quote:

---

Originally posted by Spicy Ramen:
Reign of Fire.

A really really good popcorn flick. What stood out to me the most was the usage of brass throughout the movie. Nothing very thematic that I remember but if you want a good comparison think of [b]The Rock without its synth. [/B]

---

This score sounds nothing like THE ROCK... Unless of course you are capable of mistaking Goldenthal for Zimmer...

Ed Shearmur employs a lot of the orchestral effects that Goldenthal has in the past, basing his score on crashing rythms and percussion. It's pretty thrilling. But I don't hear anything resembling THE ROCK.

Ryan

Good popcorn movie, less tlaking mroe doing IMO, hope there is commentary on the DVD. The film took 2 years to make.

The film takes itself and its story seriously (even though the explanation for the dragons themselves is a bit creaky, the film doesn't dwell on this, only asks us to accept it so that we can continue with the story), and the very matter-of-fact presentation (courtesy of Rob Bowman, director of many episodes of the "Star Trek" spinoffs and episodes and feature of "The X-Files") tends to favor the protagonists, rather than make one wait for the next dragon attack, which is good, because the film tends to keep those for when it needs them, rather than throwing them in front of the camera all the time. When they DO show up, they are well-rendered, but as the characters are usually attempting to avoid them, the film keeps from letting them become overbearing.

Many of the characters end up being affected by the deaths of their companions (something that always bothers me about movies of this type is that doesn't happen). Quinn, the Christian Bale main character, manages to convey an interesting balance between the determined and stubborn leader and protector he is supposed to be and the absolute fear that he has of losing anybody in his charge, an angle made possible by the film's attention to the process of saving lives. Things don't always go to plan, but the errors in judgement people make in the film tend to feel real.

It is by no means a perfect movie, but it was quite decent popcorn fare, and Rob Bowman's relative dryness in terms of filmmaking make it a refreshing antidote to many of today's overpumped thrillers. One person at AICN chimed in with a "Jaws with wings" description, and Raz mentioned that it seemed to have many of the elements that made "Aliens" so good, and that's accurate as I see it. While it is in no way challenging "Jaws" or "Aliens" as an action thriller, it manages to be a cut above mindless action thrillers by concentrating on the effect the dragons have on the characters.

I did like Shearmur's score. Like Don Davis' The Matrix, it is driven by sounds and textures rather than recognizable themes, but it is somewhat less postmodern than that score, instead remaining more consonant. I thought the film was beautifully spotted, and that the lack of thematic material was more of a soundscape choice than an approach that failed (the way that Michael Kamen's X-Men score did... many interesting ideas, but without the strong thematic material, most of it fell apart). The blaze of brass at the end is quite satisfying, and the tone of the score is kept nicely low-key without lapsing into drones. So while it may not be as distinctive as The Matrix, or as rich musically as Goldenthal's Alien 3, it is an effective and rather enjoyable-sounding score. I be picking up this CD Tuesday.

...and for those out there who, like me, like a good rock song from time to time in a picture if it's done right, it's really nice to hear a lot of people partying to Jimi Hendrix's "Fire."

quote:

---

This score sounds nothing like THE ROCK... Unless of course you are capable of mistaking Goldenthal for Zimmer...

---

Corrected my friend. I compared to The Rock because of its usage of brass. And yes, it does employ a lot of Goldenthal now that I look back at it.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crono/Kyp:
I was bummed out by the score. But Bowman's visual style and direction came through (remember the scene with young Quinn with the light coming from behind him when he entered the cave? ooohhh yeahhhhh)

Good popcorn movie, less tlaking mroe doing IMO, hope there is commentary on the DVD. The film took 2 years to make.

--Brian

---

The Battle Axe that Van Zan was sporting made me go into tears. What is a dragon movie without a Battle Axe?

Most memorable scene : When Van Zan's team gets ambushed in London, we get a slow motion shot of the Dragon just wrecking all the tanks. Gotta hand it to Bowman, crafted some impressive shots in this movie that made me want to pee in my pants and shout with glee.

