I spent much of this evening pondering the implications of Obama's speech while studying Paul Krugman's recent column on the Case-Shiller price index and the BLS measure of owners’ equivalent rent. And suddenly it hit me. The entire national conundrum comes down to a single question:
Why does the dam burst at the end of the second X-Men movie?
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And "Goldfinger." Don't get me started on that one. Why isn't the airspace over Fort Knox protected? Why does Goldfinger kill both the hood who rejects his scheme and the hoods who accept it? Why doesn't he just shoot Bond?
Now let's talk "Forbidden Planet." This one has bugged me for decades. Why is there a lever in the middle of Dr. Morbius' lab that triggers a machine that destroys the entire planet?
I once asked that question of my old art professor, Irving Block, who wrote the original story. He went into a long explanation as to how the Krell machinery worked. And I kept interrupting: "Yeah, but why would they put a lever that does a thing like that RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LAB? I mean, what if someone tripped over it?" He looked at me as if he didn't understand the question.
Of course, Professor Block was rather elderly at that time. Funny guy, though. Looked like Einstein. One day I'll tell you some stories about him.
At any rate, you don't have to answer the questions about "Goldfinger" and "Forbidden Planet." But I really do think that if you can figure out the ending of "X2," we'll be very close to solving all of the nation's current problems.
There was a second X-Men movie?
What I want to know is why the alien "Visitors" in "V - The Miniseries" came all the way to Earth to steal our water?
Wouldn't it have been cheaper and easier for a space traveling civilization to hijack a comet (which is frozen water and other stuff) from their own system?
"Why is there a lever in the middle of Dr. Morbius' lab that triggers a machine that destroys the entire planet?"
As a native of Altair IV, I believe I can explain that...
The button is an example, however crude, of "dramatic license," which works the same on all planets. It comes down to plot restraints. They could conceivably have filmed a twenty-minute scene setting up a suitably cool way for the planet to be destroyed. But few viewers (not to mention the producers) would break up the action at that point. Not that I'm a drama expert. And not that the button isn't funny.
Altair has lost many worlds to this button.
Button, lever. There is no difference.
Guys, guys. Were you not paying attention as you watched X2? (the single best film of its genre ever)
William Striker was controlling Scott Summers / Cyclops mind.
Jean Grey / Phoenix had infiltrated William Striker's base / dam.
Cyclops and Phoenix had a showdown, unleashing cataclysmic amount of plasmic (Cyclops) and telekinetic (Phoenix) energies.
This explosion sent fractures throughout the already aged dam, leading to its collapse.
Gads! People. Don't you know that the porridge bird lays its egg in the air and still thrives today? Black panther sighting are on the increase in central England, jaguars have been sighted in northern Mexico, and the USAF has been chasing an increasing horde of UFOs over both English and American airspace.
And why are there ever any children in any action or adventure movies? They exist only to get themselves in shit. Yaaaaahhhh!!!! (runs off, hair on fire)...
Why does the dam burst?
Because...
uh. They're in the underground bunker and...what's his ass...Cyclops is in the generator room and gets is shades knocked off? (maybe not). SOMETHING hits one of the generators (or whatever they are) which causes the dam pressure to build until it blows.
Or something.
Been awhile since I've seen it, but it DOES make sense.
The ending itself (after the dam break) doesn't follow the arc of the comics at all. Granted, very little of the movies follow the story arc, but the ending is WAY off what "really" happens.
Jean Grey goes "become" the Phoenix (not really, too much to explain), but it doesn't happen the way it does in X2 and X3.
The wiki can explain the story arc better than I can here.
The end of that movie made me think of that old Warner Brothers cartoon where Daffy is trying to pitch a script: "And then the DAM broke! And the VOLCANO erupted! And the price of food SKYROCKETED!"
That question about Goldfinger has always bugged me as well. And I have never been able to come up with a satisfactory explanation until you asked the question yourself - why does he kill both the thugs that agree and disagree with him?
there are two possible explanations here. The first, which I like, is that Goldfinger is, at heart, just a whimsical sort of fellow. That pretty much provides all the explanation I need. The second explanation, which doesn't necessarily negate the first, is that Goldfinger loves to hear himself talk. He is insane - there is no doubt about that. I suppose it could be a combination of both things - he loves to hear himself talk and he enjoys acting on his whims. I've read the book, y'know, and that golf game is truly spectacular as depicted by Ian Flemming. As to the air space over Fort Knox, good question. That particular plot contrivance was the sole invention of the movie makers. Your guess is as good as mine, there.
