Oh, I love that score. It's one of the most moving scores I've heard in quite some time.

80-some-odd posts, and half of them are lectures to each other about how one has failed while another has been insulted.

To be quite frank, no one cares if you are personally insulted or not. I don't check the message boards to see who's been personally offended today, or who's lecturing who. This ain't no soap opera. AaronR1074 is right when he says this place is beginning to look like a newsgroup! Too much pride causes our feelings to get in the way of our intellect.

Look, if all you do is cry when listening to a sad score, the only "discussion" you are able to contribute would be to cry even more because someone tells you it's not a sad score and you shouldn't cry. This board isn't (or shouldn't be) about personal feelings as much as it is about good criticism.

I get sick when I read that someone is personally offended and has to state they are personally offended. If you're so offended by something someone writes, answer them with a bullseye message that addresses the offensive sentence! By reading what you've got to say about the music, I would discover pretty quickly you are offended!

Ok, enough of my personal thoughts, now, I might offended myself.

DjC, you may have a point. It's certainly valid, but it seems a bit harsh. As much as you think the score is over the top, your reaction to the score seems a little over the top. Your subject header couldn't be more succint to this point. I did manage to separate all the discussion about the score itself in this thread, and there are a few good posts. I happen to like the score on its own (still haven't seen the movie!), as it has a lot of classic Morricone-isms in it. But, I understand this means zilcho to you, as your post primarily discusses the music in the movie. "Ding!" and I press the "submit reply" button.

Perhaps I've just stirred the pot, but some of yous needs to git sum fresh air.

PeterK

Hope that wraps it up. No more lectures, please (including me).

quote:

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Originally posted by PeterK:
, and in the words of ALL of our mothers, "sticks and stones will break your bones, but names will never hurt you."

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We-ell, I really hate to say this, but that statement is a commonly held misconception, or perhaps deliberately held. Names and rejection hurt just as much as broken bones, if not more. There are many nasty people in the world, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing anyone can do to make them behave kindly. You cannot stop them if they are truly determined to hurt you, unless you hurt them first, and even that, if you are truly a nice person, will hurt you, too. The only option is to ignore them, and pray for them, but this will often not stop them. I regret to voice these unsettling ideas, but, unfortunately, that's the way this world works.
Depressing, isn't it?

NP: Snow Falling On Cedars, JNH

It is also a sad fact that there are people outthere who just need a good beating to get them back on the road to civility. Yes, violence works. Sorry to say. But if we allow mindless, oboe sounding dingelings to attack the very soul of disrespect without any reverse affect to them, we might as well forget anything a civil society has to offer and move to another planet.

I know of cases of several people who have tried to take their lives and some who have succeeded based on the fact that the words thrown at them hurt them as badly or even worse than sticks and stones. I know of children who have told their verbally abusive parents to physically harm them rather then continue with the verbal barrage. Some people just can't take it. I can. I think. I hope. Other's can't. So, who is at fault here. The one who can't take it or the one who has no respect for human life and does the throwing? I would say the one doing the name callings. But then again, in this society where everything that once was good is now bad and what was bad is good, I can see where I am out of place.

Truly sad state of affairs.

Yes, it is all in the mind. But where you around when some insensitive moron calls your nephew (and i quote)" a damn camel driver who deserves to be drowned"? Had you seen the look in his face, the hurt, the confusion and then you go and tell him some lame thing like: Well, son, remember, sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me." He was 9 for crying out loud. And now my dear DJC you are telling me it is my neph with the problem not the idiot who said it? I would bet that if I wanted to I could get to you with name callings and disrespect in a matter of 5 minutes where you would be willing to get a rock and bash me with it...and it would be your problem.

Yes, as Mr. Dunham is right. We know insesitive jerks roam the earth. We have no other choice than to accept that. But tolerate it? Over my dead body.

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Originally posted by DjC:
I do not want this great board to become another FSM hate board.

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I don't care what you say about me. I've learned that much. But leave my family alone. Needles to say, the guy won't ever be saying that again to my nephew.

As for The Black Cauldron, I have not heard the score, and it has it's own thread anyway...