Most Vicious Character to come out in a while: Van Zan just reeks torment. Imagine having to fend off dragons for the rest of your life. The last thing you wanna hear is someone bitching. That beatdown he gave Quinn was brutal.

Best concept: Archangels. Once again I peed in my pants when they actually attempted to capture the dragons. This is exciting stuff gentlemen.

First, Why do none of these Dragons appear in the fossil record? They supposedly killed the dinosaurs so they were concurrent with them. There should be some record of them.

Second, Nuking them didn’t work but unloading a shotgun at one gets its attention? Ridiculous.

Third, how could such a ridiculous life form evolve? It eats ashes? It can hibernate for millennia and spring back to life? Only one male for a million females? The potential for genetic inbreeding is appalling.

Fourth, Civilization is destroyed. Lucikly we still have electricity, running water and plenty of gasoline.

Fifth, the score, while nothing special at all, is so much better than the film playing above it that it makes Shearmur seem like a godlike combination of Williams and Goldsmith. That’s how awful this film is

My advice is to save your money, wait for the DVD, rent it and just watch the effects sequences as they are the ONLY reason to bother with this wretched piece of drek. I would rather watch a bad German movie dubbed into Japanese with Spanish subtitles, it would make more sense.

quote:

---

Originally posted by MWRuger:
I am astounded that anyone can recommend this movie except as some form of insidious revenge. This is quite simply one of the worst examples of effect over story that I have ever seen. The script has so many holes in it makes Star Trek look like the best thought out Sci-Fi around.
....
Don’t rent this at all. You can use the extra time for something useful like driving spikes into your temples. It will hurt less.

---

The movie did have plot holes. Most films I've seen do.

The story was partly predictable.

BUT:
- It had some original twists and turns.
- Characters had some interesting lines to read. Certainly more interesting than 95% of the crap of the past 5 years.
- It was a well made movie: costumes, sets, lighting, effects... looking at the people on screen, I almost felt their dirty unshaven selves.

It was not great. It might not even have been good. But given the level of mediocrity in movies I have been subjected to over the past years (to the point where I don't even bother to see movies in theatres anymore, I just rent them), Reign of Fire was like a glimmer of hope.

quote:

---

Originally posted by MWRuger:
I am astounded that anyone can recommend this movie except as some form of insidious revenge. This is quite simply one of the worst examples of effect over story that I have ever seen. The script has so many holes in it makes Star Trek look like the best thought out Sci-Fi around.

First, Why do none of these Dragons appear in the fossil record? They supposedly killed the dinosaurs so they were concurrent with them. There should be some record of them.

Second, Nuking them didn’t work but unloading a shotgun at one gets its attention? Ridiculous.

Third, how could such a ridiculous life form evolve? It eats ashes? It can hibernate for millennia and spring back to life? Only one male for a million females? The potential for genetic inbreeding is appalling.

Fourth, Civilization is destroyed. Lucikly we still have electricity, running water and plenty of gasoline.

Fifth, the score, while nothing special at all, is so much better than the film playing above it that it makes Shearmur seem like a godlike combination of Williams and Goldsmith. That’s how awful this film is

My advice is to save your money, wait for the DVD, rent it and just watch the effects sequences as they are the ONLY reason to bother with this wretched piece of drek. I would rather watch a bad German movie dubbed into Japanese with Spanish subtitles, it would make more sense.

No, wait. Don’t rent this at all. You can use the extra time for something useful like driving spikes into your temples. It will hurt less.

---

quote:

---

First, Why do none of these Dragons appear in the fossil record? They supposedly killed the dinosaurs so they were concurrent with them. There should be some record of them.

---

It seems from the story that the Dragons destroyed the Dinosaurs and then went into hibernation into the deep abyss of the earth until young Quinn woke it up.

quote:

---

Second, Nuking them didn’t work but unloading a shotgun at one gets its attention? Ridiculous.

