Yet another movie reboot...
By
Arcanaville,
Posted on: 2012-06-27 24:21 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
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There's that propaganda again, once more proving that you didn't get it. Remember the article I posted?|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Its another serious problem that the bugs are initially depicted as so strong it takes many humans to bring down one bug, and then later the bugs are depicted as using numbers to overwhelm a small number of humans. The excuse I suppose is that they all learned to kill them better after watching Doogie Howser's PSA.
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| “They’ll Keep Fighting – And They’ll Win!” Victory over a foe is not treated as the outcome of careful planning and superior technology, but as an inevitable result of certain decisions. We have a brain bug. We’re going to figure it out. Once we do, we’ll use that information to kill other bugs. There’s no question of likelihoods or possibilities or if-thens. We’ve decided to triumph over the enemy, so we’re going to. Would You Like To Know More? |
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That would be a much more efficient description of the movie.
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Originally Posted by Scythus
just because.
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In a way you're right, just not for the reasons you're thinking.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That would be a much more efficient description of the movie.
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There are two reasons one might not be followed. One is that they go where others can't. The other is that they're heading in the wrong direction.
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Originally Posted by Scythus
In a way you're right, just not for the reasons you're thinking.
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Adaptions are tricky business. I'm going to cite a few, as we are talking about an adaptation of a novel that's been around awhile.
1. The Walking Dead
There's a lot of criticism from fans about the direction that the show takes, compared to the comics. Some people like how the show is going, some don't. It is not a "purist" adaptation; however, the basic storyline is still the same, the characters pretty much have the drive as their comic counterparts, and they are still moving along the same plot as the comic.
As far as myself, I've read all the comics; in fact, I just finished rereading them recently. I'm okay with the changes; I just hope that nothing fundamental changes with the coming season.
2. Game of Thrones
Again, lots of criticism here. A lot has been left out; there is so much source materiel, it would be difficult to include everything without having a very long season. The show seems to have hit all the major plot points, while still keeping some character development.
Me? I missed some of the character development, especially Arya. While I can understand the crunch of time necessitating some constrictions, it feels that we sacrificed some good character stories to keep a brief season. (I just finished rereading all 5 books, so I do have some perspective here.)
3. Starship Troopers
When the movie was about to come out, I went and reread Heinlein's book to be ready for the experience. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with the movie. It was a somewhat entertaining movie; it just wasn't Starship Troopers.
That said, I plan on rereading the book and watching the movie again in the next week, to get a refreshed perspective on this. I will report my findings once I have done so.
I find your lack of signature disturbing.
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No. You're still not getting it. The men in the movie weren't sent out with weapons that were even comparable to the weapons soldiers today are sent out with. They didn't have grenades, or LAWs, or heavy gun units or even, it seemed, armor piercing rounds. They were armed perhaps slightly better than a typical street gang. (Probably worse than a Newark one. | No, I'm making my own point. None of the "weapons" that were mentioned would have been of any use. |
) They simply weren't armed to fight a real war. It doesn't matter if (e.g.) tanks would have done them any good or not. Quote:
| Interesting... in both, we have a requirement of serving in the military in order to be able to be allowed to friggin' vote. |
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Wrong.|
Originally Posted by Venture
"Federal service" in the book was not just the military. It was the entire apparatus of the federal government. The characters in the book went into the military because while Heinlein probably could have written Starship Mailman as a thought-provoking novel it wouldn't have played with the audience he was trying to reach.
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http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/ftp/fedrlsvc.pdf
Yeah, heard the criticisms. They're wrong, author says so, the end, thanks for playing.
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Except that the author is wrong in this case and the paper highlights this. Did you even read the paper?
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Originally Posted by Venture
Yeah, heard the criticisms. They're wrong, author says so, the end, thanks for playing.
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The problem with that analysis is that it fails to account for the blurring of the military and the federal government. The book explicitly states that the federal government is required to find something to do for anyone that volunteers, even if that person is completely incapable of performing any reasonable function in the armed forces. There have to be non-combat places for people to serve. The reason for most of the emphasis on combat-capable armed forces is that the whole intent of federal service is to find those willing and able to make large sacrifices for the state: its intended to be difficult, and its intended to weed out those that cannot make that sacrifice. The most logical reason why military service is highlighted in the novel is that it follows an able-bodied person capable of serving in that capacity. The society in ST could not function if it allowed such people the loophole of serving in capacities well under their ability to serve and for whom no sense of sacrifice would be evident.|
Originally Posted by Scythus
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Its supposed to be hard, dangerous, and sacrificial. Starship Mailman would have to follow someone who was only genetically capable of delivering the mail for some bizarre reason. Such a person would then be made a mail carrier. Federal law would require it.
