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We all love movies. At least I assume most of us do. We also all know that movies are, to put it lightly, liberal with the ramifications of their actions. Of course that's the point. Movies are movies and don't have the time to dedicate to every single potential loophole or unintended consequence of whatever magical science bullshit they like to discuss. However discussing those things can also dominate a thread so why not have a thread specifically to argue your favorite movie quandary of choice! Featuring such favorites as: Did Marty McFly murder his entire family and replace them with 'superior' duplicates? Did Timecop kill himself and replace himself in his wife's life? Are the Ghostbusters keeping the spirits of the deceased in their basement without chance of parole and just how horrible a crime is that? Is the Matrix meaningfully different from real life or is Neo history's greatest criminal? Is the Force an omnipotent deity who cruelly manipulates the actions of people for unclear reasons and thus nobody in the Star Wars universe has free will? Holy poo poo everything in Harry Potter films, just everything. Plus all sorts of new ones. You don't have to limit yourself to the extreme (feel free to argue about Replicants or Androids here), This is all for fun and enjoyment, nobody is insulting your favorite movie! There will also be spoilers but if it's for anything still in theaters/relatively new it might be polite to spoiler tag it. So let's start with a fun one: Toys in Toy Story are obviously sentient and aware, capable of learning and retaining information with ease. They also apparently can be created out of nearly anything as shown in the trailer for Toy Story 4. As such you have a race of sentient beings who are seemingly enslaved to all of humanity and destroyed at a whim. We're even shown how awful it is when Sid destroys the toys to make new ones... but are the new ones merely the old ones in a new body or are they entirely new beings or are them chimeras created from both? At what point does a Toy stop being the same toy? Discuss! Or not! Who knows!
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May 2, 2019 03:09
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 10:27 |
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ImpAtom posted:Movies are movies and don't have the time to dedicate to every single potential loophole or unintended consequence of whatever magical science bullshit they like to discuss. If a movie has things like this, those things inform the narrative. For instance ImpAtom posted:Are the Ghostbusters keeping the spirits of the deceased in their basement without chance of parole and just how horrible a crime is that? The fact that the Ghostbusters do this heavily informs the narrative and characterizes things. It's not some trivia to be discussed or some fan theory, it's unambiguously what happens in the film "The ghostbusters extra-judicially imprison ghosts by keeping them locked in a basement and thereby endangering the city of new york" is as basic-level plot explanation as it gets; it's just what happens
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May 2, 2019 03:15
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Waffles Inc. posted:If a movie has things like this, those things inform the narrative. For instance Of course, but that still has lots of room to discuss. The mere existence of Ghosts should be a tremendous world-shattering thing. It confirms the existence of an afterlife in some form. If the ghosts are truly the spirits of those who died, and at least some are capable of communicating, that means the end of the question of life and death because these spirits can presumably answer the question. Yet at the same time they appear largely violent and dangerous, with several situations leading to potentially catastrophic incidents. Is in, therefore, justified what the Ghostbusters are doing? Or should they be giving their technology to others who have more oversight. Yet we know from the modern world that such technology would likely be misused. Can you imagine a police officer who had the ability to kill you and THEN throw your soul in prison forever without any chance of parole? Or is it instead more morally justified to allow the ghosts to wreck damage as we know ghosts exist and thus there is an afterlife and so the capturing of a soul is arguably a worse crime than murder?
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May 2, 2019 03:27
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ImpAtom posted:The mere existence of Ghosts should be a tremendous world-shattering thing. It confirms the existence of an afterlife in some form. If the ghosts are truly the spirits of those who died, and at least some are capable of communicating, that means the end of the question of life and death because these spirits can presumably answer the question. Yet at the same time they appear largely violent and dangerous, with several situations leading to potentially catastrophic incidents. It's not a hard sci-fi series with any sort of strict rules, but conceptually the 'ghosts" in ghostbusters are just like, a strong psychic emotion taking form in ectoplasm instead of being the actual soul of a dead person. That is why so many ghosts are just abstract concepts or weird beasts. I think the two electrocuted brothers are the only really clear 1:1 of guy directly becoming ghost and even that is made ambiguous from it being a particular moment and being mediated by negative emotion goo. You could still write it off as the imprint of the negative emotion at their moment of death, it's not clear they are actually the guys more generally.
