Escape to the Movies: Lone Survivor

Ihateregistering1

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Kargathia said:
Making a war movie that treats its main characters not as actual characters, but as embodiment of the author's sweeping generalisation of a group (in this case the American army) is very likely to just be a shitty movie.
Are you serious? The book is written by one of the guys who was there with those guys (ie. the "Lone Survivor"). These people he wrote about aren't 'characters', they're actual people who he knew, and knew well. This isn't the author's 'sweeping generalization'.

If you truly can't fathom the idea that there are actual people out there who would willingly risk their lives for each other, then I just feel sorry for you.
 

Ihateregistering1

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jaded zombie said:
Markunator said:
jaded zombie said:
Markunator said:
jaded zombie said:
american soldiers NOT commiting war crimes?
why is the story marked as non-fiction then?
They're not soldiers, they're sailors. Only a small fraction of US servicemen have ever been condemned of a war crime.
fixed for you.
What, are you saying that the majority of US servicemen have committed war crimes? You're going to have to explain that one, I'm afraid.
I don't HAVE to explain nothing, you're the one who needs to stop droolling everytime bill o'rillley starts talking.
but out of the goodness of my heart here you go:

"[an] army survey in 2007 found that 'only 38% of marines and 47% of soldiers said non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect.'

More than one-third said torture of civilians was permissible to get information, and 17% viewed all civilians as insurgents."

"In a survey, less than half of troops in Iraq told researchers that they report civilian casualties while 10% admitted they had harmed civilians."

here's the source for you:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15499138

and I barely put any effort on it, it was a quick google search, you don't have to go far to see tons of stories of drones bombing weddings, attacks on pakistani soil, american "kill teams" hunting civilians for "trophies" and (well, I hoped this didn't even need being said but) army officials torturing prisioners (didn't obama said he was going to close guantanamo anyway? better late then never I suppose).

and before you go: "these weren't army, they were from the frogmen and astronauts division", let me just say that I really don't care
For starters, the percentages who say that torture is sometimes justified is actually less than the American populace as whole: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/torture-poll-2012_n_2301492.html

"[an] army survey in 2007 found that 'only 38% of marines and 47% of soldiers said non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect.'
This is false, the actual words of the survey were "...said ALL non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect". As a Combat Veteran myself, I can tell you there are plenty of folks in Iraq and Afghanistan who, while not technically combatants, are doing whatever they can to get you killed, so you'll excuse me if I don't think the people trying to kill me and my fellow Soldiers should be treated with "dignity and respect". It's also worth noting that a SM's beliefs and their actions are two very different things.

"In a survey, less than half of troops in Iraq told researchers that they report civilian casualties while 10% admitted they had harmed civilians."
You forgot to mention that this survey was done in 2006, so it's 8 years old. As someone who was there in 2008 and 2012, I can tell you that's not even close to true now.
 

vviki

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Markunator said:
jaded zombie said:
american soldiers NOT commiting war crimes?
why is the story marked as non-fiction then?
They're not soldiers, they're sailors. Only a small fraction of US servicemen have ever committed a war crime.

Kargathia said:
... have you taken a look at the downright staggering amounts of hero-worship Americans accord their army with? Not to mention that nice little habit that everything that doesn't treat the army as righteous angels sent from god is automatically called "anti-American", or -even funnier- "unpatriotic".

Making a war movie that treats its main characters not as actual characters, but as embodiment of the author's sweeping generalisation of a group (in this case the American army) is very likely to just be a shitty movie.
Once again: they're in the Navy, not the Army. They have absolutely nothing to do with the Army.

