tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30945345304925481972024-03-05T08:19:15.804-08:00ScideologicalScience. Ideology. Logic. The Axis point where the Dreams of Tomorrow inform the Present.Tristan Vickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05348780254008374268noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094534530492548197.post-43787989655060014492016-03-10T22:29:00.001-08:002016-03-10T22:29:17.955-08:00Created a new Scideological logo banner<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Here's the new logo banner for Scideological. My defunct blog.</div>
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<br />Tristan Vickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05348780254008374268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094534530492548197.post-70847435301549227372012-12-22T19:42:00.001-08:002012-12-25T00:37:09.797-08:00Should Teachers Carry Concealed Hand Guns?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnmZGRXAiHRyzZbXaWr_62zUHb0D1h0Pg2O9-GFS0MOg-WiPMuzjf_C4UvAFt53gu6ShVnixjK8GTsuDNRA5yWGnlu1DuXcKaA7VGQ6chAw3ao0X1fTDKUV-ak0erke3lXX7KkUYxGlKg/s1600/Hand+gun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnmZGRXAiHRyzZbXaWr_62zUHb0D1h0Pg2O9-GFS0MOg-WiPMuzjf_C4UvAFt53gu6ShVnixjK8GTsuDNRA5yWGnlu1DuXcKaA7VGQ6chAw3ao0X1fTDKUV-ak0erke3lXX7KkUYxGlKg/s400/Hand+gun.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
From a gun professional: On teachers carrying concealed weapons: </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="color: #ea9999;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">"The single best way to respond to a mass shooter is with an immediate, violent response. The vast majority of the time, as soon as a mass shooter meets serious resistance, it bursts their fantasy world bubble. Then they kill themselves or surrender. This has happened over and over again." (</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Here's the </span><a href="http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/an-opinion-on-gun-control/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">full article</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">.)</span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
Only in a world where everyone has a gun for killing others--does this kind of logic even work. I'm not denying guns work as defensive tools. But they ARE designed to be LETHAL. </span><br />
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</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Even <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am-Qdx6vky0">trained professionals have accidents</a>, from time to time. So nobody can tell me it's a good idea to carry hand guns (concealed or not) where children are involved. Because <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/12/09/joseph_loughrey_shoots_kills_son_outside_gun_store.html?fb_action_ids=10151350448115129&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_ref=sm_fb_like_blogpost&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582">it's NEVER a good idea</a>.</span><br />
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</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Limit the guns to almost nill, however, and this logic is revealed to be somewhat questionable. Pro gun activists might point out how seemingly impossible it would be to get rid of all the guns. I'm not disagreeing. It is a seemingly impossible task. But consider this: The gun problem is this magnitude because we MADE it this MAGNITUDE.<br />
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Saying that it is impossible is just an excuse to keep guns. Let's get rid of the excess. We don't need semi-automatics. Heck, civilians don't need machine guns or anything of that caliber (pun not intended). More guns isn't going to help fix anything.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Only in an imperfect scenario with an already established GUN PROBLEM does strategy like "more guns" trump basic logic.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Moreover, only when you treat schools like WAR ZONES does <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,404721,00.html#ixzz2FF7HwL1a">this sort of thing</a> make any kind of sense.<br />
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But we're not talking about the Gaza Strip here. We're talking about U.S. classrooms.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
Do you see the problem here?<br />
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Here's my logic: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">"The single best way to respond to a mass shooter is to not have any mass shooters."</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
The question remains: is this even possible?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">When we have half of the other modernized countries on the planet that can pull off little to no shooting, and other related gun crime, then you had better bet your bottom dollar that it's possible.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Does it mean it will be easy? No. Will it be economical? Not likely. But possible? Yes.<br />
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The question is, what ware you willing to do to fix this problem?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">If the answer is more guns--then I'm sorry, all you've done is light another match in the middle of the worst forest fire in recorded history. That's not logical. That's suicide.<br />
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Meanwhile, from one of my dear friends who is a teacher like me, in response to the recent news about the <a href="http://dcist.com/2012/12/va_bill_would_order_teachers_to_car.php">Virginia Bill</a> which would order teachers to carry concealed firearms:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="color: #b4a7d6; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">"When this day comes I will leave the field of education. Fighting guns with guns is not the answer."</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
So what the gun professionals are saying is: In order to have safer schools you need to have teachers who carry guns, because we have a gun problem.<br />
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That's the opposite of logical. That's stupidity.<br />
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While I'm sure some teachers agree, most of them, most of the teachers I've talked with at any rate, share my friend's sentiment.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The day teachers and educators of children are required to carry guns is the day our schools become war zones, and smart teachers everywhere will simply get out. Quit. We'll walk out of the schools and go find other jobs. Safer jobs. It's also the day that home schooling becomes a much better alternative to public schooling.<br />
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So the gun professionals aren't providing any viable solution that fixes the problem. They are merely adding fuel to the flame, and potentially, going to ruin our entire educational system in the process.<br />
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Do their methods work? Yes. I'm not denying that. But what they seem to be overlooking is the context. Their methods are designed for war zone type scenarios. They are bringing these scenarios to the schools and into the classrooms. </span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">While good gun strategies will work against those who use guns, what I'm saying is minus the guns we wouldn't need such strategies in the first place.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">What we need now is better policies. Not necessarily more gun laws--there are already regulations galore--what I am saying is--we need BETTER POLICIES.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So instead of using tax payer dollars to arm teachers with guns, many of whom would walk right out if they were ever asked to do such a thing, we should be using tax payer dollars to fund better mental health care, psyche screening, and counselling for children, teachers, and schools.<br />
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Let's begin by addressing the root of the problem, which is mental health. The guns debate is just the icing on the cake of a much richer, much darker, issue. Let's address the violence and the violent tendencies of Americans. Let's fund the programs and professionals to help heal peoples' minds before we start handing out more guns.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Then, at least, we won't have teachers threatening to quit <i>en masse </i>because you forced them to carry a gun into a classroom. All that teachers packing guns ensures is that the ticking time bomb is just a few ticks away from some stressed out teacher breaking and then killing their whole class and then themselves. When teachers begin to carry guns, this scenario is INEVITABLE. It's only a matter of time.<br />
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The classroom is the LAST PLACE ON EARTH you should ever have to see the presence of a gun.</span><br />
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</span></div></div>Tristan Vickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05348780254008374268noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094534530492548197.post-10157610674063879222012-12-16T18:03:00.001-08:002015-03-30T22:46:29.455-07:00Gun Control and on Other Gun Related Problems<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdYgFpnEueDTQlCkyzJSaEadRd_8Js6vM6BH3qzsXqQ39vBZHDff71rWErAuva5-wV865HznT8IsfYI5CsE3a9gprmQZpBjaKU3gonJCh0pVgGMTxnIpWu7n97rQcKJQqpr66Z0JDbRnc/s1600/Gun+related+homicides+per+100,000.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdYgFpnEueDTQlCkyzJSaEadRd_8Js6vM6BH3qzsXqQ39vBZHDff71rWErAuva5-wV865HznT8IsfYI5CsE3a9gprmQZpBjaKU3gonJCh0pVgGMTxnIpWu7n97rQcKJQqpr66Z0JDbRnc/s640/Gun+related+homicides+per+100,000.JPG" height="540" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">For more gun related statistics please visit <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/">Gun Policy.org</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This is bound to be a politically charged topic, considering recent events. That said, this is more of an opinion piece than an analysis, so please do not take everything I say as <i>ipse dixit.</i></span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Growing up my childhood imagination was forged, in part, by the visionary genius of Gene Roddenberry. <i>Star Trek</i> encapsulated his humanist message. An optimistic message in which he envisioned a future where humans had worked together to achieve everlasting world peace.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The universe, however, is not always such a peaceful place. Nor is there reason to be so optimistic. And so, even Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock still needed guns. Laser guns.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Only in a perfect world could we exist without guns. Yet we live in a world that is far from perfect. Just turn on the news, and what constitutes newsworthy is usual the worst examples of human behavior, and human failing, you'll probably ever see. It is the furthest thing away from that optimistic future vision of Gene Roddenberry. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Even so, we must not shirk away from addressing these very real problems and facing these very real questions.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am for gun control. Ever since the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Jewish_Federation_shooting">The Seattle Jewish Federation</a> shooting in 2006, where the crazed gunman Naveed Afzal Haq shot six people, I have had my eyes wide open to the effects of gun related crime. Maybe it was the fact that I heard the shots a few blocks down the street from my hotel. The pops sounded like firecrackers going off. At first, I thought perhaps some kind of festival was underway, but the flood of squad cars and wailing sirens which rushed passed me gave me the first clues that something a lot more tragic had transpired.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">A couple days later I would finish orientation for Jet Programme and head to Japan. With the shooting fresh in my mind, I reveled at how Japan, a country smaller than California with the population of half of the entire U.S., was so peaceful. On top of this, there wasn't a gun in sight. Most likely because, in Japan, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/a-land-without-guns-how-japan-has-virtually-eliminated-shooting-deaths/260189/">owning firearms is illegal</a> in most circumstances. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">[Coincidentally, the Yakuza--Japan's version of the mafia--do acquire illegal guns. But they usually only use them on each other. The public is still relatively safe--so I am sorry if I don't buy the excuse that if we had less guns the bad guys would use them more to commit violent crimes. The reason the Yakuza limit their gun activity is because it draws way too much attention to them. But the cultures are different. Maybe Americans are less honorable. Maybe American criminals would take over. Maybe. I tend not to be so pessimistic Even criminals want something more than just your wallet. So maybe the bad guys would get all the guns and take over is simply a bit of hyperbole? After all, we'd still have law enforcement agencies and the military to protect us. Let's give them some credit.]</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In Japan, gun related deaths (including murder, suicide, accidental) equate to less than 0.02% of 100,000 persons in the 120 million population. Additionally, this is the TOTAL tallied percentage since 1998 to the present! It's not even a big enough number to get it to appear on a simple bar graph. That's how minuscule gun related deaths are in Japan.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The same is true of Denmark and Sweden.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The same is true of Singapore and Hong Kong.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This is in stark contrast to the near 10% per 100,000 gun death rate in the U.S. every year.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">All things being equal, it would take Japan 50 years of non-stop gun crime to match the same deaths as the U.S. for just one year. (Actually, it would be more like 500 years to account for the decade long gap of no gun violence in Japan, but never mind--the point stands.)</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlYUUEpgeolFDzbvzkXOpq8n9o_W4M-piJe_rYUupo4jvMnHXz1v9gNX57lR762FByH147pk9E9xO4mWiEO1TCNCPUcTdkp2d8RvGZsckZ9Pic1zIAY-D37kE-aAHjTEpgpXuWiXoNNf0/s1600/firearms+related+deaths.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlYUUEpgeolFDzbvzkXOpq8n9o_W4M-piJe_rYUupo4jvMnHXz1v9gNX57lR762FByH147pk9E9xO4mWiEO1TCNCPUcTdkp2d8RvGZsckZ9Pic1zIAY-D37kE-aAHjTEpgpXuWiXoNNf0/s400/firearms+related+deaths.jpg" height="400" width="365" /></span></a></div>
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">After a little research the sheer statistics begin to jump out at you. It's actually quite simple math. The chart at the top shows that places with more guns have more gun crime. This statistic hold across the board.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Little to no guns = little to no gun related deaths/crimes. More guns = more gun related deaths/crimes. Even more guns, then, even more gun related deaths and crimes. This is called a trend, and the trend is always the same. There are always exceptions to every rule however, but there aren't enough counter examples to make any valid argument against the statistical trend of an increase in guns directly relates to an increase in gun crime.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It is that simple, at least statistically speaking. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Don't let anybody's gun-cultist-dogmatic-second-amendment proclamations convince you otherwise. Guns are bad news, no matter how you want to tally it.<br /><br />But gun control lobbyists must be reasonable here. It's not simply about sheer statistics. Statistics point to frequencies which allow us to make predictions based on the change of frequencies of events. Strictly speaking, the statistics suggests it is always better to have less guns. But this is different than having no guns at all. America is a gun culture, so taking the guns away is not a realistic option. Limiting them with strict policies which limit their proliferation, and the types of guns which would make it into the hands of the public, is a wise step toward reversing the trend of gun crime. Baby steps, as they say.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Let's be careful though, statistics can sometimes be interpreted incorrectly too. A good example of this, luckily, bolsters the gun control argument. Those who cite a steady (statistical) decrease in gun related deaths in the U.S. often fail to cite the steady (statistical) increase of gun related attacks, which have increased a whopping 50% from 2001 to 2011. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Gun crime is </span><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324712504578131360684277812.html" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">on a statistical increase</a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> in the U.S. </span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It's only the fact that modern medicine and excellent, fast responding, medical care can be provided that gun deaths are preventable. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So why all the gun crime?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">What we need to realize, however, is there are other factors at play here. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In a recent OP piece, Journalist Dan Carlin writes:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">People want to focus on the guns as the problem, but we have a culture in the U.S. where guns are ingrained and where they have been so for centuries. The use of them has seeped into us. It is the desire to use them that's different. To think the guns themselves are the problem we would have to believe that the Canadians, Europeans and others with lower homicide levels all would like to kill each other at our rates...they just lack the guns to make their wishes a reality. That's ridiculous. The truth is that these other societies don't have as much murderous intent as Americans. Why not?</span></blockquote>
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">There is a oft ignored psychological component to gun crime. To simply blame it on the access one has to weapons of lethal destruction is simplifying things too much and neglects to look at the lethal intentions of a disturbed mind--and what caused that poor mind to become disturbed in the first place.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As Carlin points out, although we may not like the sound of it, Americans are much more prone to violence. Not all Americans, mind you, but a very specific group (or mentality) certainly are.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This is made even clearer when you compare non-gun related crimes, such as rape (the most under reported of crimes). Again, to compare to Japan (because of population and economic similarities) in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics#United_States">2005 there were over 95,000 rapes</a> reported in the U.S. whereas there were barely 2,000 reported in Japan. Even if we doubled Japan's population to match it with the U.S., there would still only be roughly 4,000 reported cases of rape compared to the nearly 100,000 in the U.S. for the same year.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">What does that say about our country? </span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">What it says is, Carlin isn't wrong. Americans are much more violent than other nations. Knowing this, is it really wise to allow unhindered access to firearms and lax policies which overlook this fact? Perhaps, we might want to begin looking into why these violent tendencies inflict Americans more than other countries and cultures. What is it about being American which makes us more prone to violent acts?</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">All the more reason, perhaps, to implement stricter gun policies such as screening for mental illness by imposing mandatory psyche evaluations for all gun owners.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In reality, taking away the guns from Americans is an impossible endeavor. It's simply unrealistic. It would be a logistics nightmare. How do you track over 170 million guns? Tracking them all down and taking them away would be even more futile. Half the people would use those guns against you screaming the second amendment at the top of their fanatic gun-cultist lungs. The more rational folks would hide them away. Take the guns away? It's just not gonna happen.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The fact of the matter is, we're stuck with a gun problem. So the question is, how do we address this problem? When I talk about gun control, I am thinking of policies which would help prevent future gun related deaths. </span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I have some basic, rudimentary, ideas about how we could proceed though. Such as imprinting micro bar-codes on all ammunition to track the sale and trafficking of illegal firearms. It would also help manufactures tag defective or outmoded batches of ammunition and make it easier for recalls. </span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am for the idea of placing microchips into guns which would upload number of shots fired in real-time to police agencies. The chips could serve a dual purpose by also being a GPS tracker. So, for example, if a gun fired more than once in a downtown area, or at a school, then this would alert the authorities instantly. Then, using the GPS, they could quickly locate and apprehend the shooter before the 911 calls started flooding in.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am for mandatory psyche evaluations for all gun purchases, no exceptions. Additionally, I would like to see an annual to bi-annual mental health check up for all gun owners, no exceptions. If you're required to take a drug test just to receive food stamps, I think it's a fair compromise to ask that you get a psyche evaluation in order to purchase a gun. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">One of the arguments which pro gun activists love to use is that most people who own guns do not have mental problems, so let them keep their guns. This is such a bad, horribly flawed, not to mention fallacious argument. Human behavior and mental stability is not a fixed thing. Various factors can cause various people to experience a psychological break. Crimes of passion are often such events. Suicides are another key example.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The idea here is that there be readily available health care would enable us to better catch and prevent future psychological breaks of violent rage from doing too much damage. Especially if we can take their guns away before they go off the deep end, so to speak. If the person, for whatever reason, fails the psyche test, they will be under a court order to hand over all their weapons until the appropriate time that they can get the proper help. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Do we really want the crazies with itchy trigger fingers and an axe to grind with society to have access to guns?</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Of course, not. The real question is, how does one fund all this? Easy. Tax guns. Tax them lots.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">If people want their weapons that badly, they should be prepared to pay for my safety and the safety of everyone who would rather not ever see a gun in their life. Life is to short to be spending any portion of it staring down the barrel of a gun.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Taxing guns seems fair though. After all, smokers had to do the same when cigarettes turned out to be lethal. Tobacco got taxed so heavily that people were sure it would tank the tobacco industry. But it's stronger than ever. People can still suck down a cancer stick, or a carton of them, and never bat an eye at the injustice of taxing cigarettes to death. For the cigarette addict, it's till death do them part.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So Tax guns just as heavily, I say. Give people less of an incentive to go out and Willy Nilly buy one. Make it harder to own one. Make it harder yet to keep owning one.<br />
