In Space, No One Can Hear...

...Anything. In space, there is no medium for sound waves to travel through. No air, no liquid, no solid objects. Yet in every Sci Fi space movie I've seen, there are constant sounds in space. I hear things exploding, people screaming, and jets firing. I shouldn't hear anything. All of the Star Trek, Star Wars, and Battlestar Galactica battles would take place in complete and utter silence. I know that film directors put sounds in space because space would be boring without sounds. No one wants to see that epic space battle on mute. So directors break one of the fundamental laws of physics in order to keep fans happy. I, however, believe this is wrong. Anyone watching a Sci Fi space movie can, or atleast should be able to, appreciate the lack of sound in space. Nerds like science, nerds like realism. Atleast I do. Sound isn't even necesarry to present a sense of scale and awe in movies. I think it would be even more dramatic if the introductory battle in SW: Ep 3 between the Republic and the CIS would be awesome if it took place in complete silence. Seeing the guns firing and the resulting explosions without sound would be cool. Everything would look like it was happening in slow motion. It would add a dramatic feel to an otherwise non dramatic movie. Not only would movie directors add a sense of drama to their movies, they would also not look stupid. I personally think that movies that depict space with sound and fire are stupid. There cannot be sound, and there would only be miliseconds of fire, if any. Space is an environment where nothing happens, movies need to get that right.

Mistakes were Made but Why Weren't They Forseen?

I love Jurassic Park. The movie was fantastic and the book was even better. However, I saw the movie when I was 9, and I didn't understand the deeper implications of the movie. I was a kid, I liked dinosaurs, 'nuff said. Now that I've read the book, and I know exactly what happened, I have one question. WHAT THE HELL WAS JOHN HAMMOND THINKING? I mean, seriously? They were cloning carnivorous dinosaurs for some super zoo. They made precautions, electric fences and such, but they really didn't think things through. They assumed everything would work out perfectly as planned. For such brilliant people, they didn't think of the less ideal outcomes. They didn't consider what would happen if the T-Rex escaped or if the raptors got out. Muldoon had the right idea, he wanted firearms, not just tranquilizer darts. He wanted LAWS. Light Anti Tank Weapons. He didn't get them. And when the T-Rex got out, they had nothing to disable it with. They hit him with 3 tranquilizer darts and he passed out 30 minutes later. A tranquilizer that would stop 5 elephants barely took down the T-Rex. And they had nothing to defend themselves from the raptors. In the movie, they had shotguns. In the book, they didn't had anything. Over half the staff died to the raptors. Thats a lot of law suits, and surprisingly the economists or the lawyers didn't consider injury based law suits from dinosaurs.I don't know why. Maybe I'm ranting, but to me it seems that these brilliant minds should have considered the possibility that events don't go as planned. The combination of deadly carnivours, a tropical island, and electric fences is volatile. Considering that the only thing keeping the dinosaurs from the keep is the generator, which, big surprise, failed. And people died. Mistakes were made, alot of mistakes were made. But why weren't they forseen?

What he wanted. /\

What happened because he didn't get what he wanted/\

Deus Ex Machina

While the concept of cybernetic augmentation is very intriguing, I can’t help but thinking of the dangers. While it would be awesome to have a cybernetic arm, leg, eye, or even brain, the risks may not be worth the rewards. I recently finished playing through the new Deus Ex videogame. Set in 2027, a scientist cracks the human DNA code, which opens up the easy merging of cybernetics and biological tissue. The industry becomes the new Microsoft of its time, becoming the wealthiest company in the world. The company develops cybernetic limbs, eyes, brain chips, and even weapons, and makes them available to the paying, and wealthy, public. Problems shortly emerge; the primary reason being rejection of the cybernetic augmentations, the peoples’ bodies won’t naturally accept the augmentations, and all of those who choose to get augmented must take anti rejection medication for the rest of their lives. This medication is very expensive, and the need for this medication has driven most of the wealthy upper class into poverty and destitution. Anti Augmentation groups naturally emerge, claiming that we are destroying our own humanity through augmentation. In my opinion, they’re right. We reject our own humanity, and our individuality through augmentation. We lose what makes us human. Seeing as this is a new science, regulations have not been placed governing what they can and cannot do, so the company, Sarif Industries, is free to experiment with whatever augmentations they want. An anti augmentation terrorist group, Humanity First, also emerges. Throughout the game you hear of various bombings of augmentation factories and assassinations of leading augmentation scientists. When I finally finished the game, I was left with the impression that we are not ready for this technology, and I don’t know if we ever will be. From what I saw in the game, I’m hoping that I’m long dead before we develop yet another technology to destroy ourselves with.

A Monster? O Rly?

After watching The Bride of Frankenstein and Young Frankenstein, I have come to a conclusion. THE MONSTER ISN'T A MONSTER! After watching both movies, I was disgusted by the human behavior that I saw! People were running away franticly from the "monster", and he wasn't even being threatening. For example, in Bride of Frankenstein, the "monster" sees a young girl playing near a stream. She falls in, and the monster courageously jumps into the river and saves the girl, who would have drowned if not for the "monster's” help. Upon seeing her savior, she screams in terror. Her father shows up and shoots the "monster" in the arm, and the monster runs into the forest to escape harm. What is with these people? This monster is saving people and trying to learn and mingle with society, but every runs away from him, even when he helps people? I understand the innate fear of the malformed, but he isnt even that scary. He's 7 ft tall and he's dead, but he can speak, and he likes flowers and violin music. That doesn't seem frightening to me. I know he's not some demonic entity because he encounters a blind man who gladly takes him in, teaching him to speak, giving him food, and showing him the wonder of smoking. The two have a wonderful time together, and the "monster" seems completely human. The fun is ruined by two "normal people", who upon seeing the "monster" with their father, light their own house on fire in hopes of destroying the creature. I am appalled by this lack of kindness and acceptance. I am ashamed of the people in the movie, even if they are actors. I wonder how we would act today, if some creature showed up at my door. I hope I would not scream in terror, but I don't know how I would innately act.

Poor Handling of Dire Situations

In film, the army is notorious for this. In more movies than I can count, some soldier either accidentlly shoots something or out of fear shoots something. Chances are, that something is very important, and it shouldn't have been shot at. Such is the case in The Day the Earth Stood Still. Harmless Khatu emerges from his spacecraft, holding  a strange object. As he moves forward, an uneasy soldier shoots Khatu. That strange item Khatu held? A gift for the U.S. president. I don't know why people always shoot something just because they don't know what it is. Our mentality of "Gah, F***! Thats ugly! Lets kill it!" is going to be the death of us. Imagine what would have happened if, after shooting Klatu, the Robot Guard destroyed the planet, sensing the danger and lack of thought our race displays. If we cannot welcome an extraterrestrial visitor, how can we hope to handle nuclear weapons? It may just be a movie motiff, but it's certainly a concerning one. We may not want to associate ourselves with things that are different from us, but trying to destroy everything that we don't recognize is not a good idea. The strange things may be valueable, they may be friendly, or they may destroy us if we carelessly provoke them. We seriously need to consider all of our options before we go and shoot at the flying saucer. We seem to think we're invincible, but, unlike the movies, we wont be able to heroicly defeat the alien menace and save the day. We will die because unlike in the movies, the good guy doesn't always live.