Terminator pt.1 *spoilerific

Given the age and popularity of the terminator series, its hard to understand or conceive of an excuse for so many gaping plot holes and such poorly written dialogue in the movie. It’s so bad you get the feeling that the actors were simply given a direction and then asked to ad- lib their lines; it’s not an argument if you simply repeat yourself over and over at someone until they agree with you or give up.

Christian Bale is not the main character in the movie. The movie is set around another character, Marcus, who was sentenced to death before the nuclear war for some poorly explained crime. Even though he seems to hate himself for some nebulous reason he never acts as anything less than a quiet heroic character. This plot point is perfectly reasonable, but you do get the feeling that it was a deliberate bait and switch due to Christian Bale’s very popular role in Batman.

Never introduce major characters/actors and then make them irrelevant to the plot.  All the known actors in this film stand around doing nothing. There are also people introduced in the movie, such as the white haired old lady, who seem to be important, but never go anywhere.

Never have a general who acts like the police chief from 80s movies. i.e “You’re a loose cannon John Connor”

Never warn people about the dangers and horrors of post apocalyptic war against 24 hour unstoppable killing machines and then feature people who have access to Hairdressers, makeup (john connor’s wife wears a LOT of foundation) and like to light up their secret bases with floodlights at night.

At one point Marcus sets up a campfire in the open after killing some bandits to have a romantic moment with a pilot he’s just met. They’ve beaten up some thugs with death karate, then given the survivor their medicine and antibiotics and now it’s time for a snuggle, even though you can see the shiney metal in his bullet holes.

Never have romantic interests that go nowhere.

The worst punishment anyone can get in the future is a pilot’s licence. Even though it’s nearly ten years after the bombs. humans die every day in fighter jets for no reason. They drive mad max vehicles, live in collapsing buildings but fly jets. They also perform heart surgery outdoors.

John Connor’s messiah complex is annoying. Seriously, your only job is to become leader of the resistance, your mother taught you to survive after the apocalypse. That’s it. Once you’ve done that you’re free to die like everyone else. It would be more helpful if you were running a school on the radio so people could learn more helpful survival skills, instead of you providing some sort of philosophical nonsense. Anyone can do that. its like claiming that once Einstein dies we’ll never be able to do maths again. Other people will take over the resistance.

Buy a book on the effects of nuclear fallout. Looking at the flash can make you blind. So many times the characters stand near blasts without their hair falling out and shitting blood the next day. OH and please wait to detonate a nuke after everyone, including your wife, have left the area. And not next to your evacuating helicopter.

If Terminators are powered by explosive nuclear batteries, why don’t they go off with a massive explosion everytime you shoot one?

What does kill a terminator? One minute they take a massive effort to kill, and the next a few bullets from a small gun will do the trick.

Why make an infiltration model terminator that thinks it’s human, only to ask it to remember that it’s a terminator and want it to help being an emotionless killer? an emotionless being making an emotional argument to a human to join them makes NO SENSE. And why repair it but not wipe or reset its memory so it doesn’t rebel? Why not make more if they work so well?

Why trick humans into broadcasting a special code to reveal their locations, only to use it on the high command and not everyone else?

If a jet pilot is getting chased by a hunter-killer, do you think they need to be ordered to take evasive action?

If you want to blow up a nuclear stealth submarine, you don’t send a hunter killer to shoot it with a plasma gun. Plasma + water = steam.

Why does John connor’s wife look late term pregnant, but no-one mentions it in the film, and for that matter, she’s less emotional than the machines. with less facial expression too.

If a super strong, super tough robot punches you in the chest, you die.

If John Connor has super hacking skills that let him ride terminators and hack their security, why aren’t they all using it? it’s a skill that can be taught, not a magic power.

The real focus of a resistance would be food production, equipment scavenging and finding secure hiding sites for the non-combatant population.

You want to test a new device that disables terminators. you set off an explosion to attract a hunter killer, then disable it, then blow it up, even though you’ve just said that attracts terminators.

If a robot goes missing in an area, send more and more robots to that area  until you kill all the humans. That’s how ants and killer robots win wars.

Why is there a 12 year old mute girl with an immaculate haircut hanging around? what is the point of her character, what is the message of having a kid in a warzone, who stands near people on dangerous combat missions into deathcamps? And why do writers think that being a mute is a magical symbol of traumatised children?