---

They didn't really explain much about the nuclear retaliation, but I'd figure the Dragons are highly mobile and those nuclear warheads would be difficult to eliminate the dragons. It's like throwing rocks at birds.

quote:

---

Third, how could such a ridiculous life form evolve? It eats ashes? It can hibernate for millennia and spring back to life? Only one male for a million females? The potential for genetic inbreeding is appalling.

---

Only in a popcorn flick my friend. It's like asking why Indy's hat never falls. (FYI Harrison Ford staples the hat to his head )

quote:

---

Fourth, Civilization is destroyed. Lucikly we still have electricity, running water and plenty of gasoline.

---

Remnants of the aftermath. They could could be using coal or an alternative form of energy. You'd figure if you were the few left, the least you would do is get your life back together?

quote:

---

Fifth, the score, while nothing special at all, is so much better than the film playing above it that it makes Shearmur seem like a godlike combination of Williams and Goldsmith. That’s how awful this film is

---

Take it for what it is. Shearmur crafted an excellent score that compliments the film and works fine by itself.

Yes, I can expect a movie about Dragons to make sense. I expect movies, even fantasies to not casually violate suspension of disbelief and writers to not be so lazy that they don’t even try to write a story that makes sense. I expect them to be internally consistent so I am not pulled out of the story by unnecessary logical flaws. I feel it is quite reasonable to expect that a creature that can survive nuclear assault and radiation probably won’t even feel a shotgun blast. (I won’t even go into that fact that nobody else seemed effected by nuclear devastation. Glad all that stuff about nuclear winter, fallout, cancer and genetic disorders was just a load of crap) When that doesn’t happen I have a much harder time accepting the basic premise of the story.

In a movie about DRAGONS I, of course, expect DRAGONS. That is my side of the bargain. I agree to suspend my disbelief that Dragons can exist. In return, I expect a story that doesn’t require me to believe ten impossible things before breakfast. The writers are the ones that offered a scientific styled explanation. It is up to them to deliver. Don’t talk the talk if you can’t walk the walk.

You help suspension of disbelief along by providing a plausible story that doesn’t violate reality to no effect. It would have been easy to say that all this AV gas and power were provided by leftover remnants (bunkers) of the cold war that had not been decommissioned yet or that these were part of Britain’s strategic reserves. They don’t even try.

They should either offer a plausible explanation of where the dragons came from or not bother at all. If you can’t think of anything better than what they came up, just say you don’t know where they came from. Example:

“Where the F**K did these big a$$ lizard’s come from?”

“How the hell do I know? All I know is it’s them or us and I vote for us!”

Would it have been so hard for the writers to realize that after an apocalypse there might not be running water, electricity and all the aviation needed to assault dragons? Do they even bother to explain where all this stuff came from? No. Because they figure that people will accept whatever is shoveled at them if it looks nice.

Look, I want to like pictures like this. I earnestly hope that every new Star Trek picture will carry some small essences of what made Trek great in first place. Every George Lucas/Spielberg epic is greeted with a hope that something extraordinary will be seen. I am often disappointed when an intriguing concept is given an insulting execution. It’s more important that it be a great movie rather than a great SF movie. We should expect more from our fantasies and dreams, not less.

I love Fantasy and SF but the time for just blindly accepting every genre pic without critical thought is over. We should demand that they tell stories that make sense and don’t insult our intelligence. Until we demand better stories not riddled with plotholes my dog can spot we will never get SF and Fantasy accepted as anything but B Grade slop and we will always be nerds, trekkies and freaks who will accept any sort of swill as entertainment as long as it has the patina of SF or Fantasy.

All I can say is that anybody who claims this is a great popcorn movie and lets it off with the excuse that it is only a movie has no room to complain about Attack of the Clones, Dungeons and Dragons, Battlefield Earth or SuperNova. They are all at least as well written as “Revenge of the Dragons” and just as believable.

They would have been better off saying that they were the remnants of age of magic awakened from eternal sleep by Quinn (instead of offering a pseudo-scientific explanation). Perhaps they were put there after fulfilling the purpose they were summoned for: To kill every living thing on Earth. Once awakened, they again begin to kill every living thing on Earth. But these things have guns, tanks and planes and can put up more of a fight.