Nurb said:
Oh geez, that speech at the beginning alone is enough to tell me it's awful.
Why?

vviki said:
Bob, my man, you are either losing your edge or 2013 left you way more optimistic. Now without watching your full review, just by the description you gave to the movie, I can tell you it is going to suck ass, lets break it down:
1) The director of The Kingdom, that movie sucked hard on all levels, it was too soon and handled horribly.
2) Mark Wahlberg can't act. He has vone und precisely vone expression of utter DURR and he can't muster anything other than that. His best role was in the Departed, where he played a one note character.
3) It's about ter sm in the 'Murican way, features talibans so you know it won't be handled properly. It's too soon, think about how much time had to pass from the Vietnam War and Full Metal Jacket. The war went on for almost 19 years and the movie was released 32 years later. And Ter sm is a much more hot topic then sum fornrs dyin sum place foreign.

So based on all those three, bad direction, bad acting, bad subject with bad timing I can tell you this movie is going to suck as hard as it possibly could and will be targeted only towards people who speak like I wrote in the description. It's not going to be for normal people, let alone for foreigners. Disclaimer: this is all coming from a person, who didn't like the Hurt locker either, but liked Jarhead and is a foreigner, so this is all very biased.
1) The Kingdom came out in 2007 - six years after 9/11! How the fuck is that "too soon"?!
2) Yes, Mark Wahlberg can most definitely act. I won't go as far as to call him a great actor, but he can act.
3) It's not "too soon" to make a film about a war while the war is still ongoing. Sorry, it's just not. Just look at Casablanca: a World War II film made in the middle of World War II.
It's too soon since people haven't gotten over the "RA RA Nationalism" yet and in the example I gave about the Vietnam war, which was again a no-no was a lot more time to digest and a new generation to arrive unbiased.

I'm not going to argue about Mark Wahlberg, I probably just don't like his face and the Happening sealed the deal with "Yep, we're gonna hate on him from now on.", and of course he can act, I've seen movies like the room, people in them can't really act, but liked him in the departed, so let's rephrase that and say: I don't like him and I think he has a limited acting range.

WWII was the last war where you had a clear bad guy and a whole country, the war on terrorism is a bit wonkier. Just look at how much flack the movie about killing Bin Laden got. Casablanca was about the involvement and action, not staying out of the war and doing what one must, when the call to arms comes. Here it looks a bit more look at these people, they are toughest of them all, Navy Seals, fanatically repeating stupid macho lines, ready to commit war crimes like in Rambo, but it's the real world and they get hurt and they actually follow orders and it's not like in the boot camp. They did the right thing, now watch them pay for it for 2 hours. Oh wait, we have to be ambiguous now, since this isn't WWII, so let's show the enemy doing something good, so it's not Rambo vs the World of Terrorists, it's people vs people, who don't really want to heart each other, but had no choice. This premise would be better for a WWI movie and I think there was one. [a]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyeux_No%C3%ABl[/a] called "Joyeux Noël (English: Merry Christmas)". And about the current war in the middle east, better movies exist about the situation there. I mentioned Jarhead, now I will add Body of Lies and Men who Stare at Goats.
 

Kargathia

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Ihateregistering1 said:
Kargathia said:
Making a war movie that treats its main characters not as actual characters, but as embodiment of the author's sweeping generalisation of a group (in this case the American army) is very likely to just be a shitty movie.
Are you serious? The book is written by one of the guys who was there with those guys (ie. the "Lone Survivor"). These people he wrote about aren't 'characters', they're actual people who he knew, and knew well. This isn't the author's 'sweeping generalization'.

If you truly can't fathom the idea that there are actual people out there who would willingly risk their lives for each other, then I just feel sorry for you.
While there is much that can be said, I'd probably best summarize here.

- Your disregarding of the first paragraph has succesfully taken the quote out of context. Well done.

- "Author" does not imply book. It refers to whomever made any kind of creative work.

- While this whole thing is already ridiculous to even debate because you've successfully taken the entire argument out of context, I'd like to note that the automatic fallback on "but...but.... heroics!" is as ridiculous as it is cliche.

A movie, book, or any other piece of entertainment that is based on a true story can very easily be shite, regardless of how heroic, sad, romantic, or funny the original events were.
To take this particular case as an example: Lone Survivor was not made in order to educate viewers as to exactly what happened in the moments depicted during the movie; it was made because a studio executive figured he could turn a profit by entertaining people with this particular story.

