Saying "light sabres are impossible" isn't the same as saying, "You aren't allowed to try to make one." People are ornery. If they want to do something and have an idea as to how, they won't stop just because George Dvorsky tells them to.

I blame the reboot. "Dalek", with one lone emo Dalek was superficially interesting, but weakened the franchise is the same way that emo vampires weakens that franchise. RTD's inability to write a decent series finale and instead stuffing them with thousands of CGI Daleks made things far, far worse. The more Daleks you…

Not what you asked for, but I think it's interesting to contrast Avatar with District 9. Both films tell the same story, about a member of the oppressor group going native and eventually becoming the saviour of the oppressed. Avatar is by far the less interesting film, partly because it adds no fresh twists or…

Also Pan's Labyrinth. Which is not so much about saving the day, but is explicitly about testing the princess.

For me the problem was more with the scientists than the science. Liz Shaw was claimed to be a scientist, but her behaviour was very much of a woman of faith. The biologist and geologist were party to the discovery of the Engineer's body, not just intelligent alien life but likely the progenitors of human…

That wasn't Earth. The Engineer kick-started or assisted life on many planets. We weren't their only project. So the timeline would seem to be tens of thousands of years, but not millions or billions.

Not knowing the comics, I thought the voice helped elevate the character. It seemed cultured and educated, and hinted that Bane was more than a thug. He was a man of ideas and ideals.

Towards the end of the Hobbit, Gandalf explains he was throwing Sauron out of Dol Guldor. Along with others from the Council, including Saruman and I think Galadriel (I might have her wrong). So yes, there's a potential story there. I'm still not sure how it fits into three films, though.

I think he's mostly doing it because sex (and love) are powerful motivators. And most of the sex involves rape, or more subtle power imbalances, because conflict is interesting. The sex generally needs to serve some plot or character development purpose. When it's most gratuitous is when we least want to see it. There…

But that's "casting the next Doctor arguments that happen online and in pubs". He's not talking about official discussions between writers, show-runners, casting agents etc. He's talking about winding up the fans. And he's right. It's maybe fun to talk about but not something that anyone with responsibility for…

I loved it, but I wouldn't agree with io9's summary at all. Especially not "action packed". It's very slow paced. Nothing at all happens in the first 300-odd pages.

In most of those there is a power imbalance. One has a sense of the weaker person having to cooperate with the inevitable and put a cheerful face on it. The notion of a victim going on to fall in love with their aggressor, is itself problematic. (I'd put Dany/Khal into that category, for example, and Jon/Ygritte; with…

Well, it was a bit problematic. As I recall, their relationship started when he captured her, was more or less ordered to kill her, and didn't. That's not the normal way to meet a girlfriend.

I hated it too. Mainly because it just wasn't fun to watch the main character being stupid through lack of sleep.

"Now we have a main character who exacted extreme emotional violence on his wife, driving her kill herself" - I don't think the reviewer understood the plot. Cobb and Mal got trapped inside their dream-world. Planting the idea of an outer reality was the only way to get her out. The reviewer makes it sound like Cobb…

The laws of arithmetic don't depend on which base you use for counting. Our computers count in binary, for example, for good engineering reasons. We'll have no trouble adjusting to whatever base the aliens use.

There's more to maths than measurements. A meter is roughly a yard, which is roughly a Roman soldier's stride. Aliens will use a different scale, but adjusting to it is trivial; literally just scaling by a number. What is more universal is the notion of linear length, areas, sines and cosines. They might use tau…

As a fan of the movie who's never played the games, I didn't need Pyramid Head to be explained. They explained enough other things for me to accept there was an explanation for everything, even if it wasn't apparent.

It's like herd immunity. By rewarding the con artists, you are encouraging them.

The clip is just what movies are like before they add the exciting sound-track.