Magic would have explained a lot more than science did. No tortured evolutionary process to ignore.

Regarding the nuclear retaliation, you don’t have to be accurate with Nuclear Weapons. They are area effect weapons. Get within a half mile and thermal pulse should cook everyone and thing the area (see the outlines of the poor bastards who were incinerated at Hiroshima).

Regarding fuel and suchlike; you could be right. They should have said so. Example:

“How the heck do you have running water and lights?”

“Leftovers from the Strategic reserves following cold war, old chap. Luckily, we had not decommissioned all the bunkers!”

quote:

---

Spicy, they don't explain much about anything. That is the problem.

---

*sigh* You realize that if they did explain every nuance to the audience, it would sound forced down our throats? Considering that after most major catastrophes and calamities that we as humans have found a way to survive, it requires no explanation as to how we do it. We simply Try to survive which was the theme of this movie.

Consider this exchange of Dialogue found in the end of nearly all the Scream movies:

Actress: "But I saw you die!"
Murderer: "That wasn't me, that was John Doe, I simply waited until the sun set so you coulnd't see my face.
Actress: "But blah blah blah?"
Murderer: "*Proceeds to answer all the actresses questions before dying*"

quote:

---

They would have been better off saying that they were the remnants of age of magic awakened from eternal sleep by Quinn (instead of offering a pseudo-scientific explanation). Perhaps they were put there after fulfilling the purpose they were summoned for: To kill every living thing on Earth. Once awakened, they again begin to kill every living thing on Earth. But these things have guns, tanks and planes and can put up more of a fight.

---

As long as the prelude sets up a solid foundation for the film, I don't care what they come up with. They could be Dragons coming in from spaceships from Mars but as long it carries the story foward I'm happy.

quote:

---

Magic would have explained a lot more than science did. No tortured evolutionary process to ignore.

---

Which came first, the magician or the magic?

quote:

---

Regarding the nuclear retaliation, you don’t have to be accurate with Nuclear Weapons. They are area effect weapons. Get within a half mile and thermal pulse should cook everyone and thing the area (see the outlines of the poor bastards who were incinerated at Hiroshima).

---

Ever try shooting at birds? Those suckers fly for their lives even before the bullet leaves the gun.

quote:

---

Regarding fuel and suchlike; you could be right. They should have said so. Example:

“How the heck do you have running water and lights?”

“Leftovers from the Strategic reserves following cold war, old chap. Luckily, we had not decommissioned all the bunkers!”

---

I never really questioned it. I just accepted that they did have it.

quote:

---

I think that the makers of this film realized how cool the Dragons would look and decided that no one would care if the story made any sense or not. I may be a minority of one, but I care if it makes sense. I think we all should.

---

Part of the compromise that allows us to enter the movies is to suspend our belief in reality and be transported into another world. Again I tend to think that we are overanalyzing this film. The performances by the actors were top notch and if by the the first half for the film that you don't realize that the survivors are the main focus of the film, then you will be surely disappointed.

It seems to me like you want to apply two different standards to SF/Fantasy. You expect AOTC to be good because it “demands” more and flail it because it fails to deliver but expect nothing at all from Reign of Fire and blithely accept it when it delivers exactly that.

A movie doesn’t have to have a preachy message to be internally consistent. What was the deep message in The Thing or Aliens? There was none. This has nothing to do with morals but rather the ability to tell a story without such glaring internal inconsistencies that he audience doesn’t stop and say “What?! That doesn’t make sense!” When this happens it destroys the audience’s faith in the film maker that he knows what he is doing and that the trust you have placed in him is warranted. That trust, “Okay, I’ll accept that dragons could be real even though they contradict laws of aerodynamics and mass ratio for the sake of the story.”, once given means that filmmaker should tell the rest of the story straight.

