The Island
I finally saw The Island. Essentially, my only reason for watching this was of course seeing Scarlett Johanson. Sigh... And to think we could have seen her boobies if Michael Bay was not gay. :P We shall never forgive you Michael - you depraved us of boobage scene, and you will burn in hell for that!
The movie was ok. Definitely a summer flick, with allot of explosions, action sequences and not much depth. The plot had obvious holes. For example, why did they need to "re-scan" whatshisname to clone him a new body? They already had all the data in the system. Can you say "plot device"?
Of course the sweetest part was the jetbike, which was a fucking Eldar Vyper! A vyper is essentially a large two-man jetbike with a heavy weapon attachment in the back. The pilot's seat is closed, but the gun placement is exactly the same. Hehe!
Genetic memory thing was lame. I tolerated genetic memory in Frank Herbert's books because the man is a genius. He actually spent allot of time analyzing the potential, the benefits and dangers unlocking such memories would bring. But just saying, "oops, our clones suddenly got genetic memories" just so that the main character can fly a jetbike and drive a car is silly. But then again, it was a summer flick.
Sigh... I still can't forgive Michael Bay!
2 Comments:
At Wed Feb 15, 08:52:00 PM, moleboy said…
Something I didn't realize about the Dune books.
Paul often spoke of how once he saw something in the future, it was locked in and couldn't be prevented.
I always assumed that this was more of an expression of Paul's feelings that he was simple a tool of history.
I was reading about the books recently, and, as it turns out, it was also meant to be taken literally.
Think about what that means with regards to the sheer important of human perception.
At Wed Feb 15, 11:16:00 PM, Luke said…
Ah, yes.. But if you read it carefully Paul elaborates. Future is not linear - which means that the act of precognition does not really "lock" the future.
Precognition is like standing on the crossroads, knowing full well that only one out of many roads will take you to your destination. The other roads all lead you into bad places where you do not want to go.
You are still free to choose whichever road you want. But if you have foreseen the future why would you ever want to choose the bad road?
Paul was in the unique situation of being the Kwisatz Haederach, and thus his choices wound have impact not only on his own future, but also the future of the whole humankind.
Precognition and responsibility for the well being of human race kindoff takes out the "free" out of "free will". For Paul the timeline was locked, because he just could not imagine himself consciously choosing the wrong path to thread.
In a way, Dune oracles take the randomness out of history. They are shaping and changing the future by the act of predicting it. This is like the uncertainty principle in physics. The act of observing the future influences it.
Thus each precog becomes a focal point of history. Thus precognition tends to be immensely subjective and centered on the precog himself. He can only see the consequences of his own actions. All of them have blindspots in which they cannot see. These are the areas of influence of other precogs shaping their own future. Consequently they blind each other.
Paul blinded all of them - he simply was the focal point, of focal points. A figure central to the history, shadowed only by his own son who became a living god.
That all said, I'm still trying to figure out how they No technology works :P
Reading Frank Herbert can sometimes make your brain hurt - but in a good way :P The best of ways in fact :)
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