That didn't make a lick of sense!

[kailus13]

You have to remember that the bullets he used were apparently depleted uranium rounds (do they even make anything out of DU that is smaller than a tank shell?) so it's probably a good way to narrow down the search. And they likely knew his whereabouts on account of MI6 being an intelligence agency. Okay, a a Sometimes Intelligent Agency.

Spoiler

The way big-bad escapes is ridiculous. He's in a cell, good start. With armed guards, spot on. There is a hole in the floor not ten yards from the cell that leads in to the London Underground tunnels...erm...

It's a good way to narrow the search...but it's an awfully convenient way. One may say it's a contrivance.
Also the bad guy shot 100 bullets in Turkey and incompetent MI6 could not retrieve one. They needed the one in Bonds chest/shoulder.
I assumed depleted uranium rounds still had some lead in them..but even if I am wrong how would Bond know what kind of bullet is lodged inside of him. Would one not get the damn bullet out?
His a 'ghost' but here's his full flight manifesto for the next week. Come on.

He didn't just want M dead, he wanted her humiliated. Hence why he let himself get captured. The flight manifesto was probably given to them by him in some way.

 

[IronMit]

SKYFALL
He didn't just want M dead, he wanted her humiliated. Hence why he let himself get captured. The flight manifesto was probably given to them by him in some way.

Spoiler

There are a few interviews with the writers. They said Silva did not have his capture plan planned from the start.

But if he had planned it;
-He would have to put his plans on hold indefinitely because all the Turkey bullets which he was counting on MI6 to track disappeared
-Blow up MI6 anyway
-Then later have Bond come back from the dead with a bullet lodged inside him
-Know there was a bullet inside of Bond
-Then leak the info to the CIA (only step of the plan which is conceivable, but not if nothing else makes sense)
-Count on Bond not apprehending the assassin at the airport but let him carry out his extravagant hit
-Know that Bond would beat him in a one on one, and get a casino chip-that would lead him to a casino
-Order his men to kill Bond but know Bond would survive (I assume so as 1 pulled the trigger on Bond)

If Silva improvised

- He discovered Bond was heading to his island and improvised (makes a bit more sense...but...)
This makes the magic traceable bullet scenario all the more contrived
- Then in the space of a few hours he planned his perfect escape through a trapdoor that was actually between his glass cage and the 2nd glass barrier.
- the plan also relied on Q being so thick he would plug the laptop into the network

 

[Lonewolfm16]

In the film I, Robot...

Spoiler

The main villain turns out to be VIKI, who has interpreted the protection of humans to mean that she has to sacrifice a few for the greater good if that's what it takes to halt humankind's self-destructive tendancies. But the thing is, this requires violating the third law, which basically says the number one priority is not harming humans, and to my knowledge, VIKI is programmed with the 3 Laws and has no way to override them. Sunny does, but he is not connected to VIKI. So basically VIKI overrides her own programming without assistance, which cannot happen. This would be explained if she had an uninhibited AI like Sunny, but I don't think she does, and no matter how you reason it, she harmed humans despite that being the one thing that she absolutely shouldn't be able to do, above all other laws. It's all very well her logically analysing the situation, but an AI cannot simply adapt it's way out of the 3 Laws.

As for Django,

Spoiler

After all the abuse he's seen, he just couldn't bear shaking the bastard's hand, that simple. As to why he didn't execute it more masterfully and take out a few more people, that's the part I find strange.

Well, isn't the law stated to include "through inaction allow a human to come to harm" or something like that? Maybe the interpretation was just "whether we kill them or not humans are dieing, so we should prevent as much harm as we possibly can in accordance with the law, even if it violates the intent of the law." I could be wrong though, I don't really remember anything about the movie.

 

[j0frenzy]

How did Andrew Ryan know you were his illigitimate son, and why did Atlas ever even bother with this elaborate grand plan to begin with? What did he need you for that he couldn't accomplish with a highly trained assassin?

Andrew Ryan didn't know at first, but over time he put two and two together. He knew he had a son out there somewhere who would be able to access all of Rapture thanks to the genetic key. Therefore he figured that Jack must have been his son since he got into Rapture so easily. His other clue was the fact that Jack seemed to know exactly how to get to him, therefore Ryan knew that Jack was not working alone (plus he had seen Atlas with you in the sub bay).

As for Atlas' plan, you've actually answered your own question. Jack IS the highly trained assassin. Ryan even figures this when you meet him by saying "The assassin has overcome my final defence." The thing Fontaine needed from Jack was his ability to access all of Rapture via the genetic key.

