There was that one yeah. They also didn't tell the prisoners they were in space. Reducing information isn't a bad idea, though not sure how knowing they were in space would have helped them.
Movie, TV, Web Series, and Music Hot Take(s).
- Thread starter BrawlMan
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I wonder how many escape attempts found out the hard way after the tried tunneling through the wall
You'd decompress the whole station doing that, kill everyone onboard (unless the hole could be patched). Stop overcrowding issues if you've now got an empty prison, I guess.
It would be wierd of that was exactly how they dealt with it. Just clean out the corpses, weld a steel plate over the hole, recompress and put back into service. Not like any of those guys were ever gonna be paroled anyway.
Man I'm putting way too much thought into a one off episode of voyager that most people probably don't remember exists
Be a good way of cleaning the station and getting rid of the smell of a bunch of lifers being stuck there.
So Avatar 2 is coming out. Ok.
I see people talking about Avatar's "cultural impact." WTF are we on about now?
Avatar critics claiming the first had no cultural impact. Whatever that means. Avatar defenders making fun of the critics for that which... ok, fine, cause none of this discourse makes any sense to me.
If someone can explain "cultural impact" in any meaningful I'll subscribe to your patreon or whatever.
I see people talking about Avatar's "cultural impact." WTF are we on about now?
Avatar critics claiming the first had no cultural impact. Whatever that means. Avatar defenders making fun of the critics for that which... ok, fine, cause none of this discourse makes any sense to me.
If someone can explain "cultural impact" in any meaningful I'll subscribe to your patreon or whatever.
The impact of heavy CG and Real 3D use for most of the movie in characters and environment and still looking good, I guess. The problem is that CG is such a common day appearance (be it for any type of robot or non-human characters heavily involved with the narrative), what made Avatar unique at the time, is now nothing special. It's been that way since at least 2013-2014 to me when I noticed. I've always called a movie a glorified, 2-and-a-half-hour tech demo for 3D, HD TVs, and Blu Ray. I've only seen the movie twice and never again.
The best example I can think of is to contrast it with Star Wars.
Avatar and Star Wars were both blockbusters with good special effects being part of why they hit it big, but let's face it, SW is far more noticeable as part of the cultural zeitgeist while Avatar nobody really talks about for the most part. Most people probably forgot Avatar was even a thing until Cameron started talking about his sequels. If you drop "Jedi" into a conversation I'd wager most people would probably have at least an idea what you meant even if they'd never seen any of the films, even if that just meant "Star Wars" and maybe "LightSaber" whereas a lot of people struggle to even remember what the Blue Cat Aliens from Avatar are even called. Fuck, I couldn't remember any of the characters in Avatar other then Jake SULLY and only because of the way the main Girl Alien calls him that and I saw the directors cut of the movie. That was like the 2nd time I'd seen the movie(the first time in theaters) and i can barely remember any of it other then unobtainium was starship fuel, Earth was fucked and they didn't bother to mention that in the film itself because apparently people are too stupid to understand that concept or it would make the humans seem less evil or something.
SW is up there with Coke and Disney for almost universal Cultural reference points, whether we like it or not. Avatar was popular for like a year or so and then most people stopped caring. That's not saying Avatar is a bad movie but it did not resonate with people like SW did for any number of reasons.
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Avatar briefly reignited the 3-D fad, which was expanded to TVs and DVD/Blu-Ray players. It also influenced CGI facial motion-capture technology.
And it made a bunch of people sad because they thought real life sucked compared to the CGI saturated blue cat-people planet.
Ok but Star Wars was quickly followed up by two sequels and the most radical merchandising and marketing blitz of its time.
Is "cultural impact" just a more polite way of saying "commercial impact?"
I'm sure that's part of that but also keep in mind Avatar is more recent and arguably people should remember it more then a couple movies that came out in the 1970'/1980's. And there are plenty of other movies that got sequels and didn't have the same cultural impact. Fuck Police Academy got like 7 sequels or something and nobody fucking remembers police academy. King Kong(the classic 1930's movie) got a sequel most people aren't aware even exists(Don't worry, you aren't missing anything).
Yeah, SW did well and got sequels but Avatar wasn't exactly a flop. It did well. It made a ton of money...and for a movie that made so much money it's not talked about much for whatever reason. It made like $3 billion dollars so a lot of people did see it, but apparently most people saw it and it didn't stick very well.
Maybe SW was right thing at the right time whereas Avatar wasn't. I don't know. I remember more of the Phantom fucking Menace which I've seen once when it came out(and before the backlash really built up) then Avatar which came out years later and I've seen at least twice and I don't even remember liking Phantom Menace very much. I'd even argue Avatar is a better movie then TPM but I remember TPM more despite that.