And as such, it is perfectly reasonable to consider a movie absolute and utter shite without passing any kind of judgement whatsoever on events it is based on. Especially as as far as source reliability goes, "blockbuster action movie" is kind of down there, just below drunken ravings.

Edit: this is much the same as when you'd for some unfathomable reason decided to make a movie about my life. Sure, it'd be "based on true events", but it'd still be a shitty movie, because fuck-all happens, and I'm not funny enough to make it a comedy.
 

Muspelheim

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Nurb said:
Oh geez, that speech at the beginning alone is enough to tell me it's awful.
Heh, true. You could almost sing along the whole thing through.

I did get a mental image of the Moderate Cowards in the air conditioned bunker overseeing him roll down a mountainside, pondering how to phrase The Letter.

But before I feel smug, there must be people willing and able to roll down a mountainside, and they've got my respect, I certainly wouldn't.
 

Evonisia

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The amount of relevance in that final message was outstanding. That beginning segment also really made it sound like an utter disappointment.
 

Coakle

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Kargathia said:
A movie, book, or any other piece of entertainment that is based on a true story can very easily be shite, regardless of how heroic, sad, romantic, or funny the original events were.

Lone Survivor was not made in order to educate viewers as to exactly what happened in the moments depicted during the movie; it was made because a studio executive figured he could turn a profit by entertaining people with this particular story.
You are being a bit intellectually lazy here. You are right that this movie would not have been made if the studio didn't believed it would make money. However, that's not the only reason this movie got made. The motivations of the author is part of it.

Marcus Luttrell, the guy who wrote and owns the rights to the book, has made it clear that he wanted this movie to be made so that "people will understand the indomitable courage under fire of Mikey, Danny, and Axe". He wanted it to become a movie, since a film would reach more people.

Your main point that "A movie based on a true story can still be a bad movie" is still incontestable though. I dunno, that paragraph seemed like a weird tangent to go on. I mean, knowing that the film's purpose was to educate wouldn't make it a better or excuse it when it fails in it's goal.
 

bceagleman

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I see his reasons for not liking the movie and how it focuses a lot on the seals being shot,injured, etc. When you read the book the author, Marcus Luttrell aka. The Lone Surivor of the mission, really drills it into you how each of these four men had been shot multiple times and had broken bones jumping down the mountain not once or twice but three times, Marcus himself breaking two vertebrae, and the fact these men still had the idea they were invincible and could still defeat the 200 Taliban soldiers attacking them and that no matter how hard they were hurt they were brothers in arms and would fight through for the man next to them. In fact the book really drove home the brotherhood of the seals. So although in the movie it may not work it did in the book and when Marcus agreed to have the movie produced he wanted to be as real portraying as possible to honor his fallen seals. He really did not care if the movie was successful in pleasing the audiences he just wanted it to be worthy of honoring his fallen brothers.
 

bceagleman

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jaded zombie said:
american soldiers NOT commiting war crimes?
why is the story marked as non-fiction then?
Three men died because these men chose the moral choice of letting the goat herders who glared at them with hate and refused to take any food,water, etc. from them go return to their village. These men knew that these goat herders sided with the Taliban and if you read the book you would realize that the so called War Crimes commited are often exagerations. The Taliban know our rules just as well as the soldiers do. That is why many of the terrorists will roam unarmed excluding the bomb inside there backpack. That way if they are caught and possibly gunnded down they will be considered an unarmed citizen who clearly was not a member of the Taliban and the Middle East News Service will brand American murder all over the situation. So these men let the supposedly "Civilians" go only to find out they were right and they worked with the Taliban. Then three of them died. Also although in Movie Bob says that the Afghan tribe took him in out of the good of their heart it was really because a doctor decided to help him when they found him and in those Pashtun Tribes in the mountain once you choose to help and take in someone of need you have to protect them to the last man. Many of the villagers did not like him in one case a teenage boy watched as Taliban soldiers who had snuck in and beat him and he laughed. Many people in that village would join the Taliban but because the doctor had helped him they were stick with him because of tradition. In actuality had he been killed after they took him in the village would have gone to war with the Taliban to the last person in the village. So its not that they took him in out of the kindness of their heart even it was a tradition that required them to do so. So don't think that all those people in the mountains supporting these terrorists are all high and mighty, they just followed a thousand year old tradition they were required to.
 