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May 2, 2019 15:39
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blowjob ghost died doing what she loved
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May 2, 2019 20:32
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in the film "High Spirits"-- the one with Peter O'Toole and Steve Guttenberg (of the Stonecutters song from The Simpsons) that they used to show all the time on Comedy Central in the mid to late 90s --having sex with a ghost enfleshens it and turns it into a living person. this raises a pertinent question: is it the cum that does this? does cum have the power of resurrection in the Highspiritsverse? is it just Steve Guttenberg's cum, and can he monetize it?
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May 2, 2019 20:55
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Bonaventure posted:in the film "High Spirits"-- the one with Peter O'Toole and Steve Guttenberg (of the Stonecutters song from The Simpsons) that they used to show all the time on Comedy Central in the mid to late 90s --having sex with a ghost enfleshens it and turns it into a living person. this raises a pertinent question: is it the cum that does this? does cum have the power of resurrection in the Highspiritsverse? is it just Steve Guttenberg's cum, and can he monetize it? That happens irl too
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May 2, 2019 21:18
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I don't know that this has anything to do with philosophy but I liked applying common sense logic to movie worlds sometimes. I'm very curious how the Harry Potter universe maintains a functioning capitalist economy when they don't appear to have much trade or industry since most product can just be made out of dust with magic.
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May 2, 2019 21:23
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in the film Cool World, humans and cartoons can have sex, but having sex with a cartoon causes the apocalypse. place yourself in Gabriel Byrne's shoes. would you live in the Cool World, and would you risk the end of the world to have sex with cartoon Kim Bassinger? interesting stuff to chew on with your brain's teeth.
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May 3, 2019 16:45
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Bonaventure posted:in the film Cool World, humans and cartoons can have sex, but having sex with a cartoon causes the apocalypse. place yourself in Gabriel Byrne's shoes. would you live in the Cool World, and would you risk the end of the world to have sex with cartoon Kim Bassinger? interesting stuff to chew on with your brain's teeth. Yes. Next question.
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May 3, 2019 16:58
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In the Sonic trailer, why does Sonic pose like he's checking his watch when he doesn't have a watch?
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May 3, 2019 19:44
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ImpAtom posted:So let's start with a fun one: Either toys are naturally animated (in the same way that any other living being is, through DNA replication) or imbued with life by some sort of outside force, such as magic. Let's look at the facts: 1. Toys are so good at evading detection that, as of the internet/smartphone era, humans are still unaware of their animation. Sid didn't believe it at first, and never opted to go public as far as we know. 2. All toys that we have seen are alive, no matter their age or disuse. Unless disintegrated, they seem to persist once created. Body parts can be removed and still live (like a Potato Head eye). Stinky Pete says "we have an eternity to spend together in the museum" to Woody. 3. Humans can directly create life through toys. In Toy Story 4, a spork with pipe-cleaners on it becomes animated soon after being created by a child. 4. Toys, at least initially, are not aware of the fact that they are not 'real', yet are predisposed to interacting with children without moving or talking beyond the child's intervention (i.e. pull string, button). See Buzz Lightyear in the first film. 5. The drive to play with the master is near absolute, and a fundamental facet of toy life. When the spork asks "Why am I alive?" , Woody responds by saying "You're Bonnie's toy. You are going to help create happy memories that will last for the rest of her life". Only Stinky Pete broke that desire. 