29-12-2004 23:26									#31
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Why would the chance of aliens being humanoid be 0?

It seems to me a rather useful body type for a species that does not specialize in any particularly. There is no greater reason for aliens being humanoid than there is for them NOT being humanoid.

	30-12-2004 00:02									#32
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quote: Originally posted by reds4ever That no ones done a 'Foundation' TV mini series

Let's do it ourselves. Let's write the screenplay like it should be written and make absurd amounts of money from this.

	30-12-2004 00:05									#33
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I must not be a big enough geek.

I've never read a Phillip K. Dick story, hate Asimov, and have no idea what FireFly is.

ACK!

	30-12-2004 00:14									#34
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quote: Originally posted by Tuberski I must not be a big enough geek. I've never read a Phillip K. Dick story, hate Asimov, and have no idea what FireFly is. ACK!

I can heartily recommend P. Dick. After reading many of his stories you're left thinking, "Hey! X, Y and Z ripped off his ideas!" He was truly way ahead of his time.

	30-12-2004 00:21									#35
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We have a useful body plan for climbing trees. It's similar to the body types of sloths, squirrels, and koala bears. We are no longer arboreal.

Eh.

	30-12-2004 00:23									#36
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quote: Originally posted by Richelieu Let's do it ourselves. Let's write the screenplay like it should be written and make absurd amounts of money from this.

Let's get raped by greedy corporate copyright lawyers.

	30-12-2004 00:25									#37
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a certain SCIFI movie with Barry Pepper and John Travolta

	30-12-2004 00:28									#38
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quote: Originally posted by GePap Why would the chance of aliens being humanoid be 0? It seems to me a rather useful body type for a species that does not specialize in any particularly. There is no greater reason for aliens being humanoid than there is for them NOT being humanoid.

The human body plan is the result of haphazard accretion of features over a billion of years. The chance that anything much like it has come up on any given other planet is miniscule, as should be clear to anyone with a basic understanding of evolutionary biology.

	30-12-2004 00:31									#39
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But humanoid aliens are better when it comes to hitting them

	30-12-2004 00:36									#40
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quote: Originally posted by Last Conformist The human body plan is the result of haphazard accretion of features over a billion of years. The chance that anything much like it has come up on any given other planet is miniscule, as should be clear to anyone with a basic understanding of evolutionary biology.

You could say the same about every single from, except maybe single cell organisms. So its as likely to look like a man as an ant, or a tube worm, or a fish. but then, of course, the issue is what form is needed for Sentient tool making forms. That limits the possibilities.

	30-12-2004 01:48									#41
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I agree with GePap, considering that this body form is the only one out of all the organisms on earth to yeild our type of intelligence, and that most of the species in the top of the intelligence tree share the same basic shape, it might be that this particular form is the most suited for it.

	30-12-2004 02:04									#42
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Leverage points and some muscle equivelant to move them, i.e. fingers. Something to grip with, i.e. an opposable thumb - in combination it's a hand, which is why tentacles are less likely. The need to keep these appendages available to handle tools. Upright posture or more than four limbs with the front two permanently upright. It's hard for a six-limed animal to suddenly evolve the first two limbs upright, it's much easier for a four limbed creature to rotate upright and inherit back problems in later life.

Population able to reach a critical level for a techical civilization. Probably not an obligate predator of larger herbivores. Not an efficient, obligate herbivore. Multiple food sources make it more likely to reward mental activity and foraging, rather than just more effiicient digestion of a single food source.

Of course SF writers have created all kinds of aliens in the past. The majority though are at least going to share many of those traits, so will no be utterly weird in appearance, i.e. they will have frames of reference for us. "Look, that's their manipulating appendage. There's the visual appartus." Movies are limited by that funny thing called budgets, though modern CGI increased the available choices.

	30-12-2004 02:34									#43
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I thought I, Robot was fairly good. True, Will Smith was in slouchy cop autopilot, and the robots as enemies were of the 'too fast to shoot' and 'too numerous to fight' variety. But the plot was fairly complex, and there some pretty good scenes in it. Plus it reintroduced the rather dormant sci-fi notion of humanoid robots being as ubquitous as automobiles (and the interesting sociological consequences of this).

	30-12-2004 03:09									#44
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I mentioned Lem because he was one of the few writers to address the issues of the great difficulty of communication between species.

That to me is a much bigger problem than humanoid aliens, the notion every species can understand each other, or that they have similar motivations, or at least motivations they can each understand.

That and interspecies mating-that is a great sin of easy sci fi!

	30-12-2004 03:15									#45
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Yes, the Sci-Fi channel has been pretty much a disappointment. They seem to be shooting for making friday the only day worth watching, then blowing off the rest of the week. It may just be me, but I feel that's a somewhat bizarre marketing strategy.

Not completing Crusade has been a disappointment. Als o the fact that they promised to do some more Bab 5 movies or mini-series then didn't follow through has been disappointing.

The fact that there haven't been reruns of Bab 5 for several years is disappointing. I bought the DVD Bab 5 movie collection. Now I want more.

Spike TV Channel ran a series of DS9 reruns earlier this year, but inexplicably didn't show them in sequence, then cancelled after 4 weeks.

I'd like to see someone attempt to make a movie of part or all of The Foundation series. I'd also like to see someone try to make movie's of some other of Asimov's robot novels. Which novels featured L. Steel Danilaw, the covert robot cop? They'd make a good series of movies. I could envision a "Blade Runner" like atmosphere.

	30-12-2004 03:29									#46
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quote: Originally posted by Dr Strangelove Yes, the Sci-Fi channel has been pretty much a disappointment. They seem to be shooting for making friday the only day worth watching, then blowing off the rest of the week. It may just be me, but I feel that's a somewhat bizarre marketing strategy.

