Avatar is the one I would like to write the sequel to.

I want to show the aliens coming back to see how their garden planet has been doing since they left their heavily and obviously engineered creatures to play with each other. Then the humans come back with heavy ships, only to be captured and placed on another planet for observation.

tankjr: Nope. He specifically states that Zion has not only been destroyed, but CREATED multiple times. He also states that Neo is a byproduct of that process. Neo *is* a program and as such, his environment, Zion, is software.

You cannot dispute that Neo is 100% software as it is stated by The Architect. Human beings cannot be the result of a software process.

Sorry, but I can. He states nothing of the sort. The Architect is talking about mechanisms of control. The whole theme of the story is free will/choice/anarchy versus absolute control and determinism. Yes, the machines control the Matrix, which has programs and software and whatnot. That doesn't mean that everything they control is software. Yes, Zion has been created and destroyed multiple times. That in no way indicates that it's a computer program, nor does it indicate that Neo is '100% software'. The designs and machinations of the Architect CAN exist in the Real World when you consider that they have an army of killer robots out there, you know, affectin' reality and stuff.

As for Neo being a program:

'Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the Matrix'.

In other words, Neo is not by design. The machines have accounted for 99.999% of human free will/choices/whatever, but they were never able to eliminate human choice completely from what is 'otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision'. Neo wasn't designed; he's just the shiat they have to put up with as a result of being unable to completely solve the problem - 'As you so adequately put it, the problem is choice.'

scottydoesntknow: <b>6. Independence Day</b>

Well if you wanna get technical, the movie would've been over in 5 minutes. A mothership 1/4 the size of the moon would've seriously farked with earth's gravity. Plus Will Smif's wife would've died immediately in the tunnel (you can't outrun a giant fireball, and you sure as hell can't breathe as a giant fireball passes 5 feet from you).

Yeah they could have just attached a trailer hitch and pulled the moon into earth.

Samwise Gamgee: tankjr: Nope. He specifically states that Zion has not only been destroyed, but CREATED multiple times. He also states that Neo is a byproduct of that process. Neo *is* a program and as such, his environment, Zion, is software.

You cannot dispute that Neo is 100% software as it is stated by The Architect. Human beings cannot be the result of a software process.

Sorry, but I can. He states nothing of the sort. The Architect is talking about mechanisms of control. The whole theme of the story is free will/choice/anarchy versus absolute control and determinism. Yes, the machines control the Matrix, which has programs and software and whatnot. That doesn't mean that everything they control is software. Yes, Zion has been created and destroyed multiple times. That in no way indicates that it's a computer program, nor does it indicate that Neo is '100% software'. The designs and machinations of the Architect CAN exist in the Real World when you consider that they have an army of killer robots out there, you know, affectin' reality and stuff.

As for Neo being a program:

'Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the Matrix'.

In other words, Neo is not by design. The machines have accounted for 99.999% of human free will/choices/whatever, but they were never able to eliminate human choice completely from what is 'otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision'. Neo wasn't designed; he's just the shiat they have to put up with as a result of being unable to completely solve the problem - 'As you so adequately put it, the problem is choice.'

It's pretty clear Zion exists "in real life" but the machines are well aware of its existence and indeed, its necessity. It's implied that after they kill the human inhabitants they leave all records of previous builds and leave only the wreckage in surrounding areas, hence why the sewers were plugged up with garbage in all the movies. They expect the humans will move in, and pretty much count on it as it allows them to pretty easily destroy it again.

And you're right, Neo wasn't "artificial" anymore than the other humans, he was the result of the system as written. To me I always likened him to those extra numbers after 3.14 in pi. While you know they are there you can still do equations without really bothering with them. But the more precise you get and the more you start to play with the equation the more those extra numbers really start to add up. Neo exists to balance those accepted discrepancies in the equation. The machines clean up the outliers in Zion to maintain some balance and order and Neo, the unplanned but expected "equation balancer" is re-integrated to put the whole system back at 3.14, at least for a little while.