6. Every single toy that we have seen has some form of plastic/vinyl/cloth material. There is no toy that is 100% inorganic. Bo Peep has clothes, and none of Sid's mutant toys are all metal. Based on these points of evidence, it seems apparent that the entire population, or the physics of reality itself, of the ToyStoryniverse exhibits an aura that does two things: 1. Humans can, subconsciously, give life to organic materials if shaped in a "toy" form (this also can happen at factory scale). See Sid's creations and the pipe cleaner spork. This energy is permanent unless the toy is completely destroyed, needing no sustaining energy to function. I would assume this has a necromantic origin, because all toys were made of organic materials. It also is influenced by the form, as evidenced by the behavior of toys like the Army men. 2. In exchange, the aura does not permit for permanent memory of toy sentience to form in humans. Whether this acts as a glamer (humans cannot perceive toy sentience even if it changes other parts of reality) or memory erasure is unknown. It is possible that past toys tried and failed to achieve liberation (though it would likely be hard to break the inherent instinct of 'just play with the child silently'), but now the status quo is all that remains. Because all toys have personalities that match their forms, I would assume that they are not truly sentient beings, but more of a simulacra of consciousness that generally acts according to type, with playing with children being the absolute goal. It is apparent that severe trauma can change this, though it still remains hard to break the desire to serve the master. Lots-o still wanted to play, even though he was severely traumatized on multiple occasions. It seems no toy (save one, below) is just content to live outside of the human/toy dynamic; Lots-o and Woody both have tried as hard as they could to get back to their masters. It is apparent that, as part of the necromantic energy field, that toys are completely bound towards serving (i.e. playing) with their masters again, much as any other reanimated dead might be. Stinky Pete seems to be the only one who realizes the predicament of toy existence, and is the only character that rejects the toy/child dynamic. He says the following, when battling Woody on the conveyor belt: "Idiots! Children destroy toys. You'll be ruined, forgotten, spending eternity rotting in some landfill." However, even for him, the allure of being admired (presumably the primary benefit toys experience, as they do not move or act when being played with, except at the master's will) was still strong, which is why he wanted to be in the museum. Above all else, the toys want to be loved, be it in direct play or by an adoring crowd. No toy decides to just live on their own, in a secluded space. The draw of the master's love is irresistible, even for those who know their ultimate fate. The films act as a portrait of servants who are completely beneath their masters, so much so they cannot even be acknowledged as animate, who are eternally cursed to love those who damned them to obscurity. They will never escape, be liberated, or get any succor that the masters do not grant them. They cannot even force themselves upon their masters, as they are so low as to never be recognized in their hopeless pursuit of the love they crave. To be a toy is to truly be fallen, to a degree from which there is no escape. And yet, the majority soldier on, bound by the fervor of unlife itself to never abandon their quest to be with the master. As Woody says, "I can't stop Andy from growing up. But I wouldn't miss it for the world" in his triumphant rebuke to Pete's more conservative ideology of being a museum piece. This seems like a textbook necromantic bond to me, in a very explicit way. Hopefully Toy Story 4 will explore more of the macabre ritual involved in a toy's animation, particularly with the new spork character. JfishPirate fucked around with this message at 21:28 on May 3, 2019 |
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May 3, 2019 20:56
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JfishPirate posted:This seems like a textbook necromantic bond to me, in a very explicit way. Hopefully Toy Story 4 will explore more of the macabre ritual involved in a toy's animation, particularly with the new spork character. What textbook I have some things I wanna look up
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May 3, 2019 23:47
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Bonaventure posted:in the film "High Spirits"-- the one with Peter O'Toole and Steve Guttenberg (of the Stonecutters song from The Simpsons) that they used to show all the time on Comedy Central in the mid to late 90s --having sex with a ghost enfleshens it and turns it into a living person. this raises a pertinent question: is it the cum that does this? does cum have the power of resurrection in the Highspiritsverse? is it just Steve Guttenberg's cum, and can he monetize it? Maybe that's what ectoplasm is made out of.
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May 4, 2019 00:05
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Kingdom hearts 3 makes up some lore for toy story. (It also concludes that in monsters inc that fear and laughter generate power and suggest sadness would be the ultimate power source from children as both fear and laughter are transient but if you make someone sad enough they can be sad forever and that is dark as gently caress)
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May 4, 2019 01:30
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JfishPirate posted:Either toys are naturally animated (in the same way that any other living being is, through DNA replication) or imbued with life by some sort of outside force, such as magic. Let's look at the facts: So in the Toy Story Universe, can a human corpse be a toy? And if so, will it have the same personality that the person had in life, or is it whatever personality that's projected onto it by the child?
