Comrade

Did you read that list? Almost all of them do in fact say that sci-fi requires some kind of new scientific or technological concept. Most of of them are pretty similar to this. And Gravity doesn’t fit in there.

I disagree that Kessler Syndrome makes it sci-fi. Kessler Syndrome is a logical observation of what might happen if enough satellites break apart. It doesn’t require new science or technology. San Andreas starring the Rock is a speculative film about what would happen if a huge earthquake hit California. It’s not science fiction.

Red October is much more of a sci-fi film than Gravity as it involves a technology that didn’t exist at the time. Gravity doesn’t. It is about events that haven’t actually happened, but that's true of every fictional film ever. The Graduate is a speculative science fiction film about what would happen if a guy who looked like Dustin Hoffman felt ennui after graduating university and then fucked an older family friend. “Being about technology” is not enough for a film to be sci-fi. The Fast and the Furious is a film in large part about cars, a form of technology. It also gets quite unrealistic at times. It’s not a science fiction film. Science fiction requires the creation of an alternate world, often the future, where some kind of scientific or technological effect or advancement has created a different reality, and then exploring those possibilities. Space travel might still be exotic and out of reach for almost everyone, but it exists, people do it, and Gravity is a generally representative depiction of that, albeit depicting an extreme situation. Also, turns out that I was totally right that this show got commissioned because of YouTube video essays.

In what way is it a sci-fi film? Imagine the incredible future where humanity has a Space Shuttle, the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station. The astonishing future of 2011.

I was annoyed that Kermode talked about Gravity in the sci-fi episode even though it, you know, isn’t a sci-fi film.

Jesus, the PS4 Twitch app keeps serving me the entire, 6 minute Red Dead Redemption 2 gameplay video as an unskippable advert before I watch a stream. The only way to get out of watching the whole thing is to quit and restart the entire app and hope it serves me different ads next time. Anyone else getting this?

I don’t know if I find that the funniest, or Vin Diesel’s ultra-low-effort one.

Here’s a tip for making money in the early game. There are abandoned ouposts dotted about covered in alien goo. They will also likely be surrounded by “whispering eggs” - if you destroy them with your mining laser they will drop larval cores which are worth mad bank. BUT, you will also summon a pack of “biological horrors” which look like xenomorphs crossed with scorpions which swarm you. However, these horrors are firmly stuck to the ground so you can easily escape them by jetpacking away onto the roof of the outpost. So you can get into a loop where you stand on the roof of the outpost, peer over and shoot one of the eggs with your laser, let it drop its core, fall down and pick it up, and then quickly fly back up onto the roof before the horrors can kill you, wait for your shield to recharge, and then repeat. For some reason it seems that only one larval core can spawn at a time, so you will have to go one by one. The horrors can easily overwhelm you, so you should err on the side of caution and jet out as soon as you’re taking damage. It can be fiddly to actually target the core and pick it up, especially when you’re under attack. And you should make sure you parked your ship nearby so that you saved when you exited. Those cores really add up. I just cleared a cool 2 mill on my game.

BotW obviously take a huge amount of aesthetic inspiration from Mononoke, but that guy is really stretching it with thematic inspiration. Princess Mononoke is about how all sides in a conflict have understandable motives, BotW is about the time a sinister, evil cloud took over a castle and four mechs.

Kind of weird how many people are amazed at how suited Fillion is to playing Drake as if it’s some sort of amazing coincidence, and not clear proof that Drake’s character was based on Fillion. They even have the same first name!

Apparently there’s actually a whole weird Twitter community of people enacting current politics through the lens of DS9: It’s pretty fucking weird!

Commiserations, Rushy.

Giving in to Daily Caller nazis is some fucking bullshit.

No, Tales From the Loop, the subject of this thread.