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[Sergius]

Rise of the Thread!

So I was just watching Avengers for the 100th time, and got to the part where they find the Tesseract machine thingamabob on the roof of Stark Tower. Anyway, the thing is shielded with "pure energy" and impenetrable and all that. Not saying that this would have disabled it, but... what would have happened if they just collapsed the rooftop? It's not like the thing would just stay floating in the air pointing upwards like nothing, at least it would fall down and mess up the portal a bit. Would the force "sphere" of energy start to just bounce all over like a transparent beach ball?

Well if it keeps working at best they'd make the portal appear in a weird place that isn't open sky, like the middle of another building or on the street if it fell all the way. Probably wouldn't have helped at all to stop the invasion... but fun to think about.

[Starver]

Well if it keeps working at best they'd make the portal appear in a weird place that isn't open sky, like the middle of another building or on the street if it fell all the way. Probably wouldn't have helped at all to stop the invasion... but fun to think about.

Reminds me of the whole "They built the Canary Wharf Tower ('One Canada Square') because the anomaly was up in the sky" (I think) element leading to the Doctor Who episode "Doomsday".  (It seems that Pete's World had done the same thing?)

Onto the actual Avengers Assembled example, I suppose the 'power of plot' could have given a number of different conclusions to such an attempt:

• Having been 'instantiated', the energy that protects the TMT would also suspend the device in mid-air (protected from the pull of gravity).
• Gravity is not averted, but there'd be no internal inertial effects of device-and-energy-sphere suddenly stopping so it would fall (still upright?) on top of the rubble (or, if buried, now surrounded by bubble and rubble), still pointing up at the portal
• If the bubble moves (and/or rotates) the initiated portal remains where it was, because the initial breach is now being 'maintained'.
• ...or else the breach moves in relative offset (translational/angular) to the movement of the device.  Its passage across anything physical (like a building or the ground) would be the same as if anything the size of the building/ground were instead passed across the face of the anomaly.  Probably the wormhole damaging/boring-through the substance at its radius of reach.
• Assuming that it's not just for the convenience of the invading 'troops' that their entrance be high up in the air.  Many fictional 'warp drives' are rarely, and often dangerously, operated (inward or outward, or mid-transit) inside a planetary atmosphere or strong gravitational field.  The opening of the gap to the other space might require 'open air' operation, and at sufficient altitude for air pressure to be reduced beyond some practical 'spoiling' limit.  (So, unlike the last point, the wormhole would destabilise if dragged downward, and even more so when encountering solid objects bigger than those it was actually designed to let pass through.)

But I've only so far seen the film the once, so you probably have me at a disadvantage.

[MrWiggles]

The Tesseract was immovable. When Tony struck it with his attack, it didnt budget at all. This was done to show that that shit was well protected, but it also tells us that that shit ain't moving from that spot. It didnt transfer Tony attack into the roof. Its locked in place.

[Starver]

Probably option one, then, it would have stayed where it was, stationary.

Although 'stationary' is relative.  And technically it's in an upward-accelerating frame of reference w.r.t. local spacetime if it is 'stationary' to the mass of the Earth, plus some subtle offset due to Coriolis effects.  I think we must accept the concept that upon being 'irrevocably protected', the field 'anchors' to at least the first derivative of motion of the local frame, instantaneous to activation.  Which means that if you had destroyed (or removed) the whole planet Earth, without shutting off the protective field, would it have considered to rotate in space, every 24 hours, 'orbiting' around Earth's projected barycentre, in turn epicyclicly travelling around the Sun.  Or in turn following the path of the Sun through the local stellar neighbourhood, turning around galactic centre...  If you could be selective about which frames of reference a device such as this persistently follows, with enough control it could be an excellent way of 'travelling by not travelling'.  Assuming you could calculate an appropriate combination of relative motions to observe.

(This is just one issue one needs to ask of Doc Brown, regarding the operation of his Delorean.  Travel across time seems locked to local geography, but apart from all the above motions-upon-motions, there's also the likelihood of tectonic plate movements that would introduce some slight repositioning, even if it's just half of the reported "same as the rate of growth of fingernails"/whatever mid-Atlantic ridge separation rate, over the +/-30 years or so, for the North American plate, relative to... what?  Oh, wait, Hollywood is the centre of the universe, so I suppose it depends on which side of various faults Hill Valley, CA, lies, w.r.t. the site of the Hollywood(Land) Sign hill itself, naturally.)


((...well, this thread is for nitpicks.  Although I didn't actually have that in mind when I first started down this particular train of thought.))

