bad movies Terrible movie thread

[The Old Hack 2,448]

8 hours ago, Tobyc said:

Actually, we'd never seen Dougherty before that movie.

Firstly, nowhere in the movie are the Ba'ku presented as not wanting to share the planet. All they wanted was to not get kicked out of the small fraction of it they were actually using (and incidentally, I would argue that they have as much right to that fraction of the planet as the Federation do to any of their own colonies). As has been pointed out, it was the Federation who shot down the option of colonising elsewhere on the planet themselves, for the benefit of the Son'a.

Secondly, harvesting the radiation like that would be a terrible plan as far as the Dominion war goes. It's not going to save people dying on captured planets, it's not going to save people after their starships have been destroyed in battle, and the relative few (out of the billions of projected casualties) who could be saved with the medicine aren't going to be any less vulnerable to dying the next time they're sent into the field.

And even if I agreed with the rest of your assessment of the Ba'ku (and I'm really not seeing it myself), it still wouldn't excuse what the Federation were doing or the horrifying precedent they were setting (ie, essentially giving themselves the right to shut down any non-Federation colony, regardless of how long its been there, as long as its at that moment in "Federation space"), and I would still be firmly on Picard's side.

I have already elsewhere posted what I thought of the moronic plot device of the harvesting method. This does not serve to improve the movie for me.

Is your argument that if you can only save a few thousand lives, then you might as well not bother?

I agree with you that if it is possible to share the planet, just let the Ba'Ku stay. My personal dislike of them is irrelevant in that case.

[ijuin 572]

It's not so much "don't bother", I think, as it is "a few thousand lives are too small to justify killing an entire M-class planet that can normally support a billion or more people".

[The Old Hack 2,448]

1 hour ago, ijuin said:

It's not so much "don't bother", I think, as it is "a few thousand lives are too small to justify killing an entire M-class planet that can normally support a billion or more people".

Ah okay, but I still think the harvest method excuse is idiotic and contrived.

[hkmaly 490]

On 05/23/2016 at 9:34 PM, The Old Hack said:

On 05/23/2016 at 9:17 PM, InfiniteRemnant said:

the collection process would have ruined the planet's atmosphere. its not a question of others arriving, but of anyone who doesn't leave dying.

Okay, this is a completely different gripe nothing to do with the locals -- given that we already know this is a unique resource not duplicated anywhere else in the known universe, why in the world use such a moronic kill-the-goose-that-lays-golden-eggs method instead of investing, say, a few years of research into finding a safer procedure that won't ruin the planet?

There may not be any - but that's OK. There is no reason why not build gigantic health resort on the planet (or several). Oh, except the fact that those slave-trafficking space pirates who manufacture illegal weapons didn't really wanted to share and I got the feeling that revenge was big part of their motive.

On 05/23/2016 at 9:34 PM, The Old Hack said:

Oh wait, I know why. Because if you did, the contrived and strawmanned 'ooooh we are so mean to the poor innocent locals' plot wouldn't work.

Yeah ... the writers decided who is supposed to be the good side, and then just made sure the bad side will be so bad noone will side with them. Except that this is so common you can't say every plot using this method is bad.

On 05/23/2016 at 9:38 PM, InfiniteRemnant said:

Picard would actually agree with you on that, and makes sugestions to that effect about 45 min into the movie, but gets shot down the moment he points that out to the admiral.

I actually considered pretty believable that even in Federation, some admirals are corrupted. Wouldn't be first one, that guy who decided to ignore treaty with Romulans wasn't example of true Federation values either (Erik Pressman). Sure, I personally don't agree with that point of treaty either, but they should negotiate about that, not violate the treaty.

[Scotty 1,061]

1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

I got the feeling that revenge was big part of their motive.

It was, the Son'a were a splinter group of Ba'ku that want to go back to using technology despite the fact that it was their excessive reliance of it that destroyed their home world. The Ba'ku said "we won't let you ruin this world as well" and told them to leave. The Son'a resented this and the fact that the radiation of the planet's atmosphere gave the Ba'ku basically immortality and said "if we can't have it, neither can you" and hatched the whole plan to get the Federation to strip the planet of it. It's bad because the idea of there being some benefit to packaging up the atmosphere is ridiculous, maybe if you replaced the harvester with Mega Maid, the movie could have been redeemed a bit.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

19 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Yeah ... the writers decided who is supposed to be the good side, and then just made sure the bad side will be so bad noone will side with them. Except that this is so common you can't say every plot using this method is bad.

No? I can call this particular device hoary, overused and lazy, as well as detrimental to any otherwise decent plot it may be applied to. Admittedly Insurrection is so bad that it all but blends in with the rest of all the crap.

[Don Edwards 548]

Also: what is a unique resource in a universe with Star Trek replicator technology?

[hkmaly 490]

19 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

No? I can call this particular device hoary, overused and lazy, as well as detrimental to any otherwise decent plot it may be applied to.

Well sure it won't make the plot better. In best case, the plot compensates it so good it won't worsen it. Of course, Insurrection is NOT example of that. Because of the moral lesson Ba'ku were obviously supposed to give.

