Uh, guys, they were working on nuclear rockets toward the end of the Apollo program. They're not bombs, they're more like generators—the heat/energy is used to accelerate the reaction mass to MUCH higher velocities than conventional H-O oxidation reactions. They're at least twice the output, at half the mass, for a…

No, I'm pretty sure Haenf is right. A portal to the depths of the universe opened up above him, and he was beamed out into it.

No, I think the streaking of the boots indicates a very high rate of speed, thus flying... also, if you're at the point of suicide, why even bother taking a leak? I mean, the sentiment would fit ("piss off, cruel world") but I can't imagine having the ambition at that point in one's life.

Though I don't agree with it, I can understand where the "no" is coming from. There's a certain (simpleton's) logic behind it, at least.

Thank you very much for your contribution. No snark here, I'm genuinely glad to hear your perspective. I myself am middle-left in leaning and an atheist to boot, but I agree with most of what you've said. (I even don't have any issue with teaching creationism in school, but it needs to be part of a religious…

The beginning of your second point is well taken, but I have to take umbrage with the assertion that the scientific community is, at best, split on whether man's actions have contributed to climate change. No matter how often right-wing politicians claim it to be so, it's just not. 90-95% of the scientific community…

"I don't know how well it did profit-wise, but it was a damn good movie in my book. "

Right, because people just HATED Avatar and Transformers 1/2/3. I mean, NO ONE went to see those commercial flops, right? In fact the movies went totally downhill as soon as Hollywood started insisting on putting that new "color" in every film. And don't get me started on that that whole irritating flash-in-the-pan…

Would it reek of racism if these people were white? Maybe poor, rural white southerners, or an eccentric Icelander? No? Then it's not racism. It's still elitist, yes, but saying "hey, look at this deluded fool" is not racist—it's just mean.

Yes, but building on Eridani's point, the networks need to put more effort into convincing advertisers that *people really do watch Hulu* (and similar media outlets). I believe that right now a commercial on Hulu pays much less than a commercial on live TV, and that needs to change as viewers increasingly move online…

I can relate to your #3. In my case, though, there are 2 more:

What, a zillion references to Midnight, but not a single one to Alan Dean Foster's "Sentenced to Prism"?

So did mosquitos. And lice. And poison ivy, which doesn't even have the decency to LOOK dangerous!

OK, but I'll turn that back on you: what if Nolan's (or Burton's) Batman still dressed exactly like the Adam West version? What if the recent Battlestar Galactica characters still ran around in short-shorts? Sometimes things need to be updated and change, either because the world changes or maybe simply to show that…

Amen. This is just not an "important issue", although I'll grant that it's a piece of evidence that the director might not be treating the source with reverence, which could be a bad sign in the larger context.

OK, seriously, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH EMMERICH?! Jesus, the guy's like the ultimate doomsday cult fanatic or something.

I disagree. Henson and co. did miracles with puppetry, but ultimately puppets never move quite right—they're always a little too stiff, a little to simplistic, especially when they speak or emote. CG had the same problems when it started coming into common use, but (especially with modern mo-cap) most of those…

Wasn't there something recently about a Candyland movie, with the director or producer or whatever claiming it would be dramatic, like Lord of the Rings but made out of candy? Or was that finally proven to be a big joke (God, please, let it be a joke).

I suspect the issue here isn't that it would be science fiction (which sypphie does seems to hate these days) but rather, that it might be *relatively expensive* science fiction. They only greenlight & promote shows that can be made cheaply, which means the shows have to be set in the modern/real world and have…

Felt it here in the suburbs north of Detroit, Michigan. I'm on the 3rd (top) floor of my office, and felt a little wobble... then about 30 seconds later, a much bigger one... then a little later, a barely-perceptible one. The second, stronger tremor got pretty much everyone prarie-dogging out of their cubes and…