Moments when a piece of entertainment completely lost you.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat May 24, 2014 6:10 am

It is weird to think how old this thread is some time. Funny to see talk about Nightwish's member change pre Dark Passion Play, and Flash Forward.

AndreiChekov · Post by **AndreiChekov** » Sat May 24, 2014 6:14 am

Barman Begins is a great film

I want to see this!

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat May 24, 2014 9:33 am

So, in a remake of my eleventh birthday, I decided to see the new Godzilla movie for my birthday, and just got back.

I genuinely enjoyed Godzilla, but "Godzilla kicks ass and wrecks shit" was basically a subplot. The real plot of Godzilla is "The American military command is stupid and desperate. And apparently consists of one man who is part of the NATO force, but wears US Insignia."

It wasn't a bad movie, just had characters that made really stupid decisions-

Like deciding to ship nukes to the shore of California so they can be used as bait for monster that consume radiation. I mean, it's a good plan, other than the fact that these creatures bee lined for nuclear power plant when they woke up fifteen years ago, and thus obviously can sense radiation even behind shielding and from vast distances away, so their bait was really a vaguely elusive buffet for the things.

I also didn't really care about the human protagonist. If they'd made the movie about his dad (even though he was played by Bryan Cranston, who can only not be Hal from Malcolm in the Middle when he's bald and strung out on power), or the japanese scientist who worked for an organization which had been studying the damned things for 68+ years, I'd have been on board. But, in keeping with their main plot of the US military being stupid, they made the main character Cranston's character's grown, air force LT. son. And I actually kind of was hoping that his son would die in the devastation, just to spite the character. And not be so predictable.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat May 24, 2014 10:32 am

Theoretically, Godzilla could have been made the solution to the worlds energy problems . .
Simply ship off all your nuclear waste to some desolate island, like the bikini atoll and have him eat it on a regular basis. he has no reason to leave his radioactive paradise because he gets fed his radioactive cookies on a regular basis and humanity gets rid of the nuclear waste and can power on with the nuclear power plants as if nothing else really mattered . .

Mord · Post by **Mord** » Sun May 25, 2014 5:13 pm

Stahlseele wrote:Theoretically, Godzilla could have been made the solution to the worlds energy problems . .
Simply ship off all your nuclear waste to some desolate island, like the bikini atoll and have him eat it on a regular basis. he has no reason to leave his radioactive paradise because he gets fed his radioactive cookies on a regular basis and humanity gets rid of the nuclear waste and can power on with the nuclear power plants as if nothing else really mattered . .

What happens when Godzilla poops? As if history hasn't already been hard enough on the poor Bikini residents...

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sun May 25, 2014 5:17 pm

http://www.neomonsterisland.com/tktarkv ... nsours.htm

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun May 25, 2014 7:56 pm

@Mord:
As long as he does it on his little paradise island, nobody gives a shit.
Because it's already deadly to go there, even without the smell then.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon May 26, 2014 5:38 pm

FrankTrollman wrote: But the bottom line is that this honestly has nothing to do with Marvel vs. DC. We're talking about a Blade fan shitting on She Hulk fans and a Batman fan shitting on Martian Manhunter fans.

-Username17

DC still sucks, though.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon May 26, 2014 9:34 pm

Mord wrote:
Stahlseele wrote:Theoretically, Godzilla could have been made the solution to the worlds energy problems . .
Simply ship off all your nuclear waste to some desolate island, like the bikini atoll and have him eat it on a regular basis. he has no reason to leave his radioactive paradise because he gets fed his radioactive cookies on a regular basis and humanity gets rid of the nuclear waste and can power on with the nuclear power plants as if nothing else really mattered . .
What happens when Godzilla poops? As if history hasn't already been hard enough on the poor Bikini residents...

I prefer the idea that, like some hypotheses on dragons, Godzilla's digestive system is amazingly efficient, rendering such matters small to non-existent.

I worked up an theory based on wiki-ing about nuclear bombs and power when a similar question was raised on Facebook:

Theoretically, Godzilla's breath weapon functions similarly to a small nuclear weapon. It seems (to this totally-not-a-nuclear-physicist) that the easier way to accomplish this would be through fission.

I'm thinking that Godzilla has a biological nuclear reactor which produces it's body's energy needs. The remaining waste is used to cool the reactor (it's liquid waste) and is either released as steam or cooled in the fins to be recirculated, or reduced to hydrogen isotopes for use as fuel for it's breath weapon (the solid and gaseous waste).

I envision that Godzilla's fins contain subcritical masses of radioisotopes, attached to muscles which slam the masses together to create the energy of an atomic bomb, which then ignites a store of hydrogen isotopes which is funneled through the mouth and outward. It's possible that Godzilla's throat actually contains a natural radiation-reflecting material, or possibly some way of reclaiming the radioactive particles which collide with it's own body and carrying them down to it's natural reactor.

