# Movies you've seen recently (Part 2) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [August 27, 2024, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288 "2024-08-27T05:10:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 152
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3021 "2025-08-04T20:05:14Z")
**Hot Fuzz** (2007). According to the plot outline, a very successful London police officer is so good at this job that he makes everyone else look bad, so he’s transferred to an obscure English village. There, he encounters incompetent local constabulary with whom he has to work while investigating a series of fatal accidents that he soon begins to suspect are all interconnected murders. Sounds like a great setup for a comedy, and I usually love the dry wit of most British humour, so what could go wrong? As it turned out, plenty. I found the early parts of it unfunny, and then it took off in completely unexpected directions. There was indeed a certain amount of humour in it, much of it dark, and the ending was just completely insane. Despite its high rating and indisputable creativity and production values, it just didn’t captivate me nor ever really make me laugh. Other opinions may differ. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3022 "2025-08-04T20:09:01Z")
Yarp. It’s a little circular, but I love that movie because that’s the kind of movie I love. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3023 "2025-08-04T21:23:38Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > The story line tries to be more thoughtful than most. I mean, it’s not Shakespeare… except it is, of course. _The Tempest_, to be precise. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3024 "2025-08-04T22:23:59Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Forbidden Planet Note that at one point they say that the machinery of the Krell is arranged so that each next section of their computing equipment is ten times the last section (in memory or speed or something). They say “ten times ten times ten” So the Krell had ten fingers. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3025 "2025-08-05T03:03:40Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I acknowledge that it was very good **for its day** , but come on, it can hardly be compared to _2001_ or _Interstellar_. The former had the genius of both Arthur C Clarke and Stanley Kubrick behind it, while the latter had Christopher Nolan directing and Kip Thorne as technical adviser, who later wrote a book about the science behind it – much of the science was, if improbable, definitely not impossible. That kind of sophistication in sci-fi simply did not exist in 1956. They did a great job with what they had to work with. No, I think it holds its own even not considered “for its day”. I place it on an even footing with 2001 – the two alternate as my favorite science fiction film. And I much prefer both of them to Interstellar, or any other science fiction movies. Forbidden Planet is the perfect cinematic expression of GOOD 1940s literary science fiction (as 2001 is the perfect cinematic expression of good 1950s literary science fiction). It broke lots of conventions, and is iconic for those reasons, even if they’re often forgotten or overlooked. The first science fiction movie to feature interstellar travel The first science fiction movie to feature faster than light travel The first science fiction film to feature humans traveling in a saucer-shaped (not cigar-shaped) ship The first major motion picture with an electronic score The first motion picture to feature a robot obeying Asimov’s Laws of Robotics The basic setup of Star Trek was taken from Forbidden Planet – saucer-shaped ship on a multi-year mission, and the three who go down to inspect things are the captain, his second in command, and the doctor. Do you know what’s going on when all the crew stepped onto those discs and are enveloped in light, looking as if they anticipated Star Trek’s “Transporter” effect? Do you know what was going on there, and why? I suspect most people don’t, because it’s not explicitly stated, but they give you enough clues to figure it out. No previous film even came close to exploring that idea. The future of Forbidden Planet is filled with that sort of hidden well-thought-out details. The significant thing that has fallen victim to the passage of time is the complete lack of computers and digital technology (ignoring Robbie, which Morbius had all to himself). This is the Analog Future imagined in the 1940s, the future of Heinelin’s _Rocket Ship Galileo_ wit its Norden Bombsight-like cam-driven flight computer, or Edward O. Smith’s _Venus Equilateral_ series, with its analog duplicators and teleporters. But they can be forgiven for not having to foresight to see how rapidly and c0ompletely digital technology would take over the world. ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3026 "2025-08-05T03:07:57Z")
> [@TRC4941](#): > > My husband and I rewatched Yours, Mine and Ours (1968) starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda. My widowed mother remarried in 1968, and altogether there were 13 kids of various ages in our new family. My mother scoffed at the movie when she took us kids to see it in 1968 (not so recently?!??), especially when Lucille Ball spent a whopping **$100** on groceries! She laughed at that. And no, nobody in our family got adopted, didn’t even think about it. I recently rewatched it and still cringe at how the kids fought but everyone was lovey-dovey at the end. > [@wolfpup](#): > > **Forbidden Planet** (1956). It’s been mentioned here a few times, but I had not seen it before. > > This movie has to be evaluated in the proper context of 1950s sci-fi movies. It makes an attempt to rise above the rest in terms of special effects and story line, and it mostly succeeds – though that’s a pretty low bar. Even the Cinemascope film format strives to be a cut above the rest. > > The special effects vary between hokey (a flying saucer suspended by threads) and some of the fairly effective imagery of the Krell laboratory. And there’s also Robby the Robot. Today I finally got a chance to see the sequel: **The Invisible Boy**. It’s the opposite as far as production goes: black-and-white, jumpy frames for some reason, partly a war drama but also a wholesome family comedy, partly very serious but also partly a very campy comedy. But it has Robby the Robot in his second film! There’s a reference to **Forbidden Planet** due to an artifact brought back from the future by Robby (but they don’t dwell on it). It’d be worth seeing as the second part of the viewing evening. