What genre is Mad Max

[Biker]

Well said Detritus Maximus. I prefer that term speculative fiction too wraps it up in a nice neat package. Thanks.


@ Nightwalker.... downloading it? Tut tut TUT! That's illegal according to the intro to a couple of DVD's I just watched (Taxi 2 & Aliens vs Predator)


Hey Nightwalker. Don't have any sharp objects or guns near you while you're watching it, the temptation to end your misery of chronic depression might be too overwhelming to resist LOL!


Biker

[Nightwalker]

@Biker:





Alien movies: eccelent.


Predator movies: pretty good.


Aliens vs Predator: To damn weak. Not much to see.





Well, there is not much you can do in life what's still legal, is there?


And if I would take youre advise, I should find another place to watch it. My room is filled with potential cuicide tools.

[OverheadCam]

Quote: Originally posted by DetritusMaximus on 03 December 2005



The have been two versions of the 'On The Beach' films. The original form the late 50's and a fairly new miniseries version with Armand Asante. Both are depressing.








I saw the mini series version of "On the Beach" with Armand Asante and Bryan Brown, and was seriously impressed with the "twist at the end",i.e. after the button is pushed, there is no safe place.


Post apocalyptic themes in this genre don't have to be after a "Nuclear War" MM1 was based on the assumption of....high oil prices leading to war, famine, social breakdown...just look at what happened in New Orleans...or the Ukraine, or Somalia or any number of TPLAC's (tin pot little African countries)...the countries went 'stone age' in a matter of weeks, with bands of armed thugs patrolling the countryside! (Even "The day after tomorrow" was about a apocalypse based on climate change)


"On the beach" is, as far as I'm aware, the only mini-series/movie that actually deals with what scientists have forecast will happen if someone starts "lighting off nukes like their own personal 4th of July", no one will be left.


on another Forum Topic, Biker wrote:-


"That reminds me. In one book I'd read is had the shortest chapter which was titled Surviving a Nuclear War. It read: I'm not going to try to give pratical points about how to survive such a thing because some damn fool might actually start one to see if they can!"


The biggest problem with these Post Nuclear War fantasy stories is that everyone assumes that there'll always be someone left to carry on, and that's the scary part.....Anyone who's read "The Guns of August" (about how WW1 kicked off) will understand how...one thing lead to another and like an atomic chain reaction, the political situation ran away uncontrolled...and at no point, did any one of the World's Leaders step back and say "hang on, this is getting out of control, we've gotta stop travelling down this road we're on". We know history repeats itself...and we don't always learn from our mistakes.


If everyone saw "On the Beach", they'd be more vigilant about the clowns they elect into political office (USA I'm looking in George Dubbya's direction).....the assumption that 'we' could survive a Nuclear war will lead to some fool actually setting 1 off....then , like in the "Guns of August" thing's'll get out of control, everyone will set them off...and there will be no one left to punish those responsible!.


JFK famously said (to paraphrase) "Our problems are man-made, therefore they can be solved by men".


The problem isn't the Nukes, sitting in their Silos they're like a spanner lying on the ground, they're worthless until the right person put it to use. Give a tradesman a spanner and he can do some good, let a monkey pick up that same spanner and say goodbye to your workshop.


We've gotta make sure the wrong people don't get their hands on the button. cause there won't be a "tomorrow, morrow land!"

[OverheadCam]

Quote: Originally posted by Biker on 04 December 2005






@ Nightwalker.... downloading it? Tut tut TUT! That's illegal according to the intro to a couple of DVD's I just watched (Taxi 2 & Aliens vs Predator)

Taxi is a fantastic French film which Hollywood completely screwed up and the downloaded version of Alien vs Predator i saw was the French version (with froggy-text where the english usually is) my favourite movie of recent years "The Borne Identity" was shot predominately in France!...the whole worlds's going French!


Hey Biker..how do you get on renting DVD's?...are they all french language...or do you get English audio on all of 'em?...I'd hate to hear Blade 2 in French...I've heard the french dub of Star wars...Terrible!...Vader sounded queer..the only character they got right was Yoda!

[DetritusMaximus]

Overhead-





The funky thing is that, for the most part, MAD (mutual Assured Destruction) did have some beneficial affect in that everyone new that if the major players went at it, everyone would die. It might take awhile, but with that many warheads going off, it would almost be certain that if not all the people, then all of what we know as civilization would perish. The new Dark Ages, at the least, and who knew for how long. But the reason it kind of worked was that both sides were afraid of death.





Take your nod in the direction of GW. (George Bush, not that wonderful RPG Gamma World. Anybody else play that? Or am I really 'dating' myself here?)


Forget that the current fiasco, and picture a world where a substantial number of nukes are in the hands of fundamentalists that view this life as an unhappy waiting line to the great Promised Land of the next. People who are ready and willing to go out and embrace whatever it takes to get to the afterlife and all the joy it will supposedly bring them. They do not have any reason to not hurry 'God's plan' along. If they view a nuclear (or other WMD) conflagration as the death of the heathens and the ascension of the chosen true believers, why would they hesitate? Or rather, why wouldn't they do what they can to instigate it? Even better than actually being here for the fulfillment of God's promises, is to believe yourself to be a tool of God, to play a part in his plan.





And it doesn't matter which side you look at right now, the devout, with total faith in their God, are in charge on both sides.

[OverheadCam]

you hit the nail on the head!


"MAD", for the most part, stopped bloody wars in the west!


Although we've got the picture of Russians as the Hardline Communist Automaton..thank God this isn't true...in fact they too were God fearing family men, that on numerous occassions stopped 'Hot Headded' computer systems/ Generals/Politicians from pressing "the button".