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Meanwhile, those who still want, or need, a gun can still have access to them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">(UPDATE) My friend informed me that wildlife agencies who use freelance hunters to help quell pesky overpopulation problems of animals which disrupt the ecosystem would be unfairly burdened by increased gun related taxes. In such cases special permits could be granted and these folks could enjoy a discount on their required gun purchases. Simply put, there are ways to work around minor issues like this while at the same time addressing the bigger issues.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I do not deny there are areas in the U.S. where a robber will just kick in your door, walk into your home, hit you upside the head with a baseball bat and take whatever they want from you. Hey, if you need a gun to, as my friend says, protect your person from violent morons, then, I totally get that. It's America, after all. The Wild Wild West never truly left the American identity.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But if cigarette taxes can help aid cancer research, why couldn't gun taxes aid gun control policies which make sense?</span><br />
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</span>Tristan Vickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05348780254008374268noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094534530492548197.post-53901861055817260142012-11-28T17:43:00.001-08:002012-11-29T18:16:57.193-08:00Where is Everybody? A New Approach to the Fermi Paradox <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />"Where is everybody?" is the question the physicist Enrico Fermi made to his colleagues in 1950.<br /><br />The Fermi paradox (or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox">Fermi's paradox</a>) is an observation regarding the scale of the universe and probability that intelligent life should arise in the universe prolifically given the age and size of the universe yet, oddly enough, the lack of extraterrestrial evidence contradicts the statistical predictions of abundant intelligent life. Hence the paradox.<br /><br />For example, if we crunch the raw numbers, there are an estimated 200–400 billion (2–4 ×1011) stars in the Milky Way. There are approximately 70 sextillion (7×1022) stars in the visible universe. That's like a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagan%27s_number#Well-defined_numbers_that_are_not_precisely_known">sagan </a>multiplied by a sagan squared, a number so ludicrously large that we can't even begin to wrap our minds around it.<br /><br />Here's the thing though, even if intelligent life is capable of occurring on only a fraction of a percentage of life sustaining planets around these stars, simple probability suggests there should still be a great number of extraterrestrial civilizations extant in the Milky Way galaxy.<br /><br />Even so, when we look up at the evening sky with our powerful telescopes, we see nothing to reflect this prediction of abundant life let alone signs of intelligence proliferating our universe. This very realization led Fermi to his famous question, "Where is everybody?"<br /><br />With an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe">observable universe</a> (that is the stars, planets, and galaxies within our purview) of 46 billion light years, it stems to reason that it is a statistical anomaly that we haven't yet detected any signs of intelligent life. No contact with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracewell_probe">Bracewell probes </a>and no traces of any <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_probe#Von_Neumann_probes">Von Neumann probes</a> either, although the universe is old enough for the statistical probability of the existence of such devices.<br /><br />In fact, like the episode of Star Trek the Next Generation called "The Inner Light" where Captain Piccard has an encounter with a Bracewell probe which relays to him the information of an extinct civilization, we should have at least contacted a probe containing information of, at the least, a bygone civilization. But still nothing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Personally, I find the question fascinating, as well as the implications. The implications being, either intelligent life is much rarer than we realize, or that something is fundamentally wrong with our observations and subsequent calculations. Then again, it could be both these considerations. It's really hard to say, since our data is extremely limited.<br /><br />However, I am inclined to think the solution lies somewhere in realizing our limitations. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Allow me to explain it another way. Because our telescopes can only view the ancient past of other galaxies, let alone our own galaxy, and only within a 93 billion light year sized sphere, it stems to reason we are experiencing an optical limitation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Our eyesight into the universe is extremely far-sighted. It stems to reason we need to devise a bi-focal type of lens--and by lens I mean technology--which can work in tandumn with other technologies to allow our multiple images of the universe to converge showing us both the ancient past of space-time as well as the more recent, or current, state of the universe.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The telescope is an invention of the 17th century, and as such it is rather difficult to get an accurate image of the universe as it currently is. T</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">he light a telescope detects when observing the universe is from the ancient past, the beginning of the universe. Not the present. The only way to see "further" beyond the horizon of sight would be to magnify past the point of the singularity. This is impossible using devices like telescopes--or even probes--since we are not capable of faster than light travel. In fact, we may never be able to break the light speed barrier, so theoretical physicists must brainstorm about new ways in which to get past this cosmic sized hurdle.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />So, as we well know, telescopes are inadequate devices to see the universe as it is currently developing right now due to the physical laws such as the speed of light, a limiting factor which dictates the speed at which information can travel.<br /><br />So we cannot see those distant galaxies as they are but only as they were billions of years ago. There is no method of "seeing" them as they are now by using age old technology like a telescope.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />One of the problems with the Fermi paradox, as I see it, is that it views the question "Where is everybody" as an equivalent to "Why haven't we <i>seen </i>anybody?" The Fermi paradox is assuming we are still thinking in terms of what we can see using telescopes and radio-waves, both ancient technologies as of the present.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Could such a thing as a clunky set of lenses and a big tube of metal wrapped around them see far enough into the universe to detect E.T.? It's not out of the realm of possibility, but it's not very likely either. Not unless E.T. was standing on our doorstep knocking on the door asking for us to let him in--but then there would be no paradox. It's precisely because E.T. is missing that we must heed Fermi's paradox and seriously consider what it is trying to tell us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Radio-waves as a means of sending information between star systems are also highly inconvenient. The expanse of space and the time it takes for radio-waves to travel is simply far too great to make intergalactic communication efficient, which is why things like Bracewell probes, Von Neumann probes, or subspace (also called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subspace_(fictional)">hyperspace</a>) relay stations were postulated in the first place. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But these too rely on the same outmoded appeal to ancient forms of technology. In addressing the Fermi paradox I firmly believe we have to realize an upgrade in our technology as well as our thinking is necessary if we are ever to solve this riddle.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Although I fancy myself a science-fiction writer, and not a scientist, I think one such answer might be found via the realm of quantum mechanics, namely the area known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement">quantum entanglement</a>.<br /><br />Recently, scientists have figured out a way to<a href="http://phys.org/news/2012-07-physics-team-actual-space-time-crystal.html"> create space-time crystals</a>. They also have postulated how to give the crystals different spins. Instead of utilizing resource costly things like Bracewell and Von Neumann probes, or the seemingly impossible attempt to create man-made wormholes like we see in science-fiction shows like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate">Stargate</a>, I speculate that some brilliant future scientist(s) will figure out a way to create binary messages using the spins they give to space-time crystals, and then using quantum entanglement they will create messages which will be capable of populating all regions of the universe (a nice feature of quantum mechanics which we could exploit).<br /><br />In fact, one might assume that other intelligent alien civilizations have already done so, and the messages are out there waiting for us to discover them, much like how we discovered the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_background_radiation">cosmic background radiation</a> of the universe. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We just have to look harder, not look further. That's the key to unraveling the Fermi paradox.<br /><br />Using quantum entanglement in this way, to bypass optical limitations would effectively allow us to detect messages, both past and present, which may be permeating all of space and time this very instant.</span></div>
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Tristan Vickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05348780254008374268noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094534530492548197.post-67602911460187321382012-11-26T19:27:00.001-08:002012-11-26T20:45:40.371-08:00Evolution of the Book: From Ink to Digital Ink<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It is strange to me that there is a still this stigma regarding the general acceptance of an e-book as anything other than what it is--a book. To some people, if it doesn't contain paper in-between two glossy covers, it can't possibly be considered a book. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Those reluctant to switch over to a digital reading platform often cite their fondness of the tactile sensation of holding on to a paper book--as if that's a "reason" for dismissing digital e-books. Others cite that they want to support the "traditional" publishing industry. Support them doing what? Not publishing digital books?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Because, it seems to me, as the market place changes and upgrades, they're simply going to have to get with the times. I support a publishing industry that can adapt to the technology of the era. After all, the same happened with the invention of the publishing press which gave rise to mass market books in the first place. If the publishing industry is incapable of adapting the technology, then maybe it deserves to die out. So I don't actually get what people are supporting when they use that excuse, except to say, it's just an excuse not to have to buy an e-reader.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In fact, it seems the big publishers are slow to make the digital switch over too, although many have and will continue to do so. University presses are even more reluctant to make the switch-over it seems. But I don't see why. We're not dealing with a different medium here. It's just a different type of book.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">There are paperback books. There are hardcover books. And now there are digital books.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It's as simple as that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The fear that the publishing industry is going to disappear and vanish forever if you don't cut down trees and use up all the paper is an illogical one. The publishing industry will survive, just wait and see. But how will it survive? By publishing e-books.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The controversy isn't so much about the technology itself, but the way in which the technology changes the publishing landscape.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It is the ease at which one can publish a digital book, and set their own price, that makes it easy for Indy authors to get their work out there and take a huge chunk of the landscape away from the traditional publishers. E-books and digital self-publishing changes the business landscape--the dynamic in which the traditional publishers used to do business now has completely been overtaken by the rabidly growing e-book market.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It means the traditional publisher will have to take the Indy market seriously, thanks in part to the prominence of e-books (and the push by Amazon.com and their excellent Kindle e-reader which in turn elevated the self-publishing industry thereby allowing authors like me who want to bypass all the politics to do so and get on with what we love doing most--writing).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The digital self-publishing Indy market is now the traditional publishing houses main competition, whether they like it or not. Amazon.com helped to realize this, and there is no changing it, as Amazon.com has all the books.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Literally. They have them... all. And they offer them in digital format too. This has forced companies like Barnes & Noble to compete by creating their own e-reader called the Nook. A fine device in itself. And now B&N.com offers a digital self-publishing service like Amazon's KDP, called PubIt!<br /><br />Distributors, like Amazon and B&N, now control the type of books which get made instead of the publishers, but this makes more sense to me, since the distributors are often more in touch with who is buying books and what type. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So what does this all mean? It means companies like Amazon.com did some major landscaping, and now the terrain is a little different, and some people feel out of their depth with the unfamiliarity of it all. But I found that just by buying a Kindle and familiarizing myself with it, that sense of unfamiliarity quickly turns into a sense of familiarity. The book isn't dying off--its simply evolving.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The sooner publishers realize this fact and the sooner they start respecting Indy writers, and it seems many are moving in that direction, and the sooner we can stop whining about the demise of the book.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The book is here to stay. It's just bound by megabytes and digital displays instead of paper and glue. Welcome to the future, now.</span><br />
<br />Tristan Vickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05348780254008374268noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094534530492548197.post-25331687899657468502012-11-23T16:41:00.003-08:002012-11-23T16:44:15.186-08:00Daughter of Sol: A Science Fiction Novel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I have just begun writing my science fiction space opera series called <i>Daughter of Sol</i>.<br /><br />It will be a couple years off yet before completion, as this is the most ambitious fiction novel I have ever begun. I want the science to be believable even as it is largely an intergalactic fairy-tale. It's the culmination of my life long love for science fiction and my passion for theoretical physics coming together under one collective umbrella of my imagination. <br /><br />I have created a mock-up "teaser" cover, which was intended only as a sort of promotional gimmick but has steadily been growing on me. I may try to snag the rights to the background image as I am considering using it for the real novel. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The background space art comes from the talented folks over at <a href="http://www.gtgraphics.de/">GT Graphic Design and Photography</a>. Check them out if you get a chance!<br /><br />All this, however, just to explain why I haven't been blogging as much recently. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>Tristan Vickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05348780254008374268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094534530492548197.post-7631120857220924742012-11-21T00:23:00.001-08:002012-11-21T00:48:27.193-08:00Embracing Technological Change: A Cautionary tale form JapanI apologize up front if this sounds like a gripe. It sort of is. But then again, perhaps it's more of a cautionary tale.<br />
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You see, I've lived in Japan for over seven years now, soon to be going on my eighth, and after just a brief couple more years I'll have been here a decade! Wow, time really flies when you get swept up in the hustle and bustle of life's current.<br />
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I have constantly had to battle a strange phenomenon here in Japan. It is the divide of technological know-how and actual access to technology.<br />
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In my experience, Japanese people are on the low end of technological know-how and understanding, which is sort of paradoxical since we all realize Japan is always on the cutting edge of technology.<br />
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And this is true. But only partially true.<br />
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Japanese firms, corporations, and technology companies are on the cutting edge, because ever since Japan's post war restructuring they have had the jump-start on being able to produce such new technologies. Thus the private sector of business excels at generating new technologies for the consumers, and--to a large extent--it is what drives the Japanese economy.<br />
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Meanwhile, for how much technology they have at their fingertips, your average Japanese citizen is way behind on the learning curve when it comes to new technology.<br />
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Although Japan had DVD technology at the same time as the U.S., DVD media did not actually permeate mainstream culture until half a decade after Uncle Sam adopted it as a standard for digital media storage.<br />
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The same problem can be seen today when looking as SD card technology, which is, ONLY now (as of 2012), beginning to become affordable because it's breaking into the Japanese commercial market. Even just two years ago a high end 32 Gig SD memory card would set you back $200 in Japan. Today you can get the same for about $80.<br />
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But even so, Japan still sells the SD cards at a premium. Why? Because there's not as much demand for them. They aren't part of any kind of standard. A quick Amazon.com search shows me that a Sandisk Extreme Pro. 32gig which loads 95mb/s is still approximately $20 more in Japan than in the U.S.<br />
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I find this peculiar, because Japan has more SD cards floating around in digital cameras and mobile phones than any other country on the planet, yet when it comes to simple memory storage, it's not even thought of as a viable option.<br />