It's kind of a beautiful commentary on the nature of human civilization that it only works when you acknowledge that right of the gates humans are a bit unbalanced.

thomps: not according to the file name.

There you go bringing logic into it.

Or we could just suspend out disbelief and get over it. I know, it's not as "fun".

Samwise Gamgee: 'Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the Matrix'.

In other words, Neo is not by design. The machines have accounted for 99.999% of human free will/choices/whatever, but they were never able to eliminate human choice completely from what is 'otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision'. Neo wasn't designed; he's just the shiat they have to put up with as a result of being unable to completely solve the problem - 'As you so adequately put it, the problem is choice.'


You are misinterpreting that quote. How can Neo be the remainder of an equation of programming if he's human? Answer: Because he is not human, he is a program.

tankjr: Samwise Gamgee: 'Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the Matrix'.

In other words, Neo is not by design. The machines have accounted for 99.999% of human free will/choices/whatever, but they were never able to eliminate human choice completely from what is 'otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision'. Neo wasn't designed; he's just the shiat they have to put up with as a result of being unable to completely solve the problem - 'As you so adequately put it, the problem is choice.'


You are misinterpreting that quote. How can Neo be the remainder of an equation of programming if he's human? Answer: Because he is not human, he is a program.

At this point I'm guessing you're willfully trolling or windmill tilting. There is no way that after so many responses you can't realize that you are the one who has misinterpreted the Architect's speech.

/Doesn't make the movies any less dumb

All you Star Trek haters... just wait until Sisko shows up sometime in the past. Since he exists in a non-linear form, now, he can show up any damn place he wants...

buckler: Darth_Lukecash: Avatar I think that the "response" is actually part of the sequel plans. It maybe Interesting to see the responses. But the big problem is this: Would humans still act this way in the future?

In TFA, they mention the Earth forces would use their "mothership" to attack the Na'vi. Isn't that "mothership" just a long-range transport that wouldn't be expected to have any weapons? I find it less credible that they'd have enough berths available for all the colonists.

It carried a large amount of armed personnel and military equipment. If anything, that 'transport' is the in-universe analogue of a current day USN super carrier. a long range transporter....of military equipment.

Subtle_Canary: buckler: Darth_Lukecash: Avatar I think that the "response" is actually part of the sequel plans. It maybe Interesting to see the responses. But the big problem is this: Would humans still act this way in the future?

In TFA, they mention the Earth forces would use their "mothership" to attack the Na'vi. Isn't that "mothership" just a long-range transport that wouldn't be expected to have any weapons? I find it less credible that they'd have enough berths available for all the colonists.

It carried a large amount of armed personnel and military equipment. If anything, that 'transport' is the in-universe analogue of a current day USN super carrier. a long range transporter....of military equipment.

I didn't pay much attention to the details of that movie, but it was my understanding this was a commercial venture.
There would be tricky politics about wiping out the first intelligent alien life we encountered. It's also bad for business and potentially destructive to the magic mineral they went to all the trouble of finding.
Orbital bombardment or nukes could be right out of the question. So could a return trip if the billions spent by investors returns nothing but a sad faced greasy haired golf player and a bunch of bent equipment.

It wouldn't make for much of a sequel.
/they needed to show more about what was going on with earth, less time remaking dances with wolves in space.

Darth_Lukecash: 2. The Terminator In the original Terminator, Skynet only had one shot at time travel before the Humans won the fight. The problem comes in the sequels, where many more got through.

They do explain this after a fashion. Skynet and judgement day were inevitable in one form or another. It can easily be said that the Skynet that ultimately did bring forth judgement day was not the same as the one that sent the first terminator. That's the problem with time travel.

1st: Skynet sends terminator to kill mother of future human leader, fails, humans win. This Skynet is no more.
2nd: Using technology taken from the terminator, a different Skynet is ultimately created, it sends a terminator to kill the child form of the future human leader, fails, This Skynet is no more
3rd: The military builds a different Skynet, it sends the terminator back in time, ect ect, it fails, humans win

You get the idea.

