"Han shot only." That's a meme that needs to get around.

I misread the final phrase in Robert Gonzalez's lead-in to this article from io9 as, "...as *Jeff Goldblum* explains below." Somehow it seemed perfectly appropriate.

That first analogy doesn't work, b/c the hypothetical "CPS prosecution scenario" re: Harry Potter has no organic relationship to the central story, whereas the "consequence of a gom jabbar fail" obviously does. And the second doesn't work kind of for the converse reason, in that the "Martians dying from Earth…

No no, really not thinking of the asteroid belt; I know the difference. This is just what my intuition tells me. If a scientific model has been created that suggests how the rings would actually look from some average vantage point in the ring plane, I'd certainly be curious to read it.

C3PO calls out to them, but there's no indication in the film that they actually hear him. The scene implies that either they've already spotted him and are heading his way or they're about to spot him.

Yeah, I've always assumed that if you were floating inside a planetary ring, you wouldn't see anything in your immediate vicinity at all; it would seem like empty space. I imagine that if you looked toward the "horizon" (along the ring plane), you would see a sort of diffuse haze. But immediately around you, nothing.

Yeah, I've always assumed that if you were floating inside a planetary ring, you wouldn't see anything in your immediate vicinity at all; it would seem like empty space. I imagine that if you looked toward the "horizon" (along the ring plane), you would see a sort of diffuse haze. But immediately around you, nothing.

The beginning and ending of "Dune" seem to have large plot holes, or at least one large loose thread and a deus ex machina.

Beginning: Lady Jessica takes Paul to undergo the gom jabbar test. What exactly would have happened if he'd failed and been killed? How would this have been "explained" to Duke Leto? Could the…

Strongly agree with all of this. Since our robots and rovers are only going to get better, the only *rational* reason to send humans into space is for settlement purposes. Settlement means permanent, and permanent means ecosystems.

No. When you're a professional crewperson, you must behave with respect toward whoever's in charge. Otherwise you're the nonprofessional.

Is that method of escape explicitly shown, or directly implied, in the movie? I just don't recall a "hole" in the vehicle, though that might be my memory playing tricks on me.

"Winter Soldier" spoiler-y question:
How does the SHIELD truck, initially carrying Cap & the rest to certain doom, but then revealed to be unwittingly carrying Maria Hill, actually leave the SHIELD convoy without being noticed by the rest of the convoy?

So this film makes a monster spectacle out of the recent tsunami in Japan. Can't wait till my own loved ones are impacted by a major disaster so Hollywood can make a movie exploiting it.

If, by "communism," you mean "being ruled by Stalin," sure. Otherwise, gibberish.

Interesting angle, as I feel this piece has considerably more energy than the extravaganzas you're talking about. Not sure there's much that's "wild and dangerous and subversive" about high budget showbiz.

Engine Summer in particular just kills. A complete slam-dunk of an SF novel.

Was going to post the same thing. I would probably like anime a lot more than I do if the soundtracks weren't working so hard to stomp the images flat.

But you won't object to those who don't read it, right?

The problem with the above argument is that it seems to verge on suggesting that someone who hasn't read "Hero with a Thousand Faces" has as much authority to speak about (and dismiss) the book as someone who has. And that's not true. The person who has read the book plainly has more authority.

For example, as…