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Likewise, I sense that Japanese people have a general reluctance to adopt a new technology.<br />
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I have my theories.<br />
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Much of Japan is a graying nation. Elderly people often have a harder time keeping up with the lighting fast pace of ever changing technologies as we move toward the Singularity. Additionally, there is the generation gap between those who grew up with the technology flow, and those who did not. For whatever reason, it's this general reluctance which makes them slow to the up take.<br />
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Sadly, this reluctance to adopt new technologies and adapt along with it increases the more rural you go (geographically speaking). But this is strange to me for a different reason, there really is no such thing as "rural Japan." Even the most remote village is just an hours drive before you find yourself in the middle of a thriving city. At the same time, thriving cities are only a short two hour hop on the bullet-train to a mega-city like Tokyo, Osaka, or Fukuoka.<br />
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In other words, there is no real geographical barrier preventing new ideas or new technologies from permeating all of Japan. Except for the attitude, nothing should be preventing Japanese people from trailing the technology curve like the tail of a comet trails its body.<br />
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Let me paint you a picture of how bad it really is out here in "rural Japan."<br />
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I work in the Japanese education system (privately contracted). My schools, as well as my board of education, are equipped with decade old IMBs or NECs twice refurbished.<br />
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Some of them still even have floppy disk drives! I kid you not.<br />
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Meanwhile, they have maxed out the machines specs so they will be able to run Windows XP. Not Vista, mind you. Not Windows 7. Not even Windows 8. We're talking a decade old software here. It is matched by the fact that most of these computers are running MS Office 2003. More decade old software.<br />
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This is true for nearly ALL of "rural Japan."<br />
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Only the city schools, usually vocational high schools and colleges, have updated to the latest generation of software. One of the local universities of technology in Kumamoto, the town I live, bought ALL their educational staff third gen iPads to use in the class. I remember it well, because it made the front page of the city newspaper. But that's here in the "big" ole city. Not out there, you know, in the rest of Japan.<br />
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I once asked my BOE why they simply didn't buy a couple new computers for all the schools or obtain refurbished computers which are capable of handling the latest gen software. I was told that is was because they simply didn't have the budget for it.<br />
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No money. Okay, I get it. All schools have such financial woes--even in Japan.<br />
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That spring, my BOE bought 52 inch. full 1080 capable HD tvs (SHARP Aquos) for the schools. They didn't buy just one television, though. They bought one for every single classroom at every JHS and Elementary school! That's nearly two dozen HD televisions!<br />
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Granted, the cost of a single HD television has dropped considerably in the last few years, but to claim they don't have money for some new computers or software, but then turn around and purchase nearly two dozen $600 televisions is, well, kind of suspect.<br />
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If they didn't have any money, where did all of it come from when they needed to buy new televisions?<br />
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Ah, that's just it though. It's not about the desire to upgrade, but the necessity. This television buying splurge, which has been seen throughout Japan, largely has to do with Japan's sudden conversion to digital television only. Analog ceases to function.<br />
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But that was a forced change. If the television companies and the government hadn't enforced the change, well, people would still be using the old tech.<br />
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My confusion comes from the fact that they blew their entire budgets on buying TVs. Why not by just a dozen TVs and then spend the other half on a dozen new computers with the latest software?<br />
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In today's age, you can get a nifty laptop for $600.<br />
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My guess is simply this, this general technological disinterest, which is rooted within much of Japan, is to blame. As far as I can tell, nobody sees a need for updating the computer lab or the teachers computers. My fear is that Japan is only going to make the upgrade when the technology leaps so far ahead that the old tech becomes outmoded, like the whole digital TV thing.<br />
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I find this a frightening prospect. Being forced to change, by necessity, can never be easy. Waiting for it to happen is unwise. My hope is that in the future Japan will phase out their old technology gradually, while adopting and adapting to the new technology. Sometimes you have to paddle a little bit to ride the wave, but once you get on top of it, it's smooth surfing.<br />
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What Japan seems to be doing, however, is the opposite. They are paddling out to sea and are facing down an ever growing tsunami. Let's hope the worst doesn't happen. Japan, after all, has all the technology. It would be quite ironic if its greatest obstacle to come in decades was due to its lack of interest in keeping up with technology.<br />
<br />Tristan Vickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05348780254008374268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094534530492548197.post-21109075836974768002012-11-16T06:01:00.000-08:002012-11-16T17:08:41.187-08:00Knowledge of the Gods: A Defense of the film Prometheus (Part 1)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Knowledge of the Gods: A Defense
of the film Prometheus (Part 1)</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Jonathan R. Lack over at WeGotthisCovered.com
wrote a scathing in depth review of Prometheus in an article called “The 100
most glaring logical issues with the film Prometheus.” Apparently he really
hated the film, since his conclusion is, and I quote, "[T]his movie is
stupid."</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">No big surprise here. Many movie goers came
to the same conclusion. I don’t see why. I thought the film was superb. Then
again, I heard the International version, which I first saw in
the theater is the uncut rated R version being released on DVD. So I
waited to review the film until I could get the definitive edition. This review
is about the Bluray release included in the four-disc collector’s edition.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Now, I recently wrote </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/review/RZDE98QKA559S"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">a review of Prometheus</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> defending its intelligence, and I went out of my way to make
it clear that most people who didn't get it or felt it was stupid were, in
fact, making a statement about their own intelligence. Granted, that statement
won’t win any points in my favor, but even so, upon listening to the director’s
commentary I was pleasantly surprised to hear Ridley Scott voice the same
opinion.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Usually I ignore movie reviews, as it
inevitably seems that everyone is a critic. But when there is a substantial
group attacking a film, and a film I think is rather excellent, I pay
attention. I want to see if it’s just a fan boys complaining, and mostly it is,
or if there is a genuine complaint. A lot of people seem to follow the herd and
will dislike a film simply because their friend said it was crap. Word of mouth
can be damaging, in such cases. Just look at the excellent <i>John Carter
of Mars</i> movie. One of the best science fiction films to come out in
years, and because of bad marketing and some promotional blunders, nobody knew
just how good it really was. So negative reviews began pouring in, and it was
clear that most of the people writing the reviews hadn't even seen
the movie!</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">However, on the rare instance when a reviewer
takes the time to do a very detailed criticism of a film, then that’s the
review I’m interested in. Jonathan Lack (from here on JL) wrote just such a
review. JL goes out of his way to list 100 reasons why he feels Prometheus is a
stupid film. After reading his reason, however, I feel the majority of them
simply don't hold water.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">What follows is my response to JL’s
complaints.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">[</span><b><span style="color: red; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Warning</span></b><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">: This is an in depth rebuttal to an in depth analysis, and is
spoilers from beginning to end. If you haven't seen the film, then go watch it
first and then come back later. If you've seen the film a dozen times, give or
take, then I'll let you be the judge of whether or not JL's complaints are
valid and whether or not my rebuttals adequately address and ultimately answer
them. My responses to JL's complaints are in blue.]</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #e06666;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">~***~</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Like any science fiction story, we must
acknowledge that the science always plays second fiddle to the story.
Prometheus is what is considered Hard Sci-Fi, meaning, it is based off real
science and all the technology and concepts should at least be feasible. I felt
the film stayed true to the spirit of science and I didn't see anything in the
film which was out of the realm of possibility, but JL begs to differ. Let’s
consider what he has to say and see if his complaints hold up, shall we?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Part 1: The Engineer's
Sacrifice</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">1. What is the planet in the opening
sequence? We never find out, and while ambiguity is fine in theory, what few
conclusions the viewer can make given subsequent evidence make absolutely no
sense. For instance, if we assume that the planet is Earth, major logical
issues arise, because…</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">It's Earth.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">What biology tells us is that unicellular biological
life arose on earth circa the Mesoproterozoic Era (c. 1600-1000 Ma).
Multi-cellular life is separated from its unicellular cousins by over 500
million years. So it is not difficult to assume that there would be mountains
with green fungi and water on the Earth's surface in the beginning of
Prometheus.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The competing hypotheses for the origins of
complex life include: The symbiotic theory, the cellularization (syncytial)
theory, and the colonial theory. In the film Prometheus, however, the filmmakers
are employing a concept found in genuine science which claims that the
ingredients for life may be </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#Extraterrestrial_organic_molecules"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">extraterrestrial in origin</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">. In
2009 NASA confirmed this </span><span style="line-height: 20px;">possibility</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> with numerous samples taken from comets which all had
the amino acids needed for the formation of the complex life.</span></span></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Here's the thing though, if aliens, like
the Engineers in the film Prometheus, did land on the planet Earth 500 million
years after unicellular life arose, there is nothing to suggest they couldn't
have kick started multicellular life. So JL's first argument is not
withstanding.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">2. This cannot be the origin of life on
Earth. It is what we are led to believe later on as we learn more about the
Engineers, but science tells us that life began hundreds of millions of years
ago, and the terrain we see in the opening sequence – mountains, rivers, snow,
etc. – is consistent with the modern geological era. When life originated on
Earth, the planet would look almost entirely different. Even if we just traced
humanity back to primates, we would be in a different geological era.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Land masses, i.e. continents, stabilized in
the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaeoproterozoic"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Paleoproterozoic Era</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> (c.
2,500 to 1,600 years ago). During this time bacteria which use the biochemical
process photosynthesis arose to produce oxygen. Things which use photosynthesis
usually turn green. Roughly 600 million years after this is when multicellular
life would have arisen, so JL is wrong about the science. A simple Wiki search shows
it is very possible to have a green planet 500 to 600 million years after the
start of photosynthesis. In the film only tundra and green lichen appear. The
rest is all rock or cold water. So the opening scene actually matches up with
the geological time frame and is not incorrect.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">3. If it is not Earth, what is the point of
this scene? The only way this sequence actually serves Prometheus in context is
if it depicts the creation event characters discuss later on. But if it’s not
Earth – and it cannot, by simple math, be Earth – then it serves no point in
the narrative.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Well, it's Earth. See rebuttals to 1 and 2.
Deal with it. Moving on.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">4. If we share a perfect DNA match with the
Engineers, why does the sacrificial Engineer’s DNA have to reconstitute itself?
We see the DNA break up and reform before starting cellular mitosis, but this
is not scientifically possible or necessary since Elizabeth Shaw later
discovers humans and Engineers share the exact same DNA strands, indicating
simple sexual reproduction and environment-based evolution, not complex DNA
reconstitution.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">This is just a cinematic representation of
the symbiotic theory of the multicellular generation of life. It's probably not
visually accurate, but come on, it's a fictional movie for crying out loud. Not
a science documentary. The thing to take away from this though, is the science
isn't that </span><span style="line-height: 20px;">far-fetched</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">. </span></span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicellular_life"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The
symbiotic theory</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> is one of the three
leading contenders for describing how life may have actually arose on planet Earth.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">5. There are no thrusters on the Engineers’
ship. When the Engineers’ spaceship leaves the mysterious planet, we see no
propulsion system of any sort that would allow it to fly. Even in futuristic
science fiction, the laws of physics should be obeyed.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The Engineers are an advanced race which
were technically and intellectually superior to humans 500 million years before
life even arose on Earth. So if they couldn't figure out how to manipulate the
magnetic fields and use a magnetic levitation drive, with nearly a billion
years of technologically advanced science between us and them, and the
Prometheus basically a toy rocket by comparison, I would have to admit that
I'd be surprised.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">I'm not expecting your average movie viewer
to be on the scientific cutting edge or anything, but hover cars are not exactly
a new concept. We've seen hover cars in all kinds of films, from The Fifth
Element to Star Wars to the Matrix to Back to the Future. Just because those vehicles had blinky
lights and glowing undercarriages doesn't mean they're more or less realistic
than the Engineer's ship. The whole idea behind Prometheus is that there is a
mysterious advanced civilization so superior to us that they seem like gods. If
their ship used puny thrusters... or generic binky lights... well... that
wouldn't be very god-like, now, would it?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The fact that the Engineer's ship rose
slowly, more like a dirigible than a rocket blasting off, suggests it was using
some kind of magnetic field manipulation to break free of the planetoids
gravitational pull. To me this seems something a super advance race of beings
would be capable of doing.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Besides this, NASA has been looking into
anti-gravity technologies since. The Russian physicist Dr. Eugene Podkletnov,
at Tampere University of Technology in Finland, claimed to have created
anti-gravitational fields while working on rotating superconductors in 1995.
The Max Planck Institute of Physics has also done research in this area. Ning
Li and her team theoretically demonstrated how a time dependent magnetic field
could cause the spins of the lattice ions in a superconductor to generate
detectable gravitomagnetic and gravitoelectric fileds. In a 1999 issue of Popular
Mechanics science magazine, Li claimed to have developed a working prototype
anti-gravity device. As recent as 2008 Martin Tajmar et al. claims to have
discovered artificial gravitational fields around rotating superconductors.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">There's more, but I think this is all I
need to make my point that if an advanced alien civilization began such
research over 500 million years ago, is it really out of the realm of
possibility that they figured out how to manipulate gravitational fields? Not
at all.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">But it seems the only reason JL objects at
all is because he's hung up on blinky lights and the cool effects of fiery
thrusters--and could care less about what the story is trying to say.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipix_3dpFcfxjq_2QdmVjv6U_6mrqApuooZpbGgbDcXG0sNi-DlubVC8vqdkRRVwHA4PTOR-0QS0bEdwmyErfeB21lEKnWcgJaYls1PHSVso9QfZugXDZcGH2BwwAje5qRzC1KLssUDkY/s1600/prometheus-spaceship-aircraft-movie-ridley-scott-alien-science-fiction.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipix_3dpFcfxjq_2QdmVjv6U_6mrqApuooZpbGgbDcXG0sNi-DlubVC8vqdkRRVwHA4PTOR-0QS0bEdwmyErfeB21lEKnWcgJaYls1PHSVso9QfZugXDZcGH2BwwAje5qRzC1KLssUDkY/s640/prometheus-spaceship-aircraft-movie-ridley-scott-alien-science-fiction.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Part 2 – The Beginning of the
Voyage</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">6. “I think they want us to come and find
them.” Why?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Let me see if I can answer this without
resorting to sarcasm. Why do they want the humans to come find them... um...
just taking a wild guess here... but maybe it's because they left a star chart
behind? A star chart that matched up with a real solar system no less.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">At this point I am not entirely sure if JL
was watching the same movie I was, because I thought that clue was perfectly
clear. They even said it was a "map" and then they follow that map
and it led them to the giant red X on the map. It doesn't answer the
exact <i>why</i> of the Engineer's purpose for leaving the map in the
first place (never mind that this question is probably what will lead us into a
sequel), but it just seems to me that using some simple abduction, we can
deduce that maps with arrows all pointing to a giant red X on them, and the
arrows all point to the same location on each map, is usually a good indicator
that they're meant to be followed. The guy in the cave painting is pointing his
finger, as if to say, go there. All one needs after the initial confirmation
that it's a real star system is the curiosity to follow the clue to its logical
conclusion, "Maybe they want us to find them?"</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">This is a logical issue that plagues all of
Prometheus, but it begins here. Dr. Shaw and Dr. Holloway see a cave painting
where a large figure points at a series of circles. Dr. Shaw says the above
piece of dialogue. Even if they had a way to know for sure what those circles
meant, and who the people in the paintings were, what about the picture
indicates humans are meant to go on an epic voyage? Dr. Shaw’s reasoning is
never provided.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Except that it's not a message so much as
it's a map. Again, giant red X's always mark the spot. Now remember the mission
is basically to go to that spot and see if there is any life. Why that spot and
not another different one? Well, because they were given a map that lead to
that spot! Does JL really think it would make more sense for the scientists who
pieced together a highly accurate star chart from various ancient signs from
multiple unrelated ancient civilizations simply ignored that. Oh, it's just a
coincidence. If that's the case, then where's the motivation for them to seek
funding, get a Prometheus, and fly to an alien world? Oh, wait, there is none.
