#255163 - 02/05/2005 12:49
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31597
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
And the timing was off in a lot of places. The "I'm already a woman" line should have been great, but the timing of the editing was so poor that it didn't have any impact at all, for example.
Oo. Good point. Know why? There's a reel change there. Her punch line happens after the reel change. So the timing isn't going to be exactly the same at every theater. At mine, the timing was off on that line, too. Other contributing factors are the subtle changes in picture quality and color balance, the cigarette burn reel markers, and the skip in the soundtrack, all of which happen at the cusp of a reel change, all of which distract you from the joke.
Note to self: When you become a big film director and you do comedies, don't put the reel changes near jokes.
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#255164 - 02/05/2005 13:03
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/01/2002
Posts: 3937
Loc: Providence, RI
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Our projectionist must have rocked, we were roaring at that line.
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#255165 - 02/05/2005 13:26
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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addict
Registered: 18/02/2002
Posts: 658
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I've read the trilogy of books a couple of times now and after seeing the movie can say that I enjoyed it, but I don't think it was as good as it could have been. I think you summed it up with "Douglas' humor works best in print."
My main question/fear at this point is, will the movie do good enough in the general public for Restaraunt at the End of the Universe and the rest to come out? I wonder how far along they are on sequels.
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#255166 - 02/05/2005 15:49
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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new poster
Registered: 07/01/2004
Posts: 13
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Quote:
Note to self: When you become a big film director and you do comedies, don't put the reel changes near jokes.
Noted.
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#255167 - 02/05/2005 16:18
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: Cris]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
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Quote:
I think the major reason I dislike Sci-Fi in general is the lack of imagination, most of them dress aliens up but they still have 2 eyes a nose and a mouth, yawn. And I think it also come from years spent with geeky friends at school discussing how teleportation will be soon possible, kinda put me off the whole scene, I wanted something a little more human for my entertainment.
I see what you mean. "Human-centric" SF is the best. See, for example, how several people mentioned Blade Runner (and I would add Stalker, Gattaca, early works like Logan's Run, lighter stuff like that made by Spielberg, and 2001 does not put me in coma  ) That said, I admit to also enjoy, albeit in different way, techno-thrillers with SF element like The Abyss (featuring very different, at least physically, aliens) or good shoot-them-up special effects porn like Serenity promises to be. 
Leon is one of my all time favourites, too, and, judging by its IMDB entry, Sideways might also be my kind of movie (reminds me of Cassavetes' Husbands).
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Q#5196
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#255169 - 02/05/2005 16:57
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: bonzi]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Have you seen the short-lived Firefly TV show that Serenity is a movie version of? It's also quite human-centric. I'd be very surprised if the movie wasn't, too. Anyway, if you haven't seen it, I'd suggest it, based on what you've said you like. There's also a lot of action, too. (It's available on DVD in the States, but Amazon.fr only shows it as a Region 1 import.)
I'd like to include Solaris in that list of movies, too, as what it tried to be was a solid interpretation of Stanislaw Lem's work, which was quite human-centric, but it's too damned slow to be even remotely entertaining. It makes 2001 look like Star Wars. It also forgot to actually get around to the elements that made it human-centric. I suppose the lack of either action or drama is what makes it feel so slow.
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Bitt Faulk
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#255170 - 02/05/2005 17:24
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: Cris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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Quote:
I think the major reason I dislike Sci-Fi in general is the lack of imagination, most of them dress aliens up but they still have 2 eyes a nose and a mouth, yawn.
Two problems I can think of going to true "alien" aliens in SciFi movies that use them.
1. Actors. Change the alien too much from a humanoid shape, and you move more towards CG stuff. And we all know how much we love CG acting (JarJar).
2. If the aliens don't look somewhat human, most people have a hard time associating with them.
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#255171 - 02/05/2005 19:19
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: bonzi]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 06/02/2002
Posts: 1904
Loc: Leeds, UK
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Quote:
techno-thrillers with SF element like The Abyss (featuring very different, at least physically, aliens)
Now there IS a good film, I wasn't classing that as Sci-Fi, but now I think of it I'm not sure what else it would be in, I stand corrected!
Quote:
Leon is one of my all time favourites, too, and, judging by its IMDB entry, Sideways might also be my kind of movie (reminds me of Cassavetes' Husbands).
Have you seen the full uncut version of Leon ??? I think it is the Superbit release that has the extra 12 minutes of content that were cut out for the cinema release, it's well worth getting hold of a copy if you are a fan of the movie. It answers a few questions I held about the film from the first time I saw it. It can be hard to get hold of, I got mine via amazon.co.uk from a Canadian seller in the market place, you can tell if you have the full version if it has all the bits with Matilda knocking on doors for Leon during their training
Sideways is a little like hitchhikers, only in the way it is getting mixed reviews
Cheers
Cris.