Mission: Impossible was so weak. All that De Palma style reduced to canted angles and the like. Everything from the boat raid on in Carlito's Way was great but you had to sit through the beginning to get there. Snake Eyes worked for the most part--De Palma's style helping rather than hurting the process.

De Palma was one of the big promising directors of the 70s, but unlike Lucas, Spielberg, or Coppola, he never seemed to create the masterpiece he had in him. The Fury comes close but falls apart towards the end.

Sisters was issued recently on VHS in a letterboxed version. In this simple low-budget film, you can see De Palma really in love with technique and style, telling a story in a unique way. Now all you see is De Palma falling back on the tricks he developed earlier and it all coming off stale.

I didn't see M2M because too many people I trust warned me off it. I wasn't sure about the score either until I picked up a cheap copy and fell for it completely. I have no idea how it counterpoints the film, but as a listening experience, it's just fine, IMHO.

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Originally posted by Laurence Page:

And how come if they're in a vacuum on Mars they're all standing around in a big tent blowing in the wind?

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I am not an expert in the subject, but I believe Mars has an atmosphere, almost similar to Earth's. It's not a vaccum, like the Moon.
I believe the survivor astronaut was able to create a process that transformed Mars air into something that humans could breath...

Mars does have an atmosphere but it is very thin and not capable of supporting human life as is.

It is also very chilly for humans. The gravity is slightly less than Earth's. I can't remember for sure, but I think I read somewhere that windstorms have been observed.

Many scientists beleive that for terraforming of Mars to be successful, there would have to be large quantities of H20 frozen beneath the surface. This would be necessary to release the oxygen. There would also have to be an increase of greenhouse gases to warm the place up.

If such amounst of water are not to be found on Mars, it might possible to (at some future date) throw some large icebergs from the orbit of Saturn. This can be helpful from two standpoints:

1. H20 will be needed as mentioned above.

2. Frozen carbon dioxide will bulk up greenhouse gases and help heat the place up.

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"at some future date..."

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Controlled fusion reactors would be essential in such a project and they have not reached the break even point yet (The point where energy produced matches the energy necessary to sustain the reaction)
Last I heard the engineers were still divided between Magnetic Bottle technology and Laser Infusion, neither has proven its superiority.

A viable manufacturing environment outside of the gravity well would be very helpful(Orbital Habitats in the L-5 points). The Space Station Freedom is a first step in this endeavor.

As you can see, a lot would have to happen before terraforming Mars would be possible.

There are also moral implications as well. DO we have the right to completely reform Mars into something completely different? It will no longer be a world dominated by Red, but Blue. Once we begin, the ecosphere of Mars will be changed forever.

There are also economic factors to consider. It will be hideously expensive in terms of resources and manhours expended, what would the payoff be?

As an avenue of colonization, it might be cheaper to build more orbital structures using asteriods hollowed out and rebuilt than terraforming Mars.

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Originally posted by Laurence Page:
Mnn... very interesting.
Not that I'd like to test the theory, but I would have thought a flimsy balloon-tent type affair flapping around in any atmosphere of little or no oxygen would cause the seams to come apart pretty sharpish.
I've just noticed my unintended pun on Shock "Chord" in my original message.
By the way - whatever happened to "Red Planet" - no sign of it here in England yet - is it out in the States?

NP: Mahler 7th Symphony

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They have started to show previews on TV for it. The release date is November 9th.

quote:

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Originally posted by Laurence Page:
...I would have thought a flimsy balloon-tent type affair flapping around in any atmosphere of little or no oxygen would cause the seams to come apart pretty sharpish.

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It would depend on how the seams were joined and to what preassure the interior was inflated. It probably looked wrong (I haven't seen the film yet) on the screen as most people in Hollywood think this should look like a biohazard isolation tent. And certainly, flapping in the breeze is not encouraging as that seems unlikely unless the preassures were equalized. Sounds like bad science to me.

quote:

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Originally posted by PeterK:
"sticks and stones will break your bones, but names will never hurt you."

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Funny, I always thought it was -

Sticks and stones may hurt my bones,
But whips and chains excite me.