Best and Worst Films of 2016

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Yeah, nothing in the movie was 100% out there. Highly unlikely, yes. Again, that's pretty common across the board for sci-fi movies. And, the professional linguist loved the movie. I'm not at all trying to say the movie is objectively good and you need to like it. But if you put any sci-fi movie up to your standards, you're going to hate them all.

Professional linguist liked in inspite of being a lingiist, you mean? She is hella critical of the linguistics parts. All the stuff she suggests? Well, they would have been awesome. And just dealing with this would have been awesome. More time spent on constructing understanding and shared meaning... less time on total garbage that was thr political commentary on Earth.

The political commentary was so forced and McGuffin-y ...

 

[Glongpre]

You know what would have solved all the political problems at the start? A multinational team with representatives from everywhere sent to all applicable sites. Boom. Done. Given the immensity of what it could mean of being misunderstood, I don't buy for a second the China problem in this movie. Nor do I buy for a moment just because both China and the U.S. cut their feeds that that would magically end international co-operation elsewhere? Apparently we can organise independent international science teams to co-ordinate on things like Antarctic ice shelf research, but apparently that dies the second we might have to do something like not trying to provoke an interstellar war (because Mahjong, no less).

They did have a multinational team though, they were all connected trying to figure out what the aliens wanted. And I think it is realistic that once "weapon" came up, that everyone became very defensive and started isolating themselves. The military has the most power, not the scientists.
I fail to see how research on antarctic ice is in any way comparable to this fictional scenario.
Interstellar war? Hah, you even say that we would be obliterated.

can basically end a wholesale military engagement by saying; "Fuck it, guys. It's okay... I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I perhaps drank a bit too much at last night's party... I wasn't all with it. Chronic case of Monday-itis but it's all good, now."

He ordered the military action, so why can't he rescind that order??

I can't imagine how effective communicating that with fucking Mahjong tiles would be. Not very I would imagine given they might have things like antimatter engines as boosters that could sterilise Earth if you do something retarded like target them with conventional munitions or nuclear warheads. Might pay never to initiate hostilities ... hence why even amongst humans who we can understand China has things like the no first use policy. Because ultimately the repercussions are nightmarish in all their possibilities.

Humans aren't that smart though, in general. Like, we have a video (a real video) of a guy running up and punching a kangaroo, and we know that the kangaroo can easily kill/injure him.

The movie bills itself as 'clever' ... and I can't think of a worst story to tell of first contact...Banks...

It isn't about first contact though. And the actress is Amy Adams.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

They did have a multinational team though, they were all connected trying to figure out what the aliens wanted. And I think it is realistic that once "weapon" came up, that everyone became very defensive and started isolating themselves. The military has the most power, not the scientists.
I fail to see how research on antarctic ice is in any way comparable to this fictional scenario.
Interstellar war? Hah, you even say that we would be obliterated.

No... they didn't have a multinational team. They had pockets of collaborative research. The whole goddsmn point of the initial falling out was this idea of a loose affiliation of nations worrying about whst others had learned or how to co-ordinate their research. If they had simply agreed to house researchers from other governments to form mulyinational thinktanks to maximise transparency and reduce 'noise' it would have solved the big arse plot of; "Grr... are you lying to me about what you're learning? Grr..." This was an issue they directly brought in the movie itself.

The political fallout could easily be solved by simply making the operation transparent. By having representatives directly observe. There is no feasible reason for isolating yourself from international correspondence. None. If trust is an issue, make it a non-issue by having zero boundaries to access of information.

"Grr ... we don't believe you're telling us everything about your correspondence with the aliens, so we're going to cut off our feed and be less informed about the aliens..." Bravo, masterclass move right there.

This is how a scriptwriter thinks people would react. This is how the movie injects tension.

All of this pointless, nonsensical melodrama? Unneccessary. Entirely useless. If you cut out all the bullshit international drama garbage, and just focussed on how linguists and psycholinguists construct shared meaning across numerous languages, and co-ordinating their efforts, and showing a growing intimacy of language, thought and relationship to the universe and the mind? Would have been an infinitely better movie.

Something more meaningful than; "Lol, War."

"Wife."

"Okay, war un-lol."

He ordered the military action, so why can't he rescind that order??

Yes, because:

A: The Chinese military cannot declare war. Nor can declare on its ownsome the cessation of hostilities.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Conventions_of_1899_and_1907#

B: The Chinese made a *declaration* of war that if understood with fucking Mahjong tiles, would be incredibly hard to countermand and retract.

C: How does one so willing to go to war then simply rescind after said declaration when there is no guarantee the enemy can understand a peaceful overture after *immediately* declaring war?

"You know... the aliens might not understand we don't actually mean to target them, sir... which means, at the very least, whether they understand or not, we need to make good on our threat."

"Bah! Whatevs. Sure it's cool. A linguist told me my wife's dying words after directly contacting the alien race herself, after all. Seems totally legit."

Worst. General. Ever.