The error, again, is the blurring of the military and federal service. The book actually mentions (I don't have it in front of me now so I cannot quote the passage) that some people become medical lab rats if that's the only thing they can do. Its unlikely that means all medical experimental volunteers are performing federal service. It does mean when the federal government places you there you are. So *any* job *could* be federal service if the federal government decides that will be the thing you do to serve your term.
Otherwise, the interpretations the author makes that he believes are the most reasonable also end up contradicting the facts we know about how the system works.
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So tell me, why does Juan's father assume military? Why does the recruiter, a decorated military officer, describe service being military or military support in nature? Why are there civilian clerks on a remote Federal Service installation? And so on and so forth. It makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER unless Federal Service is wholly military in nature.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The problem with that analysis is that it fails to account for the blurring of the military and the federal government. The book explicitly states that the federal government is required to find something to do for anyone that volunteers, even if that person is completely incapable of performing any reasonable function in the armed forces. There have to be non-combat places for people to serve. The reason for most of the emphasis on combat-capable armed forces is that the whole intent of federal service is to find those willing and able to make large sacrifices for the state: its intended to be difficult, and its intended to weed out those that cannot make that sacrifice. The most logical reason why military service is highlighted in the novel is that it follows an able-bodied person capable of serving in that capacity. The society in ST could not function if it allowed such people the loophole of serving in capacities well under their ability to serve and for whom no sense of sacrifice would be evident.
Its supposed to be hard, dangerous, and sacrificial. Starship Mailman would have to follow someone who was only genetically capable of delivering the mail for some bizarre reason. Such a person would then be made a mail carrier. Federal law would require it. The error, again, is the blurring of the military and federal service. The book actually mentions (I don't have it in front of me now so I cannot quote the passage) that some people become medical lab rats if that's the only thing they can do. Its unlikely that means all medical experimental volunteers are performing federal service. It does mean when the federal government places you there you are. So *any* job *could* be federal service if the federal government decides that will be the thing you do to serve your term. Otherwise, the interpretations the author makes that he believes are the most reasonable also end up contradicting the facts we know about how the system works. |
As for the lab rats, you do realize that our troops occasionally sign up to be lab rats for their medical wings, right?
Your argument only implies that you skimmed the paper, as James thoroughly dissects the text. You're wrong, just face it.
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The author cannot be wrong in matters of bare fact by definition. "Death of the Author" can kiss my grits in this case. I glanced at the paper long enough to see that it's made the same arguments I've heard over and over in the forty years since I read the book. I simply don't care. The book focuses on military federal service because the book focuses on the military. The book is a small slice of what life is like in the world it is set in. If the author says it does not present the whole picture then that is it. It is his world and in statements of fact regarding it, such as "95% of federal service is non-military", he cannot be contradicted. The complainants are not just playing blind man and the elephant, they're insisting the only guy who can actually see the whole thing is more blind than they are.
| Except that the author is wrong in this case and the paper highlights this. Did you even read the paper? |
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Why does a military recruiter, in a military recruitment office, discuss the federal service in military terms? Why does Juan's father assume that when Juan announces he's going to serve in the military that it will be military service? Gee, no idea. |
Originally Posted by Scythus
So tell me, why does Juan's father assume military? Why does the recruiter, a decorated military officer, describe service being military or military support in nature?
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| Why are there civilian clerks on a remote Federal Service installation? |
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Well into his active term of service, Juan gets an R&R break on the planet Sanctuary. He makes the following comments about why it is a better place for R&R than Earth itself: Quote:
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I don't believe authors are allowed to change their minds about their intent after the fact. That is tantamount to lying. However, I do believe that story-telling is a form of communication. Like all communication, its the responsibility of the speaker to attempt to be as clear as possible about the ideas being communicated, and its the responsibility of the listener to make reasonable effort to understand the speaker's intent.|
Originally Posted by Venture
The author cannot be wrong in matters of bare fact by definition. "Death of the Author" can kiss my grits in this case. I glanced at the paper long enough to see that it's made the same arguments I've heard over and over in the forty years since I read the book. I simply don't care. The book focuses on military federal service because the book focuses on the military. The book is a small slice of what life is like in the world it is set in. If the author says it does not present the whole picture then that is it. It is his world and in statements of fact regarding it, such as "95% of federal service is non-military", he cannot be contradicted. The complainants are not just playing blind man and the elephant, they're insisting the only guy who can actually see the whole thing is more blind than they are.
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The moment the listener says the intent of the speaker no longer matters, and his or her interpretation of the words is the only thing that matters and not the speaker's intent, as far as I'm concerned they've lost the right to act like a reasonable listener. They've opted out of the right to have their own words mean anything. I choose to interpret the words of Death of the Author advocates as claiming that they are insecure sociopaths that like eating ice cream in darkened rooms while giggling nervously to themselves. And because my interpretation of their words is the only thing that matters, they have no say in the matter.