There would effectively be no plot device to get the plot going. The story
would end before it ever began.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">7. Unit of Measurement Issue: 3.27 x 1024 km
is the distance given for how far Prometheus has travelled from Earth. Using
kilometers is ridiculous. Cosmic distances are not measured that way, but
through special cosmic measurements, like parsecs and light-years, that were
created so every scientist or observer could be on the same page about
celestial distances.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">While I agree that light years and parsecs
are the standard means of astrological measurement, all a parsec or light year
really is, is a measure of kilometers. I see nothing wrong with stating the
astronomical units exactly. A parsec is 30.857 x 10 to the 12 kilometers, so it
wouldn't make much sense to say, "Sir, we've almost traveled a fraction of
a parsec." In actuality, there is no real glaring logical issues here.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">8. Why are Dr. Shaw’s dreams fully edited
with multiple angles and cross fades when David watches them?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Because the software which translates the
dreams into visual images is programmed to display them cinematically, since
that's what humans have grown accustomed to? Does it even matter? It's just a
cool scene in the story. This is one of those instances where there is no harm
no foul. Just roll with it people.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">9. Who is the little girl with the violin
seen in dreams and other ship images over and over again? Again,
ambiguity isn't an inherent problem, but when there is no
interpretive context, it sticks out like a sore thumb.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Ever heard of a music video? Complaints
like this annoy me, because there is really no purpose to bring them up in the
first place. Basically JL is saying he doesn't like this violin scene because
he can't see how it fits into the story. But why does every little element need
to fit into the intricate plot precisely? Can't it just be dressing to add a
bit of texture to the film? It's not too hard to think that humans would take
music into space. Heck, astronauts do it all of the time. Does it need to have
a meaning? Or is JL just over thinking things way too much?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">I should mention that in the deleted scenes
the violin sequence does actually play a more significant role in the plot.
There is a cut scene where Dr. Shaw is on the emergency vehicle hiding behind
the bar, and the Engineer stops to enjoy the music. He follows the music with
his hand, showing in a brief glimpse, that he appreciates music--and perhaps
shares a closer connection to his human progeny than we were earlier led to
believe. But that scene got cut out of the film, and the Engineer comes off as
cold, cruel, and helluva frightening. I like the scene, and am glad they
included it on the special features.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Ridley Scott goes one further on the
commentary stating that music is a universal code, a type of language that
transcends cultures, and this is true. He had it in his mind that music might
be used as a means of communication between intelligent beings, sort of like in
Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters film. Although this is just background
information from the Director's commentary, but it shows perhaps the motivation
for the scene.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">10. Why does the Prometheus begin flashing
red warning lights, having other lights flicker in and out, and start tipping
from side to side when it nears its destination? We see no evidence of any
outer interference that would cause these issues.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Wind turbulence perhaps?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">As I recall, there is substantial
discussion about a storm picking up in the film as they are landing. "Now
that's weather!" one of the crew members shouts.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">It seems that on a planet with an
atmosphere similar to Earth's, there would be air currents. When they land
there is cloudy dark skies with lightening, not exactly indicators of friendly
weather. The storm picks up later on. In fact, the storm plays a key element in
the plot. So, as I figured it, they're basically flying into a storm, and just
set down a few hours ahead of it. Why is this so hard for some to piece
together? Does there have to be exposition for every freakin' scene? One of the
things I liked about this film was that it didn't hold your hand. It didn't
consider its audience to be a bunch of dupes. They landed, and a storm came. So
it makes sense to consider that, perhaps, they were getting nipped by the
approaching turbulence of that same storm.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">11. <b>How could David, an android, play
a flute? </b>As a robot, he would be in no need of lungs or a diaphragm,
so where would the air needed to blow into the flute come from? In fact,
Holloway and David converse, while prepping for the first expedition, about how
David does not breathe, therefore not having the capacity to blow air into a
flute. David can presumably speak without lungs or a diaphragm because he has a
voice box or chip – which is how he can communicate after his head is severed –
but he wouldn't be able to play a flute.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">It could be said that David doesn't breathe
because he doesn't have to breathe. However, this doesn't mean he doesn't have
lungs. Even the most primitive robots around today, such as Cardiopulmonary resuscitation
mannequins have lungs. It would make sense that David, a highly sophisticated
android, would have lungs too. Whether or not he needed to use them is a
different matter.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Meanwhile, I have a much bigger problem
with this criticism. There is a scene in the movie where one of the crew says
it is strange to see David eat food. David simply replies that the reason he
eats is to create the illusion of being human, because humans become extremely
uncomfortable around robots that don't look entirely human. Therefore
these humanism's help to create an illusion of normalcy. I think it's
safe to say we can assume the breathing is another feature built into David's
design to complete that illusion.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Now here's my problem, the fact that this
conversation is actually in the film, makes me think that this gripe is a
rather silly one. It's one thing to over think the finer details of a film,
it's entirely another thing not to think at all when critiquing the film. I
think this gripe reflects the latter rather than the prior, and once again
shows the logical deficiency here isn't to be found in the film itself.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIUQbBGj3YVUaTDyzWuTWpUTzflteb_lS8MFnSK-Idw4y6-_3zZFb3CK-69Z1k7WLepQQDLj51G0T1uAo-mDehrWmpoAcRwjhDMY1_1q-P_L_UIk8YY_fQXFgWqgARay6WKAHMQYGUHJU/s1600/Prometheus-Spaceship-Landing-Movie-Ridley-Scott-Alien-Science-Fiction-2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIUQbBGj3YVUaTDyzWuTWpUTzflteb_lS8MFnSK-Idw4y6-_3zZFb3CK-69Z1k7WLepQQDLj51G0T1uAo-mDehrWmpoAcRwjhDMY1_1q-P_L_UIk8YY_fQXFgWqgARay6WKAHMQYGUHJU/s640/Prometheus-Spaceship-Landing-Movie-Ridley-Scott-Alien-Science-Fiction-2012.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Part 3 – The Arrival</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">12. Why does David not know what ‘casualties’
are when Meredith Vickers asks him? As a hyper-intelligent
android, shouldn't David have a dictionary in his memory banks?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">David isn't confused about the term, he's
saying, "Casualties, mum?" As in, "WTF do you mean, bitch? I
gotz it under control!" Then Vickers gets pissy with him, "Did
anybody die?" And he reiterates, "No, mum." David clearly knows
what casualties are, he's just answering Vickers in a British accent. It's
strange that this is the second time JL has been tripped up by British
conversation. Here's an idea, watch some British television once in a while!
For Pete's sake!</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">13. The geologist tells the biologist “I’m
here to make money.” Why would Weyland hire someone motivated solely by greed
for this crucial mission? Seriously. Over a trillion dollars were spent
preparing the voyage, and the mission is to seek out the single biggest
scientific discovery in human history. I understand that the scientists were
not briefed beforehand for security reasons, but wouldn’t you try finding
someone a little bit more…eager?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">So, my question is why couldn't Earth's
best geologist also be a bit of a mammon worshiping douchebage? I
mean, there is nothing that says a professional can't have vices. Why is this
even a complaint? Maybe the guy just happens to be the best at the job--and at
the same time--be a total prick. Also, from my viewing I felt the geologist
character was a bit of a coward, explaining why he may not have been overly
eager. So again, I don't see why this is a complaint about the film. It's
called character building.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">14. Why is Guy Pearce playing an extremely
old man? The make-up is awful, the performance is hokey, and it’s all because
Pearce is not Weyland’s actual age and has to overcompensate wildly. Why could
they not hire an actual elderly actor. In fact, since Pearce’s old man voice
sounds almost identical to legendary performer Malcolm McDowell, who happens to
be much closer to Weyland’s actual age, why not just hire the actual Malcolm
McDowell?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">No, the makeup isn't awful. The dude is
supposed to be over a hundred years old. It's like JL has never actually even
seen an extremely, older than dirt, person before. </span><a href="https://www.google.co.jp/search?sugexp=chrome,mod%3D0&q=oldest+person+alive&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=mBSVUJCzJLGdiAeqpYDQAQ&biw=924&bih=871&sei=oRSVUKHRKeaeiAfG04Eo"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">They actually look like Weyland looked</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> in the film.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Additionally, in the special features Guy
Pearce asks the exact same question, why pick me to play the part of an old man
and not an elderly actor? He then answers that question. Ridley Scott wanted to
portray Weyland with an exuberance and determination which is found in people
typically more youthful. This energy of a stubborn old man comes out in the
imperfect performance of a younger man playing an older one. I for one think
Pearce did a marvelous job. The end scene when the Engineer awakens and Weyland
is trying to talk to him was extremely convincing. Again, I don't think this is
much of a valid complaint.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">15. The position of hieroglyphic circles
would not lead Prometheus to a specific spot in space. This is the explanation
Dr. Holloway gives for how they found the planet, but there are multiple flaws
in his reasoning. First, if these cave paintings really were separated by
centuries, star coordinates and positions would be drastically different to
each separate culture, as they move and change through time. Even then, five
circles painted simplistically on a wall could never serve as actual cosmic
coordinates to a tiny, minute section of space, because the universe is
incredibly vast. That pattern of five circles would appear all over the Milky
Way galaxy, let alone other galaxies. It’s not nearly specific enough to serve
as a map.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">This is the first valid nitpick we come
across, but again, it really doesn't matter. This is one of those instances
that the storytelling trumps the science because length and pacing to keep the
plot moving along are more important than going into technical specifics to
explain how the scientists may have pieces together the puzzle. The piecing it
together isn't what's important here. The important thing is they did, and it
lead them to the planetary system which gets the story rolling. So although the
criticism about the technical aspects of stellar cartography is correct, it's
irrelevant as such details are superfluous and aren't needed to progress the
plot. It's much easier to suspend one's disbelief and just go with it--because
hey--it's a freakin' fictional movie--not an astronomy documentary on how to
read star charts.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">16. What does Dr. Holloway mean by a
“galactic system?” This is what he calls the place they are going, but he
describes the system as a star similar to Earth’s sun with a nearby planet and
moon. That would technically be called a solar system, like the one Earth
exists in.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Actually, this is incorrect. The Solar
system is just what we call our planetary system which revolves around our sun,
which happens to be named Sol. Ah, Sol, Solar, get it? There are also star
systems minus any planets. The technical term used for other star systems is
"extrasolar" or "exoplanetary" systems.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">So the question remains, is Holloway's
techno-babble incorrect? I don't know. We could assume he is referring to
a </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_coordinate_system"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">galactic coordinate system</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">, or
galactic system for short. As he is talking about identifying the star system
they have arrived at, it makes sense to talk about it as a galactic system.
Just saying.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">17. Odd syntax: “There seems to be a planet,”
says Dr. Holloway, “but there is a moon capable of sustaining life.” Why can
the crew’s interstellar scanners pick up minute details like a life-bearing
moon with absolute certainty, but only ‘seem’ to show an entire planet?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">This is an example of a movie viewer simply
making himself confused because he didn't pay attention to the movie. They knew
the planet was there. But when they got there they found out it's not capable
of supporting life, which is what they have come all this way to find. Low and
behold, there is a small moon which is capable of supporting life. It makes
sense that this moon was either hidden by the massive gas giant it orbits, or
that their long rang scanners weren't precise enough to pick up the moon the
first time around. Now that they have arrived at their galactic coordinates,
they discover the moon. Not that hard to follow.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">18. Why does Dr. Shaw assert that the
paintings are “an invitation?” It seems like a very broad assumption to make
based on such a minuscule amount of evidence.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">See my answer to 6. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Additionally, Holloway earlier states that
"Maybe they want us to find them." But this is ultimately their
"thesis." However, I would like to reiterate something here. If
all the ancient civilizations of mankind did have the exact same "star
chart" hidden in their ancient art, then wouldn't that be an indicator
that something wanted these civilizations to discover the same thing? If so,
that denotes intelligence behind the symbol, and if the symbol is an arrow
pointing in a direction to a destination, then that seems pretty obviously a type
of invitation to follow the yellow brick road.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">I felt I had to paint a broader image of
giant arrows all pointing to the same spot... because, to me, that would be an
implicit sign to, you know, go in that direction. It also happens to be why I
find this complaint so stupid. JL is basically standing on this road with
blinking arrows, arrows from various paths which all point in the same
direction down this exact road, see? But JL asks, "What on Earth could it
all possibly mean?" I mean, seriously? It's a
rather numskull gripe if you ask me.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">19. Why do Drs. Shaw and Holloway assume the
tall creatures in the paintings are aliens? The only distinguishing
characteristic about the so-called ‘aliens’ is that they are tall, and pointing
at circles. Why do those circles have to be planets? Why do those beings have
to be aliens? What makes Shaw and Holloway think of such a thing in the first
place, let alone assume it to be undeniably true? Still, it’s not nearly as
massive a logical leap as…</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">This complaint is technically about back
story. Yeah, we don't know anything about their research other than they have
collected all this data about these types
of archaeological artifacts, and, well, that's all we know. Maybe
they have other information the audience is unaware of that leads them to that
conclusion. In this case, the back story isn't necessary. It's stated they are
extraterrestrial, for whatever reason, and that's all we need to know.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">20. What reason does Dr. Shaw have to assert
that the aliens “engineered us?” Here’s how the exchange goes in the film. “We
call them engineers,” Shaw says. The geologist asks why. “They engineered us,”
she replies. No further explanation is given. Shaw simply makes the
ridiculously cavernous leap from ‘cave paintings with stars’ to ‘we have found
the origin of all life on Earth.’ She has not a shred of evidence – not even a
little detail that suggests her larger conjecture – to prove this, and yet she
asserts it as absolute fact. When the Geologist continues to grill her on the
point, as any sane person would, she has no answers, no evidence, no shred of
logical reasoning to explain why the entire history of human scientific theory
is now null and void. All she says is “It is what I choose to believe.” Which
is infuriating, and leads me to my next point…</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Again, this deals with the working
hypothesis about the origins of life being extraterrestrial in origin (this is
the conceptual part of the science in this science fiction). It's part of the
premise of the film. Assuming humans still haven't solved the abiogenesis
riddle fifty to sixty years from now, it makes sense that alternative theories
would come to the forefront of investigation. The fact that they are
investigating human life to be extraterrestrial in origin to begin with
probably means they ran into such dead ends. As such, I don't think this is
anything to complain about. It's just trivial, minor details that needn't be
hashed out. I am beginning to wonder why JL is so hung up on these
non-questions though.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">21. How can Elizabeth Shaw be considered an
actual scientist when “It is what I choose to believe” is her only reason
behind a trillion dollar interstellar voyage? That’s not science. That’s not
even logic. Believing wholeheartedly in something without a shred of proof is
closer to religion, and even then, most faiths can point to some real-world
event that fuels their belief. Not Dr. Shaw. She’s just insane, and everyone
around her goes along with it without batting an eyelash.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Obviously JL didn't watch the film. It's
what Weyland chooses to believe too, albeit for entirely selfish purposes. So
Weyland isn't funding a 'scientific' mission in the normal sense. He's funding
a personal expedition, a search for the fountain of youth--eternal life--which
just so happens to be masquerading as a scientific one.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">22. Who is the Prometheus sending messages
to? Holloway, Shaw, and David discuss how they have had “no response” from the
planet, but what was the message? Who were they sending it to? If they have
never been to or mapped out the planet, how and where would they send it in the
first place? Even digital messages need another digital receptacle. They can’t
just be sent out into the ether in hopes of getting a response.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">This is simply protocol. If you received an
intelligent transmission from another planet, you ping them back in response,
thus signaling that you received their message. The </span><a href="http://www.seti.org/"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">SETI Institute</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> is sending out messages right now hoping to get a ping
back from E.T.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The reason Prometheus probably sends out a
message, is simply to see if anyone is home. Not getting a response, they
decide to investigate.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">23. Holloway, David, and the script do not
understand basic linguistic theory. David tells Holloway he can communicate
with the aliens “provided your thesis is correct.” There is no possible way
Holloway could formulate a thesis about alien language in the first place, and
if he did, no expectation for it to be true. I assume his thesis is that the
basis of human languages come from the engineers, which is not only completely
and utterly unfounded and unverified by the film’s internal logic, but
absolutely impossible in reality. The thesis supposes that humans must be
taught how to communicate, or to have it instilled, but it’s actually a natural
ability all humans possess. That is why we have had thousands of languages
throughout history, even though, for a long time, humans from one part of the
world could not communicate with humans from other parts. Even if
that weren't true, for Holloway’s thesis to be correct, all languages
would have to have the exact same foundation, but they don’t. Chinese and
English, for instance, are completely different. There is no possible way David
could trace all human language back to one sole root and somehow learn to speak
the Engineers’ language.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Holloway's thesis is that multicellular
life was "seeded" by extraterrestrials. It has nothing to do with
language or linguistics. Moreover, David is studying Sanskrit, which is the
basis for all human languages on Earth. If he can figure out the code of human
language, then it would simply be a matter of deciphering patterns of speech
for an alien language. Assuming Holloway's thesis is correct, that our DNA
comes from the aliens, then our biologies might be similar and our capacity to
learn language might be similar as well.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">My guess is that David, being an android,
and having learned all of Earth's languages (from the Sanskrit
up—sorry, couldn't resist), is looking for linguistic patterns which
might help in learn the Engineer's language. Later in the film, he learns to
read their symbols, and then again in the stellar cartography room he learns
the patterns on the console by watching the hologram and listening to them
speak. So it makes sense that he had enough information to put together basic
linguistic patterns and formulate a rudimentary version of the alien language.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">24. How does the Prometheus just happen to
land exactly where they want to be as soon as they arrive? No scans of the
place, no geological surveys; the Prometheus just happens upon a massive alien
structure where all the film’s action will take place the moment they arrive.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">In the film, they spotted what appear to be
ancient runway marker when the Prometheus comes down out of the atmosphere,
markers similar to the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_Lines"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Nazca lines
found in Peru</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">. Since geoglyphs are man-mad,
it makes sense the Prometheus would have picked that spot to land. Again, it's
all right there in the film. No big mystery. If you want a more technically
satisfying answer, here it is: the Prometheus is a two trillion dollar
spaceship with state of the art computer and navigation systems, which probably
scanned the moon as they orbited it and the ship's computer picked the ideal
location to land, which just so happened to be an ancient launch pad for an
alien ship. Again, no big mystery.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrycP5OJxPAxP2FWQEd5nqqOd7KCGS0w6OaXELKx5pL_poaukKFfXnUO-AaoDFsWiH2cKuZYLhHuPsgBXAvhjvZrGK2zlqSSeM1bKosm5mgczSTp96nDE_jW1ZjMuEc4YOoX8q8cKBLbU/s1600/Prometheus_movie_05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrycP5OJxPAxP2FWQEd5nqqOd7KCGS0w6OaXELKx5pL_poaukKFfXnUO-AaoDFsWiH2cKuZYLhHuPsgBXAvhjvZrGK2zlqSSeM1bKosm5mgczSTp96nDE_jW1ZjMuEc4YOoX8q8cKBLbU/s640/Prometheus_movie_05.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Part 4 – Entering the Monolith</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">25. Why is Holloway so insistent that they
enter the structure right away, when it’s almost night? No scientist would ever
lack that much caution. Nobody on that crew would go along with him. Does no
one worry about safety?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Not in a science fiction movie that is the
precursor to Alien. This is about building suspense. We know they know better.
