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The_Triple_Lindy

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Posts posted by The_Triple_Lindy

  1. Posted

    1 minute ago, PollyDarton said:

    Speaking of these guys, this is dumb as hell, but I totally thought that the skeleton Kay and Mike come across was one of the coral bandits.

    kItPEmX.jpg

    They have the same hat. I just couldn't figure out how the shark picked the bones clean.

    On my rewatch I caught Mike saying the skeleton was a part of the pirate ship attraction, but since they never came across the bodies of our dudes at any point in the movie I like to pretend that Mike just thought that was a fake skeleton.

     

    I'd love to think that the shark just sucked the meat off the bone like a damn chicken wing.

    • Like 6
    • Haha 1

  2. Posted

    3 hours ago, Elektra Boogaloo said:

    Oh, also, regarding June’s question about dolphins “raping” humans. I don’t think we can really use the term rape. Dolphins ado have sex for pleasure and they are aggressive and form gangs. (Yeah, that’s right, dolphin gangs—it’s the next West Side Story). But... while I agree that dolphins are little shits that always have their dicks out, I don’t think they understand human notions of consent. 

    If they did, that would make a crazy horror movie. Way scarier than Jaws. 

    But, still, I never want to go to those “swim with dolphins” events. One of my coworkers showed me a family picture and we were laughing because it’s like a happy couple with a dolphin but the dolphin’s penis is clearly out. 

    Animals are just being animals. People are stupid.

    People need to leave animals the fuck alone. Did we learn nothing from the tragedy of Hank Hill's La Grunta dolphin encounter?

    pSxdGNb.jpg

    • Like 5

  3. Posted

    4 hours ago, Blast Hardcheese said:

    Besides narrating their escapades in the most ASMR-ish hushed voices they could muster, why were the two bumbling diver-thieves breaking into Sea World? And why was I rooting for the shark to kill these guys?

     

    4 hours ago, Cameron H. said:

    I may have only caught this because I watch with subtitles, but they say that they are trying to steal coral from the lagoon. One of them says that there’s a guy willing to pay up to $200 for a decent piece. It’s...pretty insane.

    Yeah, about that ... isn't the lagoon man-made? The thieves say something about the lagoon having "the good stuff" that sells in Miami, but what kind of reef can grow that fast in a man-made lagoon? Does this even make sense?

    Also, it makes me think of Dr. No and how Honey Ryder goes to Crab Key to collect conch shells to sell in Miami. Exactly how thriving is Miami's slightly illicit sealife selling industry?

    • Like 6

  4. Posted

    15 hours ago, RyanSz said:

    Correction:

    The kid did not make the game, but was modding it by adding in characters that represented his dad, mom and stepdad. That's explained when nerdlinger gets to Dill and tells him about the game being basically a bunch of minigames set within this island world, with fishing being one of the more popular ones and the favorite of the son. But with the son modifying the game so that he could play out this fantasy, the game was trying to combat that kind of intrusion by doing things like having the nerdlinger give Dill a uber-fish finder, the son of the store owner coming back to town because he was "lucky," and even Djimon's character paying some locals to beat the stepdad up so he didn't come to the boat. With modding, it can be done so much that the game becomes unplayable because it get's bogged down with extra data and items that it didn't forsee being a part of its coding, and what this kid was doing was basically loading a code from Grand Theft Auto complete with murderous spouses, escorts, drunken tourists, and the ability to kill, into a game of Club Penguin, and the code of the original game was trying to level itself out as to not become unplayable, before whatever gobbledeegook about the kid being god was said to nerdlinger and he decided to help out Dill.

    Maybe.

    The movie seems to go out of its way to set the IRL kid up as "The Creator" (just look at that haloed close-up him sitting in the jail cell at the end), not "The Modder." Everything you describe could happen to an original game build. Plus, this movie really wants to explore the whole God-creation-personhood aspect, which I feel like relies somewhat on the IRL kid being the creator. 