They could of course argue that it not fair to grossly alter the meaning of the words they use in that way and some objective standard exists to translate words to meaning, but I interpret that to mean they are sleepy and want a nap.
Or to put it another way, Death of the Author can pucker up for me as well. My *only* exemption is if an author says his intent was X in writing something, and then years later claims his intent was something completely different, I believe the author that wrote it carries more weight than the author that is now reflecting on it.
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A great example would be a guy named, oh, what was it...right, Paul Verhoeven, whose "intent" regarding Total Recall (i.e. whether or not the events of the movie were "real" or just a "psychotic embolism") depended on whether or not he thought he was going to get to make a sequel at the time he was asked.
| My *only* exemption is if an author says his intent was X in writing something, and then years later claims his intent was something completely different, I believe the author that wrote it carries more weight than the author that is now reflecting on it. |
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Two words: George Lucas.|
Originally Posted by Venture
The author cannot be wrong in matters of bare fact by definition.
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| I glanced at the paper |
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| The book focuses on military federal service because the book focuses on the military. The book is a small slice of what life is like in the world it is set in. If the author says it does not present the whole picture then that is it. It is his world and in statements of fact regarding it, such as "95% of federal service is non-military", he cannot be contradicted. |
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Why does a military recruiter, in a military recruitment office, discuss the federal service in military terms? Why does Juan's father assume that when Juan announces he's going to serve in the military that it will be military service? Gee, no idea.
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Now you've really stumped me. As I have no idea why you'd be bringing this up. But in this case, I would prefer to quote the actual analysis author: Not even he had the problem you apparently have. |
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Later, Juan is on light duty due to a training injury and is serving as orderly in the company commanders office. After an ugly confrontation he is directed out of the commanders office: Quote:
clerks? |
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"Matters" for what purpose?|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The moment the listener says the intent of the speaker no longer matters, and his or her interpretation of the words is the only thing that matters and not the speaker's intent, as far as I'm concerned they've lost the right to act like a reasonable listener.
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Consider, if you will, a picture of a political rally from 40 years ago. I might use it today as an illustration of the point "the issue you are freaking out about will seem ridiculous to your children". I am quite sure the people with their very sincerely intended signs did not mean to communicate the message "I am angry about something that will seem ridiculous in 40 years", but nonetheless, it's hard for a modern reader not to get that sense from it.
Or take the lovely picture of a protestor with a sign reading "Get a brain, MORANS". Does the fact that he certainly didn't intend his words to mean "I'm an idiot" drown out the right of readers to understand it that way?
The question of what a communication means is massively complicated by the observation that we can take it to mean things about the writer/speaker, and those things are not necessarily part of the original intent. This isn't quite in the same category as simply asserting that the speaker's intent doesn't matter, I don't think.
There was a recent example where someone drew some cute pictures, which were intended to promote a particular view about human relationships. The thing is, many people, on seeing these pictures, drew pretty much the opposite conclusion from them. Now, here's the thing. What the artist meant certainly matters in some ways... But if I happen to want people to draw the opposite conclusion, and I show people these pictures and point out my interpretation of the fact claims they represent, does it matter for my purposes? I'm not claiming the artist intended this; I'm claiming that these are interesting pictures which happen to illustrate my point. This doesn't change the fact that they'd also illustrate hers, if considered in a different way...
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Because of the inverted nature of the Federation in Starship Troopers, namely that the military has a certain element of hierarchical superiority over the civilian government, you could argue that statement doesn't even have the same meaning in Starship Troopers it does in most conventional governments.|
Originally Posted by Scythus
Then you'll have to admit that the argument that Federal Service is strictly military has a lot of merit.
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Nazi Germany wasn't strictly speaking a military dictatorship, but separating the civilian government from the military would be a non-trivial exercise.
To put it another way, if the US decided to make the Secretary of Defense responsible for the post office, technically the postal service could be construed as a part of the military. But I don't think that's what most people mean when they say that Federal Service in Starship Troopers was exclusively military service.
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You're conflating the question of what a speaker is trying to communicate, and what the listener should conclude from that communication. If someone tells me 2+2=5, he's trying to convey a very specific mathematical fact. I have an obligation to interpret that statement accordingly. But if I conclude he's an idiot, that is irrespective of whether the speaker wants be to think that. He has no right to demand I think about him in any particular way. He communicated an idea. It was false. It was stupidly false. Ergo, he's a MORAN.|
Originally Posted by seebs
"Matters" for what purpose?
Consider, if you will, a picture of a political rally from 40 years ago. I might use it today as an illustration of the point "the issue you are freaking out about will seem ridiculous to your children". I am quite sure the people with their very sincerely intended signs did not mean to communicate the message "I am angry about something that will seem ridiculous in 40 years", but nonetheless, it's hard for a modern reader not to get that sense from it. Or take the lovely picture of a protestor with a sign reading "Get a brain, MORANS". Does the fact that he certainly didn't intend his words to mean "I'm an idiot" drown out the right of readers to understand it that way? |
Conversely, if the speaker is someone with a reputation for being intelligent, for understanding math, for having command of arithmetic, then its my responsibility to conclude that the odds are very high that's a typo, and he didn't mean to assert a mathematical fallacy. That's what being a responsible listener is.