[BurnedToast]

Are games allowed instead of movies? Well too bad, I'm doing a game. Warning, major dishonored spoiler:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

At one point the loyalists betray you and poison your drink. It's ok, though, the old boatman with a heart of gold only gives you a half dose, and sends you down the river on a boat to give you time to recover instead of.... whatever they wanted him to do with your body.

That's fine.... except one problem - he never touches your drink. He's with you the whole time you do the final mission, he's with you on the way back, and he never leaves his boat while you go in for a drink. So that means the only way he could have given you a half dose is if he mixed it before you left. So, what, they had the old boatman (of all people) poison your drink hours before you would drink it, then just.... left it there on the counter?

It gets worse though - he *clearly* knows they are going to poison you after that mission. I replayed the game and it's very, very obvious from his tone of voice, dialog, etc, that he realizes you're going in there to get poisoned...... so why does he not mention it on the ride back?!

It's not like the game's plot was amazing prize winning material before that, but it was decent enough.... and then this glaring plot hole just completely ruins it. It's just so.... inexplicable.

[Sergius]

The Tesseract was immovable. When Tony struck it with his attack, it didnt budget at all. This was done to show that that shit was well protected, but it also tells us that that shit ain't moving from that spot. It didnt transfer Tony attack into the roof. Its locked in place.

It transferred the attack back at Tony. There's no rule that the forcefield has to exert force in the direction that it was sent, into the rooftop. Just a bubbley energy field doing bubbley energy field stuff.

Also, Tesseract was floating in the center of a machine, and the machine was either powering the Tesseract or the Tesseract powering the machine, either way it was turned off by putting the Scepter to block the energy beam thingy (the Scepter wasn't a proper key or anything, Mr. Science Guy just said it "might" be used, because it could penetrate the bubble because deus ex). The forcefield itself was centered around the Tesseract itself (the machine had uncovered parts).

The machine itself is resting on the roof. While it might have resulted in it just floating there and helping the machine float somehow because of it being anchored into the cube (the whole setup was "self-powered", no longer needing energy from the ARC, but the Tesseract wasn't doing the portaling by itself) it isn't a foregone conclusion. Plus all the Frame of Reference stuff that Starver said, but those are usually handwaved in comic physics. (there is even a superhero that travels by standing "still" relative to Earth's rotation, but somehow never actually leaves Earth even tho Earth is moving. So, somehow anchored to the center of mass or something?)

[Parsely]

Are games allowed instead of movies? Well too bad, I'm doing a game. Warning, major dishonored spoiler:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

At one point the loyalists betray you and poison your drink. It's ok, though, the old boatman with a heart of gold only gives you a half dose, and sends you down the river on a boat to give you time to recover instead of.... whatever they wanted him to do with your body.

That's fine.... except one problem - he never touches your drink. He's with you the whole time you do the final mission, he's with you on the way back, and he never leaves his boat while you go in for a drink. So that means the only way he could have given you a half dose is if he mixed it before you left. So, what, they had the old boatman (of all people) poison your drink hours before you would drink it, then just.... left it there on the counter?

It gets worse though - he *clearly* knows they are going to poison you after that mission. I replayed the game and it's very, very obvious from his tone of voice, dialog, etc, that he realizes you're going in there to get poisoned...... so why does he not mention it on the ride back?!

It's not like the game's plot was amazing prize winning material before that, but it was decent enough.... and then this glaring plot hole just completely ruins it. It's just so.... inexplicable.

I thought the whole game was fairly mediocre. There are some really impressive videos of stunts you can pull in that though.

[Sergius]

Just thought about another one.

You know that Christmas movie? Where Santa Claus is real and in the north pole and has lots of elves making toys that he somehow delivers in a single night?

Yeah, that movie. Every single one of them.

Anyway, we're supposed to suspend disbelief that magic and nice thoughts and all that make this possible, except, why is Santa always making his own toys, while every kid in the world receives something made by Mattel or whatevs? Like, in the movies they all receive custom toys and the adults know there is no freakin' way they bought them and just forgot, so the whole "believing in Santa" is pointless when you have hundreds of dollars in toys spontaneously appear in your living room for your kids. But would it be too much trouble at least to pretend that Santa just orders a lot of toys from the toy manufacturers that the kids actually receive toys from? I don't think Santa Claus just makes random objects and then stamps trademarked logos from actual companies in their toys.

TL;DR: why in every movie where Santa is real he makes his own toys and nobody suspects he's real even tho adults know THEY didn't buy them, and also they're never made by actual toy companies but elves in the north pole... uh, or something.

Yeah, it's late and I posted a lot of a jumbled mess of words but there's a point buried there somewhere.