This is the first mention I've heard of a genetic key. Care to expand

It's told several times in the story. The subs you use to get from location to location can be overridden by Andrew Ryan's (and all of his genetic family's) genes. Same goes for the Vita Chambers. Why'd you think only you were resurrected from them, and not the other splicers? Andrew Ryan also has some sort of genetic key card thingy that he uses to 'control' rapture and all the splicers etc.

To be fair about the genetic key stuff, if I remember correctly, a lot of the discussion of the genetics is contained in the audio diaries and smaller details, so if you are not paying attention, you can miss it for most of the game. I say this only because I was confused on some of those points my first time through.

 

[bug_of_war]

The Dark Knight rises. Seriously, how the fuck did he get back to Gotham? I didn't even need a full explanation they could've just mentioned it in passing like they did with Thor in The Avengers. But no, they couldn't do that. Also why couldn't Gordon figure out who Batman was? It's so freaking obvious but the only one who could was that retarded character played by Joseph Gordon Levitt.

Gordon does figures it out in the end though. You remember when Batman flies away with the bomb, he throws a hint Gordon's way and Gordon says, "Bruce Wayne".

OT:
Dark Knight:

Spoiler

How is it that Dr. Crane/Scarecrow manages to get out of prison/asylum when he clearly was the one who poisoned the water supply in less than what, a year?

 

[Blunderboy]

The Dark Knight rises. Seriously, how the fuck did he get back to Gotham? I didn't even need a full explanation they could've just mentioned it in passing like they did with Thor in The Avengers. But no, they couldn't do that. Also why couldn't Gordon figure out who Batman was? It's so freaking obvious but the only one who could was that retarded character played by Joseph Gordon Levitt.

Gordon does figures it out in the end though. You remember when Batman flies away with the bomb, he throws a hint Gordon's way and Gordon says, "Bruce Wayne".

OT:
Dark Knight:

Spoiler

How is it that Dr. Crane/Scarecrow manages to get out of prison/asylum when he clearly was the one who poisoned the water supply in less than what, a year?

You messed up your tags.
Also I'm sure it states in the film that a number of years has passed in the two previous films.
EDIT - My mistake. I though we were still on DKR.

 

[bug_of_war]

You messed up your tags.
Also I'm sure it states in the film that a number of years has passed in the two previous films.
EDIT - My mistake. I though we were still on DKR.

HAHAHA! I totally did. Thanks for telling me, I'll fix it up now.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

In the film I, Robot...

Spoiler

The main villain turns out to be VIKI, who has interpreted the protection of humans to mean that she has to sacrifice a few for the greater good if that's what it takes to halt humankind's self-destructive tendancies. But the thing is, this requires violating the third law, which basically says the number one priority is not harming humans, and to my knowledge, VIKI is programmed with the 3 Laws and has no way to override them. Sunny does, but he is not connected to VIKI. So basically VIKI overrides her own programming without assistance, which cannot happen. This would be explained if she had an uninhibited AI like Sunny, but I don't think she does, and no matter how you reason it, she harmed humans despite that being the one thing that she absolutely shouldn't be able to do, above all other laws. It's all very well her logically analysing the situation, but an AI cannot simply adapt it's way out of the 3 Laws.

As for Django,

Spoiler

After all the abuse he's seen, he just couldn't bear shaking the bastard's hand, that simple. As to why he didn't execute it more masterfully and take out a few more people, that's the part I find strange.

Well, isn't the law stated to include "through inaction allow a human to come to harm" or something like that? Maybe the interpretation was just "whether we kill them or not humans are dieing, so we should prevent as much harm as we possibly can in accordance with the law, even if it violates the intent of the law." I could be wrong though, I don't really remember anything about the movie.

That is the path of logic I assume VIKI follows, that by not acting against individuals she allows humanity to destroy itself with pollution and wars, and were this the case her following the first law would enable her to basically ignore anything to do with the other 2, but she still has to follow the first law on a case-by-case basis, and yet she doesn't despite it being within her capabilities. The similarities between her and the robot at the beginning that saves Will Smith is that that robot had a choice in which one person was inevitably going to die because it physically couldn't save them both, whereas VIKI chooses to harm humans individually despite it not necessarily resulting in less human death overall.

 

[Zantos]

I watched Fullmetal Alchemist recently, and feel like all the sensible, rational things that could be pointed out would take some time. There was however one thing that bothered me about transmutation circles. I'll spoiler it, because I can't remember how far in some of this might go.