In this model, Godzilla effectively does not eliminate waste, but reclaims it for use as a weapon, or to regulate it's temperature.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 2:11 am

So I'm trying to explain to a broken-hearted friend about George RR Martin and Why He Writes What He Does.

Evidently their favorite character in Game of Thrones got butchered, or something.

I remember Frank(?) and some others ranting about Martin's idea of protecting himself from lawsuits but can't find it.

Please forgive my poor memory, but what's the deal there?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 3:44 am

Maxus wrote:So I'm trying to explain to a broken-hearted friend about George RR Martin and Why He Writes What He Does.

Evidently their favorite character in Game of Thrones got butchered, or something.

I remember Frank(?) and some others ranting about Martin's idea of protecting himself from lawsuits but can't find it.

Please forgive my poor memory, but what's the deal there?

I don't think Martin kills people to protect himself from lawsuits, or as Frank said, to make sure that fanwank writers can't preempt his plot.

I think he pretty clearly kills of characters because he likes being edgy, and when your first book is really popular in part because it kills of a major point of view character, and your gimic becomes "I kill characters" you are going to kill off more characters than the average writer.

As for your friend, I assume they are watching the show, so I will say:

He probably didn't kill off their favorite character

unless they developed a super fucking hardon attachment to people they have seen in four episodes ever, in which case.

Get the fuck over it, Oberyn Martell was not meant for this cruel world.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 3:46 am

Probably talking about the books. Maybe they started recently.

Also possible said friend is referring to Tyrion who is now condemned to death, but is not going to die on the show. There's no way HBO is killing off their most popular character.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 3:58 am

They were talking about Oberon, after checking with them to make sure.

But yeah. I've tried telling him to love no one because you'll lose them.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 4:03 am

Prak_Anima wrote:Probably talking about the books. Maybe they started recently.

Also possible said friend is referring to Tyrion who is now condemned to death, but is not going to die on the show.

There's no way HBO is killing off their most popular character.

I find it difficult to believe they are talking about the books, since like 99% of all people who wanted to read the books would have read them before the show was in the fourth season, and of the 1% remaining it is difficult to believe they have avoided spoilers.

On the other hand, the show

killed two people and condemned a third

.

Also Prak, maybe don't be an asshole and since we are explicitly talking to someone who hasn't read the books maybe not go out of your way to spoil things when it isn't needed?

As regarding to the spoiled part of the quote of you

Yes you idiot, it is almost like I specifically fucking addressed that in my post

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 4:12 am

Kaelik wrote:
Prak_Anima wrote:Probably talking about the books. Maybe they started recently.

Also possible said friend is referring to Tyrion who is now condemned to death, but is not going to die on the show.

There's no way HBO is killing off their most popular character.
I find it difficult to believe they are talking about the books, since like 99% of all people who wanted to read the books would have read them before the show was in the fourth season, and of the 1% remaining it is difficult to believe they have avoided spoilers.

True, I was just pointing out possibilities.

On the other hand, the show

killed two people and condemned a third

.

Also Prak, maybe don't be an asshole and since we are explicitly talking to someone who hasn't read the books maybe not go out of your way to spoil things when it isn't needed?

My bad, I didn't think about it. Fixed.

As regarding to the spoiled part of the quote of you

Yes you idiot, it is almost like I specifically fucking addressed that in my post

You did not address that. But whatever.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 5:09 am

Prak_Anima wrote:You did not address that. But whatever.

Yes, I very clearly did.

Let's see dummy, I specifically said "hey if you just watched the last episode of the show and think your favorite character is not dead, there are two possibilities: 1) You should not have Obyren Martell as a favorite character or 2) he's not fucking dying." Who do you think that second part is referring to.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 5:15 am

Ah, I see now. I misread.

The sentence you had written to mean "Tyrion probably isn't going to die" I read as "Oberyn probably isn't actually their favourite character"

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 5:51 am

Here's the GRRM crazy:

George R R Martin wrote:Furthermore, we HAVE to do it. That's something no one addressed, in those thousand comments about Diana's blog. There was a lot of talk about copyright, and whether or not fan fiction was illegal, whether it was fair use (it is NOT fair use, by the way, not as I understand the term, and I have a certain familiarity with what is and isn't fair use thanks to my own experiences with THE ARMAGEDDON RAG), but no one mentioned one crucial aspect of copyright law -- a copyright MUST BE DEFENDED. If someone infringes on your copyright, and you are aware of the infringement, and you do not defend your copyright, the law assumes that you have abandoned it. Once you have done that, anyone can do whatever the hell they want with your stuff. If I let Peter and Paul and Nancy publish their Ice & Fire fanfics, and say nothing, then I have no ground to stand on when Bill B. Hack and Ripoff Publishing decide they will publish an Ice & Fire novel and make some bucks. Peter and Paul and Nancy may be the nicest people in the world, motivated only by sincere love of my world and characters, but Bill B. Hack and Ripoff don't give a damn. They just want the bucks.