It's just that I would expect more arguments why the movie is bad, considering how strongly you reacted against it.

On 05/23/2016 at 5:08 PM, The Old Hack said:

Sitting like a bunch of parasitical squatters on a health resource of vital value to the Federation which was in the middle of LOSING A WAR with the Dominion.

I don't think this is relevant. The health resource is certainly good, maybe even vital, but not really important for the war.

[InfiniteRemnant 141]

1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

Also: what is a unique resource in a universe with Star Trek replicator technology?

there are several known radioactive isotopes that can't be replicated at all (if i had to guess why, i'd suspect they break down during the replication process, given they're radioactive. Or because plot.) and a few that are impractical to replicate (energy sources that eat more power to replicate than they produce)

Metaphasics might be in that list.

Edited May 25, 2016 by InfiniteRemnant
Whoops. wrong technobabble word.

[InfiniteRemnant 141]

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Because of the moral lesson Ba'ku were obviously supposed to give.

I still don't get why so many people blame that for everything wrong with the movie. It's not like it's the first thing with startrek in it's name to have an Anvilicious broken aesop of a moral. The characterization problems are a far more important issue.

[hkmaly 490]

21 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

23 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Also: what is a unique resource in a universe with Star Trek replicator technology?

there are several known radioactive isotopes that can't be replicated at all (if i had to guess why, i'd suspect they break down during the replication process, given they're radioactive. Or because plot.) and a few that are impractical to replicate (energy sources that eat more power to replicate than they produce)

Metaphasics might be in that list.

The list is pretty long and may not be all radioactive. For example, latinum can't be replicated (that's sort of the point) and I don't think it's radioactive.

Of course, gold is worthless.

21 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

23 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Because of the moral lesson Ba'ku were obviously supposed to give.

I still don't get why so many people blame that for everything wrong with the movie.

Well I don't.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

Mrs. Prof brought home "Alex Cross." I wish she hadn't. Urgh.

[InfiniteRemnant 141]

okay, i don't recognize the title on that one what's it about?

 

[ijuin 572]

7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

The list is pretty long and may not be all radioactive. For example, latinum can't be replicated (that's sort of the point) and I don't think it's radioactive.

 

 

I thought that the thing with Latinum wasn't that it couldn't be replicated at all, but rather that any person with an ordinary tricorder could distinguish the difference between replicated Latinum and the natural stuff. In other words, counterfeits are easy to detect.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

5 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Mrs. Prof brought home "Alex Cross." I wish she hadn't. Urgh.

 

3 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

okay, i don't recognize the title on that one what's it about?

 

According to IMDB, it's about 100 minutes.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

11 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

okay, i don't recognize the title on that one what's it about?

 

7 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

According to IMDB, it's about 100 minutes.

That sums it up pretty well. About 100 minutes of mindless drek, disguised as a detective drama.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

On 25 May 2016 at 8:17 PM, hkmaly said:

It's just that I would expect more arguments why the movie is bad, considering how strongly you reacted against it.

I don't think this is relevant. The health resource is certainly good, maybe even vital, but not really important for the war.

I have a lot more. But right now I don't feel like going into them. Stressed already and feeling no urge to make my mood worse.

As to wartime importance, maybe. All I can say that wars have been lost or won by resource allocation. Paying a given resource too little attention may be as bad as too much. In this case it is clear that the approach was bungled.

[ijuin 572]

Yes, the "let's destroy our only known source of the metaphasic radiation before we learn how to duplicate it" idea was a pretty bad one.

[Stormtalon42 29]

Well, I'd toss Alien 3 into the list, except it's a well known fact* that only two movies in the Alien series were ever made.

 

 

*Denial counts as fact, right?

[InfiniteRemnant 141]

yes, that movie definitely belongs on the list. 4 was atleast a fun movie even if it was oddly silly for an alien movie, and made no sense, even internally, to say nothing of external continuity, but 3 didn't even have that.

[Stormtalon42 29]

For a proper addition, however, I submit for your (dis)approval:  "Zardoz."  The only movie to date I absolutely could not make it through.  So boring and pretentious, even the prospect of a bit of gratuitous nudity wasn't enough to keep my interest.  It is truly Sean Connery's "Barbarella" -- but without the sense of camp that would make it palatable.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

3 hours ago, Stormtalon42 said:

For a proper addition, however, I submit for your (dis)approval:  "Zardoz."  The only movie to date I absolutely could not make it through.  So boring and pretentious, even the prospect of a bit of gratuitous nudity wasn't enough to keep my interest.  It is truly Sean Connery's "Barbarella" -- but without the sense of camp that would make it palatable.

Zardoz only makes sense after about the fourth viewing. Unfortunately, you've got to survive the first three viewings to get to that point.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

Based on his reputation and esteem, I know Sean Connery must have been in good movies at some point in his career....

[The Old Hack 2,448]

2 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Based on his reputation and esteem, I know Sean Connery must have been in good movies at some point in his career....

He has. He just had the worst luck or worst agent ever.

I submit to you, in the category of So Bad It's Good, Conan the Destroyer.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

So Bad It's Good is better than what he's put out lately....Who would have thought they could so thorougly ruin such a good graphic novel as League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?