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May 14, 2019 18:05
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I am always bothered by films based on religion as a premise that take classical ideas of damnation at face value Like, it seems really hosed up to have movies that still be like "Suicides are damned to hell"
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May 14, 2019 18:08
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General Dog posted:So in the Toy Story Universe, can a human corpse be a toy? And if so, will it have the same personality that the person had in life, or is it whatever personality that's projected onto it by the child? The kids don’t project the personalities, cause the dinosaur is always a cool mean T. rex when the kid plays with him but a comical nebbish on his own
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May 14, 2019 18:11
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ImpAtom posted:Did Marty McFly murder his entire family and replace them with 'superior' duplicates?
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May 14, 2019 18:53
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Marty obliterated his family with opioid abuse, not time travel
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May 14, 2019 19:23
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In The Addams Family's Values, Gomez (Paul Julia) consoles the lonely Fester (Doc Brown) with these words, or something like them as best I can recall: "come now, old man, even if you don't find a wife you'll always have Thing!" Thing (actor unknown or unremembered) is a disembodied hand, by the way. The camera then cuts to Thing, who trembles in fear. Is this a masturbation joke, or a rape joke? For that matter, is Thing capable of feeling sexual pleasure? Disqus.
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May 14, 2019 19:27
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And another thing! Beetlejuice makes it clear that Lydia's parents -- an artist and a pedophile who formerly taught high school -- have a dead bedroom and do not gently caress [Ironic, considering that other dead things in the film are usually so lively, wouldn't you say, reader!]. By contraries, do Alec Baldwin and Gina Davis still gently caress? Can ghosts gently caress in Beetlejuice? Well, I guess they must since the titular character Beetlegeuse goes into a ghoulish brothel. Never mind, the movie answers that part of the question. So, okay then: does Alec Baldwin gently caress Gina Davis even though they're both dead?
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May 14, 2019 19:31
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The octopus drummer really took me out of Aquaman because it raised so many questions about the roles of aquatic life in Atlantis. Like, does it write it's own music or is it just trained to play certain songs? Everything else is just used as a mount or to move cargo, but this thing creates art!
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May 14, 2019 19:40
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SleepCousinDeath posted:The octopus drummer really took me out of Aquaman because it raised so many questions about the roles of aquatic life in Atlantis. Like, does it write it's own music or is it just trained to play certain songs? Everything else is just used as a mount or to move cargo, but this thing creates art! It took me out of the movie because it was the best part of the movie, and every other moment paled in comparison to that Octopus's sweet rhythm.
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May 14, 2019 19:41
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General Dog posted:In the Sonic trailer, why does Sonic pose like he's checking his watch when he doesn't have a watch? He's a Chevy Chase fan.
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May 14, 2019 19:46
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Shrecknet posted:BttF is one of the 'big three' of time-travel movie theories/systems (the other two being Terminator and Bill & Ted), and the idea that Marty obliterated his 1985 family by going to 1955 feels absurd. The timestream is ever-adjusting (his photos don't have binary 'marty exists/is annihilated' settings, they fade) and as such, we can infer that what Marty did was simply put his hand in the timestream to divert the water a bit; the fact that there is no Butterfly Effect-style 'Marty went back in time and now Nazi Dinosaurs rule the moon!' is proof enough of this. Since he only adjusted the eddies of the timestream, it's safe to say life proceeded mostly the same, and therefore the family in 1985 is his own. I always took Marty's change of attitude in the following movies to be his memories adjusting to the new timeline, causing him to have new issues.
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May 14, 2019 19:47
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TrixRabbi posted:I don't know that this has anything to do with philosophy but I liked applying common sense logic to movie worlds sometimes. I'm very curious how the Harry Potter universe maintains a functioning capitalist economy when they don't appear to have much trade or industry since most product can just be made out of dust with magic. It would be like a post-scarcity economy where nearly every job has to be service industry (bankers, bartenders) and every product basically a sort of magical item that can't be conjured up by a spell. But its interesting how they still decide to go with a capitalist economy. I always wondered why the wizarding world wasn't full of charm addicts. IRRC they're is that one charm that makes you instantly happy. Am I wrong to think that a majority of people would just dissipate their bad moods and worries if they could basically will it instantaneously?
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May 14, 2019 20:06
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Do they even teach math or physics at Hogwarts? Like wtf?
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May 14, 2019 20:10
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I think they teach history at some point, so I guess there must be non-magical subjects in their curriculum. Unless it's magical history.
