I’m also triggered by the phrase “scientifically accurate.”
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I’m also triggered by the phrase “scientifically accurate.”
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I’m still annoyed from reading the book when it came out.
Magical energy-proof, space-faring, laser microbes…
xenon super-material…
a colonial microbe mineral mech…
And they never made the “Hail Mary, full of Grace” joke that the whole story seemed to be a set up for…
The reviews I’ve read have all been positive. Major hit, blockbuster and like that.
“The reviews I’ve read have all been positive. Major hit, blockbuster and like that.”
Um, PZ wrote a review, and it was not positive.
Therefore, you did not read his review. Two posts ago.
(want me to find some negative reviews for ya, stuffin?)
PZ
Do you think you would have enjoyed the movie if it had NOT been promoted as “scientifically accurate”?
Just another time-displaced, 1960s pulp magazine sf?
stuffin–
(a) Most reviews are now farmed by studios to maximise the early scores on RT, which the clickbait-hungry media then reports on uncritically, creating a vortex of puffed-up reviews.
(b) Part of the studio marketing exercise for certain types of science fiction movie is to pump its “realistic science”, even in movies that have woefully bad science, e.g. Interstellar, and Andy Weir’s previous adaptation The Martian.
Wildly OT, but PZ’s topical post is two weeks old so no one will read this if I post it where it belongs, but I still wanted to commiserate with him and needed to vent anyway. :)
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I bought a new iMac last January (’25) because my ’09 iMac would no longer allow me to upgrade or install any newer version of any OS or browser due to SAFE issues with the hard drive I guess? I’ve been limping along since then, too terrified of finding out what will no longer work on the new machine, etc.
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I finally unboxed the thing last night, because my bank made some changes to their website and no longer let me access any part of it and I needed to pay bills. It took me 3 hours with breaks for weeping just to get to the Welcome screen. And that was with skipping over the Migration Manager. All I wanted was to access the bank (I’ll sweat the rest of it out later when I can cope).
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It took over an hour just to get it out of the box (and later another half hour working out how to put the box back together again to get it out of my way). I wonder how many millions of dollars were spent designing that fucking box and all its internal spacers, engineering the machinery to cut, print, and assemble the box and putting the computer and its accessories into the box and into the outer shipping box. Money I wish they had instead spent on a simple booklet manualette to get me started. Instead I found a little 3-page paper foldup with all the legal disclaimers and a url where I could go to get help (if I didn’t still have this computer hooked up, how was I supposed to go to their help site when I don’t have a cell phone?).
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Once I finally got the computer turned on (they changed the chime!) I ran into that Apple account bullshit. After fighting with that for awhile, I finally broke down and agreed to make an icloud email account so they’d let me make an Apple account without tripping over ancient accounts they no longer acknowledged but that still kept me from reusing my normal email addresses. Honestly, I have no idea what sort of and how much information they’ve collected on me since the 80s that’s still rattling around in their systems, and apparently they don’t either.
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So I paid my bills finally (overpaying for next month too in case I don’t get my act together to complete the transition). Then I shut down the computer. Then I remembered something else I needed to do while I had a working browser and powered back up. I had written down all the new passwords I’d created to get online, but I wasn’t sure which ID they were asking for, so after several attempts I got locked out (only for 1 min though, just long enough to be annoying), and finally hit on the right combination.
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Did someone say new Office is not compatible with older Office? I’ve heard Office 2010 isn’t compatible with this iMac, so what am I supposed to do with all my old docs? At least I got my taxes paid before I find out I can’t use my printer with the new machine.
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I won’t even go into the lunacy of a bluetooth mouse that won’t work while recharging, instead of having rechargeable batteries you can replace in 15 seconds.
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I’m now wishing I’d figured out how to replace my old hard drive instead and transferred everything over to that so I could upgrade my OS so I could upgrade my browser. I might still have to do that, depending on how the Office issue shakes out. Of course, had I done that, the computer would’ve probably died in some other manner shortly after and that would’ve been a whole other order of magnitude of clusterfuck. I guess seventeen years is still a pretty good run for a computer though?