It’s just like when you read a murder mystery. You would cry “Foul!” if the author brought in an unknown that you had never seen before as the murderer. It is a contract between the author and you that he will tell you story and in turn you will have all the clues that the detective does. When the author violates that contract you would feel cheated and rightly so.

This is exactly what Reign of Fire does. We are told “Okay. There are dragons, they are real and they are trying to kill us all. The action takes place in the world outside your window.” This implies that the physical laws we know to operate in our reality are still valid (except for the existence of dragons which we accept). To go from that point and violate the reality that we have all agreed to accept is cheating.

That means if you use nuclear weapons there are real consequences to doing so. (By the way, no matter how fast a bird flies he isn’t going to avoid a nuclear explosion. Depending on the megatonnage involved the area directly effected by the blast could a couple of miles in radius. The blinding light pulse propagates at the speed of light. Nothing is faster than that. Not even birds). That means if you create a biological species it should obey some of basic laws of biological function. (A creature that can eat ashes is probably not a carbon based life form and even it was it would be unlikely to derive nourishment from any other source) It means that if you are using gas powered vehicles there has to be some source of gasoline. (Considering that this takes place 20 years later it seems unlikely that readily accessible reserves would not have been depleted or rendered useless by the passage of time. Gasoline isn’t good forever. If you wish to store it for long periods of time you have to add chemicals to stabilize it)

You accuse me of over analyzing this film and, in turn, I accuse you of not bothering to put any thought into it all. If it is a choice between not thinking about it all or over analyzing, I know which is likely to work best for me. I don’t think it is too onerous a burden to expect movies, whether intended as pure entertainment like Aliens, The Thing and Indiana Jones or as something with a deeper meaning like CETK, Planet of the Apes or Andromeda Strain to be internally consistent with the vision they are trying to create.

Have any of us lived through anything remotely similar to a complete nuclear fallout. Don't think so. A couple engineers could get a good ole-fashioned coal or steam engine working and restore plumbing...it just seems strange to me that you would let issues such as this get in the way of enjoying the film.

A have a problem with plotholes, when they are indeed plotholes, not holes in the basic setup of a film. Take Minority Report for example (which I still enjoyed)...why would Anderton's eye scan identification still work several hours after he has been on the lam...especially to access the most vital part of PreCrime's facility? And the most aggravating of all--why didn't the mastermind simply hire somebody to kidnap the mother, drag her to a remote part of the country and kill her?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Quill:
Mr Ruger,
I understand your complaints, and they are all justified. However, in cases such as these my enjoyment is primarily based on ones expectations. They did not oversell this films...if anything I was expecting more B-grade silliness to ensue and I would have been happy. They did try to ground the film with some reality--hence maybe you expected more.

Have any of us lived through anything remotely similar to a complete nuclear fallout. Don't think so. A couple engineers could get a good ole-fashioned coal or steam engine working and restore plumbing...it just seems strange to me that you would let issues such as this get in the way of enjoying the film.

A have a problem with plotholes, when they are indeed plotholes, not holes in the basic setup of a film. Take Minority Report for example (which I still enjoyed)...why would Anderton's eye scan identification still work several hours after he has been on the lam...especially to access the most vital part of PreCrime's facility? And the most aggravating of all--why didn't the mastermind simply hire somebody to kidnap the mother, drag her to a remote part of the country and kill her?

The last point is a real stinker...because it makes you realize that the main villian is really just a doof who chose a ridiculously complicated scenario to off a woman. That is a plothole...not, how did these dragons survive a nuclear attack, but get distracted by a shotgun. I dunno--maybe they notice a loud noise just like every other organism...now if they had killed a dragon with a shotgun I would be in agreement with you. But does it really matter?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by MWRuger:
I am astounded that anyone can recommend this movie except as some form of insidious revenge. This is quite simply one of the worst examples of effect over story that I have ever seen. The script has so many holes in it makes Star Trek look like the best thought out Sci-Fi around.

First, Why do none of these Dragons appear in the fossil record? They supposedly killed the dinosaurs so they were concurrent with them. There should be some record of them.

