Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-05-19 (Sunday)

On 5/20/2024 12:39 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

In article <v2frkp$2ft0$1@dont-email.me>,
  Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
 

Aliens (4K disc) 1986 sequel directed by James Cameron and starring
Sigourney Weaver who must once again battle aliens that prey on people.

 I watched ALIEN a couple of nights ago and it occurred to me when Ripley
sets the ship to self-destruct...
 

My original plan was to watch Alien, but I thought Predator 2 better fit the theme, since it had both the 1700s gun and Bill Paxton chewing the scenery.  Technically Alien may be the better movie, but I think I made the right call going with Predator 2 instead.

Why in the actual hell does a commercial tug have a self-destruct
mechanism in the first place?
 All through the franchise, we're given reminders that the Company only
cares about money, yet they give a crew of uneducated roughnecks the
ability to blow up billions of dollars of their equipment and valuable
ore?
 And for what? Why would a tugboat conceivably have any need for such a
feature? This isn't some top-secret ship with cutting edge military tech
or something that needs to be kept out of enemy hands at all cost. It's
a tugboat for a huge ore barge. What conceivable reason would its
designers have to include an elaborate self-destruct system in its
design?
 

I can try to fanwank this.  Their faster than light travel is powered by some sort of fission reactor.  If not properly maintained it is susceptible to a meltdown.  You can artificially create a meltdown by removing the cooling rods.  Since the cooling rods are replaceable there is a built in ability to remove them.  But if they are removed while the reactor is active and not replaced this will trigger a meltdown.  All Ripley did was bypass a few safety protocols to remove the cooling rods which triggered a countdown of how long she had to put them back in before a catastrophic meltdown would occur.  It was not designed specifically to be a self-destruct but under the circumstances that is how it functioned.
Think of it as a truck driver cutting the break line (or equivalent) on their truck.  It's not *designed* to that, and the company does not want the driver to do that, but it's possible to do it.

True Lies (4K disc) 1994 spy comedy directed by James Cameron and
starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a spy who must save the world. Jamie
Lee Curtis co-stars as his wife who gets mixed up in his latest spy
caper. A very young Eliza Dushku co-stars as their daughter who is also
reluctantly mixed up in his latest caper. And Bill Paxton costars as a
wisecracking comic relief character. I have not watched this movie in
decades. I was very eager to finally see it again. I don't care how
glossy this new 4K transfer is, I'm just glad I could finally watch the
movie again! Although while watching I was also aware that Dushku, who
was only 12 when the movie was made, has made allegations that she was
molested by the stunt coordinator and at the time she did say something
about and the next day was seriously injured during a stunt that the guy
was responsible for setting up. I have to ask why after she came
forward with the allegations was he allowed anywhere near her? And why
didn't anything happen to him at the time, especially after she was
seriously injured after making the allegations?

 And then after the movie wrapped and she went back home, there were a
bunch of kids at her school who were jealous of her being "little miss
movie star" and bullied her incessantly, particularly a group of girls
who would routinely try and beat her up, which is when she had her three
older brothers teach her how to fight and defend herself, which came in
handy later on when she was beset by vampires.