    • Like 3

  5. Posted

    Any Star Trek: TNG fans on this board? If so, do you remember the episode "The Big Goodbye" when Picard goes into the holodeck to cosplay as a Prohibition-era detective but the holodeck malfunctions and the gangsters become self-aware? At the end the question that gets asked is, "what happens to the holodeck characters once the holodeck is turned off?" Because the gangsters in the simulation are programmed with families and lives beyond the crime that Picard is trying to solve and the characters wonder if they'll just disappear once the game ends. 

    I think this movie is positing that once a video game universe is created, it just always exists, whether or not the console or computer is running and the game is being played. Sort of like the old cartoon Reboot, where all the characters are arcade CPU opponents who just live normal lives until a human puts a quarter in the machine. 

    The gang was flummoxed by the "In Plymouth, no one ever dies" tagline, but it makes sense if you consider that a video game character's life never really begins or ends, and if the player-character or an important NPC dies in a game, you can just load an old save and restore everything that got ruined. They're sort of like a Mr. Meeseeks from Rick and Morty ... they appear fully formed, ready to perform their task, and then disappear once they're done. 

    I'm also not bothered by all the scenes featuring Karen and her husband without Dill because video games these days are so complex that many NPCs can live full lives and run-routines beyond interacting with the player-character. In games like Elder Scrolls, Red Dead Redemption, and Hitman, you can follow just about any NPC around for hours just watching them live their lives without ever interacting with them.

    • Like 1

  6. Posted

    Why does this movie not know how cars and traffic work? He drives a car with a right-side driver's seat, but since the movie is set in Florida, everyone still drives on the right side of the road. Plus, toward the end of the movie, after he decides to go through with the murder and rushes back to the boat, he stops at a traffic light that turns red-yellow-green, and I've literally never seen that in real life, but the movie makes a point of showing this to us.

    On the other hand, one of the best video game world shout-outs is when he gets in the truck and tries to back out and turn around, but ends up having to do about a seven-point turn to get turned. Video game cars can be hell to handle, but any gamer knows that you just hold brake and gas together and do a donut to 180 in a car.

    • Like 3

  10. Posted

    19 minutes ago, PollyDarton said:

    The way they served up the step-dad to be killed was particularly hilarious to me.
    Here they were, alone on a boat...He had been beat up all to hell, was drunk as shit, was being a complete belligerent asshole, talked direct shit about Dill's kid, and there was even a line somewhere about the only police being out of town.  The only thing that would have made it better was for him to have gotten accidentally covered in chum while counting a huge wad of cash and spouting off about having no parents or siblings.

    While wearing a t-shirt with a bulls-eye on it as he lists all of his allergies.

     

    • Like 2

  11. Posted

    7 minutes ago, E.Lerner said:

    In the (psychic, question mark?) phone call at the end, Dill gestures at the moral of the story, which is that the murder wasn't a good thing to do but it was the right thing to do. But if Dill is ultimately the product of a deterministic universe created by the kid, this is really just a post hoc justification for a decision the kid has already made. Are we as an audience supposed think he made the right or wrong choice? Both the Dill construct and the kid are ostensibly rewarded for their parallel murders by being virtually reunited, so I'm guessing Knight's intention was to convey the former but wow is it a mess. 

    Ultimately, the hero of the movie, and the one that the audience is supposed to really sympathize with, is the IRL kid who kills his stepdad.

    The stepdad says that the kid wants to kill him, so that desire already exists. I don't think there is any question that the movie is saying yes, sometimes murder is "Justice."

    EDIT: To be fair, art and morality are not the same. A work of art's whole purpose is to just be art, not necessarily to teach a moral ... so maaaaaybe the movie is taking that stance.

    • Like 1

  12. Posted

    I posit to this forum that there never is a moment where Dill actually becomes sentient. By necessity, he is always doing exactly what his coding as a video game character tells him to do.