[B][QUOTE]
Dragons are immortal, unless they are killed, they get to certain ages and then stop aging. So there were no fossils because none had died. They were just under hibernation.
You can't really be all that historic with this since its all fantasy, and sci-fi.

---

Second, Nuking them didn’t work but unloading a shotgun at one gets its attention? Ridiculous.

quote:

---

Well when you consider that scientist, agree that cochroaches are one of the few species that would mostly likly survive if the world was nuked, Then it doesn't seem that immpossible for Dragon to do so as well. This is only a story, a fairy tale so why aren't you just going with the flow?

---

Third, how could such a ridiculous life form evolve? It eats ashes? It can hibernate for millennia and spring back to life? Only one male for a million females? The potential for genetic inbreeding is appalling.

quote:

---

Yes they did say they ate ashes, but you have to remember that they were starving, they ate alot of people too.
I remember in those Nazi concentration camps, some prisoners drank their on pee, becuase of starvation.

---

Fourth, Civilization is destroyed. Lucikly we still have electricity, running water and plenty of gasoline.

quote:

---

Yes but they never said exactly how much of it was left. Also they were in the future, so circumstances might have been different.
And its just a story! Its not real!

---

They are all just stories. No movie, unless it is a documentary, is real. However, some movies are better than others. Reign of Fire, in my view, suffers because of stupid inconsistencies that make it difficult to watch. My previous posts in this topic address most of the points you raised but I will touch on the new ones that you raise.

Scientists may say that a species survives, but they don’t claim that each individual member survives. They are talking about long term survival as the species adapts to the new environment. Scientists certainly are not implying that cockroaches stand up under direct nuclear blast. By the way, Humans are one of the species that they predict won’t survive nuclear war.

I don’t remember anyone stating that the dragons were immortal, but even if they were they could die by accident or being eaten by their fellows unless you are postulating that they don’t leave behind a corpse when eaten.

As far as “going along with the flow” goes, I don’t have to. The movie has to sell me, I shouldn’t have to talk myself into liking it. When I find a film that requires all kinds of convoluted logic to make it palatable, then I have to wonder if it is a good film.

Of course they were starving. They are huge creatures that require a tremendous amount of biomass to sustain them. Biomass has to be converted into energy during digestion. Ashes are already spent biomass. There isn’t any energy left to convert by biological means.

They weren’t that far into the future. The equipment showed no radical advances and the weaponry was the same as we have available today.

I will freely profess that I hold genre films to a higher standard than I do other types of films. I feel that audiences give genre film makers permission to make bad films instead of good ones by giving them a pass by saying “It’s a fantasy” or “It’s just a movie, who cares if it makes sense?”. As a result we get films that have nothing going for them but action set pieces and special effects.

Quill,

Regarding your point about none of us living through nuclear fallout doesn’t mean that we can’t extrapolate the consequences of nuclear war. Military men and Scientists have both given this a great deal of thought and none of them seem to think that there isn’t ANY effect of nuclear war. That is one reason no one has used nukes yet, because the terrible side effects of such an attack. (look at the effects of Chernobyl, Nagasaki and Hiroshima minor compared to widespread nuclear war) There isn’t any reason to ignore the mounds of research on this subject unless you are making a bad film or defending one.

What’s the point of bringing up minority report? Are you trying to say that plot holes in one film excuse plot holes in another?

Spicy,

Sorry if seeing all this stuff again annoys you. I thought it was a pretty good discussion that didn’t descend into name calling and personal attack and was exactly the kind of debate that we come to this board to in the first place to engage in.

quote:

---

Originally posted by MWRuger:
Tim,

They are all just stories. No movie, unless it is a documentary, is real. However, some movies are better than others. Reign of Fire, in my view, suffers because of stupid inconsistencies that make it difficult to watch. My previous posts in this topic address most of the points you raised but I will touch on the new ones that you raise.

Scientists may say that a species survives, but they don’t claim that each individual member survives. They are talking about long term survival as the species adapts to the new environment. Scientists certainly are not implying that cockroaches stand up under direct nuclear blast. By the way, Humans are one of the species that they predict won’t survive nuclear war.