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#255173 - 02/05/2005 19:55
Re: General SF movies ramblings
[Re: andym]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Did it convert you to Scientology yet?
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Bitt Faulk
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#255174 - 02/05/2005 20:04
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: bonzi]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 25/08/2000
Posts: 2413
Loc: NH USA
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Regarding The Abyss...I enjoyed the movie until the resuscitation (sp?) scene. CPR didn't work, the defibrillator didn't work, but slapping and yelling 'Live damn you, live!' brings the person back? Please! It was downhill after that. I thought the end was pretty weak. After they resurface from 1000's of feet down and don't die a horrible decompression death: "It must have been something they did!"
I'd heard they ran wildly over budget and the director (James Cameron) was put under heavy cost pressures part way through filming, hence the sharp right turn in film quality, although I don't know for sure.
That said, I think my opinion is in the minority on this one.
-Zeke
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#255175 - 02/05/2005 21:06
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: Ezekiel]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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Did you see the director's cut? It adds several critical plot elements that make the undersea aliens' behavior almost make sense.
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#255176 - 02/05/2005 21:39
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: Ezekiel]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
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Quote:
Regarding The Abyss...I enjoyed the movie until the resuscitation (sp?) scene. CPR didn't work, the defibrillator didn't work, but slapping and yelling 'Live damn you, live!' brings the person back? Please!
Allow the guy a bit of licencia poetica (though, something like third hit by defibrilator, adrenaline into heart or something similarly desperate would work better; perhaps not for all of the audience...)
Quote:
It was downhill after that. I thought the end was pretty weak. After they resurface from 1000's of feet down and don't die a horrible decompression death: "It must have been something they did!"
Hey, remember that "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Deus ex machina is a time honored dramatic device. After all, those luminous chaps built their spaceships from water - what is a little manipulation of nitrogen bubbles compared to that?
BTW, I just watched the first part of a most unusual work: film of catastrophe that got its science right, so I was not anoying my friends with constant harping about nonsensical physics. Producer is, no less, BBC with Discovery channel and couple of others. Acting is decent, dramaturgy typical for such type of movies, but, as I said, science looks right.
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Q#5196
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#255177 - 02/05/2005 21:41
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: bonzi]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Quote:
BTW, I just watched the first part of a most unusual work: film of catastrophe that got its science right, so I was not anoying my friends with constant harping about nonsensical physics. Producer is, no less, BBC with Discovery channel and couple of others. Acting is decent, dramaturgy typical for such type of movies, but, as I said, science looks right.
You'll probably want to look through http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/ then
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#255179 - 02/05/2005 23:06
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tman]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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When they start nitpicking things that are obviously supposed to be fantastic, I stop listening. Sure, The Core, their "worst physics movie ever" is rife with insultingly bad physics, but it's supposed to be. It's intentionally absurd. Even worse, they nitpick Reign of Fire, a movie about dragons, for god's sake.
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Bitt Faulk
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#255180 - 03/05/2005 01:47
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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It does bother me, somewhat, when movies or TV shows abuse the laws of physics, but I'm always more bothered when they start taking liberties with how computers or spy stuff might work. 24, lately, has been quite the offender. There's no such thing as a hand-held gizmo that can precisely track the location of a cel phone, 1km away, over previously unseen terrain. All of their crypto and security stuff starts to approach Star Trek-like levels of incomprehensibility. An "override device" that might let you melt down nuclear reactors across the country if only you could borrow enough CPU power? First off, I don't think so. Second off, if you're the engineer who built the first one and you're evil, you could have built a backup at the same time, rather than going to such great trouble to steal the MacGuffin device. And, somehow, I'd have to imagine (or hope) that a solo agent couldn't social engineer his way into the cockpit of an armed stealth fighter as easily as they did it on the show. And don't even get me started on the EMP device. Yet, somehow, I'm still watching.
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#255181 - 03/05/2005 02:20
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: DWallach]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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I'm not saying it doesn't bother me. I'm sure I sometimes bother my wife complaining about such stuff, especially on the same technology front as you, but there's a point at which it's obviously not intended to be real.
I mean, how much further is it to point out that there's no Nakatomi building in LA or a NYC cop named John McLean?
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Bitt Faulk
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#255182 - 03/05/2005 04:13
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: Daria]
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old hand
Registered: 15/02/2002
Posts: 1049
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I realize this might make me look stupid(er), but I didn't get that joke. Someone explain it to me?
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#255183 - 03/05/2005 04:14
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: drakino]
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old hand
Registered: 15/02/2002
Posts: 1049
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Quote:
And we all know how much we love CG acting (JarJar).
What about Gollum?