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(written on my old computer, with a keyboard without working “t,” “g,” “b,” or “-” keys, using Keyboard Viewer as a workaround :))
@3 John Morales – Um, PZ wrote a review, and it was not positive.
Therefore, you did not read his review. Two posts ago.
(want me to find some negative reviews for ya, stuffin?)
I did read his post, and I know you know exactly what I was denoting with my remark. To go out of you way to quibble over your made-up conflict is quite petty. I find you waste much keyboard time posting stuffin here with little value or importance.
I gathered my information from several different news feeds I read daily. Also, I did a search for reviews before I posted and in the limited results (so far), there were none in the negative category. If I need your assistance, I will ask for it, please refrain from offering to me in the future.
@5 chrishlawson
Thank you, I do understand how the propaganda machine works. Four years in the USMC during the Viet Nam War gave me access to one of the biggest conditioning programs on earth. I fully understand how this shit works. Please note in my response to John Morales I said “Also, I did a search for reviews before I posted and in the limited results(so far), “
The only true opinion of this movie will be mine (If I ever take the time to watch it.) I will not let PZ’s negative review or all the other reviews decide for me.
stuffin, your cringe is noted.
“I did read his post, and I know you know exactly what I was denoting with my remark. To go out of you way to quibble over your made-up conflict is quite petty. I find you waste much keyboard time posting stuffin here with little value or importance.”
Ahem. Truth matters. Self-referencing does not.
“The reviews I’ve read have all been positive. Major hit, blockbuster and like that.”
is contrary to “I did read his post”.
It is not assistance. It is correction.
You offered your opinion, I noted it was either a falsehood or ignorant.
That is my opinion, but also correct.
(It’s nice to not be wrong)
Or: ‘I will ignore the utter stupidity and silliness of the plot, since that matters not to me’.
Point being, PZ kinda approves of it, other than the premise and the alleged scientificancy of it.
And yet millions of USAians still think trump is great (37% approval) so, opinions…meh.
Offhand, I’m guessing there were a lot of people who really liked the story, or the writing, or the characters, or some other aspect of the book or movie, and just plain didn’t care about the science. Which is understandable, given that I’ve enjoyed lots of stories the don’t pretend to be anything but “fantasy” (like “Game of Thrones” — zombies AND fire-breathing dragons?); and some SF whose “science” was obviously just hastily or lazily made-up on the fly (case in point: “Star Trek”). Generally speaking, the better or more enjoyable the story, the more sci-tech ridiculousness I can put up with, at least up to a point. And I’m sure other people’s tolerances of such nonsense are different from mine or PZ’s. No accounting for taste and all that…
Fucking regurgitated shite; The Hero’s Journey; The Reluctant Hero; Lone Survivor; Badass Bookworm; Improvisational Hero; First Contact Hero; The Chosen One (By Elimination); Earn Your Happy Ending; The Aloner Who Finds Connection; Plot Armor; Things Always Break the Hero’s Way; Conveniently Timed Amnesia; Deus ex Biologica; Hypercompetent Everyman; Science‑Montage Heroics; Crisis‑Gives‑Him‑Exactly‑the‑Clue‑He‑Needs; One‑Man Saves Two Civilisations; Friendship‑Powered Success; Last‑Second Insight Saves the Day; Improbable Survival; Narrative Gravity Favors the Protagonist.
Tired tropes.
Neil deGrasse Tyson (a year ago):
Brian Cox (Mar 19):
Raging Bee–
Just to clarify, I have nothing against “soft” science fiction or fantasy. Even a lot of “hard” sf takes scientific shortcuts for narrative purposes. My favourite sf novels include Camp Concentration, The Demolished Man, Pavane, Lord of Light, Dreamsnake, and More Than Human. (Dreamsnake is biologically plausible, but the scientific aspect is written into the background.)
The problem I have is BS science being passed off as accurate for marketing purposes.