Plots that Go Askew

[The_Snark]

But at the end of the day, I have never been interested in stories about "the human condition" (sic); especially when they go into "edgy" and "gritty" as I inevitable find them to be simultaneously tiresome and monumentally unrealistic.

*shrug* Like I said, not to everyone's taste. I get bored when people focus too much on the laser guns and rocket ships. Different strokes for different folks, y'know?

And I think it is still utterly indefensible - for one thing, it an extension of, and is as indefensible, as the whole "technology is teh evuls" philosphy (which as I understand it, ended up as the theme in the last - apparently, from what I've been told, rather lower quality seasons), which has been so done to to death so much it's more Undead than I am. It was a moribund concept when it was first done and time has not improved it. All it does is cause me to say, "wait, hang on, without technology, there would be no medical technology, medicines or hygiene" then remember that there are places in the world without such things, and convince me the writer has never actually seen the news, or a film clip or something from them.

I never thought the show was trying to preach the evils of technology. I feel like people who interpret it that way are missing the real point, which is Be Nice To Your Robots. Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes it's blunt, but it's pretty clear that the Cylons only rose up because they were, you know, enslaved; some of the human characters in the show may blame the evil robots for everything, but the writers generally undermine them. The Cylons are shown to be very human over the course of the show—which doesn't necessarily make them good, because humans are perfectly capable of doing horrible things, and from an AI storytelling perspective you could criticize it as unimaginative (why are robots exactly like humans again?)... But the point is, it's a standard-issue cycle of violence thing, not a claim that Robots Are Intrinsically Evil And Will Always Rebel.

There's one plot point in the finale that could be interpreted as saying technology=bad, but I'm pretty sure that it was included for a different reason, and it's promptly followed by the most ham-handed Be Nice To Your Robots moment in the whole series (bleh).

There are plenty of valid reasons to criticize the show, but I don't think this is one of them.

That's how I felt about it. From Dusk Til Dawn had the makings of a pretty great kidnapping film, then it takes a sudden turn into the bizarre halfway through the film. The final product was alright I guess, but honestly if you dumped the whole vampire thing and just extended the original plotline I think it would have been a better movie.

Reminds me of The Forgotten. My friends and I rented that movie thinking it was a psychological thriller; the main character is a woman in mourning for her deceased son, who's told that she never had a son, that she is in fact delusional. And of course she resists the idea, but as the film goes on and she can't find any evidence (outside of her memories) that he existed, she starts wondering whether she really is crazy... Then a bunch of sinister-looking MIB-types show up, and it turns out that her son a) definitely existed, b) isn't dead, and c) was kidnapped by aliens. Who want to remove him from existence because... because... you know, I don't think the movie ever answered that question? A plot summary I found on the Internet informs me it was all an experiment to see if the emotional bond between parent and child could be broken, but apparently there's no motive beyond "because we can."

It was disappointing. It could have been a good psychological drama; it could have even pulled off the alien angle, cliche as that is, if the aliens and their government conspiracy minions hadn't been so pointless and generic and incompetent.