I will start by saying that I'm a huge fan of escapism movies. Transformers, The Rock, The Transporter, LOTR, etc etc..... big, epic, fun roller coaster ride type movies. Yes parts of them make you go "yeah right...." but you can work past it as the rest of the movie has you drawn in. I also like comedies...true comedies not this Epic Movie crap or Meet the Spartans lame assness that's coming out. Tangent: I like parody...don't get me wrong. I'm one of Weird Al's biggest fans, but these movies take no talent at all to make. The Naked Gun movies were parodies of Police Shows...and they all stuck with a police show theme. This latest piece of crap, Meet the Spartans, is supposed to be a parody of 300.....okay, that could be funny. From the previews they took the "kicking the messenger down the pit of doom" too far..apparently everyone in the film is kicked down the pit from Train Wreck Spears to whomever.....sounds like one of the new SNL skits.....never ending and not really funny. Then we somehow get Spiderman and Donald Trump into the mix plus Rambo?????? It's directionless and pointless. At least in Hot Shots the story was consistent even with it being a parody. Now back to your regularly scheduled Rant.
As I was saying, I am a big movie fan. I love a good escape, a good trip to another realm. But, I also love it when the author/filmmakers make that other realm somewhat plausible. The TV show Babylon 5 is a good example....BSG is too. Humans have managed space flight, space station technology, etc..... all tech that we have now....take our space shuttle and the International Space Station and add 50 years.... We still haven't managed to make a hand held laser weapon that doesn't have to warm up between each charge, etc. In these shows, they are still using pseudo projectile weapons. Like the Space Marines in Aliens.....they didn't have lasers...they had assault rifles and miniguns. That I like. Helps my enjoyment of the piece by keeping those "yeah right" moments to a minimum. What is prompting this is this new movie "Untraceable". I'll get to it in a minute. Script writers really need to ask themselves questions....logical questions....as they are writing plots for movies. In the Terminator series of movies the storyline goes: AIs take over the world and seek to exterminate mankind (gee just insert Apes or Alien Race for AIs and you have the basic plot for a lot of movies). Mankind gets pissed and rebels, because as Humans we tend to do that. Boss AI (Ape, Lord Xenu...you get the picture) finds time travel and sends an "unstoppable agent" back into the past to kill the Rebel Leader before he/she is ever born. Rebel Leader gets wind of plot sends back agent of his own on a suicide mission to stop "unstoppable agent". At the end of the first movie the UA is destroyed (not very unstoppable was he...). In the next, it seems that sending the UA back in time is what caused the AI to be created in the first place. A processor chip from the UA's skull and his hand are being studied in a Super Secret Government lab. UA comes back again...but this time he's the good guy, and he and the chip and hand are all melted down to slag in a steel mill. Then we get the Third movie. Ah yes....yet again the AI's are trying to kill Rebel Leader before he becomes Rebel Leader. At the end of the movie we find out that no matter what the humans do, AI is going to take over the world. Here's the explanation....AI isn't "software" its on the internet and therefore everywhere so you can't stop it. BULLCRAP!!!! Improbable Plot time.... The internet isn't a magical place that exists alongside our own reality. The internet is webpages, graphical screens that exist on a server somewhere that you can connect your computer to so you can see this screen. In other words, every www address you visit lives on a physical machine called a Server in a building somewhere plugged into a wall running off of electricity. What makes it so you can "see" what's on that Server is a information sharing program (software) that connects your computer via a digital cable, coaxial cable, phone line or wirelessly to that server. There's internet 101...there will be a test later. So for a computer system/network to be an AI, or Artificial Intelligence, it needs to have a piece of software written or hardware created that makes it thus. AI is basically a computer that makes it's own decisions. Computer Strategy games and First Person Shooter games are like that. When you play these games against a computer opponent, the computer reacts to what you are doing in billions of ways...to the point where the computer seems like it's thinking for itself....... True AI is a computer that transcends it's programming and becomes it's own entity; another form of life. The Droids from Star Wars and Data from Star Trek are good examples of this. So with this background, they could have stopped the AI Skynet in Terminator....they were in the main complex where the main server was.....shut down the main server and it severely limits the AI's abilities. Yes the AI acted like a virus and replicated itself onto the world's computers, but it could still be stopped by shutting down the main server and disconnecting it from the network. Create a virus of your own and upload it to the main server. Hook said Server back up to the network and the virus is spread to all the computers controlling the world. Oh wait....then the movie would be 20 minutes long.....sorry, my bad. This is the reason I hated that movie so much...made me scream "NO NO...WRONG!!!". Another movie that had a bad plot hook from the beginning was "Reign of Fire". We thought "oh cool a Dragon movie". It pissed me off from the beginning. Here's the Improbable part. The reason these Dragons took over the world was because we humans were in disbelief to the point that when we decided to believe what was happening it was too late to do anything about it. HUH??????? Sorry idiot scriptwriter.....if myself and about 100 other people see a freaking Dragon flying over....Hell a crapload of them....then pretty much the Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy, etc etc saw it too and Stealth Fighters, Bombers, Tanks, Destroyers, etc would be dispatched to take them out. The movie Independence Day was a good example of how to react....you're not sure if they are bad or good so you approach cautiously......keeping certain things in reserve just in case the poop hits the whirling cooling device. ROF didn't. The Dragons just kind of came in and took over. Oh and the reason they breathe fire? (You're going to love this) They eat ash. Yep....that's why they burn stuff up with fire so they can eat the ash. Kill the man/woman who wrote this stupid piece of drek now. Other improbable movie that knowing the plot made me not even bother. Stealth. Ever hear of this piece of poop? Jaime Foxx and Jessica Alba are fighter pilots who are testing a new form of plane that has an AI. While out flying in a storm a bolt of lightning hits the plane with the AI and scrambles the programming of the AI system making it self aware and EVIL!!!!! Let me stop laughing so I can finish.......... First off, surges of electricity don't "reprogram" computer chips. No, surges of electricity turn computer chips into melted pieces of mangled and useless silicon. If lightning were to reach the circuit board of the onboard computer of that plane, it would cease to function and most likely crash. Not become EVIL and go around trying to kill people. Punch this writer right in the head. Now for "Untraceable". There's a new serial killer in town and he uses the Internet!! OOOOOOOOO Scary!!!! Yes apparently you can use a webpage hit counter to control a "device" hooked to a hapless victim to kill him/her. Yep, that's right...Mr.. Boogeyman of the 21rst Century now can take a piece of simple software and use it to kill. NO!!!! To be able to speak to another computer and act on it I need some kind of Peer to Peer connection. A counter is just that; a counter. Then apparently this guy can somehow hack into anything in this movie....including the main character's car. Yes, somehow this guy can hack into her car and make it stop. Even with electronic starters, push button starters, etc you cannot hack them. Yes cars have the equivalent of an onboard computer, but said computer does not have an open connection to the Internet!!!! The only one that does is the OnStar system but really that only connects to certain parts of the vehicle, door locks say or airbag sensors.......The friendly OnStar people cannot start your car for you........they can open your power door locks in case you lock your keys in the car but they can't start it for you. Stupid plot device....makes me not want to see movie. Simple.......Honestly do these people think we are that dumb??? Oh wait..........nevermind, I know that answer to that one.
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