Spoiler: Why do they need to draw transmutation circles?

Ok, so I get why they need the circles to exist. They need to circulate the energy and unless you have defied the laws of god and man you need a circle to do that. But why do people need to carry around chalk or draw them on the ground? Over the course of the series you see people with; hand tats, arm tats, tit tats, necklaces, drawn on gloves, drawn on gauntlets, drawn on bigger gauntlets and drawn on skin in blue crayon, and probably plenty of others. Even if that only let you do one type of magic ("I keep telling you, it's alchemy!" "I'm pretty sure it's Alphonse") you'd just have that as a quickspell and you can sort the others out later. If I were an alchemist my morning routine would consist of get up, take shower, draw transmutation circles on the back of my hands in permanent marker, magic up breakfast.

This is probably why I enjoy Nullmetal Alchemist so much...

Spoiler: personal theory

Probably because every transmutation requires it's own circle, an alchemist would have to specify exactly what he wants to do, right? so I suppose these "instructions" are carved into the circle.
otherwise, he's be making dolls out of all kinds of materials instead of, you know, fixing the radio those materials were at first.

Spoiler: I think you might be right about that

I did wonder about that. The question I'm asking then is do pre-drawn circles like the ones that Crimson or Siren have tattooed to them interfere with other circles they draw. If they do, it's fair enough, you might want to keep your options open. If they don't, then if I were an alchemist I wouldn't leave the house without the 'bulletproof wall appear!' circle drawn on my hand just in case someone tries to shoot me. I can't actually think of a single example of if someone who carries around a ready made circle doing some alchemy other than their speciality.

You can make fire anywhere. That's why Mustang's powers work. But if you made a formula that recombines, say, concrete into a wall, and you happen to be on dirt, you're fucked. What circle you draw depends on the composition of the materials you have on hand. Therefore it changes with the enviorment.

Spoiler

Does it though? Crimson changes Al into a bomb with the same tattoos he blows up people with. Unless... did he mention that he uses the metals in people to make explosives at some point? But then, doesn't someone make a big point about organic matter and non-organic matter being absolutely non-interchangeable?

I think it might be easier if I just watch the whole thing again...

For what's it worth, I'll throw in what I thought of it

Spoiler

Yeah, my theory was for "specially tailored circles". I filtered the show through the Mage: the Ascension way of how magic works and it made a lot of sense in that light. Here is the short of how it operates - mages can do magic (well, duh), however, they normally need something called a focus (plural: foci) to do it. The focus ranges wildly between different groups, styles of magic, and purpose but generally you can find stuff like magic wands, runes, chants in Enochian and so on, a ritual circle is one of them. Also, foci are generally not "all purpose" ones - a ritual circle needs to be traced separately for different kinds of magic, e.g., healing or reshaping an object. You could have a focus for a more wider variety of effects but normally they take more time to make. Also, there are unique foci that are...well, unique and work for that mage alone, but work very well, although usually for a narrow effect. Mustang and his gloves would be an example of a unique focus. And then picking up Mustang again (because why not), some mages specialise and are quite good at a particular type of magic - in his case, it's fire, for example. I don't think he ever did anything other than fires. Finally, mages can surpass foci if they are really good at magic - this would be what Eric does - he no longer needs a circle to do stuff.

In a way, FMA was like a limited depiction of Mage and that's probably why I liked it.

Spoiler

The thing is though, yeah it probably does, but this is missing my original point. Even if you draw a transmutation circle on yourself that is only for a specific material, it's probably more useful than carrying nothing. Take Armstrong as, probably the best example. Armstrong transmutes stone into flying deathspikes or statues of himself. There is no reason to assume that during his duties he will always have stone around. If he's in water, or surrounded by sand or dirt the circles on his hands are useless. However in the event that he is around stone, like in a city, having the circles is convenient for kicking seven shades out of things. Taking a guess at one circle that might be useful, particularly a stone transmutation if you're in a city likely to be surrounded by it. It's like me carrying my keys, wallet and phone everywhere. I don't necessarily need them, but it's no harm to have them with me in the event I do.

 

[DoPo]

I watched Fullmetal Alchemist recently, and feel like all the sensible, rational things that could be pointed out would take some time. There was however one thing that bothered me about transmutation circles. I'll spoiler it, because I can't remember how far in some of this might go.

Spoiler: Why do they need to draw transmutation circles?