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Because of glorified tech demo, and a crappy story. If technology is all you got going for it, then the same thing happens to any product that only advances with graphics and visuals: something or the next best thing comes along. Whatever becomes the standard and the last product becomes old hat or blasé.
Depends on what it is, but both lines can be blurred together. Take Street Fighter II, for example. Massive impact and a huge influence gaming all over the world and creating a genre. It wasn't first 1 on 1 fighter, but plenty of developers copied or took influence in some way. There was a time after the failure III, SF (and many 2D fighter having trouble transitioning to 3D or losing more of their niche audience) was out of the limelight for most of the 2000s, until the release of SFIV in 2008. Then a new aged appeared. Rinse and repeat and you know the rest. Except now, there are many fighting games out there now for people of all kinds.
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I wonder how much of "remembering" of a movie or whatever is tied to the respective generation. Star Wars is a Gen-Xer thing and, as a member of that generation, we are insufferable with insisting on highlighting our childhood pop culture, almost as bad as boomers. I blame Reagan for it, and everything bad about 80's kids.
Anyway, I just don't see that kind of nonsense to that degree from millennials (who were teenagers and young adults- primary opening weekend movie audiences)- as being that obnoxious about this stuff.
But one thing millennials and younger are more obnoxious about is smug cultural backlash. Like Avatar is bad because of colonialism and indigenous this and that. And, yeah, of course it is, lol, welcome to Hollywood. Star Wars has equally lame nonsense, but it was too big to fail by then.
Anyway, I just don't see that kind of nonsense to that degree from millennials (who were teenagers and young adults- primary opening weekend movie audiences)- as being that obnoxious about this stuff.
But one thing millennials and younger are more obnoxious about is smug cultural backlash. Like Avatar is bad because of colonialism and indigenous this and that. And, yeah, of course it is, lol, welcome to Hollywood. Star Wars has equally lame nonsense, but it was too big to fail by then.
I've never noticed this personally, so this is new to me. I know some of them don't care or like the older stuff, but not to that extent. Nor can I blame them, if it's forced upon them.
To be fair, there were Gen-Xers and some Boomers complaining about this when the movie first came out. Hell, Stephen Colbert made a joke about people's reactions to the film (mainly conservatives, but he was not afraid to hit liberals as well with that one) a few weeks after release.
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I remember people comparing it Pocahontas and/or Dances with Wolves by with Blue Aliens and yeah there's a comparison to be made here. Hell, the "primative" Natives fighting off technologically superior invaders(with help from a defector from the invading race) makes it really hard to ignore that particular line of discussion since it's arguably a big part of the film.
Cameron has more than admitted being inspired by both of those, and Princess Mononoke. That is where a lot of the greenery comes into play and some wide landscape shot used in most Miyazaki/Ghilbi Studio films.
Closest thing to cultural impact I can think of was making 3D cinema arguably as good as it was ever going to get, which meant I got to see Doctor Strange in 3D which was pretty groovy.
There was a bunch of lunatics who attempted to co-opt the Na’vi as some kind of nativist movement but that fizzled out because it was fucking dumb.
You had, I think it was Outer Limits too. A surgically altered human is sent to infiltrate aliens, gain their trust and spy on them, only to truly become one of them.
Then there is this that I read decades ago:
Call Me Joe - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
" The plot involves an attempt to explore the surface of the planet Jupiter using remote-controlled artificial life-forms. It focuses on the feelings of a disabled man who operates an artificial body. "
The critter on the cover is, like Sully in Avatar, in a wheel chair and can transfer his mind into an artificially constructed being that can handle the greater gravity of Jupiter... and kick the butts of anything that attacks him down there.
A meme: It's a tree. We have missiles. What kind of intelligence do you need?
I didn't know about that one. ThanksYou had, I think it was Outer Limits too. A surgically altered human is sent to infiltrate aliens, gain their trust and spy on them, only to truly become one of them.
Then there is this that I read decades ago:
Call Me Joe - Wikipedia
View attachment 7527
" The plot involves an attempt to explore the surface of the planet Jupiter using remote-controlled artificial life-forms. It focuses on the feelings of a disabled man who operates an artificial body. "
The critter on the cover is, like Sully in Avatar, in a wheel chair and can transfer his mind into an artificially constructed being that can handle the greater gravity of Jupiter... and kick the butts of anything that attacks him down there.
A meme: It's a tree. We have missiles. What kind of intelligence do you need?
View attachment 7528