Not only that ... not only that... let's say the entire Chinese government was onboard with this, how would ringing up ONE GENERAL assist in this regards? Surely the general didn't tell the aliens: "Fuck off or die..." without some form of clearance by his superiors and assessing the willingness of the core council membership of the PLA? I mean, if he didn't I'm pretty sure the Chinese government can practice its well established policy of inhouse cleaning, now in 5.8mm.

Humans aren't that smart though, in general. Like, we have a video (a real video) of a guy running up and punching a kangaroo, and we know that the kangaroo can easily kill/injure him.

Yeah, and generals overseeing a nuclear armed military are meant to be smarter than random kangaroo punchers. I'm glad that the ludicrous nature of the key antagonist in the film can simply be summed up as retarded as if to dismiss criticism of the film characters and the entire third act being stupid.

Chinese leadership seems as 'thoughtful' as M. Bison in the live action Street Fighter movie.

It isn't about first contact though. And the actress is Amy Adams.

And the character is Louise Banks. Your point being? I don't have any fault with Adams. She did the best she could with the nonsense the scriptwriters came up with.

 

[Kyrian007]

When I say it contradicts the original trilogy, I'm referring to Vader and Leia's dialogue in the beginning of Star Wars. Her ship shouldn't have been anywhere near a battle, and it probably wouldn't have been a battle anyway. What she says to Vader in Star Wars, that she is on a diplomatic mission and denying she has the plans, makes no sense. He was there, almost on her ship.

I've seen people mention that as a fault, and I'm trying hard to understand it. "Her ship shouldn't have been anywhere near a battle." Uh, ok why not? I can think of several different logical reasons why it would have been, Rogue One's scenario being one of those. "What she says to Vader in Star Wars, that she is on a diplomatic mission and denying she has the plans, makes no sense. He was there, almost on her ship." Yes it makes complete sense... she's lying. She KNOWS he knows she's lying, but she's taking part in a rebellion against a galactic empire... what's she supposed to do? Just tell the truth and surrender the information about the droids? No, in that situation you make something up and lie. Like she did when she offered up Dantooine up as a sacrifice to protect Yavin IV.

I just watched this YouTube video in which the now contradictory scene was humorously compared to something you'd see on Cops. A drunk driver running over signs, a dog, crashing into cars and being totally reckless in front of the pursuit car, then looking dumb as he denies everything. The scene is now unintentionally funny.

So, the scene would have been better if instead she had said, "Yes, I have the plans and they are on a couple of droids that launched in an escape pod and are now on the planet below?" That doesn't strike me as any better.

Actually, I guess my point is... is it really a problem that it's "contradictory?" It is a situation in which she is going to lie, expected to lie. Unless you make it somehow in Rogue One that she WAS on a diplomatic mission and somehow DIDN'T have the death star plans at all, it was ALWAYS going to be "contradictory." I guess I don't see that as fault.

Realistically, the concept of Rebels stealing the plans wasn't terribly interesting. It was a simple story of spies being inserted in the Empire or Imperials with a conscience coming into contact with the the resistance, discreetly beaming the plans up and then possibly being interrogated and executed. The flaw of the Death Star wasn't a plot hole that needed explaining, and from Leia's dialogue it certainly doesn't appear that the Rebels even knew what they were looking for within those plans. She says, "The technical readouts of that battle station. I only hope that when the data is analyzed a weakness can be found." The Rebels would never send so many ships into battle to recover the plans when they are so unsure. Why would the Death Star plans appear as early as Attack of the Clones if the designers, the geonosians, didn't even know yet how to design the laser itself? Rogue One complicated the issue in order to tell an action-packed two hour story with a big battle at the end.

There were better stories to tell. Maybe a sequel to Return of the Jedi that shows the last battles of the Civil War from the perspectives of the soldiers and reveals the origins of the First Order and Snoke. Or an adventurous bounty hunter movie. (Not Boba Fett. Screw Boba Fett.) Stop making movies about giant planet killers.

Well, to be fair they threw out lots more planet and solar system killers in the EU. So it wasn't as if that wasn't already a staple of the series. But you're right about it not being the best story they could tell. And I'm glad it wasn't.

It was an experiment. Not Star Wars, but A Star Wars Story. Right there in the title. The Marvel movies had really good success by making different sub-genres with each of the different solo hero efforts (even on the tv versions.) It helps to keep it from being stale for the folks who are following the whole complicated mess. They can switch from cyber-techno thriller, to spy movie, to war film, to fantasy, to monster movie, to pulp adventure, to caper... Disney wanted to see if Star Wars could do the same. If they could make different kinds of Star Wars movies. And I'm super glad they found out it works. It means they CAN tell those other stories now. We can see Luke setting up a new jedi academy. We can see the Rogues and some commandos liberate planets from imperial control. If Rogue One failed... we would only get main storyline Star Wars movies, they wouldn't ever tell those other stories... maybe in some tv or books but no more canon movies.

 

[Glongpre]

No... they didn't have a multinational team. They had pockets of collaborative research.

Ok, fair enough.

And the character is Louise Banks. Your point being? I don't have any fault with Adams. She did the best she could with the nonsense the scriptwriters came up with.

My bad, I only remembered her being called Louise. I shouldn't make assumptions, sorry.