I think she meant that she waited three years for him to be someplace closer to her home (she obviously lives nearby since Darlington seems to be in the same town as Pacific Tech). It was also implied that Mitch moved a LONG way to go to Pacific Tech; she could have just waited until he was at a more convenient location. And she's known about him for three years, meaning that she knew he was a top ten genius since he was about twelve. (Eww.)
And later on in the movie, Sherry says something to the effect of spending ten years looking for Lazlo. So same kind of thing, I guess; and it could very well be that she didn't even know Mitch's exact whereabouts until he got to Pacific Tech.
Stuff like this makes me wish that the stupid DVD had included deleted scenes and director commentary.
That makes sense, but the key factor in my mind is that she doesn't seem to believe she's attempting statutory rape — and even if she did, Mitch subsequently making out with Jordan would have all sorts of Unfortunate Implications, so for the movie's purposes, someone apparently notched down California's age of consent by two years.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
How is Sherry Nugil not a Shallow Love Interest? I wasn't complaining about her when I listed the trope, though in hindsight I could see how you might think so. But she does fit the criteria:
- Her characterization is shallow. It only goes beyond "seduces the top ten world's geniuses" once, when the Darlington guy introduces her as his assistant.
- She digs Lazlo purely because he's Number One on her list, and she agrees to marry him and run off to Wyoming without any buildup between the two. She exists solely to love a character.
However, maybe she's a Designated Love Interest?
Edited by DynamiteXI Hide / Show Replies
She's definitely shallow but I question her as a love interest. Chris flirts with her, but he flirts with everyone. Mitch is repelled by her. She ends up with Lazlo, but their relationship is entirely offscreen until the end, so it's more a case of Hooked Up Afterwards or Pair the Spares.
I was looking for a proper trope to describe her ages ago; she's not The Vamp, as she's not dark or evil. She's more of a serial seductress, but we don't have that trope.
Edited by Fighteer "It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Serial Seductress should totally be a trope, although I can't think of any other examples at the moment, or I'd YKTTW it.
Shallow Love Interest and Hooked Up Afterwards seem somewhat close; maybe it's those two tropes combined?
Edited by DynamiteXI
Lost in Space
Spoiler note: We know Hathaway is making the Kill Sat laser in the first half of the film. It's not a spoiler.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Lost in Space
Re: Strawman Has a Point. It's generally regarded that the idea of the CIA conducting covert orbital assassinations is a bad thing. The movie doesn't need to explain why this is; it's not about making a political statement. More to the point, Subjective Tropes do not belong on a main article unless there's general agreement about them. That's what the Just Bugs Me namespace is for.
Good Lord, where do I begin? Three main points:
- Only one person — you — disagrees, and therefore, the entry lacks 'general acceptance'? Likewise, you can nominate yourself a committee of one and claim that the issue re: orbital weaponry has a general consensus, simply because its your opinion its a "bad thing"? Seriously?
- 'The CIA can not be trusted with this weapon' is a political statement: it parses out to "The Man cannot be trusted". That's a political opinion, right there. The script is perfectly free to believe that the US government is evil if it wants... what it's not free to do is then claim that it's being apolitical. Its an opinion about the relative worth or trustworthiness of a particular government official or officials, that's political by definition. Likewise, you can't claim that its a universally accepted opinion, because not everyone actually agrees on that.
- And finally, your logic makes the same mistake the movie did: specifically, there is nothing "covert" about orbital energy weapons vaporizing people in broad daylight. Sniper bullets in the head are plausibly deniable because pretty much any nation, corporation, or terrorist group on Earth can find or hire someone capable of shooting a gun accurately. Giant glowing death rays from space narrows the suspect pool down to the one nation on Earth known to conduct SDI research. (In addition to the fact that if proper instrumentation happens to spot the beam path, you can locate the satellite it was fired from, from which point you can quite likely determine which nation owns that satellite due to the fact that during the Cold War, the two superpowers paid very close attention to each other's satellite launches.) Its like trying to maintain plausible deniability with a B-2 bomber or an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine: only one nation has those, and so its pointless trying to pretend you were someone else. If the protagonists choose to believe that orbital lasers means the US government can kill at will without accountability, then all that shows is that the protagonists are ignoring basic logic... which entirely fits the premise that the movie is trying to strawman the US government's laser research program in this movie, and yet failing to do so well.
1. Don't edit my comments, add your own.
2. It's obviously not a "general consensus" because you're the one who added it.
3. The CIA's program is illegal — there's an Executive order dating back years forbidding government assassinations. Hathaway is a Jerkass. They both deserve their fates. Whether you, personally, agree with this is irrelevant.