    The salesman character says that the game used to be just about fishing, but then slowly became about committing this murder, which implies that the IRL kid has changed the focus of a game he's creating. Fair enough -- the evolution of a piece of work is a natural part of game development, and artistic creation in general. 

    But if the game has been changed, so too must Dill's coding also have been changed. The murder of the stepdad avatar is the game's new critical path. If Dill and Plymouth Island and all the NPCs are in existence, this means the game must be turned on and someone is playing. If not, it can only be that these characters are just alive and functioning of their own freewill in the game, in spite of what the player is having them do. And that is what is known as a "broken game" -- when the character doesn't do what the player tells them to, the game is broken.

    What this must mean, therefore, is that Dill's "coming into awareness" is part of what he's programmed to do as part of the course of gameplay. He is still doing what his code is stating he should do.

    This is classic determinist philosophy. Freewill is predicated by one's ability to choose and then act upon that choice. If the choice is made for you and if your actions are not of your volition, you don't have freewill. IRL kid is essentially the god/creator of the in-game universe. Nothing happens in the game that the creator doesn't know will happen. If Dill's awakening is something god knew would happen, then it isn't really sentience. He's still just doing what he's programmed to do. He has the illusion of freewill, but not actual freewill because he doesn't transcend his programming.

    If Dill has any consciousness, it can only be in a Get Out-type scenario, where Dill is aware of himself and somehow still being carried along on the game's path against his will or better judgment.

    • Like 3

  13. Posted

    11 hours ago, the baa detective said:

    If this game/simulation is sort of being an escape and grief-dealing mechanism for the son, why does he make Baker Dill's life miserable? Baker is constantly strapped for cash, and forced to serve asshole customers. Baker doesn't have to live like a king. Just give him a quiet and idyllic island life that doesn't require him to be constantly worry about money.

    And why in the end, after knowing everything is a simulation, does Baker try to make the murder seem like an accident? Why is he so afraid getting seen by the gas station kid? Even the man in glasses, which I assume to be a monitoring AI for the game, basically says, okay, let's murder the man. So even Baker just kills the step dad in front of everyone, no-one is going to arrest or punish him. The "world" literally on his side.  

     

    2 hours ago, PollyDarton said:

    Addressing  Baker Dill being sentient:

    He does seemingly start to become sentient when he pulls the knife on the 2 drunk guys in the beginning. That's the beginning of things starting to go awry. I assume that when Baker pulled the knife, this could also be the moment that the kid got the knife in meatspace?

    We as the audience know something is off because that's when the salesman first misses Baker, he's very confused as to why Baker isn't there at the coast. He should have been there according to the strict predictability of video game timing. Something changed.

     

    2 hours ago, AlmostAGhost said:

    Hmmm yea. I was thinking maybe it was like the kid's avatar name. The kid is being Baker Dill in the game in order to kill his stepdad. Was he controlling Baker Dill? He was, in a way, I guess. Was Baker Dill even real? I don't know.

    The nerdlinger salesman guy says that, at one point, the game was just about fishing but then became about killing the virtual stepfather. So, my original take is that the salesman represents a character in the game whose role became obsolete as the focus of the game's critical path changed. The salesman seems to also become sentient because he is constantly showing up late to meet Dill when meeting Dill is his only purpose in the game, so the fact that they keep missing each other confuses him, he somehow starts to question why this is the case, and BAM! nerdlinger comes online as a sentient being.

    But the movie also portrays nerdlinger as a "The Architect" from the Matrix type, in that he says "I am the rules" and somehow knows what the overall objective of the game is ... or at least, what it used to be when it was just a fishing simulator. Placing him in both roles -- a standard NPC for Dill to interact with and also the embodiment of the game's overall AI -- is perhaps the worst aspect of the way this movie was written.