Just how many LA style gangstas can you fit in one abandoned petrol station in the middle of nowhere? With a cache of fruit, vegetables and live animals hidden in the basement. It’s not exactly hiding when you have the only building in a desert as your base, surrounded by mad max style cars and trucks. And by base I mean a two pump petrol station and a few sheds.

Where are people getting the petrol from? Petrol denatures after a short period of time, let alone high quality aviation fuel. Main battle tanks can use wood and grain alchohol, but we don’t see any of those. At least the robots use nuclear power and energy guns, but the humans never think to steal their superior shit off them and use it.

Every year at the movies, African americans everywhere lose a brother in a pointless war, and that makes them fight harder.

Who is stationed in that city? why that’s our garrison of a teenage boy and a twelve year old mute girl sir, they fight the terminators by winching train axels up buildings and dropping them on the slow clumsy terminators.

Terminators can track radios, sometimes, but not floodlights and military bases. Certainly wouldn’t attack resistance bases day and night if they’re protected by magnetic mines. They’re also choosy about when they use their infra-red and super hearing. And super aiming. They find you if you turn on a radio, but not if you make booby traps. Or if you’re in a hideout making important plot points.

When someone mentions a worldwide resistance, they mean america.

Never lecture people about the importance of being human and acting as a human, and then allow someone who has proven themselves to be a friend to commit suicide to save your life. Marcus’s new friends don’t even try to change his mind, they can’t wait for him to give his super heart to john connor.

And for that matter, why does a terminator run on human heart power? and why didn’t they just hook him up to a terminator battery from the factory, or use the any number of hearts from the dozens of people who died during the movie.

I have the feeling that john connor will get magic powers from the advanced super heart in the next movie.

I cared about MARCUS. THE MOVIE MADE ME CARE ABOUT MARCUS< BUT THEN KILLED HIM SO THAT JOHN COULD LIVE< EVEN THOUGH HE’S AN ASSHOLE WHO DOES NOTHING.

Genetic elitism. (1)

A common misconception amongst futurists is that there is a clear responsibility among medical and scientific companies to disseminate cutting edge technology to all people of all countries equally and without bias. Perhaps this is a holdover from the utopian science fiction literature of the 1900s. 

In the case of germline modification and genetic therapy we have a greater concern.There are a large number of factors which simply make it impossible to hope that we can all have equal access to these life changing treatments, and here are some reasons why.

Medical research is primarily driven by the cooperation of governments and businesses. Governments support medical research but do not wish to take on all costs so they encourage private sector research groups with government money, support and tax incentives. Those businesses in turn expect to spend long years of tedious expensive research without a clear idea of the results of their efforts. Since they are businesses, it is incumbent on them to not only recoup their loss on research but to also maximise the scope of resultant profits from their work. They must also defend their research from others who would plagiarise or develop further their ideas without due payment.

Therefore a company which researches and develops marketable genetic treatments must:

Invest large amounts of money. Attract government support by pledging to abide by government guidelines. Protect research with secrecy, patents and aggressive litigation. Recover costs by following the most lucrative and popular types of modification. Exotic or low risk genetic disease treatments would be avoided in favor of common ones.

As an example genetically modified crops sold in the USA are often sterile and resistant to certain pesticides sold in tandem with the crop. Farmers must not collect seed for reuse and there are company agents who travel amongst farmlands checking for breach of this “intellectual property” of the parent company. In third world countries, purchasers of seed are unable to become self sufficient because they must exist in a cycle of purchases with the seed companies.

In the case of humans, we could concievably become a collection of copywrited and proprietry medical information just as there are arguments about the copyright ownership of the human gene maps today. Those who have done the work of mapping human genetic code are expecting that they will be able to copyright and therefore own their work, thus charging those who access it a fee. This, in extension is a gold rush for information we once imagined was our inviolable property. We could find in the future that our medical doctors are denied information about our genetic alterations because they are valuable trade secrets.

Genetic modification is by definition expensive. Early customers of such treatments would naturally be high income customers who are desperate enough to take the risks involved in cutting edge medicine. These treatments would also be given by the most expensive specialists in the most exclusive medical centers. Money is a strong factor in the selection of patients. The locations most likely to offer such treatments would also have quality healthcare, rich patrons and a large highly specialised medical staff.

