Dr Who = teh christ
I've seen this sort of shit before, I remember a church of england vicar completely missing the point of star wars. Supposedly George lucas when asked what star wars was about said "redemption" fair enough I can see that, unfortunately this vicar started harping on about how obi wan was "redeemed" and became "luminous" missing the whole vader point somewhat
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Actually, one of the things I've really been unimpressed with in recent Doctor Who is the constant and heavy-handed religious metaphor. So they might have a point...
I missed the most recent series for some reason though the Christmas special certainly had an element of that with kylie's soul floating forever or some such.
There seems to be a lot of unnecessary religiosity about at the moment and the attacks on science and reason in general seem to be on the up.
Marginally OT but the Sixth sense guy's new film "The Happening:featuring marky mark and the funky bunch" seems to have an element of that in the trailer with its "Just a theory" and "beyond sciences understanding" bollocks.
Last year's season finale was the low point; with everyone on earth praying to a nearly dead Doctor, thus resurrecting him, allowing him to save the planet from Armageddon and make a point of forgiving the antagonist (the Master.) It was sickening. Even the most devout Christian I know (who's also a big sci-fi fan) said it was painfully transparent and tasteless - although possibly for different reasons to me.
As for "The Happening"... M Knight Whasisname seems to have a roughly 30% hit rate on movies. This one looks like a miss to me.
Of course the irony is my big complaint about the new Indy movie was it's LACK of religious content, so I guess I'm a hypocrite or something. :)
Oh dear that does sound pretty awful
M Knight Shamalamadingdong is a bit hit and miss. I mean all credit to the guy for sixth sense he knew he had a hit and he worked it for all he was worth, as a result now he doesn't have to try anymore he just turn out any old shit and get paid for it ... a bit like george lucas and steven spielburg.
Yes a more pseudo religious or mystical theme in Indy would have gone down better, my real problem was the inconsistency it was neither science or magic it was some bodged mix where neither worked. Which looked more like someone realised half way through that they had fucked up royally and decided to add a few lines so they could pretend it was all intentional. It was all just really lazy story telling that with a bit of effort could have been avoided and not have spoiled the whole thing.
That being said it was a bit better second time round not so much burning rage as sad acceptance of another cherished childhood icon that lucas and spielburg have wiped their arses on.
(potential spoilers)
The following is just my opinion and is not specifically designed to cause offence ;)
On Indy, I don't disagree with the strong preference for religious paranormal stuff instead of the stuff they used.
However the magnetism thing... Don't get me wrong - it made me wince. However, given Indy films are about paranormal archeology, picking holes in the science seems silly to me. Yes, gunpowder is not magnetic, nor is lead shot or gold. Indy quite clearly thinks the opposite, but you know what? Maybe he doesn't know better. He's an archeologist who spends his time teaching, researching and beating people up around the world - I don't know how much time he spent on his science homework. He's seen this thing before and maybe it attracted gunpowder then.
Bear in mind this is set quite some time ago and science teaching may well have changed.
Also bear in mind that "magnetic" is a hell of a lot quicker and easier to say than "attracts things that are made of metal and smaller than a rifle, as well as gunpowder, and doesn't seem to obey the inverse square law" especially when you're trying to explain it to someone for whom english isn't their first language and has threatened you with a sword recently.
Fine, you're not accepting either of those. (bit of an assumption, I'll admit) :D
You know what though? You're perfectly happy to overlook other things which don't happen without comment. I suspect because you don't like the paranormal element (just to be clear, neither did I) you're overly sensative to the other flaws in the film.
Just to be clear, Falling through/on canopies down a building may save your life, but you won't be getting straight on a plane, you'll have a broken leg.
Life rafts don't make good parachutes.
While we're at it, bullets don't shower sparks when they ricochet. You can't pick a car up by the bumper, no matter how strong you are. The bumper comes off. Cars don't spontaniously combust when they crash
You seem happy to overlook all this (as anyone suspnding disbelief is) but have really got your teeth into the magnetism thing for some reason. I suspect that by the time the explanation was offered, you'd decided you didn't like the film (justifiably) and were poised to pick holes...
GTG back upstairs now, no I/net access. I expect lots of counterarguments when I get back :P
Don't spare the bile.
I entirely agree with Byrnie...physical, chemical and biological (as well as geological, geographical, mathematical, and any other -al's you can think of) inaccuracies are part of the norm for any self-respecting film.
If you start trying to apply reality to films you're going to end up with really boring films... I suspect "Sex in the City" is entirely scientifically accurate, for example.