But their intrepid desire to explore and their abundant curiosity get the best
of them, and it causes the audience to scoot to the edge of their seats.
"You fools!" we scream. "Don't you know any better?" Maybe
they do, maybe they don't. But the story would be less compelling if everyone
always went by the book. But we're talking about the Alien franchise here, and
how does the saying go again? "In space, no one can here you
complain." Yeah, something like that.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">26. Why does Holloway want to know if the
structure is natural or not? How the hell could it be natural? It was obviously
constructed. Not five minutes ago, he uttered the words “God doesn’t build in
straight lines,” so why does he assume God builds architectural formations?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Okay, so JL answers his own gripe to
complaint #25 by actually quoting the very lines from the movie (from the very
scene I referenced as the rebuttal to his previous complaint?). Okay, I have a
complaint about this article, but I probably should just keep it to myself
because it will come off sounding overly mean. I will say this much, it has
something to do with logical consistency.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">27. How does the crew know where to go in the
structure? The Geologist says “Pops are saying this way,” but it’s all just one
big circle, and they don’t even know what they’re looking for yet, so what sort
of directional measurements are they using?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Well, they start walking in a circle then,
don't they? Oh, and I think he says "Pups" not "Pops." It's
the swanky accent, but I'm pretty certain the other dog cliches, such as the
howling at the moon routine that Fifield does, is a dead giveaway.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">28. Why does Holloway take his helmet off?
What if the scans were wrong? He would die almost instantly. Even if he had
complete faith in the scans, no scientist would ever do something so unsafe,
not just for their own health, but because exposing one’s breath to their
surroundings could contaminate the archaeological site. And why,
then, does everyone else just go along with Holloway, take their helmets off,
risk their lives, and contaminate the hell out of the incredible alien cavern?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Because he's a balls to the wall
adventurer! This is what classic sci-fi is all about! Danger Will Robinson!
Illogical Captain. Why does Dr. Who always rush into the most dangerous areas
with nothing more than a sonic screwdriver? Why does Captain Piccard always
beam down on away missions when he's not supposed to? Why is it whenever
someone finds a new Stargate, turns it on, they decide to walk through it not
knowing where they'll end up? Why? They're bold adventurers and risk takers. It
makes the show exciting! Don't like it? Don't watch sci-fi.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">29. Provides wrong definition of
‘terraforming’ when explaining presence of breathable atmosphere. In a
theoretical terraforming process, the whole planet would be covered, not just
one contained outpost, and the other goal would be to make the earth arable for
crops. Whatever this is, it is not the result of terraforming.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">I didn't remember any mention of
terraforming, so I had to go back and watch this part of the film again.
Actually, the statement is spoken as a suggestion, "They were terraforming
here." It's just thrown out there by Millburn, as a suggestion for how
there could be oxygen like on Earth, his theory, "They were
terraforming." The line probably would be less confusing if he would have
said, "They must have been terraforming." But on a closer viewing of
the scene, it doesn't seem to be a problem. Nobody else agrees with him, so it
is quickly forgotten, much like this complaint, and the story moves on.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">30. How does David know how to enter codes into
the walls and read the written language fluently? Even if the alien alphabet
were somehow connected to primitive Earth languages, David could not magically
become fluent from such minor amounts of information. And even if we ignore
that, how on earth would David know anything about this complex code system on
the wall that have no basis in human communication? Where would he derive the
knowledge from?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">He has pattern recognition software and
advanced algorithms which allow him to figure it out.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">This technology already exists. Most
frequently employed in Photoshop software like Adobe Photo. Every 'touch up'
feature uses this sort of technology to magically take out a blotchy spot and
replace it with a replicated pattern which the software recognizes by scanning
the surrounding patterns, then using an algorithm, generates the same patterns
and replaces the splotch. Retina scanning and finger print biometric security
are other examples of pattern recognition software. There's also </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_ECG_interpretation"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Automated ECG interpretation</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> software
developed by Hewlett Packard to be incorporated into clinical devices. Then
there is IBM's </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_(computer)"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">WATSON</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">I'm sure David, being a highly advanced
android, would have no problem computing an alien language. Heck, we have
iPhones that talk to us, and almost all recent computers have voice recognition
software. Combine all this and you get a means to figuring out alien symbols.
Additionally, in the scene, David actually get's it wrong once, testing the
panel, and does something different to activate the holograms running down the
hall--a sort of video playback of what happened 2,000 years ago on
that spot. So this shows that David is actually learning through trial and
error and doesn't just automatically know how to work the alien tech.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">31. Where did the Prometheus security officer
go? Before the crew disembarks, Shaw speaks to a security officer, who
demonstrates his weaponry. Where did he go off to? Once they enter the
structure, he’s just gone.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">He stayed on the ship. Besides, I don't
recall real astronauts always taking a security detail whenever they land on
the moon. He was there just to "See that the are safe." This could
mean that he has prepared them for eventual problems. But Shaw states right off
the bat that there will be NO guns of any kind. No weapons means the security
officer is just extra baggage and isn't needed. Since this is plain as day in
the film, and the no weapons thing was asserted so forcefully, I don't see this
complaint as anything other than the expectation of the viewer *wanting the
security officer to accompany them on the mission. But he wouldn't have
anything to do, so they simply did what the story called for, left him on the
ship.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">32. Why would the Geologist run away
terrified upon seeing the dead body? Actual Geologists also study fossils, and
since the body is thousands of years old, it has been fossilized. He should be
fascinated by the opportunity to study alien fossils, but instead, he runs
away. And why would the Biologist – whose mission in life is to study organisms
– be frightened by the chance to study an extraterrestrial corpse?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">We have already established that the
Fifield and Millburn characters are the Shaggy and Scooby of this film--a
couple of yellow bellies. There's no reason to try to rationalize why they
don't do their jobs, the point is they're both too stricken with cowardice to
do their jobs, which is why they ultimately turn tail and bail out on the
mission, only to end up getting lost. Asking why they'd be frightened is simply
asking why didn't the writers write more mundane characters. It's a stupid
complaint. The fact that they are cowards makes them flawed enough to create
tension in the film.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">33. Why does David just start messing with
stuff in the room? Yes, David has a ‘curious personality,’
but wouldn't the sophisticated android be programmed to least know
and follow the scientific method, operating with caution and documenting his
findings?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">David has an IQ of over 300 (see films
commentary), so maybe he's not "messing" per say. Maybe he's
intuitively keen as to the functioning of the ship. Also, David is programmed
for an altogether different mission from the rest of the crew. This is what
makes him such a dangerous character--it's his secret agenda that brings all
the chaos and destruction upon everyone.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">34. “I think we've affected the
atmosphere in the room!” Why would they not have thought about that before,
like when they took their helmets off in the first place, which automatically
affects the atmosphere? They could have destroyed the single biggest scientific
find in human history because they were so gun ho, and when they see
the atmosphere changing, nobody takes personal responsibility for the mistake.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">This complaint is rather stupid. This scene
is after David opens the door to the sanctuary against their judgment, so in
essence, the viewer here is merely reflecting the views of all the characters
that told David not to open the door--but were too later, since David had
already opened the door. Which means this complaint has already been addressed
by the film, which means, there is absolutely no reason to bring it up.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">At any rate, after David opens the door to
the sanctuary, they find out that this changed the atmosphere in the room,
which is causing the egg-like canisters to liquidize, which David takes a
sample of, and this all ties into David's secret agenda.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">35. What’s the giant face on the cliff? When
the crew runs away from the violent sandstorm, we see a giant face in the side
of the cliff, a big carving like Mount Rushmore. Why is it there? What is its
purpose? Why do we never see anything about it again?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Yeah, it's definitely there. Maybe the big
structure they're in was elaborately carved out to look like the head in the
sanctuary, and the storm blasts away the sediment and build up over the past
2,000 years to reveal the specter like face lurking underneath. Or maybe it's
just some cinematic foreplay? It doesn't really matter. It's spooky, and just
an artistic choice, and makes the sequence more frightening. Does the
mysterious face need to be a key point in the plot? If so, the question would
be, why? And how would this progress the plot? Asking ourselves this, we can
clearly see there is no answer. As such, it's probably safer to assume is was
just an artistic choice to add more texture to the film, maybe a little
foreshadowing.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Tristan Vickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05348780254008374268noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094534530492548197.post-72872015863564054152012-11-16T05:50:00.000-08:002012-11-16T17:09:00.077-08:00Playing with Fire: A Defense of the film Prometheus (Part 2)<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJZRMqgxbAYSVsHxKQzbjmy32E3svRgIhJquyc5_0dOgx4jZlYo6H8c-7tcJqtjbCJwP2ET5qhdtM7FXKD12mvZn3R9eo1_bveirrP9IUcvnGnvSrHo24IBmEQZG86SDphxXMNHxk-qKk/s1600/prometheus-hologram-movie-ridley-scott-alien-science-fiction-2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJZRMqgxbAYSVsHxKQzbjmy32E3svRgIhJquyc5_0dOgx4jZlYo6H8c-7tcJqtjbCJwP2ET5qhdtM7FXKD12mvZn3R9eo1_bveirrP9IUcvnGnvSrHo24IBmEQZG86SDphxXMNHxk-qKk/s640/prometheus-hologram-movie-ridley-scott-alien-science-fiction-2012.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Playing With Fire: A Defense of the
film Prometheus (Part 2)</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">[</span><b><span style="color: red; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Warning</span></b><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">: This is an in depth rebuttal to an in depth analysis, and is
spoilers from beginning to end. If you haven't seen the film, then go watch it
first and then come back later. If you've seen the film a dozen times, give or
take, then I'll let you be the judge of whether or not JL's complaints are
valid and whether or not my rebuttals adequately address and ultimately answer
them. My responses to JL's complaints are in blue.]</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #e06666;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">~***~</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Part 5 – Return to the Ship</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">36. Shaw and Holloway should be dead from
sandstorm buffeting. Shaw is flung across the entire cargo bay, hitting the
back wall hard, but even ignoring that, there’s no way the spacesuits would
protect them from that volume of sharp, dangerous, fast-moving sediment.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Yeah, because the people in Dubai die every
time a sand storm hits them. No, wait... they don't. Also, let's assume these
are better spacesuits than the ones we currently have. We already have fabrics
stronger than steel, so maybe these suits are made of really sturdy material?
Their helmets are probably 9th gen Gorilla glass. So they're probably harder to
dent than steel too. Apart from some nasty bruises, maybe a cracked rib, I
don't see any reason to assume Shaw and Holloway would just die upon getting
caught up in a sand storm.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The Prometheus story takes place in the
future, so we can't expect that their tech will be equivalent to ours. They're
most likely much more advanced. So if a viewer is going to complain about the
tech, they have to think forward to the time the story takes place and then ask
themselves whether it is possible that they could have, for example, sturdier
materials for building state of the art space suits.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">What JL has simply done is brought the
futuristic space suits into the past, and then has made them equivalent to our
technological status, thus degrading them to a more primitive state, then
complaining because today's standard of tech don't pass the sand storm in space
test. This is stupid. If you are going to gripe about something like this, you
have to keep it within the context of the story, otherwise, you've simply
raised a non-issue. Which is exactly what this is.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">37. How does the Captain not know where the
Geologist and Biologist are? He has a camera feed and a 3D map we previously
saw him examining. For that matter, How can the Geologist and Biologist get
lost at all if the Captain has this map to locate them?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">They went off the charted region of the
map. They state the probe stopped where it found life, and being the cowards
they are, they headed the other direction, and subsequently walked off the
charted map. Presumably all the other probes were busy or else finished. Maybe
they automatically shut down? Harmonizations aside, all I know is that it's not
a necessary point to drive the plot, so it's
an unnecessary complaint.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">38. Why, when analyzing the alien head, does
the computer say “SAMPLE STERILE: NO CONTAGION PRESENT?” Not three minutes
later, they will examine the head and see cells “in a state of change,” which
would absolutely count as a contagion.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Because they scanned the helmet, not the
head inside it. The chronology is right there in the film. First they scanned
the helmet, opened it, found big face underneath, then they jammed the medical
thingy into the head's ear, tricked it into waking up, then whatever infection
it had awakened along with it, and pop-goes-the-alien. No confusion at all if
you assume the scanners couldn't penetrate the helmet. If you assume they could
penetrate the helmet, then this would kill the scene dead, because they'd never
open the mask. They'd just freeze it or destroy it, and well, no suspense</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">So let's assume that the scanners couldn't
get through the alien mask... at least not well... since the scanners detected
a head underneath. But let's assume the helmet was interfering with the scan,
or couldn't pick up the genetic mutagens because they weren't activated yet
because they hadn't tried to revive the alien head yet. Again, this is yet
another instance where the requisite to keep the story going trumps the
"what ifs" which are all but unnecessary if there is no reason for
asking them. Is there really a good reason for asking why the scanners cannot
penetrate the alien's mask? No? Okay then. Moving on.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">39. Why does Dr. Shaw have David just break
the ‘helmet’ apart without doing any analysis on it? That would be a
significant scientific and archaeological find, but they just destroy
the helmet without batting an eyelash.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Actually, Shaw states they don't know how
to open it, and David just comes over and figures it out. Again, without
letting them have the opportunity to object. Just pay attention to the film
next time, please.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">40. “I think we can trick the nervous system
into thinking it’s still alive.” But why bother? Dr. Shaw has the single most
amazing discovery in all of human history in her hands, an actual alien head,
and instead of investigating the bone structure, the organs, or the cells they
see changing and multiplying, she decides to shock the head with increasingly
powerful amounts of electricity. Why? We never find out. The absolute most that
could happen is some facial muscles would twitch. Otherwise, dead is dead, and
all Dr. Shaw accomplishes in going electro-crazy is blowing up this massively
significant scientific discovery. It may be the stupidest thing any so-called
‘scientist’ has ever done in a movie.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Supposedly the helmet preserved the head
and the face well enough to attempt a revitalization (using an unspecified
tech). Maybe Shaw was hoping she could revitalize it long enough to talk to it?