Now, on to Forbidden Planet. I love space movies where everyone smokes. Walter Pidgeon is really a load in this movie. But that aside, I'm afraid that I must inform you that you are simply missing the obvious. That lever is placed in that room so prominently as the Krell's constant reminder to whomever that all moral beings have free will. How do I know this? Back in the early seventies, when Anthony Burgess used to teach at Princeton University, I asked him if it was true that the Rolling sTones were going to make a movie based on A Clockwork Orange. He went into a fearful rage, picked up a solid walnut desk, and was about bring it down hard on my head, when I blurted out the same question you have about Forbidden Planet. Thus having been asked a question worthy of his great mind, he placed the gigantic desk gently back on to the floor and proceeded to lecture me on the concept of "christian choice", the theme upon which he based his wonderful novella.
So, let me take this opportunity to ask you - would you like to review my film, The Audacity Of Democracy? How can I get a copy to you for that purpose?
My God, Brad! You were in that famous Burgess class?
He depicts his teaching days (lightly fictionalized) in his book "Enderby's End." He also describes that segment of his life in his autobiography.
He was particularly shocked by one young lady whom he calls (in the Enderby book) Ms. Tightjeans. She fulfilled every creative writing assignment by providing ludicrously explicit descriptions of her sexual escapades. She kept describing things that he did not even think were possible. Professor Burgess always hoped that she was engaging in hyperbole.
Burgess was always rather conservative at heart, although many readers of "Clockwork" weren't aware of that fact.
He also tells a story in his autobiography about a young man in the class who had a breakdown in his office, because he had been forced by his father into pursuing an English major, even though he had no talent for the subject. I always thought that the episode was striking -- nowadays, no parent pushes a child INTO an English major.
So come on, Brad. You gotta tell me. Were you in the same class with Ms. Tightjeans? If so, just what shade of crimson did AB's cheeks turn?
Sorry, I wasn't in that class. I attended Princeton High School - which was quite a place to go to school. I was a sufficiently inattentive student to have come nowhere near qualifying for the university.
I did, however, manage to crash quite a few university classes. When I approached Burgess, he was singularly unimpressed with me. He didn't pick up a desk, but it was clear that he regarded me as little more than an insignificant blob of protoplasm.
Now, the girl you're describing from Burgess' memoirs might very well have been a girl who was walking around the campus in late May of 1970 wearing nothing but bikini bottoms and a card board box suspended from her shoulders which had two arch shaped, curtain covered holes through which, for a donation to the SDS fund, any and all comers, were welcome to reach into and fondle her breasts. This was my first introduction to street theatre. Within six months, I was engaged in a professional internship at the McCarter Repertory Theatre under Arthur Lithgow, where I did quite a bit of Shakespeare and chased more than a few girls.
Sorry to disappoint.
So, are you gonna review my film or not?
brad -
AB's explanation of why the lever exists doesn't really hold up. The Krell were one step beyond Objectivism: whereas Objectivists "merely" believe everyone should have everything they want but somehow at the same time no one should have anything they want taken from them, the Krell held the rock-solid philosophical belief that each and every one of them were so evolved, so deeply civilized, that a machine which would give them everything they wanted could only result in good. Due to their hubris, that harm might come from any Krell using such a machine was literally unthinkable. To use AB's parlance, the Krell held that they were so moral that they would not only always make the good moral choice (including, but not limitied to, not using the machine at any given time, or at all), but that the very notion of making the bad moral choice would never occur to them for even an instant, even in the depths of their being. So the very notion of a self-destruct switch - let alone installing one -would never have crossed their minds.
Sergei Rostov
"So the very notion of a self-destruct switch - let alone installing one -would never have crossed their minds."
Well, Professor Block would have disagreed with you. And he invented the Krell.
True story (or so said Block): After the film was in the can but before it was released, one of the producers went to see a production of "The Tempest," in which his kid had a role. In between acts, the producer frantically called Irving Block.
"Irv," he said. "We're screwed! They stole your idea!"
It's been a while since I've seen the movies, so I may be off about some of the details here. (Goldfinger was that Matt Helm movie, right?) But, here goes:
The reason that Goldfinger killed the gangsters who agreed with his plans was because they'd witnessed his ultra-cool pool table that flips over to show off a map, and the bitchin' heavy metal slats that clank shut on the windows. If Goldfinger had let them live, then in no time at all every two bit gangster would have a pool table that flips over to show off a map, and bitchin' heavy metal slats on the windows. They. had. to. die.
Similarly, if Goldfinger had just killed bond, would he have been able to say the line "No-o-o-o-o, Mister Bond, I don't expect you to talk. I expect you to die!" The guy had obviously had that snappy retort in his mind for years, patiently waiting for the right moment to spring it.
"Forbidden Planet" - I don't think that the lever was ever supposed to be that sort of self-destruct device. It was conversation novelty piece, similar to Earth's popular "disintegration pistol" (from Acme, I think. Brother, when it disintegrates...). Unfortunately, by the time Dr. Mobius arrived on the planet, the device had accidentally been loaded with the Altair IV equvalent of an Alludium Q36 explosive space modulator. And whenever that happenes, hilarity ensues.