George R R Martin thinks that freely distributed fanfiction infringes on copyright. A lot of his crazy seeming behavior stems from that misunderstanding. I don't know how he continues to be wrong in that particular way year after year, but he does.

So yes, GRRM thinks that he has to fight fanfic authors to continue owning the copyright to Game of Thrones. Also, he thinks that if fanfic authors write a plot twist before he does, that they can sue him for copyright infringement. These are both positions that are factually incorrect. But the result is that he flails about doing random destructive things to his world and his fanbase to protect himself from these intangible and imaginary threats.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 6:00 am

I'm... honestly tempted to write GoT fanfic now, just so that GRRM might possibly try to sue me, so that a lawyer can explain to him why he's wrong.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 6:00 am

Brief Lawyerly aside: Though Frank knows it is true, he didn't explicitly state one of the specific ways that Martin is wrong is that you have absolutely no duty of any kind to defend copyright at all. So in addition to being full of shit in general about fanfiction not being copyright infringement, he is also specifically wrong about having to sue nice people to protect your claim from mean people.

FrankTrollman wrote:But the result is that he flails about doing random destructive things to his world and his fanbase to protect himself from these intangible and imaginary threats.

I would add however that I seriously doubt that any major character deaths are in any way motivated by this desire. Like,

Oberyn Martell has "I am going to die really soon" written all over literally everything he ever says and does in the exact same way Eddard and Robb Stark do, but at this point you should see it well enough to not be surprised. So I don't think any of their deaths in any way count as "done to protect copyright".

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 6:14 am

When I was reading the books, that fight pissed me off so much. Basically every part of that fight is set up to make the reader root for Oberyn. In one corner, you have an undeveloped one-dimensionally evil asshole in brute giant form. In the other corner, you have an exotic, rogueish bastard fighting for familial revenge and to prove the innocence of GoT's best character (it's true and you know it).

All of which made it very fucking obvious Oberyn was going to die. I'm pretty sure it's the laziest and most pointless death in the entire series. The trial by combat could have not happened, Oberyn could have just not existed, and things would have played out exactly the fucking same. Oberyn's sole raison d'etre is to be a semi-likeable character that gets dangled in front of the readers and then killed off. And it's so obvious it's stupid and completely ineffective. It's grimderp because grimderp.

And Oberyn's not the only one. I'm pretty sure Martin is running out of sacred cows he's willing to slaughter, and has resorted to a pattern of "introduce character, make reader like them, then slaughter them," but it doesn't fucking work. Because it's obvious. And the characters are boring.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 9:26 am

Let me hear more GoT hate. I have a mild fondness for the television series, but I love it when DSMatticus really gets the rage train rolling.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 9:41 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Let me hear more GoT hate. I have a mild fondness for the television series, but I love it when DSMatticus really gets the rage train rolling.

There are certainly plenty of problems with the books, but all the things that really rage me up are something of the form:

Here is stuff that happened in the book. Here is the shows fucking stupid adaptation of that. This is why that adaption is fucking retarded and destroys X or makes no sense in relation to Y.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 1:36 pm

DSMatticus wrote:

When I was reading the books, that fight pissed me off so much. Basically every part of that fight is set up to make the reader root for Oberyn. In one corner, you have an undeveloped one-dimensionally evil asshole in brute giant form. In the other corner, you have an exotic, rogueish bastard fighting for familial revenge and to prove the innocence of GoT's best character (it's true and you know it).

All of which made it very fucking obvious Oberyn was going to die. I'm pretty sure it's the laziest and most pointless death in the entire series. The trial by combat could have not happened, Oberyn could have just not existed, and things would have played out exactly the fucking same. Oberyn's sole raison d'etre is to be a semi-likeable character that gets dangled in front of the readers and then killed off. And it's so obvious it's stupid and completely ineffective. It's grimderp because grimderp.

And Oberyn's not the only one. I'm pretty sure Martin is running out of sacred cows he's willing to slaughter, and has resorted to a pattern of "introduce character, make reader like them, then slaughter them," but it doesn't fucking work. Because it's obvious. And the characters are boring.

Oberyn's death does give Dorne one more reason to fuck over the Lannisters. It's not like they needed another reason to hate the Lannisters, but it's likely to make one of Oberyn's relatives pissed off enough to murder Myrcella at the exact moment it would cause Cersei the most pain, since the plan to make her Queen and use her as a pupper was apparently never workable.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 6:23 pm

Maxus wrote:They were talking about Oberon, after checking with them to make sure.

But yeah. I've tried telling him to love no one because you'll lose them.

This is also true of reading anything written by Simon Furman or James Roberts.