Kargathia

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Coakle said:
Your main point that "A movie based on a true story can still be a bad movie" is still incontestable though. I dunno, that paragraph seemed like a weird tangent to go on. I mean, knowing that the film's purpose was to educate wouldn't make it a better or excuse it when it fails in it's goal.
That argument originally was made in response to somebody claiming Moviebob only enjoyed "anti-American" war movies.

Otherwise you're indeed correct in that the decision-making process as to whether this'd become a movie was slightly longer than the guy who greenlit it.

In the end I guess it's a movie with a very specific audience: if you're not into slightly jingo-istic tales of hero-worship then you'd probably best just move on.
 

Farther than stars

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I don't know... I haven't seen the film, but it's certainly not impossible to build a whole story around "war is hell". 'Spec Ops: The Line' did it and that was amazing. With a lack of any other arguments, I suppose I'll have to see this film before I can make a proper judgement.
 

Ihateregistering1

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Kargathia said:
Ihateregistering1 said:
Kargathia said:
Making a war movie that treats its main characters not as actual characters, but as embodiment of the author's sweeping generalisation of a group (in this case the American army) is very likely to just be a shitty movie.
Are you serious? The book is written by one of the guys who was there with those guys (ie. the "Lone Survivor"). These people he wrote about aren't 'characters', they're actual people who he knew, and knew well. This isn't the author's 'sweeping generalization'.

If you truly can't fathom the idea that there are actual people out there who would willingly risk their lives for each other, then I just feel sorry for you.
While there is much that can be said, I'd probably best summarize here.

- Your disregarding of the first paragraph has succesfully taken the quote out of context. Well done.

- "Author" does not imply book. It refers to whomever made any kind of creative work.

- While this whole thing is already ridiculous to even debate because you've successfully taken the entire argument out of context, I'd like to note that the automatic fallback on "but...but.... heroics!" is as ridiculous as it is cliche.

A movie, book, or any other piece of entertainment that is based on a true story can very easily be shite, regardless of how heroic, sad, romantic, or funny the original events were.
To take this particular case as an example: Lone Survivor was not made in order to educate viewers as to exactly what happened in the moments depicted during the movie; it was made because a studio executive figured he could turn a profit by entertaining people with this particular story.

And as such, it is perfectly reasonable to consider a movie absolute and utter shite without passing any kind of judgement whatsoever on events it is based on. Especially as as far as source reliability goes, "blockbuster action movie" is kind of down there, just below drunken ravings.

Edit: this is much the same as when you'd for some unfathomable reason decided to make a movie about my life. Sure, it'd be "based on true events", but it'd still be a shitty movie, because fuck-all happens, and I'm not funny enough to make it a comedy.
I'm not arguing that the movie is inherently good because it's based on a true story, I'm arguing that when a person writes about people they knew personally and about a situation that personally happened to them, that is not a "sweeping generalization", nor do those people magically become fictionalized characters. I haven't read the book, but I doubt Luttrell literally says "every SEAL I've ever met and haven't met is just like these 3 guys".

Using your example of a movie about your life, let's say you played baseball when you were a kid, and the movie featured people you knew on the team with you. Those people are just people you personally knew, you can't make the argument that they are a "sweeping generalization of all baseball players" unless you literally said "this is what every baseball player in the world, including those I've never met, are like".
 

Terminal Blue

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Mangue Surfer said:
What would have happened if Zod had Kryptoformed Mars instead?
Presumably, the atmosphere would have flown off into space and everything living would have got cancer from cosmic radiation.