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| There was a recent example where someone drew some cute pictures, which were intended to promote a particular view about human relationships. The thing is, many people, on seeing these pictures, drew pretty much the opposite conclusion from them. Now, here's the thing. What the artist meant certainly matters in some ways... But if I happen to want people to draw the opposite conclusion, and I show people these pictures and point out my interpretation of the fact claims they represent, does it matter for my purposes? I'm not claiming the artist intended this; I'm claiming that these are interesting pictures which happen to illustrate my point. This doesn't change the fact that they'd also illustrate hers, if considered in a different way... |
Also, in the example above, and pertinent to the thread in general, while listeners have a responsibility to attempt to discover the communicative intent of the speaker, that doesn't forbid them from commenting on whether the speaker is particularly good at communicating those ideas. They could still suck at it.
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And you resort to desperate rationalizing. Wonderful.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Because of the inverted nature of the Federation in Starship Troopers, namely that the military has a certain element of hierarchical superiority over the civilian government, you could argue that statement doesn't even have the same meaning in Starship Troopers it does in most conventional governments.
Nazi Germany wasn't strictly speaking a military dictatorship, but separating the civilian government from the military would be a non-trivial exercise. To put it another way, if the US decided to make the Secretary of Defense responsible for the post office, technically the postal service could be construed as a part of the military. But I don't think that's what most people mean when they say that Federal Service in Starship Troopers was exclusively military service. |
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Oh really?|
Originally Posted by Venture
No. You're still not getting it. The men in the movie weren't sent out with weapons that were even comparable to the weapons soldiers today are sent out with. They didn't have grenades, or LAWs, or heavy gun units or even, it seemed, armor piercing rounds.
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Then I guess the scene on Klendathu at 1:02:08 where they blew up the two giant bugs shooting plasma at the ships in orbit the infantry threw fuzzy bunnies at them instead explosive warheads.
And I guess we didn't see the scene on Tango Eurilla at 1:13:14 we didn't see fleet fighters using an air strike on bugs that were on the surface.
Or the scene at 1:15:20 where Rico fires a shoulder launched Nuke into a bug hole.
Or the scene at 1:17:08 where Rico jumped onto the back of a giant bug, shot a hole in the carapace, and threw a grenade into the hole.
Or the scene at 1:34:20 where Dizzy throws a grenade into the mouth of the bug that's crawling up out of the ground inside the outpost and kills it.
So the infantry did in fact have those weapons available and used them, but because the guy making the film was an idiot with an agenda, he portrayed them as using the weapons sparingly with idiotic tactics.
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Sort of. I am asserting that "what this means" can legitimately refer to either, and that people frequently get them tangled up as a result. The "meaning" of a thing can refer to communicative intent, or towards justifiable inferences from the thing.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
You're conflating the question of what a speaker is trying to communicate, and what the listener should conclude from that communication.
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| Also, in the example above, and pertinent to the thread in general, while listeners have a responsibility to attempt to discover the communicative intent of the speaker, that doesn't forbid them from commenting on whether the speaker is particularly good at communicating those ideas. They could still suck at it. |
That said... I am a bit fuzzy on the context of the "responsibility" to attempt to discover the intent of the speaker. To whom do I have this obligation? What goes wrong if I disregard it? In some cases (an ongoing conversation), the answer is obvious. In some, though, it is not as obvious to me that I have any obligation to go past "the speaker appears to be a jerk, but this piece remains interesting because..."
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Well in the book we never were given any examples of human / bug interaction where the humans were unarmored, so can we truly estimate the physical strength of the bugs in the book?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
In the novel, the bugs weren't described as superhuman. They were described as being comparable in threat to a human being, but their strength was their sheer numbers and the fact that bug soldiers were basically automatons that fought under central control. Ironically, in the novel the capabilities depicted in the movie would have been at least nominally effective. But I suppose to emphasize the fact that human were initially outmatched, Verhoeven simultaneously buffed the bugs and nerfed the humans.
Its another serious problem that the bugs are initially depicted as so strong it takes many humans to bring down one bug, and then later the bugs are depicted as using numbers to overwhelm a small number of humans. The excuse I suppose is that they all learned to kill them better after watching Doogie Howser's PSA. |
Its another serious problem that the bugs are initially depicted as so strong it takes many humans to bring down one bug, and then later the bugs are depicted as using numbers to overwhelm a small number of humans. The excuse I suppose is that they all learned to kill them better after watching Doogie Howser's PSA.
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