X-Men - I think that the answer here is the same as the answer to the question "Why did almost every Godzilla movie after 1964 or so seem to take place on a tropical island?" The answer is: Because the producers were, at their heart of hearts, cheap bastards who didn't want to any spend more money on epic special effects.
Joe -
Well, just because Block invented the Krell doesn't mean he thought through the implications of his invention. I mean, look at Heinlein and Starship Troopers: it never occurred to him that what he believed was the best thing the human race can do - expand without limit and wipe out everything it views as competition - would lead to its extinction much sooner than a philosophy of cooperation and co-existence, even though it's logically obvious (it doesn't take a Godel to prove it, although he did so with extreme rigor nearly 30 years before ST was written).
If he never considered the why of the lever being in the middle of the lab, maybe he never considered the contradiction of the switch existing at all (maybe he only saw it as a simple way to wrap up the story?).
Switch or no switch, (but in keeping with the notion of things not considered) we can reasonably assume that at some point at least one Krell would have wished the instant destruction of the machine out of fear, hatred, jealousy, or even sheer perversity (since the id never thinks of consequences) . So the story makes no sense in that regard, either.
Ironically enough, one of the points of FP itself is that an outside viewpoint increases one's chance of survival and/or success.
(Hmm.)
Sergei Rostov
I understand, SR, but Block was a more thoughtful man than he may have seemed at first. (He had the clowning, eccentric old professor bit down pat.) He was certainly not an Objectivist; he was Jewish. Which means that he probably could not even conceive of a creature or a race beyond morality. I'm sure his belief was that, no matter how advanced and superior a person might consider himself, somewhere, someplace, that person had a mother who was very, very disappointed.
I have it! I finally figured out why the Krell put a lever that can do THAT right in the middle of the lab, where one visit by Dick Van Dyke could cause the Apocalypse.
The Krell were directed to do this by the Monster of the Id.
The monster manifests itself in more than one way.
I thought the lever was a Freudian symbol
Phallus = destruction
Well, what I was saying was that the Krell weren't beyond morality, they just *thought* they were pure good, and so they wouldn't have even thought of having a way to turn off their marvelous machine. But your latest explanation makes sense, I guess - sneaky Monsters! ;)
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I have never really understood why a person would want to pretend to be less than what they were on a daily basis. I realize that doing so can cause people to underestimate you (and thus give you an advantage in certain situations), but for me, not only is pretense anathema, but I WANT to put it all out there, so that I am challenged to grow. On the other hand, I guess in academic (and political) circles the particular role you describe (or a similar one) can be quite useful (not to mention fun to play).
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Maybe Goldfinger shot the hoods who accept his scheme by accident: in his excitement, he forgot he had a trick evil-genius-type gun, but - in true unflappable Bond villian form - he pretended that he meant to kill everyone all along. :)
Or maybe he was just showing off to Bond how evil he was by killing his friends, too. :)
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Your Tempest story reminds me of another Shakespeare adaptation, that being Marvel's [egads, all these examples are connecting to each other!] Best Side Story: At the end, Bernstein et al come through a spacetime warp to sue, but are quickly disabused of the notion by ol' Will arriving via *another* spacetime warp to remark,
"Are you really *sure* you want to do that?"
Sergei Rostov
p.s. I am reminded of an sf reference to authors who didn't realize the implications of their creations: an Asimov story (I don't recall the name offhand)where Shakespeare [here we go again :)] is brought to the present and humiliated after taking a class on his own works...and being flunked. :)
p.p.s. Ok, I guess I have to say it:
"Look, it's old Mr. Krell!"
"And I would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you darn Id Monsters!"
:)
Exactly, Joseph. That lever is something of a physical manifestation of the exact same folly of hubris on the part of the poor Kree that ultimately caused them to unleash the demon of the Id. It was visible object right in the middle of the room that seemed to scream out in its own way "You idiots, what did you think was going to happen?"
I should mention that the planet-destruct levers are now child-proof.
Great thread! Keep it going. So what is the connection between Bogart and Forbidden Planet?
I should add that the guy I know who played dumb in my adult life was assistant director of media services at a university. I never figured out what advantage a guy who repaired projectors and helped set the schedules for student workers thought he was getting from that behavior.
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Bob - Off the top of my head, I would say the Bogie connection is with The African Queen: the common thread is, both he and Morbius tried to help a woman out, with the result that their prize possession gets smashed to bits.
In the interest of keeping it going, what is the connection between FP and Wayne's World?
[No, come to think of it, that's too easy: each has a book-smart-but-socially-untutored blond. Best to drop this thread before Joe makes us do it :)]
I have to say though, I may never be able to forget the image of Rob Petrie stumbling over the self-destruct switch....
Oh, and for the record, my Id Monster only wants cookies.
Sergei Rostov
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