Since the application of these treatments would be experimental, there would need to also be a larger body of volunteers who would gain access to  medical testing of these treatments. They would be required to have good health, live near the test location and willing to accept failure or placebo treatments.

Each successful modification has an iterative benefit to its recipient. That is to say that each time a patient receives a treatment, they are more likely to receive greater benefits from each successive treatment because each treatment has a synergistic benefit to all others.

If each time we successfully remove a genetic disease from a patient we improve their likelihood to have a healthy, happy life, therefore we can imagine that they are more capable and willing to pay for additional treatment; while a person who is unwilling or incapable of purchasing such treatments will be left behind.

Just as it is unlikely that any third world country today will gain economic parity with first world countries (regardless of their natural resources), we can imagine that it will become impossible for common citizens of third world countries to achieve genetic parity with first world countries.

If a first world country can triple its citizens life expectancy, increase wealth and average wages and reduce disease and as a natural extrapolation of genetic modification, we can expect that the disparity between first and third world countries will be immense. If you have any doubt about the truth of this, look to the vast difference between the availability of medical drugs and healthcare between first and third world countries. Treatments for AIDS and HIV are still incredibly expensive, as are the vacinations and treatments for diseases that have ceased to exist in most first world countries.

To recap

A genetic medicine industry would require:

Expensive government investment.

Biomedical companies who can afford long research cycles.

Local infrastruction that can support high tech industry.

Excellent medical facilities.

A paying base of high income clients and upper middle income clients.

Public, legal and political support.

It is clear by simple definition of the requirements of genetic medicine that it simply cannot be achievable for most people of the world.

Thinking about the past. (1)

I’ve been thinking about my past lately. Well, to be honest, I’ve never stopped thinking. I imagine, as you get older, you constantly review your past and think about your actions, the consequences therein and how things might have been different. It’s a normal part of growing up and maturing.

I made a very large mistake in my past, and if you’ve known me for a long time you’d know what I’m talking about.

There is a difference between agreeing with someone on a subject and simply being agreeable.

Theres a strong well known need in the human psyche to fit in and be accepted by a social group. It’s part of our herd instinct and it provides safety for us on many levels. In the past, I was going through a long a difficult process of working out my place in the universe, how I fit in it, what my thoughts and beliefs were. It’s important to understand that the things that you believe in are separate from the things you know to be true, as any conversation about religion and the afterlife with friends will prove to you. Most late night conversations about the topic with start with something like “well I think”. Fair enough. It’s a topic we can all talk endlessly about but the important point is that, for the most part we cannot access an experience about, say, what it was like to meet “god” or what it was like to die. We do know that people who have experienced temporary death can sometimes relate an experience. Ancient Greeks might not say that they had met Zeus, but they could claim they had met someone who was obviously related to him. 

My point is that people get into trouble when they confuse “I think” with “I’ve experienced” in regard to such lofty experiences as spiritual ones. It’s funny that people can listen intently to someone relating a spiritual experience that we can guess never happened, but we would never tolerate someone’s obviously false claim to have climbed a mountain, sailed around the world on a yacht or some other improbable feat.

Wait a minute, another word I used is “spiritual”. I’ll get to that next.

How about….

You make the show about yourself?

Consider this.

You’re a person who’s working between different medias, thinking of different concepts and then trying to develop them, but also imagining the result. Why not make a show about yourself in which you split into several characters who all have different directions and personalities. You come up with ideas that you then imagine the outcome of. You then compare that to what really happens!.

It’s just like when comedians think up different jokes or make comments in public. The things they think are funny are sometimes not, and the things that they might consider not so great can last for years. The same holds for artists. I’ve known so many who thought they would do well in one direction and then ended up in a completely different field. That’s only a natural evolution, but why not take advantage of yourself as a perspective of that process?  Imagine a semi-documentary of yourself but with different personalities to talk to. A kind of magic realism. Each one provides advice which you’re working through, you pick what you do, imagine the result and then contrast with reality. You can meet people as well and get their opinions.

The best thing about picking yourself is that you don’t have to invent or create a “super person”, your flaws and qualities help the realism of the work. You know what you’re thinking as well, so you don’t have to jump perspectives. If you just thought about all the different ideas that go into chalking, for example, you’d realise that you’d have quite a bit of material. Add views of other people, reactions from the public and so on, and you’d have a lot to go on.