    • Like 4

  14. Posted

    2 hours ago, billchilds said:

    One perplexing thing to me: I understand, kinda, how actors like this might sign up for the project. Script pulls in some ideas that sound interesting in combination, etc. The baffling part is why they would continue to push for promotion of the movie after it was done. Presumably they saw it, and yet the stars were reportedly angry that they weren’t sent out on press junkets, onto talk shows, etc. So...do McConaughey and Hathaway just not know how to tell what something is garbage?

    Considering that this movie opened with 5 different production company logos, my guess is that, at one point, the script was pretty good, but as more and more producers were brought in, more things started to change and things deteriorated.

    With movies and video games both, the more producers, the more of a mess things become.

  16. Posted

    True story of today: I was about to tee off a round of golf this morning when a yearling bear ran across the course, and they closed the course for the day while they tried to catch it.

    But I instantly remembered "Black, fight back. Brown, lay down." 

    Thanks, June. That'll be in my head forever now, and it might've saved my life today.

    • Like 5

  18. Posted

    18 minutes ago, gigi-tastic said:

    Thank you! I thought maybe I misheard it at first but I guess I didn't.  it was such a bizarre line. The only explanation I can think of is that pandas are really popular? That still doesn't excuse bear racism though. Which makes me wonder about if the bear community deals with racism and did they have their own civil rights movement inside the community? Did they have one to be recognized as citizens?

    I think it's more like, they realize that the humans in a panda's life tend to be conservationists who spend all their time trying to get the pandas to mate. So the Country Bears are just hella jealous of how laid pandas are getting.

    And I think some sort of bear rights activism must've taken place for doors to be built bear-sized and bars to have back-scratching posts installed. 

    • Like 3

  20. Posted

    3 hours ago, gigi-tastic said:

    So while you can't get drunk off honey you CAN get high.There's a form of honey from the black sea region of eastern Turkey and parts of Nepal that has hallucinogens in it from the natural neurotoxin grayanotoxin in some  rhododendrons nector.  It's know as "Mad Honey". It's been around for millennia and has even been used as a tool of war. In B.C.E. 67 Pompey the Great lost over a 1,000 men in a battle with the Persian  King Mithridates after they were tricked by the pots of honey the Persians had left out for them to eat . The men were too sick and weak to fight back .

    In parts of Turkey and Nepal mad honey is used as a form of traditional medicine. It's used as a way to get a boost of energy, relive hypertension,and is seen as a form of natural Viagra.

    Mad honey gives you a sense of euphoria, lightheadedness, and sometimes hallucinations . However the honey can have unfortunate side effects like  vomiting, diarrhea, loss of consciousness, seizures and although rare, it can be fatal if you eat too much. It's also one of the most expensive honeys in the world at $60 to $80+ a pound .

     

    3 hours ago, Wil Dride said:

    This missed a trick in that the honey bar could've just served mead. Avoids the problem of implying honey is alcohol but having a honey based alcohol.

    Robert Evans (from Behind the Bastards podcast and Cracked, at one point) wrote a book called A Brief History of Vice that talks about "The Drunken Monkey Hypothesis" that suggests alcohol from fermented sugar from old dates helped monkeys evolve because the higher calorie count in the sugar/alcohol combo helped sustain early humans living along the coastlines.

    Is it possible that the same thing has happened to the bears in this film's universe ... that some kind of meadlike fermented alcoholic honey helped ignite the higher consciousness of bears?

    • Like 3
    • Thanks 1

  21. Posted

    5 hours ago, Mister Card said:

     So I think the easiest way to explain how this universe works, is that it’s much like a Looney Tunes universe. Elmer Fudd does go around hunting a sentient rabbit and duck and doesn’t seem to be particularly bothered by their existence. I think stuff like that it’s just easier to except a cartoon versus a live action movie

    I dig this as an explanation ... WB's is the main universe where sentient animals are still sometimes forced into their animal roles. Bugs Bunny is intelligent and capable and holds down jobs in the human world and has conversations and relationships with humans, yet still lives in the woods and has to deal with being hunted. These bears are chart topping celebrities, and the world around them is built to accommodate them, yet somehow you can still trap and domesticate them, just like Elmer sometimes mounts a talking Daffy Duck head on his wall.