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3027 "2025-08-05T03:31:39Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > No, I think it holds its own even not considered “for its day”. I place it on an even footing with 2001 – the two alternate as my favorite science fiction film. And I much prefer both of them to Interstellar, or any other science fiction movies. I appreciate your enthusiasm. I largely don’t share it because to me, the film is just very dated with a bit too much naive pseudo-science, though still definitely very enjoyable. When I read or watch sci-fi, I’m interested in seeing hard plausible science, not fantasy. And this is altogether too rare today, and was mostly non-existent in the 50s. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > The first science fiction movie to feature interstellar travel I like that too, as opposed to movies that assumed that some or many planets in our own solar system were populated by intelligent beings, even though it’s been known for about a century that they’re not hospitable to life. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > The first science fiction movie to feature faster than light travel Christopher Nolan wanted to use that in _Interstellar_, too. Kip Thorne adamantly refused, insisting that the film be scientifically defensible. It became a major argument over the story line. Thorne, who was not merely an advisor but had also been appointed executive producer, eventually prevailed. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3028 "2025-08-05T05:21:01Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Christopher Nolan wanted to use that in _Interstellar_, too. Kip Thorne adamantly refused, insisting that the film be scientifically defensible. It became a major argument over the story line. Thorne, who was not merely an advisor but had also been appointed executive producer, eventually prevailed. Of course _Interstellar_ had FTL - they just used wormholes instead of hyperspace or warp. Lots of science fiction stories use wormholes for FTL travel. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3029 "2025-08-05T05:27:01Z")
Helen North was thirty three when her first husband died, and pregnant with their eighth child. So Ball was too old for the role.. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3030 "2025-08-05T05:39:04Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#): > > sequel It isn’t a sequel in terms of continuing the plot of _Forbidden Planet_. It’s only a sequel to it if you consider re-using a film prop to make it a sequel. Incidentally, in 2017, Robbie became the most expensive film prop ever sold at auction for $5,375,000 (U.S.): > **[Robby the Robot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robby_the_Robot)** > > Robby the Robot is a fictional character who first appeared in the 1956 film Forbidden Planet. He made a number of subsequent appearances in science fiction films and television programs, which has given him the distinction as "the hardest working robot in Hollywood". > The name "Robbie" (spelled with an "ie") had appeared in science fiction before Forbidden Planet. In a pulp magazine adventure The Fantastic Island (1935), the name is used for a mechanical likeness of Doc Savage used to confuse ... ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3031 "2025-08-05T05:47:56Z")
I wont take it personally…but _Hot Fuzz_ is possibly my favourite film of the past 25 years. I really do like it that much. It’s utterly hilarious and so clever. Repeat viewings only make it better. There are so many little things you miss the first time you watch it that you may pick up on after a repeat (not just jokes). The ending is deliberately insane and OTT as a pastiche of _Bad Boys_ and all those other OTT 90s action films that the character Danny loves. Also contains just a hilarious exchange: ‘Everyone and their mums is packin round ere!’ ‘Oh yeh, like who?’ …farmers…’ ‘Who else?’ ‘….farmers’ mums’ Cracks me up every time. But the clever thing is, guess who are the first armed people Nicholas encounters when he returns? A farmer…and his mum. Brilliant. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3032 "2025-08-05T07:05:04Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > > [@wolfpup](#): > > > > Christopher Nolan wanted to use that in _Interstellar_, too. Kip Thorne adamantly refused, insisting that the film be scientifically defensible. It became a major argument over the story line. Thorne, who was not merely an advisor but had also been appointed executive producer, eventually prevailed. > > Of course _Interstellar_ had FTL - they just used wormholes instead of hyperspace or warp. Lots of science fiction stories use wormholes for FTL travel. There’s a big difference, and the difference was, in fact, the basis of a two-week standoff between Christopher Nolan and Kip Thorne, who refused to allow the impossible concept of faster-than-light travel to infect the movie. Christopher Nolan, in his preface to Thorne’s book, _The Science of Interstellar_: > His infectious enthusiasm for science was obvious from our first conversation, as was his reluctance to proffer half-formed opinions. His approach to all the narrative challenges that I threw him was always calm, measured and above all, scientific. In trying to keep me on the path of plausibility, he never showed impatience with my unwillingness to accept things on trust (although my two-week challenge to his faster-than-light prohibition might have elicited a gentle sigh). The following extract from _The Science of Interstellar_ touches on the subject of wormholes and the exquisite attention to scientific detail in the movie: > Oliver and Eugénie were the first people with physics training that I had met on Interstellar. Oliver has a degree in optics and atomic physics, and knows the technical details of Einstein’s special relativity. Eugénie is an engineer, trained at Oxford, with a focus on data engineering and computer science. They speak my language. > > For several months, I struggled near full time, formulating equations for images of the universe