Anyone can do a simple parody of the visual arts. Revealing the internal process is way more interesting. And funny. But more honest.

The best part about all this is that you can use the footage for so many things. You can act in it, it counts as art, media, writing and you can put it on the internet if you want. It’s great portfolio material. Theres not much of a budget because you don’t need to hire actors and you can use anyone you want.

Think about it.

Leedham.

Clarity

Overview

A man of indeterminate age lives alone in the ward of an unknown hospital. A series of uncaring, disinterested or naive workers attempt to entertain, care for and rouse the patient. From another room a rotation of doctors, specialists and public servants discuss the patient and attempt various unusual techniques to awaken or gain his trust.

The patient is revealed to be a genius of some sort who worked on an unknown project. The man became catatonic after revealing an insight which created an undisclosed scientific breakthrough. He is now under constant supervision in case he reveals another secret or revelation.

Theme

The show is a parody of nursing home abuse and impersonal bureaucracy. The patient acts as a mirror for the dreams and aspirations of those around him as well the unintentional humor of the acts the nurses undertake to please the patient. The random and odd demands of the patient and the speed with which they are indulged is also another important element.

Style

The show is shot from the POV of the patient’s staff who must provide footage to an unknown oversight committee. Most of the footage come from surveilance cameras and a number of hand held devices. Shows are comprised of experiment footage with spurious arguments for their success or failure, backroom politics, attempts to please visiting superiors, backroom speculation on the patient and other staff, impromptu entertainment and so on.

Inspirations

Big brother reality TV. Content on the show comes in part from the impromptu acts many of the characters undertake to combat boredom. It is established early on in the show that the older staff have been treating the patient for years without result. Manycameras which record footage (whose content is arguably worthless) are also part of the show.

The office. Members of the staff play up to the camera. They also attempt to rationalise their mistakes and belittle other team members.

Franz Kafka’s “The Trial”. This book described the journey of one person through a bewildering and opaque judicial process. (It becomes apparent to the viewer that it is likely that the illness of the patient is being extended to benefit others. )

Gormenghast. The Gormenghast series detailed a gothic society whose members followed strange rules and traditions. The staff should follow strange rules of behaviour and codes of conduct which seem bizzarre or nonsensical. Older members of the staff should appear to have no knowledge of the outside world and little interest in it while the younger, more caring members should seem naive and foolish.  

Mother and son. That australian comedy detailed the life of an older man and his daily care for his mother, who suffered from increasing levels of dementia. Her swings between irrational behaviour and perceptivity were a source of unexpected poignant humour.

The prisoner. A surreal spy thriller in which a man is trapped on an island whose inhabitants are both prisoners and guards. A succession of warders try to discover the strategy that will force him to reveal his secret.

Script style and content

The cast will be relied on to perform mainly impromptu scenes. They will receive a guideline and small amounts of information to assist them. It is expected that they can expand their character’s personalities. Each show will follow a theme and each season will follow a set story arc which will be presented for each actor to follow and develop. Actors are expected to act in a casual and natural manner. In fact non-actors would be preferred for most of the cast, with those who perform well being asked to continue and expand on their roles.

Costs and costuming

The casual attitudes of  the staff are reflected in their casual clothes while the few visiting functionaries wear business suits. Carers will wear a kind of smock or apron (like a kindergarten teacher) and the doctors wear lab coats over casual clothes. The patient will wear a dressing gown over pajamas. clothes can appear slightly stained and nothing should appear overly new. An old wheelchair would be ideal for the patient to sit in.

Actor props include clipboards, hand held taperecorders and so on. If there is a security guard they should have a torch and a cap. Nothing should seem too expensive or technical. Office props could include water coolers, bedpan/sitting toilet, fridge and microwave for the staff to use on lunch breaks, whiteboard / chalkboard and or projector for doctors to work with, and perhaps a small assortment of young children’s toys (for the patient to play with). any decorations should be old, out of date and vaguely inappropiate (children’s dental hygiene, motivational, plastic flowers without leaves). Food props should look worn and chipped.

There should be good lighting on each set and each camera should not be too shaky. There should be no televisions or computers or mobile phones on set, and no access by outsiders (no pizza deliveries etc).