Mars is a pretty horrible place, it's just less horrible than most of the solar system.
 

Alssadar

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Captain Pooptits said:
Ah yes, sailors, charting a sailing voyage through the Afghan mountains. Oh you Americans...
Sailors offed Bin Laden.

As for the depictions of the tumbling rocks and the injuries suffered by the SEALs, I feel like it was more just an emphasis on the damage behind it. It may have just been the movie theater I was in, but I could feel the bump of every collision, the solid clash of man against earth. It was sickening at what kind of damage would have been dealt to them, which, quite frankly, I would be too weak to survive, yet still they continued fighting, for both their own survival, and the remnants of their mission.
It may just be because I am an American who is not cynical about the troops, but I felt like the movie was more in the spirit of how Marcus wanted it to be: a memoir of the event and his friends who died during the op. Sure, a bit "war porn," as you said, but I didn't find it casting the anti- or pro- war stance.
 

Markunator

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jaded zombie said:
I don't HAVE to explain nothing, you're the one who needs to stop droolling everytime bill o'rillley starts talking.
but out of the goodness of my heart here you go:

"[an] army survey in 2007 found that 'only 38% of marines and 47% of soldiers said non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect.'

More than one-third said torture of civilians was permissible to get information, and 17% viewed all civilians as insurgents."

"In a survey, less than half of troops in Iraq told researchers that they report civilian casualties while 10% admitted they had harmed civilians."

here's the source for you:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15499138

and I barely put any effort on it, it was a quick google search, you don't have to go far to see tons of stories of drones bombing weddings, attacks on pakistani soil, american "kill teams" hunting civilians for "trophies" and (well, I hoped this didn't even need being said but) army officials torturing prisioners (didn't obama said he was going to close guantanamo anyway? better late then never I suppose).

and before you go: "these weren't army, they were from the frogmen and astronauts division", let me just say that I really don't care
First: I'm Swedish, not American, just so you know. Second: I don't watch Bill O'Reilly. Third: If you had googled some more, you might have found out that the majority of civilians in Afghanistan have actually been killed by the Taliban, not by the coalition forces. Please tell me, are the men in these videos committing war crimes in your opinion?


vviki said:
It's too soon since people haven't gotten over the "RA RA Nationalism" yet and in the example I gave about the Vietnam war, which was again a no-no was a lot more time to digest and a new generation to arrive unbiased.

I'm not going to argue about Mark Wahlberg, I probably just don't like his face and the Happening sealed the deal with "Yep, we're gonna hate on him from now on.", and of course he can act, I've seen movies like the room, people in them can't really act, but liked him in the departed, so let's rephrase that and say: I don't like him and I think he has a limited acting range.

WWII was the last war where you had a clear bad guy and a whole country, the war on terrorism is a bit wonkier. Just look at how much flack the movie about killing Bin Laden got. Casablanca was about the involvement and action, not staying out of the war and doing what one must, when the call to arms comes. Here it looks a bit more look at these people, they are toughest of them all, Navy Seals, fanatically repeating stupid macho lines, ready to commit war crimes like in Rambo, but it's the real world and they get hurt and they actually follow orders and it's not like in the boot camp. They did the right thing, now watch them pay for it for 2 hours. Oh wait, we have to be ambiguous now, since this isn't WWII, so let's show the enemy doing something good, so it's not Rambo vs the World of Terrorists, it's people vs people, who don't really want to heart each other, but had no choice. This premise would be better for a WWI movie and I think there was one. [a]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyeux_No%C3%ABl[/a] called "Joyeux Noël (English: Merry Christmas)". And about the current war in the middle east, better movies exist about the situation there. I mentioned Jarhead, now I will add Body of Lies and Men who Stare at Goats.
Well, Jarhead was about the Gulf War, which was before the War on Terror.