The bigger question is why is this scene even in the movie? Does it actually
progress the plot? Not really. But it does add a suspenseful sequence where
there is a lull in the storytelling and this helps pick up the pacing. In other
words, this scene is necessary so the audience doesn't lose interest in the
story when it shifts to character pieces after having been non-stop action
sequences thus far. Watching scientists just do mundane lab work would kill the
story dead. So instead, they make like Frankenstein, and get their freak on.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">41. Dr. Shaw – and the script – do not
understand how DNA works. When Dr. Shaw runs the exploded alien head’s DNA, she
finds that it is a 100 percent match with humans. She then, in a later scene,
concludes emphatically that they must have ‘created’ us. That is a faulty
deduction. A 100 percent DNA match means that the Engineers are humans. Their
physical features are different because they lived and evolved in separate
environments than us, but make no mistake: Identical DNA means identical
species. That’s still a massively significant discovery, of course, to find
other human life in the universe, but it absolutely does not mean that these
creatures ‘made’ humans through some sort of intelligent design.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Actually, yeah it does. Just as we have the
technology to clone today, making a human clone would technically be
intelligent design, and it would also be 100% human. These aliens seeded Earth
with their own DNA, in this story at least, and humans arose. Which means, yes,
the alien race is technically a more evolved version of humans. Thus, Shaw is
right in both instances. She discovers the DNA is an exact match, and like the
clone analogy, they *engineered us by using their own DNA to create us--that's
the definition of intelligent design. So I don't get the objection here.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">42. Why is Holloway so depressed? I hate this
character so damn much, and this scene is the reason why. While getting drunk
off his ass, he asks Shaw if she thinks they wasted their time coming here,
which is a ridiculously stupid thing to say. They found ALIEN LIFE!!! It is
literally the greatest discovery in human history, and Holloway wants to drink
himself to death because he did not get to “talk” to them. Bullocks. For one,
he’s still assuming they were our ‘creators,’ which Shaw’s little DNA test just
scientifically disproved, and more importantly, nothing in Holloway’s previous
actions indicated why he would be so obsessed with getting “answers.” He’s such
a thin character that we have no idea what his motivations would be for wanting
to know ‘where we came from,’ or anything else like that. His depression makes
absolutely no sense, and it’s infuriating.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">***This is probably the first gripe I agree
with. I too didn't like Holloway's attitude, and I found it really did nothing
for the character. I also stopped liking him after this scene, because before,
he was a daredevil explorer! After this scene, he's just a douchebag. So when
Holloway dies, I don't feel anything for him. If I would have liked Holloway
until his dramatic demise, I'm sure his death would have made a bigger impact.
So I fully agree, this depression of the character seemed out of place here.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">43. Why does the Captain screw with the
Geologist and Biologist, subtly convincing them to go look for the source of
the scanner ‘ping?’ Does he get off on putting crew members in
danger?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Maybe he's just giving them something to
do? That's the vibe I got from the scene.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">44. Why is Shaw trying to ‘figure out’ what
made the alien head combust? Is pumping it full of electricity not a good
enough reason? There are risks to reckless experimentation, you know.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">See rebuttals to 38 and 40.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">45. More faulty science: “Their genetic
material predates ours; we come from them.” Shaw has no possible way to know
this. We are told specifically how old the alien body was – “two-thousand
years, give or take” – which means that 2000 years is the absolute furthest her
equipment could ‘date’ anything in the body, and automatically nullifies her
conclusion.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Again, it helps to pay attention to the
film. These are separate issues entirely. Shaw dates the dead body to 2,000
years old. That means, this is how far back it was since the body had died.
Their genetic material of the alien race is obviously older, since they are the
Engineers of human life, and must have been technologically advanced 500
million years before life on Earth (seen in the film’s opening sequence). So
Shaw can deduce that their genetic material predates ours. Again, these are two
separate topics in the film. I don't even see how JL conflated these two
points, because I sure didn't. I'd be interested to know if anybody else found
this problematic, and if so, why?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">46. Why does Holloway automatically assume
that the Engineers would have been able to tell the humans about their own
creators? The entire point behind the Prometheus mission is that we know
nothing about our creators, so why assume the Engineers would be able to
explain everything about theirs.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">I don't actually understand this complaint.
I don't recall any scene where Holloway talks about drilling the Engineers on
their own creators? I even skipped to this area of the film and watched the
scenes where this supposed dialog occurred and didn't find anything
substantial. So without knowing what JL has in mind here, I’m just going to
ignore it and move on.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">47. What about Holloway and Shaw indicate
that they want to have children? Never mind how awkward Shaw’s “I can’t create
life” line sounds in context. Just consider how strange it seems for these two
people, who travel around the world looking at cave paintings and are now on a
multi-year space exploration, to think they could lead a parental lifestyle.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">What? This isn't even a complaint.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The characters are obviously a couple, in an
intimate relationship, and Shaw merely brings it up so
Holloway doesn't get his hopes up. Obviously, it’s a
discussion they've had before, but the real reason it’s brought up is
to shock the audience by the fact that our barren female heroine finds out she’s
pregnant a few minutes later in the film. Surprise! And it probably ain’t human
either: queue scary cesarean operation scene.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">So this back-story is necessary for the wow
factor in shocking the audience, so we can make the revelation along with her. In
mystery fiction writing this is called a <i>closed mystery</i>, where you
find out along with the character at the same time the revealing secret or big
‘who-dunnit’. The opposite is knowing in advance, called an <i>open
mystery</i>, and you know everything before the character finds out. What I
particularly liked in this scene was the fact that the writers keep the
Holloway mystery an <i>open mystery</i> while making Shaw’s
mysterious pregnancy a <i>closed mystery</i>, even as they are overlapping
with one another.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">It actually this dialog that JL is
complaining about that does the trick in deceiving the view and making Shaw’s
pregnancy a <i>closed mystery</i>, but I doubt JL is actually analyzing
the film on a technical level such as this—which requires genuine foreknowledge
of film-making It seems he is analyzing it like a fan boy would,
which explains why he gets so much wrong, because apart from being a fan boy,
he doesn't have anything else in his repertoire which would allow him
to seriously break down the film in any way that would give us serious pause.
In other words, JL cannot say anything we could not say better, which is why
addressing shoddy reviews like this is necessary. Someone has to set the record
straight. Again, I’ll let you be the judge of whether or not I adequately
address these issues, or not.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">48. When Vickers and the Captain are
awkwardly flirting, she says she flew “half a billion miles from earth.”
That isn't just bad math, it’s criminally inept math. They flew
across the galaxy, and 500 million miles would barely get you to another
planet. Pluto, for instance, is over 3.5 billion miles from Earth. Vickers does
not know what she’s talking about.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Maybe she's using billion facetiously?
Metaphorically, perhaps? This is another instance of JL taking the dialog literally
and getting confused by it in the process. The first instance was with the
"casualties" scene. I'm beginning to think JL doesn't get sarcasm.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">49. Why is the professional geologist smoking
pot inside his helmet? How did he even rig that up? Moreover,
why isn't his drug of choice cocaine, given his expressed love of
rocks?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Irrelevant. He does it, however he does it,
and it's a joke which lightens the mood of the scene right before it gets dark
again. It doesn't matter how he rigged it up. Especially since JL doesn't think
these space suits amount to much. So why would it matter how he did it? He just
did, okay?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">50. Why does the Biologist consider the
white, mysterious snake creature ‘beautiful’ when he fled frightened from the
dead body just a few hours earlier?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Maybe he just likes cute little phallic
looking aliens better than giant, gut busted, monstrous beings the size of
bloody elephants? Let's just stop trying to second guess the character’s every
action and just enjoy the film. Like real people, these characters are flawed
and often highly irrational. This is one of the things which makes this movie a
nail-biting, edge of your seat, thriller. You can’t predict what the characters
will do next. So why try and second guess them?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">51. Why does the Biologist – again, a man who
studies living organisms professionally – not consider that putting his fingers
in the creature’s mouth might be a bad idea?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">***Yeah. I agree. The thing flared up like
a King cobra, so that sort of says danger right there. But maybe Millburn
really was an idiot? Or maybe his curiosity just got the best of him? Who
knows? But I wouldn't mark it as an official complaint, just a minor annoyance
about the character. But since this sequence actually does move the plot along,
I'm not going to fault it.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">52. Back on the ship, why does Holloway tell
no one about the parasite he sees in his eye? He’s on a ship full of scientists
searching for extraterrestrial life. You’d think they would want to know, and I
imagine Holloway would want to tell them out of fear for his own life.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Again, we don’t need to second guess the
characters. They are flawed and highly irrational, just like real people. This
adds to the unpredictability and excitement of the film. When you second guess
them, all you are really doing is asking why didn't the writers write
this character in a different way? Well, would any other way have served the
story better? If not, then it’s not so much a valid complaint as just a fan boy
stating he’d have done it differently. This fan boy approach amounts to 90% of
JL’s critique so far, and it’s really why I don’t think he has a leg to stand
on. At least, I honestly don’t see how he convinced himself the film was as bad
as he thinks it is, apart from his fan boy mentality. I don’t mean to single JL
out here (he’s just the one I am responding to, in this case). Most fan boys
act in this manner though, with an “I could have done it better myself” type of
an attitude. The fact that they aren't the one’s making the films
says something right there.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">53. How do the Captain and crew not know the
Geologist and Biologist are dead? With all the info being transmitted back to
the ship, including camera feeds and a 3D map that locates each crew
member, wouldn't they know immediately if vital signs went silent? Or
transmitters just disappeared?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The captain informs them they are signing
off until morning. Maybe the computer silently monitored their deaths? I don’t
know. But the script actually does account for why there were no transmissions,
they turned it all off. I agree that an automated life-signs alarm should have
probably gone off in the case of a crew-members death, but then this is just
being a fan boy. Could have, would have, should have, but well, I’m not the one
making the film. So can I really complain? So whereas I can see where JL is
coming from with this complaint, the script deals with it, and accounts for why
they wouldn't have received any distress calls—the system was turned
off for the night. Since it’s accounted for, there is no reason for the
complaint.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">54. Why do the crewmembers examine the
Geologist’s dead body without helmets on, making them susceptible to attack by
the snake creature? That’s exactly what happens. No one is killed by it, but
things could easily have ended badly, and wearing their damn helmets would have
nullified the risk.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Questions like this are really beginning to
grate. Just watch the film again, please. When they first discover the dead
bodies of their crew members they don’t actually know what killed them. That’s
why. Only when the snake jumps out at their faces do they get a clue. Okay,
moving along.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSmkFxqIkaEem5Z-RcBAvquP6UrKpvi7aYEjPXURZB62uDUIEea0f5Tc_hVrb_lYc0USyTXPQSUfZo7D40gwIGQ1Cfhl0HAztffi7Hf4Jx8Ytx2TUXfF5WM_3p8CWKNHtcTQfkmTf3FGk/s1600/prometheus-spaceship.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSmkFxqIkaEem5Z-RcBAvquP6UrKpvi7aYEjPXURZB62uDUIEea0f5Tc_hVrb_lYc0USyTXPQSUfZo7D40gwIGQ1Cfhl0HAztffi7Hf4Jx8Ytx2TUXfF5WM_3p8CWKNHtcTQfkmTf3FGk/s640/prometheus-spaceship.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Part 6 – Monster at the Gates
and the Medlab</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">55. If the Engineers control their ships
through music, why is music not the universal basis for their communications?
It would not be outside the realm of possibility for music to serve as its own
language, and in that case, David could actually plausibly understand their
communication system and work with it, because music is a scientific
and mathematical base that exists throughout the universe. He could
study and learn enough about musical theory to reasonably confer with the
aliens. It would be a much clearer narrative solution than just having David
look at strange symbols and magically, impossibly know what they all mean.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Okay, I have to admit I laughed out loud to
myself here. JL is basically asking why Prometheus wasn't made as a
musical. You mean, like the </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tnuthMhAR0"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Alien musical?</span></a><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">56. The Captain suggests putting the infected
Holloway in the medical pod. Why don’t they do that instead of burning him
alive?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Vickers is the one who pulls rank and burns
him alive, not the captain. Watch the film again, please.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">57. Are there no more humane ways to kill an
infected crew member than live embalming? Yes, the flamethrower is
effective, but couldn't you just as easily shoot him once in the
head, humanely putting him out of his misery, and then burn the remains?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Guns on spaceships is a bad idea. At least
with a flamethrower the ships automated sprinkler system could turn on and
extinguish the flames. One little bullet through the hull though, and everyone
is </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS6m6NM_Md0"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">sucked
out</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> into the vacuum of space.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">58. Why is Holloway suddenly ready to die? He
offers himself up to be violently burned to death, but there is no clear reason
for why he has spontaneously become the sacrificial type.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Unless he knows what evil is pulsating
through his veins and doesn't want the infection to spread. Let’s
assume he has some modicum of compassion and intelligence up until the end.
He’s giving everyone a fighting chance.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">59. Why does Shaw get over Holloway’s death
so fast? There’s a cut to white as she cries on the ground, and then she wakes
up, a little shocked, but hardly broken up about it. She doesn't even
seem to acknowledge how much she lost until near the end of the movie.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s called being in shock. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">When my grandpa died, my
grandma didn't come to terms with it for one full year. Granted my
grandfather was the love of her life for the better part of their lives
together, whereas Holloway and Shaw are just young lovers. But still, even
young lovers experience shock when a loved one is unexpectedly taken from
them—whether it is a car accident or cancer or death by alien disease and flame
thrower.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">60. Why does David say Shaw is ‘three months
pregnant’ with the alien fetus? Three months ago, she would have been in
cryostasis. I understand that David is just saying this as an analogy to
demonstrate the size of the fetus, but as an android, wouldn't he
give a more logical and accurate estimation of size, like ‘the baby is X
centimeters large?” Saying three months just confuses Shaw and the audience for
no good reason.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">So it’s too specific when they use
kilometers to chart their distance, but it’s not specific enough when it comes
to the size of the fetus? Also, he states “You’re pregnant. From the looks of
it, three months.” Thus he is qualifying that her fetus is approximately the
size of a three month fetus, and knowing that a human fetus cannot grow that
fast, the automatic conclusion is that the fetus is not human. Dun dun dunnnn!
