23 October 2005

Science

It is important to read Roger Ebert's reviews of films he does not like. He gets bored of reviewing the movie, and wanders far afield into speculative territory. For instance, he sure didn't like Doom.
The monsters are still there on Mars. They are big mothers and must have awesome daily caloric requirements. How they survive, how they breathe earth atmosphere in the station and what, as carnivores, they eat and drink -- I think we can all agree these are questions deserving serious scientific study.
I am reassured that I am not the only one who wonders stuff like this.

5 comments:

Indri said...

Dearheart, your link comes back to the blog, not to Roger's review.

And he is not alone, as a critic, in wandering far afield when he doesn't like something. Sometimes it's the only way to keep oneself amused in the critiquing process, and it's kinder than going after the guilty parties one at a time and sucking the marrow from their miserable bones.

Anonymous said...

'Cause they're demons, and they derive their powers from Satan. Duh.

Anonymous said...

The review in question seems to appear over here.

But I ran into an oddity that confuses me. Just after reading the review, I searched for "extra chromosome" (to confirm my memory that it generally tends to cause Down's Syndrome, not super strength), and found this other piece. Which appears to be almost the same review, still attributed to Ebert, but with at least the one "soul" paragraph changed. I wonder how that came about?

Indri said...

Conner, it's not really odd at all. Ebert probably filed his piece with both his employer of record and the syndicate that carries his stuff, and then either the copies were edited differently, or he made a change that ran in one and not the other. Cut for length, adjusted to suit a different market... many possibilities.

Anonymous said...

BTW, an "extra" chromosome causes Down syndrome, but the movie deals with a "24th chromosome", which probably means a new chromosome pair. Down syndrome is caused by a Trisomy, not another pair. Think about it