Luckily, on both sides, there were well educated, people who loved life and understood the consequences of their actions.


Now read this:- "Nuclear Power Generation is not cost effective!


The cost of exploration, mining, processing, transport and construction of reactors is so high...and the power generated so cheap (in relative terms)..its not viable! Nuclear Power Reactors are there to make weapons grade Plutonium!...Every Country that uses Nuclear Reactors for power Generation also have atomic weapons! (weather they admit it or not)


So I'm sure Japan's got Nukes (to keep N Korea in check) and Israel's got 'em to keep the Arabs under the thumb...so when I hear N Korea and Iran are developing their Nuclear "Power" systems...I get nervous!...what do they mean by Nuclear Power?

[Biker]

In the 16 months I've been living in France OHC I have yet to rent a DVD, I don't know why I haven't joined a club yet, just haven't got around to it I suppose. However I have bought DVD's from shops but only after reading on the back cover whether it has the film in VO (Voice Original) or at least English subtitles.


Aliens v Predator wasn't too bad. I saw it at the cinema and wasn't that impressed but seeing it the second time has lifted my opinion of it a little, but not much. Taxi 2 was funny, the car chases were good (better than Fast & Furious) and the humour was VERY French. I have Taxi on French video but without the UK subtitles and my French is lousy so I haven't watched it yet. I'm waiting to get a DVD copy of it with English subtitles. Taxi 2 had subtitles. I bought it 2nd hand in the UK when I was there last along with Rocky Horror picture show 2 DVD. Day after Tomorrow. The Punisher. The Hulk 2 DVD. and an obscure Aussie film called The Quiet Earth. Weird but good though.


The other night we watched The Patriot with Mel Gibson, Damn fine film that too. I hadn't seen it before and I wasn't disappointed in it either though I thought it very like Signs in his acting style. i.e. He cried a lot. I think Mels acting days are behind him now that he's more interested in sitting in the directors seat.


Nuclear war etc So long as nuclear weapons are around there's an element of risk to everyone. When Russia was a superpower the tension was high but with the rise of these Radical Muslims and thier ilk the problem has become potentially worse than ever. Sadly it seems these same radical muslims have the cash or at least the funding to potentially buy nukes from the crumbling Russian military and it'll only take one a$$hole to hide one in his car boot, bribe his way past a greedy border guard somewhere and let it off in a western city.


It makes me laugh though hearing the news about Iran having Uranium enrichment plants and the US worried about them using it to build a weapon with. OK they're a fanatical country and their past history has been pretty bloody bad but the US has nuclear weapons yet no one question why they should still have them even now. GW is a serious f**ked up individual and scares the crap out of me when I listen to some of his speeches and policies. At least Reagan was an actor playing at being the President. G Dubbya is a President playing at being an actor... and a bad one at that!


Hmmm Religeon and Politics in one posting.. almost as inflamatory as Arena.


Biker

[Biker]

I recall hearing someone say back in the early 80's describing the then superpowers nuclear arsenals as 2 men standing hip deep in a swimming pool of petrol. Each man had one match.


It didn't matter how many matches each had striking just one would ensure mutual destruction.


Sadly these two rather mentally unstable men will soon be joined by some fanatic with a goddamned cigerette lighter!!


Biker

[OverheadCam]

IF YOU'RE SQUEEMISH....DON'T READ THIS!!!!!!!


As part of the last Radiation Saftey Course I did they show the effects of getting 1 Silt-sized particle of irrradiated material in your lung! (the equivilent of what's in "fall-out") for the record, silt is even smaller than sand. They used Lab photos of experiments done on rats in the 50's as an example of what actually happens to people.


that small particle directly destroys the tissue around it out to the size of a pea (show photo of horrid, grey, mucusy lump in healthy rat lung the size of a pea)


The particle "falls" through this destroyed/dead tissue and comes into direct contact with new, healthy lung tissue. The body reacts by increasing blood flow to the region to combat the "infection" and to remove repair the dead tissue. All this blood passing the particle gets irradiated, destroying the blood cells and spreading newly created cancer seed cells throughout the body.


This process continues until the particle passes through the lung cavity then into the liver, and then you're really in trouble...


or


the particle "runs out of kick"...by which time you're lung's gone anyway, you're suffering enimia/leukemia because your bloods been irradiated (the genes have all been mutated by gamma particles smashing into them) and even if you survive all that, you've got cancer seed cells all through your body (carried there by your circ. system) waiting to erupt.


genuinely scary stuff.

[DetritusMaximus]

As I have matured into adulthood (hard to type that without laughing...), I have revised my opinions on certain things.


One of which is politicians. I used to think that it is so wrong to have greedy, self-interest guided men and women in government. People who are just looking for ways to exploit power and position for wealth or themselves or others. Now, I would prefer it. The reason being that a man like Bush, or someone like him who is motivated by his personal faith and primary service to the god of his choice is far more dangerous. He truly believes he is doing the right thing. His determination to follow God's will is commendable, but we have to hope it's the right version of the right god. But his righteousness prevents him from being swayed, bribed, or compromised to a more middle of the road course of action.


He has nothing to lose and everything to gain by following God's will.





Give me a man with something to lose anyday.








I heard a nice piece on the Colbert report last week about the difference between run of the mill smallpox and the much nastier version that is prefered for bio-warfare.


The nasty version causes you to bleed out of all orifices, the whites of your eyes turn coal black, your skin comes off in sheets, and the lining of you intestines and rectum drops out (described by Colbert as 'a sock hanging out of your ass'). Then you die.


I think I prefer radiation poisoning.