I don’t remember anyone stating that the dragons were immortal, but even if they were they could die by accident or being eaten by their fellows unless you are postulating that they don’t leave behind a corpse when eaten.

As far as “going along with the flow” goes, I don’t have to. The movie has to sell me, I shouldn’t have to talk myself into liking it. When I find a film that requires all kinds of convoluted logic to make it palatable, then I have to wonder if it is a good film.

Of course they were starving. They are huge creatures that require a tremendous amount of biomass to sustain them. Biomass has to be converted into energy during digestion. Ashes are already spent biomass. There isn’t any energy left to convert by biological means.

They weren’t that far into the future. The equipment showed no radical advances and the weaponry was the same as we have available today.

I will freely profess that I hold genre films to a higher standard than I do other types of films. I feel that audiences give genre film makers permission to make bad films instead of good ones by giving them a pass by saying “It’s a fantasy” or “It’s just a movie, who cares if it makes sense?”. As a result we get films that have nothing going for them but action set pieces and special effects.

Quill,

Regarding your point about none of us living through nuclear fallout doesn’t mean that we can’t extrapolate the consequences of nuclear war. Military men and Scientists have both given this a great deal of thought and none of them seem to think that there isn’t ANY effect of nuclear war. That is one reason no one has used nukes yet, because the terrible side effects of such an attack. (look at the effects of Chernobyl, Nagasaki and Hiroshima minor compared to widespread nuclear war) There isn’t any reason to ignore the mounds of research on this subject unless you are making a bad film or defending one.

What’s the point of bringing up minority report? Are you trying to say that plot holes in one film excuse plot holes in another?

Spicy,

Sorry if seeing all this stuff again annoys you. I thought it was a pretty good discussion that didn’t descend into name calling and personal attack and was exactly the kind of debate that we come to this board to in the first place to engage in.

[Message edited by MWRuger on 07-25-2002]

---

Noooooo....look at what you have done TimT!!!!

*getting his rebuttal ready*

quote:

---

Scientists may say that a species survives, but they don’t claim that each individual member survives. They are talking about long term survival as the species adapts to the new environment. Scientists certainly are not implying that cockroaches stand up under direct nuclear blast. By the way, Humans are one of the species that they predict won’t survive nuclear war.

---

I understand the merit of your arguement which is basing on the fact that the dragons survive a nuclear attack. To put that in perspective, let us assume that nuclear attack was indeed successful. Lets say that by bombing our own land, we get to destroy 99% of the speices (And in the same process, destroy our civilization). [i]But there is still that 1% left with the alpha male who can manage to procreate incredibly fast (as hinted in the movie). Soon there population is back to where it was.

quote:

---

I don’t remember anyone stating that the dragons were immortal, but even if they were they could die by accident or being eaten by their fellows unless you are postulating that they don’t leave behind a corpse when eaten.

---

Lets use cochroaches as an example. They are extremely adept at surviving in any environment and eat almost anything. Now I know that they said in the movie that the Dragons eat ashes as their main source of food, but we also see that cannabilism of ones own speices does happen also. Cochroaches also eat anything and everything, from the feces of some animal to your breakfast cereal. It is the process of evolution that shapes these creatures into what they are.

quote:

---

Spicy,

Sorry if seeing all this stuff again annoys you. I thought it was a pretty good discussion that didn’t descend into name calling and personal attack and was exactly the kind of debate that we come to this board to in the first place to engage in.

---

Actually I rather enjoy these arguments , but its just the horror of seeing one of my threads apparently pop back reminscing about these drawn out arguements. BTW its about 3AM here and I had to answer your post before I went to bed. Goodnight yall!

Minority Report had a much more solid foundation and setup than Reign of Fire, but had much more greivous plotholes during the telling of the story. But still, both are enjoyable movies in my book.

There was a piece floating around that basically about 100 things I'd do as a evil overlord. #12 is One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.