By The Way, I'm Pleasantly Surprised To See All Of You Not Being Ashamed To Expose Your Interest In Comic Books. Has Anyone Read Any Of The "Mars Attacks" Comics Or Novels? Absolutely A Guilty Pleasure, Like H.G. Wells On Steroids.


Yes, I've Learned The Art Of Editing. Watch Out!

[This message has been edited by RAINTASTER (edited 05-17-2003).]

[This message has been edited by RAINTASTER (edited 05-17-2003).]

Interested in comic books. Sigh. Yes, it's true. And probably the real start of my burning urge to read. So a good thing, possibly.

But, the next thing you know, we'll start admitting we're Star Trek fans. (And, I'm willing to bet, most of us are male.)

Comic books. Star Trek. Can we possibly be bigger dweebs.

Mr. Dark,

You constantly surprise me. Sold your collection to go live on an Indian Reservation. (On another thread, I learn it was because you were a missionary.) Kudos, my friend.

Pete

One of my false alternative decisions, I'm afraid. It was not "Sell the comics" OR "go on the Res". I could have kept the comics and still gone on the Res. But, you have to learn to live with your decisions.

Comics was indeed my path to reading, also. Back in the old days all I read was Marvel and Mad. My parents were so concerned with my lack or reading, they saw a counselor about me. They told him all I'd read was Mad and Marvel and wanted to stop me. He told them to give me all I would read. In 9th grade a friend practically forced me to read F451, and it changed my life. Reading Bradbury was a conversion story for me. From a life of (?) to a life focused on ideas.

Read this new article about sci-fi movies, past(2001) and present(Matrix ReLoaded) with quotes from the master himself:
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/ledger/index.ssf?/base/.../105324031151420.xml

Thanks for the interesting article. I liked Ray's "six-pack film" term. I have felt that way after a few movies, but sometimes feel too stupid to say anything. I agreed with most of the choices on the list at the end, although there are a couple I've never seen.

[This message has been edited by lmskipper (edited 05-18-2003).]

Funny part about this topic is that ive had the exact discussion before.
The main thing to consider is their realitys. Superman=real world, Neo=Matrix.
So you could say teh superman in neo's time would still be superman out of the matrix which means Superman would win.

I tend to agree. The thing to consider is that the Matrix is a construct, so is it possible that it could be programmed where indestructibility could be destroyed?

In other words, in a construct, could we create a scenario where "God COULD make a rock so heavy He couldn't lift it"?

...or, the Simpsons' variation: Could God microwave a burrito so hot that even he couldn't eat it?...

also, technically, according to the construct of the movie, Superman already is in the Matrix, but that creates all sorts of problems in and of itself...

I was never really into comics, but cartoons instead. For me, the real eternal question from Stand By Me (one of my favorite movies) is "Whoa... What the hell IS Goofy, anyway?

Dweebily yours,
Dan

Man, the dweeb factor for this string is, indeed, high.

Pete

quote:

Originally posted by Green Shadow:
Read this new article about sci-fi movies, past(2001) and present(Matrix ReLoaded) with quotes from the master himself:
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/ledger/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-0/1053240311514 20.xml

I wish we could learn more of the specifics of RB's reaction to these films. I thought most of them were trash myself: 2001, Star Wars, Close Encounters, The Matrix I. Haven't seen #2 yet, not this piece of it, anyway. This news article veers between the vacuous and insightful itself. It doesn't resolve the obvious contradiction between high-tech visual spectacle and bargain-basement philosophy that characterizes these films. Sometimes the author recognizes the problems, sometimes he regresses to the lowest common denominator.

That article referenced above was pretty interesting. Bradbury played well the role of curmudgeon.

My take on the movies listed (by Ralph):

I thoroughly enjoyed 2001. I was able to go to the Hollywood premiere in a gorgeous theater with a rounded screen. We were middle front row of the middle balcony and I felt like I was sitting in the middle of space. It was gorgeous. My kids think it is pretty slow, but I have enjoyed subsequent viewings.

I loved the Star Wars movies when I saw them; but for me, they have not stood the test of time well. They are pretty dated for me. I appreciate what they were at the time, but they're space operas and don't have a lot to say today. Still fun, but kind of "dorky" (to use a scholarly term).

Close Enounters I enjoyed, but it seems to move a bit unevenly for me now. Parts I like and find emotionally rewarding.