    • Like 4

  23. Posted

    3 hours ago, gigi-tastic said:

    When he mentioned his labyrinth I  thought for sure that at the end we would see Herc wrestle with a muscle man Minotaur with like a robo bull head or something

    Somehow I think that any non-robotic live-action Minotaur in this flick would've been some kind of half-bull, half-sexy lady.

    3 hours ago, gigi-tastic said:

    Are you trying to tell me Sexy Space Iguana Goddess is not THE look?! Lies! Blasphemy!

    I thought she looked like a retro Martian from some weird old timey space musical of MGM's. 

    She looks like a raver from the 5th Element. What do you think, Zorg?

    18bfddf0b447bcaec1bb19a8779b40f4.jpg

    3 hours ago, gigi-tastic said:

    Speaking of outfits can we talk about Circe's upsetting vagina fringe on her leotard? 

    herc-circe2-350x264.jpg

    My yes, that fringe is ... unfortunate. 

    • Like 2

  24. Posted

    9 hours ago, Cameron H. said:

    I figured we’d get a Minotaur, too! When you think this movie is going to zig, it spins around in circle and craps it’s pants.

    Do you think the sexy iguana costume was a holdover from when the movie was supposed to be a porn? Although, Inprefer the idea that it was made for another movie as I would love to see it.

    Also, it’s great to have you back Trip! :)

     

     

    9 hours ago, Cam Bert said:

    Two things, one, for me easily the best moment of the movie was Lou's silent "wows" and his face as they are hurtling through space. Second, to expand about the iguana costume I think a lot of these costumes got classed up from the adult version ones they made. I'm pretty sure Cassiopeia was just clam shells and a thong and the shredded rags were added in after. Also if you notice Daedalus's sexy iguana costume had larger covers for the private bits over a body suit. Something tells me that body suit wasn't always there.  

    Pictured: Classed-up iguana porn

    herculeslou3.jpg

    My guess is, she was supposed to be part of the Super Mario Bros movie as a Koopa Troopa love interest but got written out for being too garish. 

    Tell me you couldn't picture it:

    Goomba_Movie.jpg

    • Like 3
    • Haha 1

  25. Posted

    3 hours ago, Cameron H. said:

    Personally, I thought the movie was pretty much flawless, and I simply can’t fathom anyone’s issue with it, but... if there was one thing that I simply couldn’t wrap my head around, it was why the Hell King Minos would send Daedalus home. I totally get that up to that point Daedalus’ mechanized monstrosities have had a less than stellar track record physically stopping Herc, but you may still want to rely on her ingenuity and expertise. Herc has pretty much beaten every single obstacle you’ve thrown at him, so maybe now isn’t the time to get cocky.

    That being said, what really bothers me is the reason Minos gives Daedalus for no longer requiring her services is that Hercules is about to enter his island labyrinth and he considers him pretty much doomed. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I were Daedalus, I would be fuck-ing pissed! You mean to tell me that I put all this work into creating killer, misfit toys for you when you had a surefire death trap waiting here for him the entire time? What’s even the fucking point? Why are you dragging me out of my chaos dimension? If you were so bloody confident in you hoity-toity maze of murder, then your entire evil scheme might as well have been “wait here, do nothing.”

    I know this has been mentioned, but since you bring up Daedalus again, I don't understand why they did what they did with Daedalus' character other than they had a sexy disco iguana goddess costume and had to use it because of union rules or something. 

    But also, does anyone else think that they missed a huge opportunity, since they were dealing with King Minos and the labyrinth, to bring in the minotaur? Since aside from trapping Daedalus and Icarus in the labyrinth, Minos' whole deal was that he controlled the minotaur but it ended up killing and eating him in the end. Daedalus created the minotaur, so it could've even been one of those stupid robots.

    • Like 3
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