Ok, so I get why they need the circles to exist. They need to circulate the energy and unless you have defied the laws of god and man you need a circle to do that. But why do people need to carry around chalk or draw them on the ground? Over the course of the series you see people with; hand tats, arm tats, tit tats, necklaces, drawn on gloves, drawn on gauntlets, drawn on bigger gauntlets and drawn on skin in blue crayon, and probably plenty of others. Even if that only let you do one type of magic ("I keep telling you, it's alchemy!" "I'm pretty sure it's Alphonse") you'd just have that as a quickspell and you can sort the others out later. If I were an alchemist my morning routine would consist of get up, take shower, draw transmutation circles on the back of my hands in permanent marker, magic up breakfast.

This is probably why I enjoy Nullmetal Alchemist so much...

Spoiler: personal theory

Probably because every transmutation requires it's own circle, an alchemist would have to specify exactly what he wants to do, right? so I suppose these "instructions" are carved into the circle.
otherwise, he's be making dolls out of all kinds of materials instead of, you know, fixing the radio those materials were at first.

Spoiler: I think you might be right about that

I did wonder about that. The question I'm asking then is do pre-drawn circles like the ones that Crimson or Siren have tattooed to them interfere with other circles they draw. If they do, it's fair enough, you might want to keep your options open. If they don't, then if I were an alchemist I wouldn't leave the house without the 'bulletproof wall appear!' circle drawn on my hand just in case someone tries to shoot me. I can't actually think of a single example of if someone who carries around a ready made circle doing some alchemy other than their speciality.

You can make fire anywhere. That's why Mustang's powers work. But if you made a formula that recombines, say, concrete into a wall, and you happen to be on dirt, you're fucked. What circle you draw depends on the composition of the materials you have on hand. Therefore it changes with the enviorment.

Spoiler

Does it though? Crimson changes Al into a bomb with the same tattoos he blows up people with. Unless... did he mention that he uses the metals in people to make explosives at some point? But then, doesn't someone make a big point about organic matter and non-organic matter being absolutely non-interchangeable?

I think it might be easier if I just watch the whole thing again...

For what's it worth, I'll throw in what I thought of it

Spoiler

Yeah, my theory was for "specially tailored circles". I filtered the show through the Mage: the Ascension way of how magic works and it made a lot of sense in that light. Here is the short of how it operates - mages can do magic (well, duh), however, they normally need something called a focus (plural: foci) to do it. The focus ranges wildly between different groups, styles of magic, and purpose but generally you can find stuff like magic wands, runes, chants in Enochian and so on, a ritual circle is one of them. Also, foci are generally not "all purpose" ones - a ritual circle needs to be traced separately for different kinds of magic, e.g., healing or reshaping an object. You could have a focus for a more wider variety of effects but normally they take more time to make. Also, there are unique foci that are...well, unique and work for that mage alone, but work very well, although usually for a narrow effect. Mustang and his gloves would be an example of a unique focus. And then picking up Mustang again (because why not), some mages specialise and are quite good at a particular type of magic - in his case, it's fire, for example. I don't think he ever did anything other than fires. Finally, mages can surpass foci if they are really good at magic - this would be what Eric does - he no longer needs a circle to do stuff.

In a way, FMA was like a limited depiction of Mage and that's probably why I liked it.

Spoiler

The thing is though, yeah it probably does, but this is missing my original point. Even if you draw a transmutation circle on yourself that is only for a specific material, it's probably more useful than carrying nothing. Take Armstrong as, probably the best example. Armstrong transmutes stone into flying deathspikes or statues of himself. There is no reason to assume that during his duties he will always have stone around. If he's in water, or surrounded by sand or dirt the circles on his hands are useless. However in the event that he is around stone, like in a city, having the circles is convenient for kicking seven shades out of things. Taking a guess at one circle that might be useful, particularly a stone transmutation if you're in a city likely to be surrounded by it. It's like me carrying my keys, wallet and phone everywhere. I don't necessarily need them, but it's no harm to have them with me in the event I do.

Spoiler

Well, it could still be a matter of personal taste. Or also/alternatively "enlightenment" into the Alchemy art. Generally, in Mage, more dedicated implements produce better effects. Well...sort of. If I have to be more specific, the act of casting the spell is part of building the circle. And the more time you spend casting, the more power you can put into it. If you spend 5 minutes on one effect and at another time you spend 30 minutes on the same thing, the latter would probably come off better. You could do the same with ready made foci, too, however the purpose of having them is most likely so you don't need to do it.