I have said (possibly to you or maybe I just shouted it at random strangers as I staggered down the street ranting after the first time I saw indy4) I might have been more willing to forgive it these things if the rest of it wasn't such a disappointment, it still would have annoyed me.
If it was done deliberately maybe that would be one thing but I don't think it was they just made a load of shit up to fit what they wanted in their opening sequence and only later realised the world doesn't work that way so threw in some off hand thing about it being magic.
The way they did it implies they were thinking it was magnetism there is a point where the guy opening the crate has is glasses ripped off. But they don't stick to the alien skeleton they stick to the crate, this implies the magic metal attracting thing is magnetising the metal of the crate so they at least knew that magnets do that to ferrous objects it also implies the field from the crate is stronger than the one from the skeleton which based on his position might be consistent if the inverse square law was in effect. Of course if it is not magnetic that makes no sense. The whole covering thing might make sense if the skull were solar powered or reacted to the light but then why does it attract things even when covered at certain points of the film and not others.
There are ways to make non ferrous thing magnetic it is one of the standard science experiments with induced current cause a magnetic field in aluminium, the old pole and ring experiment so they could have used that explanation if they wanted to and still had it attract gold.
If they had said the thing was paranormal and acted like a magnet but wasn't that would be one thing but even within those bounds it's not consistent it randomly does things within that framework that don't make any sense given the previous behaviour some times it works some times it doesn't sometimes it does some random thing it has never done before. You can only get away with so much random rewriting of the rules you made yourself to fit the situation before it just becomes a farce.
Fair enough Indy might not know it was magnetic but if that was the case presumably the only reason he knew it might be is because the team of scientists that recovered it told him.
The gunpowder thing is just odd and I can only think that it is in there because george lucas can't spell "Iron Fillings" or something. It doesn't make much sense either since if it could attract small shards of metal that strongly at that distance anything nearer would have smashed into it and crushed it like a car press. Unless its field was the same strength regardless of distance which at points was and wasn't the case.
The magic magnetism thing is just so annoying it is made a big deal of but in the end it has only one purpose to allow indy to find the skeleton in the big warehouse it has on other purpose. It is a cheap plot device they only included because they were too lazy to come up with some other way the famous archaeologist who managed to find the arc of the covenant and the holy grail quite fine with only a stick and a nazi flag. It is indicative of the whole poor quality of the script in general. Another example is the tribe who live in a walled off valley with no farming or settlements guarding the run-down temple all walled in behind elaborate plaster coverings just waiting for some one to pass by so they can kill them have a snack then wall themselves in again.
Inaccuracies are one thing and taking liberties with the laws of physics is to be expected in such films, good example is ironman there is no such thing as an arc reactor or a repulsor but given those two magical inventions the rest of the film is self consistent it doesn't violate it's own rules (It is also miles more fun than Indy4 so any little niggles there are don't matter too much).
Indy isn't like that it makes the rules up on the fly and changes them constantly so there is no consistency which is really poor story telling.
What you're describing here is basically how I completed my degree
1) Make something up that violates laws of physics
2) Change what I made up
3) Blame the change on magic and nazis
More seriously, until about 1 minute ago, when I actually looked up what gunpowder was made out of (again, if this was my degree I would probably have plumped for something like "powdered explosion", or "fairy fire dust"). I had no idea about its chemical constituents, and if someone told me it had iron in it I would have happily gone along with it.
I've probably just terrified the security team here by conducting various google searches along the lines of "gunpowder iron powder mix explosive", but its not beyond the realms of possibility that it could have been a mixed compound, as gunpowder on its own is a rubbish explosive, whereas certain things and iron powder go boom!
In summary, I'm perfectly happy for people to make shit up. I do all the time. Now all I need to do is name myself after the dog.
Tigger
In the case of indy4 3) would read "Blame the change on magic and communists" ;)
What you are probably thinking of is Thermite (have a look at this link to scare your security people more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite) mixing Iron Oxide with aluminium powder which can then produce aluminothermic reaction.
It doesn't so much go boom as burst into intense flames and melt through the floor.
It may be a bit of the case that I know too much about how these things work that makes suspending disbelief much harder. A bit like trying to read that fucking awful book Digital Fortress by Dan Brown which if you know anything about computers is so blatantly wrong it's obscene.
but anyway I better stop before I start ranting about something else.
Communists and Nazis are utterly interchangeable.
You need to be able to completely disengage your brain. Once you've achieved that stuff like "The Mummy" and "Fast and the Furious" become really quite watchable...
I have watched die hard 4.0 and found it enjoyable and that as we know is Brain Poison