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May 14, 2019 23:32
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What was Weyland's plan after getting immortality from the aliens?
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May 15, 2019 00:53
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Tenzarin posted:What was Weyland's plan after getting immortality from the aliens? Endless capitalism. Probably use the planets he owns to do hosed up experiments like his son did, keep colonizing space, evil accelerationist expansionist poo poo etc
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May 15, 2019 00:58
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General Dog posted:So in the Toy Story Universe, can a human corpse be a toy? And if so, will it have the same personality that the person had in life, or is it whatever personality that's projected onto it by the child? This raises an interesting point. The toys generally have the 'personality' of their form, as the army men act appropriately despite not being 'actual' soldiers and Ken/Barbie fit their 'brand' quite well. The life force reanimates the dead matter, but does not give it personality beyond what the toy creator desired. My general guess is that the necromantic binding shapes the personality to the form of the toy, but does not directly invoke personalities of those gone by (toys don't have memories from past lives). If a human corpse was crafted into a toy by this force, I would assume it would have the 'personality' of a skeleton toy rather than the direct memories and personality that human had before death. In concrete terms, the plastic toys are corpses given life once more; just of ancient plants and animals rather than humans. From what we have seen, particularly the animation sequence from Toy Story 4's trailer, I think it is very reasonable to conclude that a human corpse would be a suitable medium for toy creation. If you want to research a real world example, look up Anatoly Moskvin.
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May 15, 2019 15:53
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Shrecknet posted:BttF is one of the 'big three' of time-travel movie theories/systems (the other two being Terminator and Bill & Ted), and the idea that Marty obliterated his 1985 family by going to 1955 feels absurd. The timestream is ever-adjusting (his photos don't have binary 'marty exists/is annihilated' settings, they fade) and as such, we can infer that what Marty did was simply put his hand in the timestream to divert the water a bit; the fact that there is no Butterfly Effect-style 'Marty went back in time and now Nazi Dinosaurs rule the moon!' is proof enough of this. Since he only adjusted the eddies of the timestream, it's safe to say life proceeded mostly the same, and therefore the family in 1985 is his own. They’re absolutely different people; they lived different lives
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May 15, 2019 17:33
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Tenzarin posted:What was Weyland's plan after getting immortality from the aliens? The thing with immortality is that you have plenty of time to figure out what to do with it.
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May 15, 2019 17:36
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Waffles Inc. posted:They’re absolutely different people; they lived different lives The trouble with philosophy is, at a certain depth, you just have to assert that reality exists and is real, or else we're just solipsists and nothing matters.
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May 15, 2019 17:57
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Shrecknet posted:Genetically, they are identical. They may have different experiences, but their meat-and-bone composition is identical to what it would have been had Marty not intervened. If we are to assume that any change to one's knowledge or experience completely annihilates your former self, then I am not the same person I was when I started typing this comment. It doesn’t matter what their genetics are. Marty’s end-of-movie family are different people who have radically different experiences, thoughts, personalities and memories from his beginning-of-movie family. He doesn’t know them; they’re strangers to him Furthermore, he essentially erased the people he did know. Sure by our societal definitions the new people are “better” (in a capitalistic sense) but they are very very different people who to “our” Marty are effectively pod people who look like his family
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May 15, 2019 19:11
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Waffles Inc. posted:Marty’s end-of-movie family are different people who have radically different experiences, thoughts, personalities and memories from his beginning-of-movie family.
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May 15, 2019 19:23
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Samuel Clemens posted:I think they teach history at some point, so I guess there must be non-magical subjects in their curriculum. Unless it's magical history. how could it even possibly not be magical history
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May 15, 2019 19:28
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Shrecknet posted:This is literally true for every family in every movie. Sarah Connor is a different person at the end of Terminator; Chief Brody is a different person at the end of JAWS. Hell, I would argue the defining element of a good movie is that the characters change by the end. You’re being intentionally obtuse, normal character development doesn’t include having your memories erased and your entire upbringing changed
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May 15, 2019 19:39
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I changed the thread title, because the previous one--"Philosophy of Movies"--was misleading. This thread is discussing plot holes and flawed logic vs common sense, and had nothing to do with Philosophy.
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May 15, 2019 19:48
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