I can just picture their scheduling session..."Geeks don't have dates on Friday night - let's put all the good stuff on then."

The Space Channel here is okay, I guess.

	30-12-2004 03:32									#47
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I think that a series that people dedicate years of their lives following, and then gives you a big turb as your reward in the end, is the worst.

In this regard Babylon 5 takes the cake.

	30-12-2004 03:33									#48
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quote: I agree with GePap, considering that this body form is the only one out of all the organisms on earth to yeild our type of intelligence, and that most of the species in the top of the intelligence tree share the same basic shape, it might be that this particular form is the most suited for it.

Vertabrato-centrism:

We only have a sample size of 1, Earth, so we canot say for sure if that is true, or if it is just chance that the vertabrates, as opposed to say, the cephalopods, spawned a sentient organism.

And remember, evolution does not strive for intelligence, it strives for survival, there has to be the right set of enviromental conditions affecting the right gregarious omnivore, and a good bit of luck.

quote: Population able to reach a critical level for a techical civilization. Probably not an obligate predator of larger herbivores. Not an efficient, obligate herbivore. Multiple food sources make it more likely to reward mental activity and foraging, rather than just more effiicient digestion of a single food source.

Indeed, in fact, the transition from Australopithicus to Homo 2.5 million years ago seems to have happened when the drying climate in eastern and southern Africa forced our ancestors to rely alot on scavanging in the dry season (and chunks of flint are good for breaking open bones to get marrow and scare lions away from thier kills *hint hint*).

	30-12-2004 04:53									#49
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GePap, read Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison. It deals with sex and aliens in a way very different than the Star Trek "everything fits and crossbreeds" mode (I had to sneak it off my dad's top SF shelf/verboten books while he was away on a business trip as a teenager). It's even listed in Wikipedia, which caught me by surprise. It's like discovering a movie you remember the as a kid is now considered "classic".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangerous_Visions

	30-12-2004 05:07									#50
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Sci Fi lacks more authors like Lem, and Robert Forward should have written more books (atomic bombs as a means of reproduction is definitely one of the funniest things I've read, and it's even barely plausible).

	30-12-2004 05:24									#51
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quote: Originally posted by Patroklos I think that a series that people dedicate years of their lives following, and then gives you a big turb as your reward in the end, is the worst. In this regard Babylon 5 takes the cake.

Fah! Not... even... close... bub*!

The worst one, in terms of dragging its fans through a few years of blazing glory followed by twice as long in turgid mediocrity, then going out in possibly the worst series finale in the history of series finale's was:

The X-Files.

At least the final episode of B5 wasn't a goddamned clip show!

*Which movie?

	30-12-2004 05:59									#52
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'Event Horizon'. Utter pants, and a waste of talented actors.


Like a predictable slasher horror/ghost story, but set on a spaceship.

'The Matrix 2 & 3'. Chop-socky crossed with state of the art special effects to make high tech fight scenes that don't last ten minutes, but just make you feel time has slowed to a crawl and paint is drying as you watch.....


And that crappy hippie orgy sequence. Gah.


'Starship Troopers'- yes, we're a bazillion years in the future, terrorised by giant beetles that fart rocks through space and we fight them with mighty twigs and semi-automatic spitballs!

Still, Casper van Daytime did get to show off his hot bod whilst being chastised, so it wasn't all bad.


'The Avengers' - hmm, let's take a charismatic t.v. series, take all the things that made it quirky, unique and a favourite of fans worldwide and...... leave them out. Oh, and add two leads with as much sexual chemistry as a mouldy head of lettuce humping the corpse of a slug.

Sean Connery for once being allowed to act with the only accent he does well, but having recovered from the shock of eventually playing a Scots character, fails to act at all convincingly.

	30-12-2004 06:07									#53
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quote: Originally posted by JohnT The Phantom Menace, the re-issues, Greedo shot first, blech.

Greedo shot first? What's the deal with this? I can't remember the scene very well.

and is there any place I can find the original movies before they've been hacked to death?

	30-12-2004 06:07									#54
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quote: Originally posted by GePap Why would the chance of aliens being humanoid be 0? It seems to me a rather useful body type for a species that does not specialize in any particularly. There is no greater reason for aliens being humanoid than there is for them NOT being humanoid.

and humanoids are an efficient body for moving around and thinking.

	30-12-2004 06:08									#55
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quote: Originally posted by Tuberski I must not be a big enough geek. I've never read a Phillip K. Dick story, hate Asimov, and have no idea what FireFly is. ACK!

me too!

I don't even read sci-fi

	30-12-2004 06:12									#56
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quote: Originally posted by GePap I mentioned Lem because he was one of the few writers to address the issues of the great difficulty of communication between species. That to me is a much bigger problem than humanoid aliens, the notion every species can understand each other, or that they have similar motivations, or at least motivations they can each understand. That and interspecies mating-that is a great sin of easy sci fi!

horses and donkeys can mate

	30-12-2004 06:14									#57
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quote: Originally posted by Dissident Greedo shot first? What's the deal with this? I can't remember the seen very well. and is there any place I can find the original movies before they've been hacked to death?

The Cantina 'seen' , it's a common Star Wars nerds complaint.

BTW the new versions are better, but if you must, the 'oldies' are on Kazaa.

	30-12-2004 06:18									#58
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Come on guys, the Prequels, hands down.

	30-12-2004 06:26									#59
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quote: Originally posted by monkspider Come on guys, the Prequels, hands down.

I sometimes think maybe I just got older inbetween the two sets of films getting made.... I really don't know, AOTC wasn't much worse than ROTJ was it?

	30-12-2004 06:31									#60
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yes, it was - as in AOTC had absolutely zero chemistry between the actors, the script and actions of the main protaginists is wooden, and oh heck if you have to ask you really need to rewatch both of them.