What I don’t get is why JL states that he understands that it’s just an
analogy, but then proceeds to complain about it literally anyway? Talk about
your glaring logical issues!</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">61. Is there no medical staff aboard the
Prometheus? David seems to imply this when he tells Liz there are no staff on
board equipped to remove the fetus. We never actually see a Doctor in the film,
so there must not be any on board. And that’s just ridiculous. How could you
spend a trillion dollars on a mission to an alien world and NOT bring medical
personnel along?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Because real astronauts take entire teams
of medical staff into space all of the time! Right? Um… wait… they don’t? You
don’t say? Also, they have that super-duper state of the art medical machine
that Shaw about has an orgasm over when she sees it. That machine effectively
eliminates any need for medical staff. Additionally, if the astronauts must
pass the same stringent tests and are trained as well as today’s astronauts,
then they would be equipped to effectively handle most minor medical
emergencies themselves.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">62. “To lose Dr. Holloway, after your father
died after such similar circumstances.” Um…what? David says this to Shaw, but
how on earth could those words be true? Holloway died under the most bizarre,
unique circumstances imaginable, infected with alien goo by an evil android and
burned to death by a crazy woman with a flamethrower. How could anything
‘similar’ to that have happened to Shaw’s father? David says mentions Ebola,
which is, for the record, nothing like being infected by aliens and burned to
death.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">David isn't making a distinction
between the types of infections, just that both men were infected by a chronic
disease which ended up killing them. That’s all David meant by it, and that’s
all it was intended to mean.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">63. Why is the medical pod “calibrated for
male patients only?” Does this super-futuristic technology not have enough
memory for programs on two different sets of anatomy? Moreover, why would
Vickers have the medical pod calibrated for men if it’s part of her escape
contingency? Is it possible that she herself is actually a man? Makes as much
sense as anything else in this movie.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">***Another instance of us agreeing.
It doesn't make much sense. But Shaw effectively reprograms it in
like 30 seconds toward the end to do her emergency C-section, so maybe it’s
just a default setting on the machine? Or maybe it’s really pre-programmed for
old man Weyland? But I agree, a machine that technologically advanced
probably wouldn't have gender limitations.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">64. How can this sophisticated machine work
so sloppily? When performing this massive, invasive procedure, it just sprays
on a little local anesthetic, cuts Shaw open, rips the fetus out, and staples
her shut. There would be severe risks to doing things that way.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Umm… how else do you do a C-section?
Teleport the fetus out? I think JL is thinking of Star Trek. (I have to say
this… because although this assumption isn't backed by anything… it’s
a lot nicer than stating the obvious.)</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">65. How would Shaw survive that procedure? Or
at least not pass out? She’s cut open without any deadening agents around the
incision area, gets the alien baby pulled out violently, which would assumedly
tear apart her surrounding internal organs, and then, to cap it all off, the
baby’s amniotic sac bursts, spraying goo everywhere, including into her
incision, which is then stapled shut and would presumably infect her further.
Alien material killed her husband like two hours ago, and now she’s filled with
it as well. Seriously, how could she survive?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">First of all, lasers burn too hot for the
body to actually feel them cutting, so there is virtually no pain. Only </span><a href="http://www.weinstockeyecare.com/faq's.htm#index3"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">10% of
LASIK eye laser patients</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">, for example, complain of
any discomfort—but no sensation of severe pain. Secondly, it makes sense that
the gel spread on her abdomen was probably a </span><a href="http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/healthlibrary/conditions/surgical_care/types_of_anesthesia_and_your_anesthesiologist_85,P01391/"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">regional anesthetic</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> gel of
some kind.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Also, to break the scene down, David stabs
Shaw with a local anesthetic once. Shaw is awoken by the other scientists a few
minutes later. She then escapes to the medical pod, having painful contractions
as she runs down the hallway, and she proceeds to override the machine and
reprogram it to do an emergency C-section. Next she hits herself up with
another local anesthetic right before she hops in. She puts a second one in her
mouth just in case, then jumps into the machine. Halfway through the procedure
she doses herself with the remaining anesthetic—right in her abdomen. So she
basically has four times the anesthesia, and the staples should hold if
she doesn't do anything strenuous. Although, we all know that’s not
the case.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">But apart from the questionable strength of
these futuristic staples, there is no indicator that Shaw should have died from
the procedure. Women rarely die from C-sections anyway. Natural births are a
different matter, however. Over </span><a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2007/pr56/en/index.html"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">half
a million women die</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> each year from giving
natural birth.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">66. How could Shaw move around freely after
surgery? Wouldn’t running around with a freshly stapled cut open the wound, or
cause internal bleeding? No way she could walk, let alone run. Not even close.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">***Yeah, this is another area I think the
storytellers got a little technically sloppy. Even if the SFX department would
have made a healing laser glide over the wound I would have been satisfied. But
maybe we’re supposed to think that Shaw is a total badass—cuz she </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXr-N5tJY8I"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">ain’t got time to bleed</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">. As the precursor to Ripley, this makes sense.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">67. Why does the medical pod’s
decontamination not kill the alien baby?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">I thought it merely froze it when I watched
it. Also, we don’t know anything about the alien squid creature. Maybe it’s
resistant to whatever decontamination process JL thinks occurred. Anything we
might say would just be guess work, so I don’t want to claim that we know what
happened. The fact that it is left a little ambiguous is done on purpose,
because we need to forget about the alien fetus until right toward the end. So
I think this ambiguity plays rather nicely here.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">68. Why is zombie-Geologist magically able to
contort his body into impossible positions and attain superhuman strength? The
parasite could maybe control his actions, but not his actual physical limits
and abilities.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Maybe the alien physiology changed the way
his body works? This amounts to little more than a total unknown. So it makes
no sense to try and rebut this.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">69. How is Shaw not completely stoned from
taking massive amounts of painkiller shots?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Oh, so now you realize she took
painkillers? When your question to a previous question negates that question,
this is called a logical inconsistency.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">70. Why does absolutely no one react when
Shaw walks in on Weyland and company, naked and covered in blood and goo?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">I wasn't thrown off by this scene
at all. Weyland knows exactly what happened. Everything has been under his
control since the mission began. Evidence for this is in his secret
communication with David. Vickers confronts David in the corridor and demands
he tell her what he said. When David informs Shaw she is pregnant, he suggests
they put her back into cryostasis until they can perform the surgery.
Obviously, this is a lie. The machine can perform the surgery, but David wants
to preserve the alien, as we can assume this is his orders from Weyland. The
fact that they let Shaw get to the machine, means they wanted to extract the
alien and most likely study it. David himself says they need to study it. This
is what led me to believe it was frozen after Shaw escapes. The freezing would
preserve it.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The question I was thinking was, if David
knows about everything going on in the ship, why doesn't he show up
and stop her from extracting it? Well, it’s because he probably knew exactly
what was going on, and Weyland probably ordered him to let it proceed. Thus
when Shaw shows up, Weyland is of the attitude, “What took you so long?”
Classic Weyland.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">But that’s just my personal interpretation
of the scene. I’ll let you decide which one makes the most sense in the context
of the story. Just ask, does JL’s shock that no one reacted, and so it was
strange, seem accurate to you? Or does my interpretation of the scene, given
the previous clues, seem satisfactory? Again, it’s up to you to decide.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">71. Why, in turn, does no one ever seem
surprised about Weyland being on board?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Because it was never out of the realm of
possibility that he wouldn't be on board. Weyland’s search for
eternal youth would drive him to cryogenically preserve himself until he could
find that fountain of youth and drink from the well with his own lips, so to
speak. In the back of our minds, we suspected it, and probably so did everyone
else.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">72. Why, for that matter, did Weyland bother
deceiving them? What did tricking the crew into thinking him dead achieve? When
he comes back, we never find out anything about this, and it never comes into
play. He doesn’t mind for a second when Shaw finds out, for instance.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">When Vickers confronts her father, she asks
him if he’s trying to take the company back. Basically she is second in control
of the company, and will soon inherit her father’s legacy. Whether she knew he
was on the ship isn't ever clearly stated, although she certainly
figures it out if she didn't know. So Weyland appears, all of the
sudden, and it’s uncertain whether or not he’s trying to regain control of just
the mission—or what.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">All considered, knowing the previous
tension between them, and Vickers defiance of her father, maybe the
mission couldn't have gone forward without her seal of approval.
Maybe she’s begrudgingly allowing him to come along for the ride. Maybe
she doesn't have any choice? But if she was required to get the
mission rolling, if it was her approval that was needed, this explains the need
for Weyland’s secrecy. Whether or not it accurately reflects what might have
been happening in the background of these characters back-stories is
anybody’s guess, but it seems that there is just enough hints of this type
of back-story to sustain such an interpretation.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Again, it’s another question that it left
ambiguous, and it’s up to the audience to fill in the details themselves. Good
science fiction has a way to get you to think to yourself, “What is really
going on here?” But again, these details are rather trivial. We don’t really
need to know why Weyland is being deceptive. Maybe he’s just an old crotchety
fart who gets his kicks, and maintains his power, by always being one step
ahead of everyone. It could simply be that, but at least there is enough going
on to make his mysterious arrival something interesting for the viewers. As
such, I won’t fault it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicdwzmqSlYg9E_T2t_PM8foBHFvnPKHSwJvJaDrIjgiTSWH2rZgcAOpERVgvupt0rfPq6Evw6BN63dIGlcMPTHsApug4lN4q5sv_v8_YEAmFnFf3C5fviTkZdEJCgAR1KxOVha-e_qwTs/s1600/engineer-prometheus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicdwzmqSlYg9E_T2t_PM8foBHFvnPKHSwJvJaDrIjgiTSWH2rZgcAOpERVgvupt0rfPq6Evw6BN63dIGlcMPTHsApug4lN4q5sv_v8_YEAmFnFf3C5fviTkZdEJCgAR1KxOVha-e_qwTs/s640/engineer-prometheus.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Part 7 – The Mission to Awaken a Sleeping Giant</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">73. “If these things made us, then surely they can save us.” Why does Weyland think this? Even in traditional human theology, all versions of God let their creations die, at least in body. Gods do not save their creations from illness or harm. So what would make Weyland think this?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Recent advances in medical science talk about nanite technologies which can preserve the cells and increase people’s longevity. We have stem cells which can become entirely new cells. Our understanding of the body at the genetic level is now possible. Genetic engineering seems to be a real possibility in the not so distant future. So given these factors, the question ought to be, how could we not achieve immortality 500 million years from now if everything progresses the way it has been? Weyland is simply making the same assumption. If they had the technology to create us 500 million years ago, then perhaps they are advanced enough to have the ability to prolong life almost indefinitely? It doesn't even take a giant leap of faith. Just trust in the continued progress, and success, of science.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">74. Why does Shaw not tell a single person about the alien fetus monster she just ripped out of her own stomach?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Dude! She just ripped an alien monster fetus out of her own womb! If you've ever seen a woman give birth in real life, you’ll understand the exact level of shock the body goes into. This is why I agreed with the previous complaint, about the staples. It just doesn't seem realistic, all considered. But her not telling anyone can *easily be explained by her current state of shock—and the fact that she’s a bit doped up on so many painkillers.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">75. How could Shaw get into a super-tight space suit, zip it up as quickly and forcefully as possible, and not rip open her wound? Especially when she proceeds to run around like that for the rest of the film.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Now it seems we’re just fixating on the wound thing, which we already agreed is far-fetched So this being the third complaint about the same thing, I am just going to skip it.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">76. Why does the Captain suddenly know everything about the Engineers’ plans out of nowhere? He just barges in to talk to Shaw, says “don’t you know what this place is?” and proceeds to explain that it’s a military instillation, the pods were weapons, and the Engineers were killed by it. He has absolutely no reason to know or suspect any of this.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">In my version of the film on Bluray, the scene does not play like this. So I’ll skip it and move on.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">77. “You must care about something Captain.” Why, at this sudden point, is Shaw getting all moralistic and idealistic on the Captain? She just lost her husband, had an alien baby ripped out of her, and is running around covered in blood. What does she have left to stay up on her high horse about?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">She’s talking about saving Earth! The captain has been on the ship nearly the whole time, and he only knows that the Engineer has been awakened via the video. But he doesn't know where the ship is actually headed. Shaw has a bad gut feeling (no pun intended) about all this, and having just experienced firsthand the genetic manipulation of the black ooze they found in the canisters on the ship, she puts two and two together—and realizes that the Engineer won’t just be satisfied with this groups destruction, he’s taking off to wipe out all of humanity by dropping entire canisters of the horrible black stuff on the planet. It is full scale biological warfare we’re talking about. Granted, it’s not at all certain. The Engineer could simply be craving a Doughnut and is flying to the nearest star diner to get his fix, after 2,000 long years? But given the story so far, I’m inclined to agree with Shaw’s hunch. But since it is just that, a hunch, she says, “You have to believe me!”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">78. Why does Shaw not tell the Captain about the alien monstrosity in the medical pod, when it is now his explicit mission to protect the ship and not bring “any of this shit” back to Earth?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">She’s a little bit busy running for her life. You honestly think she’s going to stop, take a few breathes, and be like, “Oh, by the way, I left you a little present in the lab for you all.” I don’t know, but I’d find that rather silly, at least too hokey to be a good alternative to the scene as we have it. In the middle of running away from a giant who viciously and violently tore apart half your crew, then getting blasted out of an exhaust vent, and barely surviving a death defying leap across a ravine on a rocky alien surface, as the underground hangar opens beneath her feet, it seems to me that Shaw was a little too preoccupied for any form of casual chit chat.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">79. Vickers’ motivation for travelling with Prometheus makes no sense. She says she came along to be there when Weyland dies, so she would get control of the company, but if she had stayed on Earth, she would have four whole years, if not more, to gain control.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">I doubt that was her motivation. From her conversation with her father, it is clear she already controls most of the company. To me, it never was made clear why she was there. I think maybe, and this is just a wild guess, that she was more like her father than she cared to admit. She probably secretly wanted the same thing he did… immortality. I only say this because of how viciously she sticks it to him that he’s old and, in all probability, will die on this mission, as if to say, she’s not. It could be read as her saying, because she’s younger, she’s going to have time to find the secret to eternal life that he so longs for, but Weyland is barely hanging together as it is—and won’t probably survive the day.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">80. Why is everyone so sure the Canisters are weapons? Yes, they killed some crew members who messed with them, but why does that automatically make them weapons built to destroy humanity? There is no clear evidence to support such intent.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Everything that went near them or had direct contact with them died horribly. No clear evidence to support that the canisters contain some majorly bad voodoo? What movie were you watching bro? Seriously.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">81. How can David actually speak the Engineers’ language? What roots would he be able to study to figure it all out and then speak in a way the Engineer, a being thousands of years older than him, could fluently understand?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">***Yeah, this is a problem, but one a trained eye would easily understand as—not so much a problem with the writing or story, but an editing issue. The original sequence of the Engineer awakening had him speaking with Weyland through David. You can view this scene in the deleted scenes on the special features disk. David proceeds to translate Wayland’s questions. Upon informing the Engineer that he wants to live forever, the Engineer asks “Why?” And Wayland replies, “To be like you. To become a god!” Obviously, this was the wrong answer, as the Engineer proceeds to murder everyone.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">This one of the things we have to be aware of when watching any form of cinema, or television, sometimes the continuity gets thrown off by what are called continuity errors—which usually arise because of editing choices and the inability to do reshoots. So while I agree that it leaves the standard audience perplexed, the moment I saw it I realized that it was due to the editing, without having seen the special features. How did I know this? Well, I've studied screenplay writing and teleplay writing, and it just screams out at you—continuity error! And continuity errors can only be for two reasons, shoddy writing or unfortunate editing choices. Well, the writing up until this point was par to none, so it seemed to me that it was probably an editing issue. And it was.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">That said, it plays as a much more ominous scene when you don’t know the motivation for why the Engineer started killing everyone. His silence is genuinely eerie. As for how David might know his language, he did hear them speaking in the hologram room.