Rev. Skarekroe: Darth_Lukecash: That and it's Science FANTASY. Not science fiction. It has giant space slugs that live in asteroids.

Right? Debating the realism - particularly the scientific realism - of Star Wars is like debating the... uh... I dunno. It's just stupid, that's all!

So what are you two saying? The Force is keeping all those giant chunks from crashing into Endor?

And the disintegration thing probably would have worked with the original cut, but in the Special Editions, you can actually see the chunks raining down on the moon.

HeartBurnKid: Rev. Skarekroe: Darth_Lukecash: That and it's Science FANTASY. Not science fiction. It has giant space slugs that live in asteroids.

Right? Debating the realism - particularly the scientific realism - of Star Wars is like debating the... uh... I dunno. It's just stupid, that's all!

So what are you two saying? The Force is keeping all those giant chunks from crashing into Endor?

And the disintegration thing probably would have worked with the original cut, but in the Special Editions, you can actually see the chunks raining down on the moon.

The official line, I believe, is that when they blew up the core, it broke the Hyperspace Regulator on the Hyperdrive Engines, therefore forming a small wormhole into hyperspace, which sucked in most of the debris and force of the explosion.

In other words, they made up some shiat. And since its their shiat to do with, you kind of have to accept their explanation.

way south: Subtle_Canary: buckler: Darth_Lukecash: Avatar I think that the "response" is actually part of the sequel plans. It maybe Interesting to see the responses. But the big problem is this: Would humans still act this way in the future?

In TFA, they mention the Earth forces would use their "mothership" to attack the Na'vi. Isn't that "mothership" just a long-range transport that wouldn't be expected to have any weapons? I find it less credible that they'd have enough berths available for all the colonists.

It carried a large amount of armed personnel and military equipment. If anything, that 'transport' is the in-universe analogue of a current day USN super carrier. a long range transporter....of military equipment.

I didn't pay much attention to the details of that movie, but it was my understanding this was a commercial venture.
There would be tricky politics about wiping out the first intelligent alien life we encountered. It's also bad for business and potentially destructive to the magic mineral they went to all the trouble of finding.
Orbital bombardment or nukes could be right out of the question. So could a return trip if the billions spent by investors returns nothing but a sad faced greasy haired golf player and a bunch of bent equipment.

It wouldn't make for much of a sequel.
/they needed to show more about what was going on with earth, less time remaking dances with wolves in space.
Im not suggesting they nuke the site from orbit (just to be sure) but going by IRL examples (Blackwater loses 4 mercs and the Marines arse fark Fallujah as a result) had a wealthy and apparently well backed corporation suffered massive casualties from an indigenous resistance movement to their mineral exploitation efforts, the US government would be ALL ABOUT positioning a MEU to that rock and and all the motivational speeches in the world wouldnt save the thundersmurfs from 22nd century warfare.

atomsmoosher: HeartBurnKid: Rev. Skarekroe: Darth_Lukecash: That and it's Science FANTASY. Not science fiction. It has giant space slugs that live in asteroids.

Right? Debating the realism - particularly the scientific realism - of Star Wars is like debating the... uh... I dunno. It's just stupid, that's all!

So what are you two saying? The Force is keeping all those giant chunks from crashing into Endor?

And the disintegration thing probably would have worked with the original cut, but in the Special Editions, you can actually see the chunks raining down on the moon.

The official line, I believe, is that when they blew up the core, it broke the Hyperspace Regulator on the Hyperdrive Engines, therefore forming a small wormhole into hyperspace, which sucked in most of the debris and force of the explosion.

In other words, they made up some shiat. And since its their shiat to do with, you kind of have to accept their explanation.

But again, if you look at the special edition, it's contradicted by what we see on-screen. Lucas really screwed the pooch there.