Matrix I and II. I have enjoyed both. I accept the fact that film can only do so much in terms of abstract thought, but feel both films were good at opening some thought-provoking discussions and thought. I have the "Matrix and Philosophy" book (Ed. Irwin), and have enjoyed some of those essays on the movie. I love the special effects, I think the stories move along well, I like the characters, and I think they do a good job making you think about possibilities after the show. I also enjoyed Neo's discussion with the architect, and when my college-student son got home from watching it, we immediately got into a discussion about what we thought was meant by the two choices offered by the Architect to Neo and whether or not the choices were meaningful. (I don't think I'm giving anything away here . . .)


[This message has been edited by Mr. Dark (edited 05-19-2003).]

For a perceptive analysis of The Matrix, see Adam Gopnick's review in TYHE NEW YORKER: http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/?030519crat_atlarge.

I would be more impressed with Bradbury's judgements if he were to analyze the underlying epistemology and other ideological elements of these films, esp. THE MATRIX, which combines right-wing paranoid epistemology, racial mysticism, the secret hero computer nerd archetype, and other objectionable features in one slick package. But it certainly is more sophisticated than the other crap. I couldn't stand the pretensions of 2001 even when I saw it back in 1968, and I was a babe in the woods then. Plain old no-frills sci-fi was fine for me then, but vacuous pretensions to higher meaning that made so many of my peers ooh and aah just made me want to hurl.

My interest in pure SF was much stronger then. Ultimately, I lost touch, I'm not sure when. I recall reading Robert A. Hitler's TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE during a long illness in which I was incapacitated. But later my favorite SF writers became people with some real intellect: Samuel R. Delaney & Stanislaw Lem, above all. BTW, Lem's THE FUTUROLOGICAL CONGRESS is a satirical dystopia which predates THE MATRIX's uses of pills/drugs to alter people's reality. In Lem's novel several layers of false realities are peeled back until the dismal truth is revealed.

I think I messed up the link. Try: http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/?030519crat_atlarge

Ralph, I'm kind of surprised you didn't like 2001, actually. Krubrick, more than any director I can think of, refused to make intellectual concessions to please what the audience wanted, but followed his own ideas as far as they could possibly go. 2001 made more sense to me after I read the book, which was adapted (after the fact, I'm pretty sure) from the screenplay by Arthur C. Clark. I would have gotten a six pack after the first time I saw it, had I been old enough, but watching it a couple more times every once in a while in recent years, I do get a lot out of it.

I enjoyed the Matrix, but I'm not that uncompromising a critic. The philosophy of it... well some of it was interesting, some of it seemed half-assed, and you can tell that some of it was written just to sound really cool. Which, I might add, it did. It fulfilled my expectations- no "Second Coming of the Genre", but a visually amazing movie, with a little less dumbing down, and a few more interesting ideas than most.

Close Encounters, well... I'm just kind of a sap for Spielberg movies. I don't think everything he made is flawless, of course. But Close Encounters was one of his successes, I think.
My reaction to Star Wars is similar to Mr. Dark's, I think, but on a more condensed time span: when I was ten, it was the coolest movie on the planet (next to the Goonies, maybe), but now,
well, it's kinda silly, and the "higher thought" in it is even more half-assed than some of the stuff in the Matrix, but it's still fun, and I would still watch them again tonight.

may the f... no, no, I'm not going to say it...
Dan

When I first saw Star Wars...
...the audience was packed, and went 'wild' during the first scene...where the great Darth Vader space ship's rockets thunder the theater as they move into full view for the audience, who are going absolutely wild now. The guy behind me hollared out THIS IS FANTASTIC! I remember saying to myself, finally, someone did what everyone was waiting for so long to come to the screen.

Gattaca will remain timeless, in a limited respect, because they have a car that continually pops up in there with a timeless design, a 1963 Studebaker Avanti, designed by Raymond Loewy. In my humble opinion, tis finest car design ever created. Other than that, too serious for me....

Close Encounters was briliant and I believe still is. Bradbury thought so highly of it, that he said he was sure this would be the first motion picture to eventually reach $1 Billion Dollars at the box office.

Is there not a mystery that invades great timeless pictures, even though it may look old and ancient and out of date?! So many of the old Flash Gordon chapters are timeless ...in the effect it has on a person: The Clay People, Princess Azura,
the city held up by energy rays. Obviously, George Lucas was influenced. Luke Skywalker IS Flash Gordon, and he even starts off Star Wars with the same design of fading-into-the-distance- words to read at the beginning of the movie....

The little snippets of amazing insight and ingenuity are dispersed over so many diverse movies. Too bad! Is there no one to distill all these precious moments into a vast tapestry that runs continually across the screen? Bradbury comes close...in his stories...