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#255184 - 03/05/2005 04:35
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: wfaulk]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
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Quote:
I'm not saying it doesn't bother me. I'm sure I sometimes bother my wife complaining about such stuff, especially on the same technology front as you, but there's a point at which it's obviously not intended to be real.
I mean, how much further is it to point out that there's no Nakatomi building in LA or a NYC cop named John McLean?
Agreed, we are supposed "suspend our disbelief" to a certain degree and agree to the rules in the author's universe, and that works if applied consistently. However, what irritates me are details where injuring the reality plays no dramatic purpose (or could have been achieved by alternative, more realistic plot device) - it is just author's lazyness. I cannot find now a good example, so instead a nearly universal "irritant": computer interfaces: one would think that by now most of the audience has seen one or two, so why keyboards still beep or click on every keystroke? In relatively realistic CSI series of shows (apart from amount of luck investigators have looking for evidence) XREF, IR spectrometry or cromatography instruments and their displays and printouts look quite plausible; so why is the program that tries to match fingerprints or searches this or that database emiting annoying beeps and buzzes as it works? Why is it flashing images it is comparing (that would certainly make it slower), instead of, say, displaying the count of objects processed or suitably impressive progress graphics or something like that, only displaying tentative matches for human confirmation? Surely dramaturgy would not be hurt if GUI in use were recognisable? Bah!
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#255186 - 03/05/2005 06:52
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: wfaulk]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 02/06/2000
Posts: 1996
Loc: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Quote:
Have you seen the short-lived Firefly TV show that Serenity is a movie version of? It's also quite human-centric. I'd be very surprised if the movie wasn't, too. Anyway, if you haven't seen it, I'd suggest it, based on what you've said you like. There's also a lot of action, too. (It's available on DVD in the States, but Amazon.fr only shows it as a Region 1 import.)
If regions are a concern, play.com has Firefly as Region 2...
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/Michael
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#255187 - 03/05/2005 07:47
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: mtempsch]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
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Quote:
If regions are a concern, play.com has Firefly as Region 2...
More than twice cheaper at sendit.com (ex-BlackStar). Hmm, that's cheap enough to actually buy it.
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Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Q#5196
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#255188 - 03/05/2005 08:03
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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(Saw it with Jen last night. Disappointing) Quote:
In the movie, it's much more logical: Ford gives the entire construction crew beer to drink, thus making Arthur feel comfortable
Which is why I didn't like that scene. I thought it was much funnier when, in the book, Ford uses some kind of backwards mixed up logic to confuse the foreman into lying in front of the Bulldozer in Arthur's place. Much funnier; more Douglas Adams' style.
To me, just handing the crew a trolley full of beers was a cop-out.
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-- roger
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#255189 - 03/05/2005 08:06
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: jwtadmin]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
Though I don't think that many people would get it enough if they didn't know the books.
For me, it was less funny, precisely because I do know the books. Because I knew in advance what was going to happen, it was going to take supreme comic timing and directing to make it funny. This was sorely lacking.
Oh, and Mos Def. Did he have to mumble his lines all the way through the movie? No wonder I didn't notice him mention Belgium.
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-- roger
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#255190 - 03/05/2005 10:06
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: bonzi]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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I'm still amazed by their image enhancement software which can take 5 fuzzy pixels and regenerate the original high resolution image from it. Who needs JPEG, PNG or any other image compression system if all you need is 5 pixels and their super duper quick software?
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#255191 - 03/05/2005 10:57
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: DWallach]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
Loc: Atlanta, GA
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It does not bother me at all when spy shows take liberties with physics. You just sort of laugh when someone comes up with a device you can put on a computer monitor and it allows you to override the scurity system on the computer's network. Especailly in shows like "Alias" you know they aren't even trying to be serious. What has been a mild irritant in "Alias" for me (we're still on season 3) has been CIA clearance of all things. I mean seriously, how many laws do these people have to break? I love that at the beginning of season 3 Jack is under such tight lockdown that no one can talk to him, and then Sydney gets him released by threating to destory something important. It's a stretch that they'd even release him at all or allow her to continue working as a CIA agent, but they actually let Jack go back to his CIA post as if nothing had happened. Another episode Jacke and Vaughn are taken into custody by their superiour, who is then murded ans suddenly they are free to go, no questions asked. For whatever reason I can buy that these guys have all of these impossible technologies, but it I draw the line when it comes to security clearance! 
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
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#255192 - 03/05/2005 11:54
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: TigerJimmy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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The point of the "gun" was to make the person shot understand the feelings of the person shooting it. The joke is that, as a woman, she already understands the feelings of other people. Or, alternately, men need a technological solution to do something that women do as a matter of course. Or, even more alternately, the gun is turning men into women.
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