4. The fact that you saw fit to turn it into a Wall of Text makes it even worse. Main works pages are not a forum for your editorializing. You are welcome to put that in Reviews, Just Bugs Me, or whatever.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
1. OK.
2. So, one person is a 'general consensus' when its you (because you're the only person in this disagreement at all, other than me — I haven't seen anyone post to agree with you, or delete the entry other than you, or in any way indicate that they even care) even but not when its me. Are you a forum moderator (and if so, it helps if you actually tell the guy you're talking to that you are, thanks), or do you just assume things a lot?
3. You are aware that the Executive Order forbidding government assassinations only means that it can't be done without Presidential permission, not that its illegal? (As, y'know, executive orders are subject to change by the chief executive whenever he feels like.) It is in no way a moral condemnation of, it only means that they don't want the US government specifically targeting people without the commander-in-chief knowing about it and signing the permission slip. And again, giant glowing laser beam from space. It would be kind of hard to use one of those without it coming to the President's attention. So again, the plot tries to strawman these guys, but ignores the gaping plot hole in their script's logic. It also means that your assertion that its 'generally accepted' that CIA assassination is a bad thing and so can be demonized by any movie that cares to do so, without them having to justify it, is, y'know, not correct. Some people actually disagree — you're talking to one right now — and that's all it takes to make it a point in contention rather than a point of general acceptance that can be safely assumed, and is not allowed to be challenged on the main page.
4. And again, we loop back to the part where you seem to have decided that you, alone, as a committee of one, get to determine what is allowed to be said on the topic at all. And yet me, who is also one person, is not allowed to so much as assert that something might be in "general consensus". How's about an experiment: why don't you try leaving the entry up this time and see if anyone else actually objects to its being there? Then we could find out what the general consensus really is instead of thinking that you get to write it all by yourself. I'm pretty sure that outside of you, nobody else is going to give a damn about its being up.
Edited by Chuckg
This isn't a forum, it's a wiki. You turned it into a forum by writing a Wall of Text in the example. Tone it down a bit and we'll see if it's worth keeping. I'm not a moderator but, as I pointed out, it is a wiki and consensus is the goal; to that end, we need to avoid excessive subjectivity in main works pages. Now, we do have a forum for this sort of thing and you're welcome to take this issue there if you feel that strongly about it. So far it's just you and me arguing, so claiming general consensus is wrong for either of us.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
A non-wall-of-text entry is now up. Let's wait and see if anyone else takes it down.
Better, but I'm still not convinced that this belongs in the main article. The movie doesn't even attempt to raise those larger points, nor is it using the CIA as anything other than a convenient Big Bad for the Smart Kids to be Cool Rebels against. It's like accusing Airplane! of historical inaccuracy; the MST3K Mantra needs to be taken into consideration. I'll let it go for now.
Edited by Fighteer "It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
As a note, SDI was never intended to develop surface-attack capabilities (though some of the designs could, hypothetically, be used to do so if we were desperate), so I never regarded the orbital sniper system as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative.
It was often an issue within the NASA communities (including JPL and Cal Tech) whether civilian-developed technologies should be allowed to be used for military purposes. (Assassination is a military tactic.) But since much financing of research and development was through military channels, it often could not be helped. Despite the modern-era fear of mad science earned by the Manhattan Project, in the post modern area some of us have realized that advanced technology very often saves lives by providing smarter, more accurate alternatives to protracted attrition warfare.
As for serious orbital bombardment hardware, the Rods From God
program is a big further along than is known in the public sector (due to be active ~2025), and would tidily rid us of any politically embarrassing despot we wanted to erase, and his family, cabinet and staff in his superdeep bunker. But this project (and any other Orbital Weapons Platform developments) is not connected to SDI.
Alright, see, there's some more natter. Just Bugs Me is the right place for this stuff — I moved it, now go crazy.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
I cut out the part about Rape Is Okay because I found out (and should have remembered) that Mitch has turned sixteen when Sherry vamps on him, and is therefore presumably legal. That makes it a textbook case of Jail Bait Wait.
Okay, now I have another question. By her dialogue, which goes, "I've been waiting three years for this," either Sherry knew and was following Mitch before he came to Pacific Tech, or the Hard-Work Montage implies he's been there three full years before the laser project is complete. Complicating this is the fact that the age of consent in California is eighteen, isn't it? I'm confused. ... (edit) and added a Headscratchers entry about it.
Edited by Fighteer "It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!" Hide / Show Replies