Mugato: And of course The Terminator never made any sense since Reese said that the terminator went into the time displacement thing before he did, meaning history would be instantly changed and Reese wouldn't even have a chance to go in after it.

But if Reese didn't go through, the Terminator wouldn't have been destroyed and it's processor found and reverse engineered by Cyberdine to create Skynet.

Subtle_Canary: way south: Subtle_Canary: buckler: Darth_Lukecash: Avatar I think that the "response" is actually part of the sequel plans. It maybe Interesting to see the responses. But the big problem is this: Would humans still act this way in the future?

In TFA, they mention the Earth forces would use their "mothership" to attack the Na'vi. Isn't that "mothership" just a long-range transport that wouldn't be expected to have any weapons? I find it less credible that they'd have enough berths available for all the colonists.

It carried a large amount of armed personnel and military equipment. If anything, that 'transport' is the in-universe analogue of a current day USN super carrier. a long range transporter....of military equipment.

I didn't pay much attention to the details of that movie, but it was my understanding this was a commercial venture.
There would be tricky politics about wiping out the first intelligent alien life we encountered. It's also bad for business and potentially destructive to the magic mineral they went to all the trouble of finding.
Orbital bombardment or nukes could be right out of the question. So could a return trip if the billions spent by investors returns nothing but a sad faced greasy haired golf player and a bunch of bent equipment.

It wouldn't make for much of a sequel.
/they needed to show more about what was going on with earth, less time remaking dances with wolves in space.
Im not suggesting they nuke the site from orbit (just to be sure) but going by IRL examples (Blackwater loses 4 mercs and the Marines arse fark Fallujah as a result) had a wealthy and apparently well backed corporation suffered massive casualties from an indigenous resistance movement to their mineral exploitation efforts, the US government would be ALL ABOUT positioning a MEU to that rock and and all the motivational speeches in the world wouldnt save the thundersmurfs from 22nd century warfare.

Problem is that one situation was a war where pmc's got killed and the other was a mining operation where there was no shortage of time and cash spent on an outreach program. The company started a war that didn't exist before, and most folks would respond to that with a "sucks to be you, where's my money?"
A second mission in reality would depend on how flush with cash that coporation still is, especially if the second trip is purely military in nature.
I'd think that working in space is bad enough before we start hurling irreplaceable ships on decade long jaunts just to kill critters.
If the government is footing the bill, some politician has to justify a trillion dollar xenocide of an otherwise easily ignored race.

If the plot for avatar 2 is a hour and a half long repeat of the final battle scene, Id be disappointed to say the least.

Everyone always forgets about The Lion King.

How did this: go to this: ?

Surely there weren't enough hyenas to chew on until the pride lands were restored.

Rwa2play: Thank God I never saw it. Feel a lot smarter smugger for doing so.

Subtle_Canary: way south: Subtle_Canary: buckler: Darth_Lukecash: ***snip*** all the motivational speeches in the world wouldnt save the thundersmurfs from 22nd century warfare.

somuchwin.jpg HAHAHAHA!!!!

tankjr: as it is stated by The Architect



TLDR on the rest of it, but isn't it a fundamental flaw to just accept the Architect was telling the truth?

Coelacanth: There's also been suggestions that the Na'vi [from Avatar] aren't indigenous either.

That actually makes sense, since they don't really look like anything else on the planet, and most of the animals there seem to follow certain evolutionary guidelines. Of course, Cameron could have just made the Na'vi look like they do solely for commercial reasons (more familiar aliens are easier to empathize with) and added the non-indigenous angle as a convenient ret-con.

As for the whole moving the planet thing... well... well... I really don't know what to think of that. Looks like Cameron may have finally Lucased and lost his mojo.

Except... it's a bunch of amnesiac people with brain damage. In a totally destroyed world. Tasked with rebuilding society. How is that ever going to turn out

Tomatoes.

Fish in a Barrel: Missing from the list: Battlestar Galactica.

