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Hollywood Stupid

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Re: Hollywood Stupid
Post by cthia   » Tue Jun 05, 2018 1:53 pm

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Imaginos1892 wrote:Have you not read Larry Niven's 'Man Of Steel, Woman Of Kleenex'? He brings to light all sorts of...difficulties.


Somehow, the Woman Of Steel's pov seem to make me more... squeamish?

Squeamish, because it is such a vivid reminder of squished.

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Re: Hollywood Stupid
Post by Imaginos1892   » Mon Jun 25, 2018 8:30 pm

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In 'Now You See Me' the magicians light off a pallet stacked waist-high with flash paper printed up to look like Euro bills in a bank vault. It goes FOOF! Nothing remains except a show program and a card with the mark's name written on it. Nobody can figure out what happened until an old magician-turned-debunker explains it.

The Stupids:

1. That much flash paper would have made smoke
2. It would also have left easily identifiable residue
3. The ersatz bills were shrink-wrapped in bundles; the plastic wouldn't go FOOF
4. The regular paper items would have been set on fire
5. The aluminum pallets would have been scorched
6. Temperature and pressure inside the bank vault would have been intense

Flash paper is not magic, it's nitrocellulose. The primary propellant in most modern ammunition. Used because burning it generates a large volume of hot gas to efficiently push a bullet out of a gun barrel. The stack shown in the movie would contain well over a TON of nitrocellulose. FOOF? More like:

BOOM!!

Even if it didn't go BOOM, burning that much of anything generates a huge amount of heat. It would have set off the fire alarms and shot a blast of high-pressure 600-degree-plus gases through the ventilation system, blowing the ductwork apart. The event would not have gone unnoticed.
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Re: Hollywood Stupid
Post by vovchara   » Tue Jun 26, 2018 4:47 pm

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sadly Hollywood stupid is spreading. Not only movies and series, but also books are guilty of lack of any coherent thought from the authors.
Since David Weber takes his sweet, sweet time (joking :P) I am forced to read other sci-fi books.
And I tell you, it is horrible. Most of space opera writers ignore space completely. Often interstellar travel is easier than for an average person here on earth to get to the job in the mornings.

Only in this week, I've bee reading about exploding guns because of zero-G, yes zero-G, about intergalactic explorers who need 2 years to get to Saturn, because somehow the solar system is a galaxy. "Exciting" action right in the beginning of the book, where I don't get a chance to know characters and couldn't care less about them dying.

In 3 separate books, by 3 separate authors, the protagonist drops a weapon, you know, because some low life says so and then I have to read how he/she suffers for some time after, which forces me to chuckle: "Good riddance dumb ass".

Also, a lot of authors go on a rampage with technological "inventions", completely ignoring ANY implications. You know, when their space vehicles are able to drop out of FTL direct in the orbit of a planet and land on it. Just think about how to defend a planet from a relativistic missile with a mass in excess of 100.000 tons (in rest).

I wonder what kind of narrative gem I find next.
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Re: Hollywood Stupid
Post by Daryl   » Tue Jun 26, 2018 8:43 pm

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One common story is how in stories using plain FTL they have borders in space between warring systems. Space is 3D, you can just go over or under any defensive line.
A current author, who I normally like, has ramming as a deliberate tactic between star ships. Somehow they travel between stars, then drop to speeds that make solar system travel feasable, then come to grips at motor vehicle speeds.
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Re: Hollywood Stupid
Post by Imaginos1892   » Wed Jun 27, 2018 2:03 am

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Daryl wrote:One common story is how in stories using plain FTL they have borders in space between warring systems. Space is 3D, you can just go over or under any defensive line.

Well, the border has to be 3D. Of course, that probably makes it a bit...impractical to guard. How many light-years by how many light-years? How many million ships?

vovchara wrote:In 3 separate books, by 3 separate authors, the protagonist drops a weapon, you know, because some low life says so and then I have to read how he/she suffers for some time after, which forces me to chuckle: "Good riddance dumb ass".

Or when the bad guy threatens to kill the hostage. The ONLY hostage. And the good guy is all, 'oh no we surrender please don't kill the hostage' instead of 'Right, dumbshit...THEN what ya gonna do?'

If the good guys have any sense at all, a bad guy with one hostage is kind of fucked. Of course, in most movies and TV shows, the good guys DON'T have any sense at all.
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Re: Hollywood Stupid
Post by Annachie   » Wed Jun 27, 2018 6:48 am

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Rule one.

Good guy shoots the hostage. In the leg or similar.

Then shoots the bad guy.
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Re: Hollywood Stupid
Post by Imaginos1892   » Wed Jun 27, 2018 11:14 am

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Or how about:

Hostage pretends to faint, falls down.

Shoot the bad guy!

I still say, with that signature, you're just begging to be the next Joe Buckley!
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Re: Hollywood Stupid
Post by Annachie   » Wed Jun 27, 2018 12:24 pm

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Imaginos1892 wrote:I still say, with that signature, you're just begging to be the next Joe Buckley!


I'd forgotten about that. Lol

I've been using an app to view this forum for years, one which doesn't show signatures.
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You are so going to die. :p ~~~~ runsforcelery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Re: Hollywood Stupid
Post by Daryl   » Wed Jun 27, 2018 8:31 pm

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True. When I pointed out the ramming fallacy to the author I mentioned earlier, his next series had the rebel city with my name. So I've been nuked.


Annachie wrote:
Imaginos1892 wrote:I still say, with that signature, you're just begging to be the next Joe Buckley!


I'd forgotten about that. Lol

I've been using an app to view this forum for years, one which doesn't show signatures.
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Re: Hollywood Stupid
Post by edgeworthy   » Fri Jun 29, 2018 9:05 am

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Daryl I feel your pain
Its entirely possible that after I wrote a particularly scathing Amazon review that I ended up as one of the Villains in the "War God" series.
Although I'm actually sort of flattered, and enjoy pointing out that at least one Bond Villain is named after a friend of the author.
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