 The set can be subject to change and any “office like” location is fine including someone’s home. 

Leedham Te Kani

Other groups (diary)

There are a few other groups around.

Coral

The Coral are a kind of conceptual resistance group. They believe the extreme measures the military and hidden masters use are reducing the freedom of people as individuals. They advocate the importance of hand produced items, local cultures, self determination and other democratic or anarchistic theories. They are hunted by everyone and treated as the worst kind of terrorists.

Outsiders

Outsiders think that all sides of the conflict are being influenced by a malign alien intelligence which has provided us with technology beyond our ability to cope. They advocate a quick ceasefire and then focus on that larger more important problem, but are split between us either surrendering or fighting them. Outsiders have no solid evidence to support their argument, but point to the abrupt leap in technology as unexplainable by any other means.

Jugglers

Jugglers are a group of loosely connected social theorists who believe that the constant meddling by both sides in the cultures of their planets have a negative effect on human development. We should, they contend, allow them to evolve naturally as separate but connected client states. Humankind has best adapted to new environments and problems by natural evolutions of culture, government and biology, and all this interferance may one day remove that natural mechanism. Jugglers are a tolerated group but many have sympathies with Coral, a less desirable group of theorists. 

Circuits

There are simpler transportation groups which travel between planets and pick up goods for delivery from one planet or system to another. They travel constantly on a set circuit, and some ships are so large they have their own little kingdoms inside each ship, complete with loaders, robots, guards and serfs.

Types of secret masters (diary)

I read the first chapter of this primer on the secret masters. If you gave a room full of geeks and nerds a billion dollars each you’d get a lot of different opinions about how to spend that. Here’s the breakdown:

Occultists

Some of the hidden masters think that their powers came from some mystic or spiritual source. They try to improve their powers with meditation, rituals, chanting and so on.

Realists

Realists don’t care where their powers came from, but want to live as comfortably and safely as possible. They are often the first to offer their services as diplomats or guides, but don’t like to do anything dangerous.

Architects

Hidden masters made a huge number of advances in technology in as they left earth and then moved on to other planets and systems. Architects want to continue the frantic pace of advancement. They also like to record information and preserve documents.

Utopians

Utopians want to make the most perfect or pleasurable societies possible. They experiment with all kinds and forms of societies, and can flow from totalitarian rulers to benign despots. 

Warlords

Warlords view the intervention of their pursuing military forces to be the most important goal of the moment. They not only offer military forces for battles, but aggressively develop technology to defeat their inferior enemies. Many of the other masters are afraid of them winning the war and then turning on their fellows. 

Hidden masters / Hidden ones

There are some masters who don’t want to be found, and do anything to avoid being found. It seems that the better they hide, the more mysterious their motives must be. Some masters think they know secrets worth finding.

Tame masters

Some of the hidden masters got caught, gave up or surrendered. Some couldn’t cope with being chased by their friends and family, as it were. Much of the catchup capability of the military came from early captures, and they live in a precarious position. Their captors don’t trust them and their old friends don’t either.

Dust merchants (diary)

The Dust merchants are the most mysterious of all the companies. They design and perfect Dust, which is a simplier less fantastic version of “nanotech”. Dust is used to speed up terraforming, gather raw materials and make more complex machinery and electronics.

Dust merchants wear concealing clothes and have little contact with others beyond business. Many people are afraid that they will perfect their science and start to make science fiction style nanotech with all the complications that entails.

They sell their services to everyone but reveal none of their advances.

Lord of fifty names (diary)

Robots are a lot more like animals than humans. 50 names members are designers and builders of robots, but the real art comes from the psychology behind training them. 5o names teach each robot a templated personality based on 50 different choices, each personality having a different role, job and so on, providing a background for each robot to follow.

50 names members empathise with each other and their creations more than fellow humans. They sell mining and construction services, as well as building simpler robots for factories and mass production.

Rat coffin (diary)

A rat coffin is a slang name for a meat pie, apparently. That kind of grim childish humour permeates this company.

Rat coffin sells every kind of basic essential you can think of, from toothpaste to junk food. They’re not only the largest purchasers of raw materials, they also develop recycling and life support technologies for planets, spacecraft and the military. Rat coffin is the least prestigious company but has the broadest reach.