Why, you have a virtual army of super strong cylons capable of doing the heavy lifting, advanced weapons and tactics making it easy to enslave the indigenous population and make yourselves the kings of your domains, not to mention advanced medicine.

Ok, am I the only one that saw this part of the article?


fallout from the nuclear bomb that destroyed the Mothership

How much fallout is there really going to be from a freaking nuke, inside a bigass ship, in farking space? Yes, maybe some like a dirty bomb, but it's not an omg everybody is dead thing. More like a tiny bit more cancer worldwide. Bugger issue is the failed nuke attack in ..Dallas?

Zombalupagus: As for the whole moving the planet thing... well... well... I really don't know what to think of that. Looks like Cameron may have finally Lucased and lost his mojo.

I think what Cameron has in mind is showing that there's an ecology in outer space. If there is one mobile 'living' planet, there could be more, and some of them are prey and some of them are predators. And this isn't an original idea either. This train of thought pulled out of the station in the 19th century.

badLogic: Sylvia_Bandersnatch: FTFA:
Nero's drill may have been stopped in time to prevent him from destroying Earth as he had Vulcan - but it does leave a gaping hole in the middle of the ocean off the coast of San Francisco. This should create all sorts of problems, as ocean water rushes into the hole in the Earth's mantle. The giant space drill itself also fell into the ocean, in the exact same spot where it was just drilling. Shouldn't this generate some kind of tsunami that would wipe out everything in the coastal areas?

Let me first say that I hate this movie more than most people, I hate J.J. Abrams for making it, I hate Paramount for letting him make it, I hate Leonard Nimoy for participating in it, and it takes all my deep love and admiration of the late Majel Barrett to not hate her too for being a part of it, however small. It's on my shortlist of all-time worst films, and I've seen a lot of films. So no part of the following paragraph reflects the tiniest shred of any respect for this steaming turd or anyone involved.

Abrams' hamhanded direction leaves us with too little information to either confirm or deny the first part of the claim. We just don't know, and can't know, and he probably never even thought about it, like he obviously never thought of a million other things while making this. As for the latter part, I can actually supply something like an answer, and the answer is a firm NO. No tsunami. Why? Because the drill, however huge, just isn't that big. Specifically, it doesn't have enough mass or volume. Now, I'm not going to go back and try to estimate that, mostly because it would involve looking directly into the film again (and I'm still recovering from my last direct exposure in 2009), but I feel sure that it's nowhere near the mass and volume of a mountain. And there's already good reason to believe that an entire mountain falling into the sea is unlikely to produce a notable tsunami. That's based on numerous studies of an actual mountain that's ac ...

I addressed exactly this in my comment. The bay in Alaska is exactly what I was thinking about, and there is even a firsthand witness account of similar incident in the same area, though the only footage I know of of such an event takes place in a fjord.

The relevant detail here is that these water bodies are *small and mostly surrounded by land*: they provide the critical constraint that a relevant tsunami absolutely requires in order to become a destructive 'tidal wave'. The open ocean of the Pacific, even relatively near to land, offers no similar constraint. While the thing may or may not be large and heavy enough to make a really big splash, it's much less likely to create a serious tsunami for anyone on shore, as the displacement energy can be distributed laterally along the coast as well as directly inland. I'm not saying it won't make a tidal wave -- that would require actually doing some math, and probably even Abrams has no good idea about the numbers we'd need to do that -- only that it's nowhere near as likely as TFA seems to suggest and some people seem to assume.