near black holes and wormholes (Chapters 8 and 15). I tested my equations using low-resolution, user-friendly computer software called Mathematica, and then sent the equations and Mathematica code to Oliver. He devoured them, converted them into sophisticated computer code that could generate the ultra-high-quality IMAX images needed for Interstellar, and then passed them on to Eugénie and her team. It was a joy working with them. > > … with two of my students, Mark Morris and Ulvi Yurtsever, I published two technical articles about traversable wormholes. In our articles, we challenged our physicist colleagues to figure out whether the combined quantum laws and relativistic laws permit a very advanced civilization to collect enough exotic matter inside a wormhole to hold it open. This triggered a lot of research by a lot of physicists; but today, nearly thirty years later, the answer is still unknown. The preponderance of the evidence suggests that the answer may be NO, so traversable wormholes are impossible. But we are still far from a final answer. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3033 "2025-08-05T07:17:18Z")
You know what? They visited a different galaxy and it didn’t take them millions of years to get there. That, _by definition_, is faster-than-light travel. I love Nolan, but _Interstellar_ is tied with _Tenet_ as my least favorite of his movies, mostly because it’s a LOT less smart than it thinks it is. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3034 "2025-08-05T08:42:52Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > You know what? They visited a different galaxy and it didn’t take them millions of years to get there. That, _by definition_, is faster-than-light travel. No it’s not, though. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3035 "2025-08-05T08:45:18Z")
So you’re saying that _Stargate_ is hard SF? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3036 "2025-08-05T11:02:38Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > You know what? They visited a different galaxy and it didn’t take them millions of years to get there. That, _by definition_, is faster-than-light travel. No, not at all. First of all, they’re supposed to have visited a planet orbiting the star Altair. So, not another galaxy, and in fact one of our closest stars. At 16.7 light years, Altair is close enough to have been directly imaged, and its size and its remarkably fast rate of rotation to have been measured. FTR, the same story line could have been produced with actual scientific plausibility by postulating advanced propulsion technology that would allow the spaceship to come close to the speed of light without exceeding it. Traveling at an average speed of 99.998% of c, for example, the _proper time_ (as measured on the spaceship) to reach Altair from Earth would be about 38 days. This doesn’t violate special relativity since more than 16.7 years would have gone by on Earth. (Crank that up to 99.99998% of c, and you get there in less than 4 days!) The point of those quotes from Kip Thorne’s book is that Thorne and his team were careful to keep the plot of _Interstellar_ as close as possible to scientific plausibility. Traversible wormholes would be very strange things and pose some amazing paradoxes, but they haven’t been ruled out as impossible. Faster-than-light travel, OTOH, violates fundamental properties of spacetime and Kip Thorne wouldn’t tolerate such nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3037 "2025-08-05T11:22:08Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > FTR, the same story line could have been produced with actual scientific plausibility by postulating advanced propulsion technology that would allow the spaceship to come close to the speed of light without exceeding it. Traveling at an average speed of 99.998% of c, for example, the _proper time_ (as measured on the spaceship) to reach Altair from Earth would be about 38 days. This doesn’t violate special relativity since more than 16.7 years would have gone by on Earth. (Crank that up to 99.99998% of c, and you get there in less than 4 days!) That would have been a better story. In fact, when I first heard of the movie, I assumed they were going to be doing the whole twin-paradox near-C time dilation thing, but instead, they decided to go with gravity-based time dilation - which wouldn’t have had to happen at all if the characters hadn’t been idiots and had actually studied the planet before landing on it. Either way, in the movie they travelled two years to the wormhole, popped inside for a few minutes or hours (both for them and for people observing on Earth), and popped out again any number of light years away. Dress it up with as much technobabble as you want - that’s still FTL. Also, is Altair a black hole? I didn’t know there were any black holes that close to us. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3038 "2025-08-05T11:28:58Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Also, is Altair a black hole? I didn’t know there were any black holes that close to us. No, you have it confused with something else. Altair is a very young main-sequence star, much younger than the Sun, and slightly larger. If it has planets capable of supporting life, they’ll need a few billion years to develop it. If the solar system is an adolescent or young adult, the Altair system is an infant. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3039 "2025-08-05T11:31:11Z")
So the black hole all the planets they visit in the movie are orbiting, how far away is it? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3040 "2025-08-05T11:37:25Z")
We’ve gone off the rails here and you’ve conflated two different movies. What I said about the star Altair was in reference to the 1956 movie _Forbidden Planet_, which explicitly mentioned one of its planets as the destination of their spaceship. I brought up _Interstellar_ as a counterexample of a science fiction film where Kip Thorne and his team worked hard to maintain scientific plausibility. I don’t remember if they were supposed to have been in another galaxy or this one, and it doesn’t really matter. There are lots of black holes in our own galaxy, besides the supermassive one at the center. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288.md?page=151) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288.md?page=153)