There are definitely clear bad guys in the War on Terror, as many of the leaders of al-Qaeda are known and are being hunted, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of the organization now that bin Laden is sleeping with the fishes. I don't really get what you mean by "let's show the enemy do something good", to be perfectly frank. The man who helped Marcus Luttrell survive wasn't a Taliban, obviously!

Captain Pooptits said:
Markunator said:
jaded zombie said:
american soldiers NOT commiting war crimes?
why is the story marked as non-fiction then?
They're not soldiers, they're sailors. Only a small fraction of US servicemen have ever committed a war crime.
Ah yes, sailors, charting a sailing voyage through the Afghan mountains. Oh you Americans...
I'm not American, I'm Swedish, and members of the U.S. Navy are called sailors, that's just how it is.

jaded zombie said:
Ihateregistering1 said:
"[an] army survey in 2007 found that 'only 38% of marines and 47% of soldiers said non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect.'
This is false, the actual words of the survey were "...said ALL non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect".
As a Combat Veteran myself, I can tell you there are plenty of folks in Iraq and Afghanistan who, while not technically combatants, are doing whatever they can to get you killed, so you'll excuse me if I don't think the people trying to kill me and my fellow Soldiers should be treated with "dignity and respect". It's also worth noting that a SM's beliefs and their actions are two very different things.
yeah, those brown people should have no rights anyway. How can they resent the fact that their country was invaded and their friends and family are quite often the victims, they should be thankful!
So let me get this straight: according to your comment, the Taliban - an Islamic extremist organization that stones, beheads and oppresses its own people for not following their barbaric doctrine of living in the stone age - are the good guys, while the coalition forces (U.S. and allies) who try their best to avoid civilian casualties, build modern infrastructure, train the local army and police, provide medical care and try to bring human rights to the country are the evil murderers? Okay ...

The Taliban are in effect a Pakistani expeditionary force. They are ? by their very nature ? hostile, foreign and imperialistic.
 

Markunator

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jaded zombie said:
Markunator said:
First: I'm Swedish, not American, just so you know. Second: I don't watch Bill O'Reilly. Third: If you had googled some more, you might have found out that the majority of civilians in Afghanistan have actually been killed by the Taliban, not by the coalition forces. Please tell me, are the men in these videos committing war crimes in your opinion?
then how about this video:


Markunator said:
jaded zombie said:
Ihateregistering1 said:
"[an] army survey in 2007 found that 'only 38% of marines and 47% of soldiers said non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect.'
This is false, the actual words of the survey were "...said ALL non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect".
As a Combat Veteran myself, I can tell you there are plenty of folks in Iraq and Afghanistan who, while not technically combatants, are doing whatever they can to get you killed, so you'll excuse me if I don't think the people trying to kill me and my fellow Soldiers should be treated with "dignity and respect". It's also worth noting that a SM's beliefs and their actions are two very different things.
yeah, those brown people should have no rights anyway. How can they resent the fact that their country was invaded and their friends and family are quite often the victims, they should be thankful!
So let me get this straight: according to your comment, the Taliban - an Islamic extremist organization that stones, beheads and oppresses its own people for not following their barbaric doctrine of living in the stone age - are the good guys, while the coalition forces (U.S. and allies) who try their best to avoid civilian casualties, build modern infrastructure, train the local army and police, provide medical care and try to bring human rights to the country are the evil murderers? Okay ...

The Taliban are in effect a Pakistani expeditionary force. They are ? by their very nature ? hostile, foreign and imperialistic.
when did I say the taliban were the good guys?
if you read it again (properly this time), you'll notice I was talking about non-combatats.
but I guess that to you "brown people" = taliban/terrorists, which might explain some of your opinions

there are no good guys in this war and the only victims are the afghani people
So because some U.S. servicemen mowed down some people from a helicopter, that means that the fighters in the videos I linked to are war criminals? Yeah, that makes sense (not).

The victims are also the families of the troops who die over there. Also, I'd wager that most Afghans hate the Taliban a fuck of a lot more than they hate the coalition forces. I mean, since they were invaded, they actually get to vote! How about that?