Mostly unrelated to this point, but related to other parts of my comment above, after seeing Plinkett's video review of the film, I've finally adopted a more conciliatory attitude towards it. I still think it's a crap movie, but I admitted even right after seeing it that it's "a fun ride". I just think it's a very stupid one.

any movie with John Holmes in it.....well after 1985 anyway

Ok. Since we're getting our nerdy freak on in here, I have larger concerns that surround the Star Trek drill:

1. The drill would never reach the core. It would reach perhaps the upper mantle, then the liquid rock would simply move to fill the gap. Which brings us to...
2. Upon opening a hole to the upper mantle, you will have created an instant volcanic vent. Liquid magma, and attendant gasses under thousands or millions of pounds of pressure per square inch will suddenly have a free outlet next to San Francisco. Instant Super Volcano. The subsequent events would be...troublesome for the city's, nae the region's people as far as survival goes. Yeah, you saved the planet...Kinda. But Star Fleet Headquarters, and surrounding population is erased. Which kinda begs to be addressed in some more meaningful way than a panoramic shot of the impossible giant hole.

scarmig: Coelacanth: 9beers: Doesn't sound like Cameron. How does a planet move around the universe without a star to keep it from becoming an ice cube? Cameron wouldn't be so sloppy in his writing.

Duh, the planet has oceans and a molten core and a biosphere laced with a room temperature super-conductor. Pandora can regulate it's own temperature. Pandora hops from star system to star system. The reason Pandora is in orbit around a gas giant is probably because it's feeding. Once it's had enough, it'll go on to the next closest star system: Ours.

I suppose then things will get very Lovecraftian.


I want a ticket to that movie.

So, Pandora would be less Ego/Mogo, and more Galactus mixed with Unicron and the Org of Plasm.
I want a ticket too.

way south: Hour long final battle

I don't think the planet'd last that long to be honest.

It's stated in the movie that the planet is the largest, easiest to get to, source of Unobtanium. Without that mineral mankind will go extinct.
There is a fleet of whatever Cammerons version of an Earthforce Destroyer is heading to that planet just as fast as they can and if gigawats of energy weapons, kinetic impactors and poison gas don't pacify the 'Thundersmurfs' well time to get your hands dirty and burn everything.

Also worth remembering the mining equipment was largely operated by remote, the humans are still in orbit and within range... I'm sure every mining derrick on the planet picking itself up and mining the ever loving fark out the life tree would get the message across: 'We just wanted the mineral, now you pissed us off'.

EXILE (Last Exile, Anime show) has more defensive capability than Pandora, so if they are trying to establish a space ecosystem of predator/prey planets... Pandora is prey. If it isn't hauling ass away from the gas giant at the end of the movie it's toast.

Vaneshi: way south: Hour long final battle

I don't think the planet'd last that long to be honest.

It's stated in the movie that the planet is the largest, easiest to get to, source of Unobtanium. Without that mineral mankind will go extinct.
There is a fleet of whatever Cammerons version of an Earthforce Destroyer is heading to that planet just as fast as they can and if gigawats of energy weapons, kinetic impactors and poison gas don't pacify the 'Thundersmurfs' well time to get your hands dirty and burn everything.

Also worth remembering the mining equipment was largely operated by remote, the humans are still in orbit and within range... I'm sure every mining derrick on the planet picking itself up and mining the ever loving fark out the life tree would get the message across: 'We just wanted the mineral, now you pissed us off'.

EXILE (Last Exile, Anime show) has more defensive capability than Pandora, so if they are trying to establish a space ecosystem of predator/prey planets... Pandora is prey. If it isn't hauling ass away from the gas giant at the end of the movie it's toast.

I'm not a big fan of the movie, but I think there's a strong implication that the planet is sentient and vaguely aware of what's going on (if a little slow on the uptake), as well as an implication that the magic mineral is key to that. I think the planet is probably capable and willing of defending itself, and an angry planet with a bunch of power at its disposal is probably more than a match for anything you can throw at it. I think it's also implied that the losers are aware of all this.

Sylvia_Bandersnatch: g of defending itself, and an angry planet with a bunch of power at its disposal is probably more than a match for anything you can throw at it. I think it's also implied that the losers are aware of all this.

I think the planet hasn't considerd the possibility of orbital bombardment; I'm sure the humans can pummel it in to submission. Their species existance depends on that mineral after all.