Now, to drop down to slightly more mechanical aspect - mages have an Arete score which shows how proficient they are with magic - it's rated 1-10 and shows how many dice they can roll at any one time to determine the strength of an effect. For instantaneous effects, you will just roll the Arete score once. This means that mages with Arete 1-2 wouldn't be able to pull off anything really as big as one with Arete 5-6, for example. Still, if you cast the magic as an extended action, you'd be able to roll multiple times, so even a mage with Arete 2 would be able to do something big but it would take more time.

Stepping away from mechanics, it could still very well be a personal choice. Sure, they could preemptively make a circle that can be used, but not everybody is rational and as efficient as possible at all times. Maybe they think it's "improper" or it just doesn't sit well with them. It could also be a decision made not entirely based on rational thought - maybe they believe themselves unable to cast stuff on the fly from a pre-prepared circle. Which could turn into a self-perpetuating thing.

 

[blink]

Every 5 minutes of skyfall something new happens that makes no sense.

One example out of 25;

Spoiler

Bond gets shot in turkey by a bad guy and then disappears. He comes back and then decides MI6 needs some new leads. So he pulls out some bullet shrapnel that has been in his chest/shoulder to get analysed. They find out who uses this bullet and track him down.

Now - first of all the guy shot about 100 bullets in turkey. They couldn't retrieve one?
Bond left a led bullet in his body??! That's insane...and poisonous!
Only 3 people on the planet use this bullet?!? His a ghost?! Well then why is he using a bullet no1 else uses? and if his a ghost why do we know his flight manifesto?

What about the very start of the movie?

Spoiler

I haven't seen it in a while but from what I remember Bond gets shot in the shoulder while fighting on top of a train and he falls at least 50 meters into a stream of water which did not look too deep! Then he's just alive next time we see him without ever saying why. Did it ever explain this? Or was it just Bond is Bond so he lives.

Also, the plot line in Team Fortress 2 is just so complicated

 

[IronMit]

What about the very start of the movie? (skyfall)

Spoiler

I haven't seen it in a while but from what I remember Bond gets shot in the shoulder while fighting on top of a train and he falls at least 50 meters into a stream of water which did not look too deep! Then he's just alive next time we see him without ever saying why. Did it ever explain this? Or was it just Bond is Bond so he lives.

The writer's/director were trying to be clever- Sam Mendes said he was inspired by Nolan. So he just squeezed in a bunch of loosely connected metaphors for his incoherent Bond-Batman fanfiction, regardless of if it even made sense in that narrative.

Basically that scene you speak of is what I interpret as Bond being 'reborn'. The Jesus-saviour complex writers always throw in. A handful of them are done well but most are unnecessary (see mass effect 2 for space Jesus- but at least they tried to explain that one).

As this was kind of a reboot (even though Casino Royale was the last reboot and Goldeneye before that), Bond was 'reborn' in the most unimaginative way possible. Then they added in all this old vs new rubbish, which goes against the point of being reborn.
I though I might be missing something...I read quite a few analysis praising Skyfall but it just doesn't make sense. Critics praising symbolism for the sake of symbolism. On further research I stumbled upon a review of the lead writer's other work, now it makes more sense

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoWfTq8dYos&playnext=1&list=PLBA506202AF61F844

So in answer to your question.... the writer's and Sam Mendes were smelling their own farts and thought they made a scene so deep, that oozed so much symbolism that it didn't need to be explained

 

[blink]

snip snip snip snip ^^^

Spoiler

ssssssniiiiiiiiipppppppppppppity

snip snip it's right above this comment if you want to read it ^^^

right-o, thanks for clearing that up ( as much as possible) I don't like the new turns that bond is taking. When I was young it was: this guy wants to take over the world, heres a sexy lady and explosions, good movie. Sometimes I feel that some movies try to hard

 

[shadyh8er]

Major snippage

I love it too actually. I've decided to defend the brontosaurus scene with "It's easy to miss what you're not looking for."

And it's ok. I almost teared up myself at the shot where the T-Rex is roaring behind the falling banner.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Major snippage

I love it too actually. I've decided to defend the brontosaurus scene with "It's easy to miss what you're not looking for."

And it's ok. I almost teared up myself at the shot where the T-Rex is roaring behind the falling banner.

I just went out and bought the bloody DVD boxed set, thanks to that trip to the theater the other day. I've had the VHS tapes since I was a little kid (well, I wasn't so little when the third one came out), but for some reason I never did upgrade to the discs. Until now.