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">82. Why does Shaw assume and assert that the Engineers hate them? Yes, a lot of bad things happened to the crew, but almost all of it was because the so-called ‘scientists’ took stupid, destructive actions, or because David enjoyed messing with things. Yes, we find out later that the Engineer does seem to have bloodlust for them, but at the point Shaw asks him why he hates them, everything that happens has still been their own fault.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Woman’s intuition perhaps? Or the fact that the black stuff which David infected Holloway with, and which impregnated Shaw caused her to give birth to an alien squid, nearly taking her life in the process—all gives Shaw a unique perspective. Every instance that she has come across the Engineer’s tech has ended in horror. So Shaw is traumatized, and in her mind, all this points toward something pernicious, evil. Inhuman. Personally, I felt that she was just coming out of shock in that instance, and wants answers. So she stands her ground and accuses the Engineer of being a hateful being… and well, is she wrong? The Engineer ends up killing nearly everyone, and continues to pursue her even after his ship crashes, so he either hates the puny Earthlings or he has a hard on for mass murder.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">In the back of my mind I keep thinking, maybe this is how the Predator race evolved. If they were seeded, like humans, but perhaps had more contact with their Engineer overlords, maybe this brutal sort of—survival of the fittest—translated into the warrior culture of the Predators? It’s just a fan boy speculation, but it seems it would fit within the universe and back-story It would also give humans interesting ties to the Predators. Whether or not this will be explored in the future will remain to be seen, but it seems one logical direction worth taking the Engineer back-story.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">83. Why was Weyland in this movie? He dies with absolutely no fulfillment of his arc, no one mentioning how weird it was that he was on the ship the entire time, or any clear reason for his existence.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Even without seeing the deleted scenes, I understood that Weyland wanted to live forever. Again, the conversation with his daughter reveals as much. But he states it to Shaw directly when he’s suiting up to go revive the Engineer. Weyland says, “You convinced me that if they created us, they could save us. Well, me, at any rate.”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">“Save you? From what?” Shaw asks.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">“From death, of course,” Weyland answers.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">It’s all right there in the film.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Part 8 – All Good Things Must Come to an End</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">84. Why does the Engineer decide to just go to Earth by himself? We saw that this ship had a crew. How could he fly it all alone, and why would he want to?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Again, there is no limitations on the Engineer’s tech, being 500 million years more advanced than us. Automated pilot or fully computerized co-pilot would just be primitive tech to him. Obviously his ship is capable of flying itself. Maybe the destruction of Earth only requires one ship? David says there are other ships on the planet toward the end. Maybe there are more Engineers too? All of these questions can be good plot threads to follow up in any future sequels.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">85. Why does everyone know the black goo is bad? Since David was the guy who infected Holloway with the black goo, and Holloway is so far the only character to directly die from it, David should therefore be the only one who knows what black goo does. So why does everyone else know it’s dangerous, and then assume it’s been weaponized for use on Earth?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">See my answer to 82.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">86. Why does the crew assume that the Engineers are A – going to Earth – and B – going to Earth to kill all the humans? There has been no evidence for this conclusion, especially to characters like Shaw, who are just making massive logical jumps at this point.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">***Agreed. Apart from David, the only one who actually sees the hologram system locked onto Earth’s coordinates, nobody else technically knows the ship is headed for Earth. Shaw just has a gut feeling that it is. So while I agree with objection A, I don’t agree with objection B. Why is it meant to kill all humans? Well, the Engineer just about darn near killed the entire crew. So that’s a big clue right there.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">87. At the point where Shaw is running and jumping over massive holes in the Earth as the big plates come apart, they have just abandoned the idea that she just had horrible stomach surgery, haven’t they?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Planet. Not Earth. Earth is the name of our own planet, third from the sun. At any rate, Shaw is constantly shown being in pain and out of breath. So they haven’t forgotten. She’s simply in survival mode—adrenaline pumping.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">88. When escaping, why does Vicker not use her big lifeboat she prepared for this sort of scenario, and instead jump into the little escape pod? For that matter, why does the Captain eject and destroy the lifeboat?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">He launches the lifeboat before Vickers even leaves the bridge. He doesn't destroy it. It lands and crashes into a rock. The captain tells her she has 40 seconds to get to an escape pod, and she does. That’s about it.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">89. Why do Shaw and Vickers start fleeing from the big rolling alien ship by running in perfect tandem with the length of the ship, instead of moving a few meters horizontally and being perfectly safe?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Maybe the mass of the ship is just too big to actually predict which way it’s rolling at first. The same thing happens when cutting down large trees. </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj1d85CLDOQ"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Measuring the lean and predicting where the tree will fall</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"> actually takes more time than simply looking to see which way an object is falling. The ships strange shape probably made it difficult to predict the lean and which way it was rolling at first. The rest is them just getting caught in the path of the ship as it crashes.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">90. Why was Vickers in this movie? You literally remove her from every single scene she’s in and the movie would not be different in the slightest. She did nothing over the course of this film, and in the end, was killed for a brief ‘shock’ moment. Totally unnecessary character.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">She’s just the equivalent of a </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3cL1Aofy90"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Redshirt</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">, sure. But I wouldn’t say she was completely useless. Here character arc is simple, short, and uninteresting, sure. But she provides sorely needed eye candy and acts as the fantasy of every young male’s wet dream, because it’s freakin’ Charlize Theron!</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Part 9– The Crash and Final Confrontation</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">91. How is the rock that saves Shaw strong enough to hold a massive, city-sized alien spaceship at bay?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">It’s a very strong rock, maybe? It could be the rock provided just the right about of resistance to create enough of a bounce back </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRhkQTQxm4w"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">to stop the inertia</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">—since the more massive and object the greater the inertia it will have. It’s not actually a big deal.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">92. Why is there is a giant axe, curved and spiked on the ends like a horror movie weapon, on the lifeboat right when Shaw needs it? It can’t be to break down doors, because the doors on the ship aren’t wooden.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">The </span><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RV_Thomas_G._Thompson_fire_axe.jpg"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">heft and throat</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"> on many modern fire axe designs are actually curved for a reason. It provides angular momentum on an otherwise ordinary grip, so that you can swing the axe with a greater force. It also provides a better grip, and unique shape can be used for leverage when prying the axe back out.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">93. How did the alien baby grow many times its original size in just a few short hours? There is no food or energy source in the room for it, which means this is a total betrayal of the Law of Conservation of Mass.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Actually, no it’s not a betrayal of the Law of Conservation of Mass. </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_conservation_of_mass"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Look it up</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">. Organism growth does generally follow a universal law of growth, but it depends on </span><a href="http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0303/0303050.pdf"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">cell turn over</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">. Meanwhile, certain organsims, like </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_tube_worm"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">the giant tube worm</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">, can feed on surrounding bacteria as their primary means of nourishment. What the squid creature uses for food remains a mystery. That said, its cell turnover rate is actually equivalent to certain </span><a href="http://chemoth.com/tumorgrowth"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">cancerous tumor growth rates</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">. So it’s not out of the realm of possibility that it could grow that big in a few hours. Remember, the Engineer’s are masters of genetic and biological manipulation.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">94. How does David know the Engineer is coming for Shaw at the exact moment he comes for Shaw? For that matter, how does David know where Shaw has gone? How can David even still communicate after being decapitated?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">He has built in Wi-Fi maybe? How else could he communicate over the receiver? How does he know? Well, he was in the same room as the Engineer. So presumably, after the ship crashes, and David is tossed around like a ball, he probably sees the Engineer get out of the chair and run out of the room. Where else could he be going but to find Shaw, who he let run loose moments earlier? It’s all pretty straight forward assumptions based on how the scenes were set up and then unfold. No rocket science here. Just the simple practice of paying attention to the film will help answer such questions.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">95. How did the Engineer even survive the ship exploding and crashing?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">He was sitting in an armored chair, perhaps? Maybe the chair has airbags? Again, it’s not an important enough of an issue to even gripe about. Moving on.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">96. How could David operate the alien ships? What base of knowledge does he have to be able to operate massive alien vessels? All he’s done is see and interact with them for a day or two, so how does that makes up both for his gap in knowledge and the lack of a crew? He doesn’t even have a body at this point.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">He’s technically a computer. The ship is a computer. They probably can communicate on a binary level. Just plug David in… and he can work the system. He doesn't need his body to understand the basic codes of zeros and ones, that’s all in his programming. Since he’s a thinking computer, it makes sense that he could manipulate the spaceship’s code and gain access to its systems.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">97. David says he knows where the Engineers came from, and can take Shaw there. How does he know this? What knowledge would or could he have amassed in the course of the film to answer a massive celestial question like that?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Nope. Again, watch the film more closely. David says he figure out the navigation system and can plot a course back home, to Earth. Shaw says she doesn't want to go back to where we came from, but instead, go to where they came from. She asks David whether he thinks he can plot a course to their home world. He actually takes a few moments to think it through, then says, “Yes, I believe I can.” The last scene is of another ship taking up and then jumping away—presumably David and Shaw are headed toward the alien home world.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">98. “They created us. Then they tried to kill us. They changed their minds.” There is slight evidence for one of those statements, but none for some of them, and not enough to strongly support any of them. All she knows for sure is that the Engineer did not like the Prometheus crew, the Prometheus crew was incredibly stupid and got themselves killed, and that the Engineer has a ship to go….somewhere. Could have been Earth, could have been the Restaurant at the end of the Universe. Who the hell knows?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Again, this is Shaw’s belief. David even questions her on it, stating that the answer is irrelevant, but she just says the reason she needs to find out is that she’s human. David doesn't seem to understand, and she says he wouldn't understand because he’s not human. So in this conversation, it seems she isn't entirely certain herself. But she wants to find the answers to the questions she has. She’s still looking for answers. So she decides going to go to their planet to ask them personally is the best course—even if it means her death (presumably).</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">99. Who is Shaw making her final log to? How is she making this log? How is she transmitting? Who is she transmitting to? Why is she doing it? Good lord, none of this makes sense anymore…</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">She states it’s a transmission. Between the time she rescues David, gets on the new ship, etc , we don’t actually know her whereabouts or goings on. We don’t know what equipment she has. Maybe she sent the broadcast using the lifeboat’s receiver? Maybe David’s utility belt had a receiver in it which, like a wi-fi device, or a smart phone, could communicate directly to the computer on the lifeboat. We can speculate numerous things given the details of the film. One of the things I liked about this film, Prometheus, is that it doesn't have this obsessive need to show us everything, or hold the audiences hand the entire way. It takes its audience as intelligent, as all good sci-fi does. So for that I give it kudos.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">100. Why does Shaw use the phrase “Year of Our Lord” at the end, when she now firmly believes aliens created humanity, thus rendering Jesus, Christianity, and all other earthly religions null and void?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">It doesn't really matter why she said ‘the year of our lord,’ it’s a made up story. So just calm down already.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Oh yeah. Because she’s an idiot, and this movie is stupid.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Well, that’s one opinion. But I think I thoroughly smacked down any such notion of the film being stupid. As it turns out, there is ample scientific support that makes this film believable. Still, let’s not take it overly serious, it’s still just a movie.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Excuse me while I go bang my head against a wall.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Knock yourself out.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/fictional-science-100-glaring-logical-issues-with-prometheus/9/#ZTo13KiVQ0DuGtdo.99"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">http://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/fictional-science-100-glaring-logical-issues-with-prometheus/9/#ZTo13KiVQ0DuGtdo.99</span></a><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">A More Enlightening Review</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Meanwhile, if you want to read an excellent review of someone who totally got the film, check out the article </span><a href="http://www.chud.com/100388/stealing-fire-in-praise-of-prometheus/"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;">Stealing Fire: In Praise of Prometheus</span></a><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 21.33333396911621px;"> by M Morse over at Chud.com.</span></div>
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Tristan Vickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05348780254008374268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094534530492548197.post-56677220664163165982012-11-16T01:38:00.003-08:002012-11-16T01:38:55.823-08:00Daydreaming of Electronic Sheep that Dream<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhceDzqBwm6Vqu067RsvjRwG2N0lZQ0WYTRdpHuDflft7NqIHbtgbuCWXqI4qq-vKEkDG6Dj_RtP8TOVfpM9jxgfLxTj1Mhj-MoqXC1QHjZ79Lhb8p0WkOyRsFnpS9TZIOZT04-V-U1ytI/s1600/October+Pics+Shichi+go+san+748.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhceDzqBwm6Vqu067RsvjRwG2N0lZQ0WYTRdpHuDflft7NqIHbtgbuCWXqI4qq-vKEkDG6Dj_RtP8TOVfpM9jxgfLxTj1Mhj-MoqXC1QHjZ79Lhb8p0WkOyRsFnpS9TZIOZT04-V-U1ytI/s400/October+Pics+Shichi+go+san+748.JPG" width="298" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I have been a dreamer my whole life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My overactive imagination is governed by my right brain, meaning I make intuitive and often abstract non-linear connections in the patterns I perceive around me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yes, that's the polite way of saying I'm completely random. Hey, what can I say? I'm left handed--if the whole being right brained thing wasn't a dead give away.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Over the past half decade I have kindled a passion for theoretical psychics. I am not a physicist or mathematician, as I only understand the rudimentary aspects of physics. I'm a layman interested in the philosophical component, if you will.<br /><br />I'm interested in the "big" questions. I suppose this makes me somewhat of a futurist at heart. But I realize that one requires the answers in order to continue asking the "big" questions. It's a Catch-22 of sorts. We cannot simply forsake the investigation into the answers if we hope to keep learning enough to, as Socrates observed, realize how truly little we actually know.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I know truly, really, very little about anything. Don't say I didn't warn you. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In the end, it seems that the answers and the questions are equally important. Both are required to fill in the gaps of our collective ignorance. That goes without saying.<br /><br />I have always been a student of philosophy, in one way or another, and for the past decade I took it upon myself to take philosophy quite serious. It has helped me to refine my logical and critical thinking skills. Skills I desire to continue to hone. Maybe even one day get good at--at least good enough not to continually embarrass myself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Science has always fascinated me. From a child, my mother sat me down in front of the television and forced me to watch re-runs of the original Star Trek. Needless to say, I was instantly hooked. Start Trek became part of our family ritual. The universe of visionary Gene Roddenberry was a main-staple in my home, and still is.<br /><br />It is this borderland, where science and technology meat fiction and, sometimes, if we're lucky, become reality--which so captivates me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This blog is dedicated to collecting the outpouring of my collected thoughts on science and technology. Most of my reflections are philosophical in nature--speculative--rather than technical or practical. My writing is entirely self serving. But even so, that doesn't mean my essays and reflections can't be informative or, at times, pragmatic. After all, I do see the world differently than most.<br /><br />So if you care about science, technology, logic, and the future, then please, feel free to share with me your ideas as I share with you mine.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">May you all live well and be wise.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Sincerely,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Tristan Vick<br /><br /> </span>Tristan Vickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05348780254008374268noreply@blogger.com0