knows Tuco would avenge - after all, he is a vicious monster in his own right, even if he is a bit sympathetic as well. He knows also that at some point, their 'deal' would HAVE to come to an end - you don't play with fire or toy with a scorpion endlessly without getting hurt. It's pre-emptive self-protection, Tuco would betray him at some point or stab him in the back.
3) Blondie gives Tuco a burning passion to avenge the 'seemingly cruel lesson', which means Tuco could never just simply shoot Blondie, but would want to torture him first. This means he can survive much better, should Tuco find him again. Shooting someone is not good for revenge, it's too painless and quick. This means Blondie's chances of survival are much higher than if Tuco was impassionate about him and just wanted to kill him for pragmatic reasons.
4) Blondie could've killed Tuco at many points, but he doesn't. Instead, he gives Tuco a life lesson after another, not only proving that he's not afraid of Tuco, but also that..
That scene is so weird.
It implies that neither of the protagonists ever become hungry. Sarah is shown eating a pizza earlier, but she barely touches it, and then Kyle never seems to go for any kind of food or sustenance. He's shown to sleep, have nightmares or flashfronts (flashforwards? Can it be 'flashBACK' when none of it has happened yet? Then again, it's HIS past that is everyone else's FUTURE, so time is not as simple as people think), drive cars, run, gulp, have sex, but we never see him eat or have any interest in food.
So, a brave warrior comes from a future where the main course is 'rat' and probably starves a lot on a daily or at least weekly basis, into an era of 'food abundance', goes to supermarket to shop (with shopping skills of an expert that knows about and understands money, sales tax, supermarkets, different aisles and shopping carts and cash registers, can read for some reason, and so on)..
..and doesn't even think to buy a loaf of bread or a potato, or whatever unhealthy crap americans usually eat, like hamburgers and stuff?
I mean, this guy has NO interest in food, but yet is able to keep a very well toned muscular structure with admirable athletic ability and lots of energy.
Maybe he's one of the machines.... a 'breeder' type?
I know I am reaching, but when you think about it, it's all so weird - surely Sarah would've asked again after the 'playful joke answer', and wanted to really know what they're gonna eat, because she's probably very hungry. I wonder if she'd have the tact to avoid talking about being 'starving' to someone who has ACTUALLY starved a lot..
In any case, Kyle should absolutely be overwhelmed by all the food he sees - people eating, food in the supermarket and so on and so forth. Heck, maybe even the clothing store would've had some kind of food items for sale somewhere.
Someone from that kind of future would absolutely hoard food any chance he gets. Of course he's a 'disciplined soldier' or whatever, but still.
First of all, 'Arnie' doesn't kill anyone. The 'terminator' is a CHARACTER, 'Arnie' is the nickname of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the ACTOR. If you are going to seriously ask something about killing in a movie, the LEAST you could do is get it right and talk about the character, not the actor.
Even if you had got your question right, it would be impossible to answer anyway.
It WOULD be possible to answer, if the character was consistent, especially its decisions to 'terminate' and 'not to terminate' (it doesn't KILL anyway, it TERMINATES).
This character couldn't be more inconsistent.. there doesn't seem to be any kind of logic behind its fluctuation behaviour, either. Sometimes it goes on a rampage to terminate unidentified targets from the back (that could have been Sarah for all it knows, but it doesn't go to confirm), other times it just 'talks politely'.
When you look at this character's behaviour in the movie, it's SO inconsistent and so illogical, it's 100% impossible to say what it might have decided to do or not do in that situation. Does it spare people that are no longer assaulting, those that surrender? It is a TERMINATOR, after all, so no. It terminated the gun shop owner without any kind of mercy-programming.
Does it terminate people that have done nothing to it? Yes, the cops and disco scenes.
Does it sometimes spare people that it has incapacitated? Yes, weirdly. The disco bouncer just gets a strong handshake.
It's the inconsistenty that makes it impossible, and the only accurate answer would be something like: "Your guess is as good as mine".
Doesn't EVERY show in existence have an episode where a 'computerized building has gone mad'?
MacGyver sure has one, so does X-Files.
I mean, these 'computers become self-aware and murder people' ideas are a dime a dozen, there's nothing unique about any of this. Heck, even Dilbert (the cartoon show) had this idea, and it's kind of wild and cringy how the computer is voiced by Jerry Seinfeld of all people.
I am sure you can find this idea all over the place, if you bother to look. Heck, the old 'Battlestar Galactica' from the seventies had A.I. threatening humanity, and then there's the witty, joke-craking 'K.I.T.T.' of the 'Knight Rider' .. and we don't even have to talk about 'The Matrix', which always seemed a bit of a rip-off of 'The Terminator (1984)' in my opinion.
As a sidenote, I always love a good HUD - this movie wasted an opportunity to show a useful, functional, logical HUD that a robot like that would most likely or at least probably have.
All it shows is 8-bit CPU machine code together with some useless graphs and such that have nothing to do with anything. The 'F you, a-hole'-menu is the one of the only relatively useful thing, but it shouldn't be so clunky anyway.
Why are there no cursors or menus, why doesn't it scan things properly with that HUD? It would be so cool to show it looking through walls with infrared and scan people and objects to determine their importance - the other useful thing I can think of is the 'truck gear system' scene, but even that could have scanned the ACTUAL truck it's in, and figured out its mechanism by learning instead of a database matching.
Oh well, some day we will see a good HUD in some movie, where a robot actually scans everything informationally... that has been my dream for many decades now.