[Starver]

I forgot this thread existed.  And so, now reminded, I'm in the mood for a (non-spoilery) comment about The Man From U.N.C.L.E., recently released, that I saw last week and have been mildly stewing about since.

One sort-of-McGuffin item used in the plot is a "Computer Disc".  From the start, it looks to me like a certain kind of enclosed tape spool, and it definitely looks to me like it a tape by the dénouement of the plot.  But they keep calling it a disc, not a tape.

This is an age (i.e. the film setting) where computer discs are rare (and bigger!... that particular one is propped up against waist-high equipment stood on the floor!).  It's not like calling a Flash Memory Drive a "USB disc", where language has lagged behind technology.

It was probably an originally scripted, non-fact-checked, element that didn't get changed in the dialogue even when they ended up conjuring up actual appropriate 1960s-style props.


Ok, so it's arguable as to whether this (one) nitpick actually ruined this movie.  For a start, there were certain other things that I can imagine one could complain about, but also because I happened to quite like the film, really... despite this jarring (to me) error of fact.  While someone else will complain about some aspect of the vehicles, clothes, helicopters, ships or something else I never noticed, I just know.

It'll take a sequel or two (if they get around to making any) before I could possibly recognise this film as somewhat consistent with the original 1960s TV canon universe, rather than a conceptual cut'n'shut (however well done) for a new generation.

But it was a tape!


(I could also complain about the role of the "lens", but I'd be spoilering something by discussing it more.  Even though it's quite obviously a Chekhov's Gun (or perhaps Bullet?), from the very moment it's introduced.)

[LordBaal]

Just thought about another one.

You know that Christmas movie? Where Santa Claus is real and in the north pole and has lots of elves making toys that he somehow delivers in a single night?

Yeah, that movie. Every single one of them.

Anyway, we're supposed to suspend disbelief that magic and nice thoughts and all that make this possible, except, why is Santa always making his own toys, while every kid in the world receives something made by Mattel or whatevs? Like, in the movies they all receive custom toys and the adults know there is no freakin' way they bought them and just forgot, so the whole "believing in Santa" is pointless when you have hundreds of dollars in toys spontaneously appear in your living room for your kids. But would it be too much trouble at least to pretend that Santa just orders a lot of toys from the toy manufacturers that the kids actually receive toys from? I don't think Santa Claus just makes random objects and then stamps trademarked logos from actual companies in their toys.

TL;DR: why in every movie where Santa is real he makes his own toys and nobody suspects he's real even tho adults know THEY didn't buy them, and also they're never made by actual toy companies but elves in the north pole... uh, or something.

Yeah, it's late and I posted a lot of a jumbled mess of words but there's a point buried there somewhere.

Maybe in those universes is custom of the seasons for paedophiles to send random crap to stranger kids around the world or something?

[scriver]

The real story is that Santa actually used to exist, but then the toy companies found out he was running an illegal toy pirating operation out of the north pole and shut him down.

[Rolan7]

What no, they would never do that!
They did an aggressive takeover, business-style.  Yeah... they outsourced production to the north pole.

[Sergius]

Well there was one movie where Santa gets fired. Never quite figured out who did the firing but apparently it was "the corporations" who had sent an analyst. The one where he has an annoying brother.

[Bohandas]

Just thought about another one.

You know that Christmas movie? Where Santa Claus is real and in the north pole and has lots of elves making toys that he somehow delivers in a single night?

Yeah, that movie. Every single one of them.

Anyway, we're supposed to suspend disbelief that magic and nice thoughts and all that make this possible, except, why is Santa always making his own toys, while every kid in the world receives something made by Mattel or whatevs? Like, in the movies they all receive custom toys and the adults know there is no freakin' way they bought them and just forgot, so the whole "believing in Santa" is pointless when you have hundreds of dollars in toys spontaneously appear in your living room for your kids. But would it be too much trouble at least to pretend that Santa just orders a lot of toys from the toy manufacturers that the kids actually receive toys from? I don't think Santa Claus just makes random objects and then stamps trademarked logos from actual companies in their toys.

TL;DR: why in every movie where Santa is real he makes his own toys and nobody suspects he's real even tho adults know THEY didn't buy them, and also they're never made by actual toy companies but elves in the north pole... uh, or something.

Yeah, that bothers me too. Someone should make a movie that explores that mystery. Like  maybe he modifies people's memories like the men in black or something.

[Sergius]

Yeah, something like that, giving parents false memories that they actually went shopping for their kids. The awful implication tho would be that parents are horrible because they never buy the presents themselves, and then who are all those people crowding the malls during the holidays? It could be all robot decoys and in the end everything is a massive conspiracy.