OK, I saw the dragon movie

WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS AND FOUL LANGUAGE AHEAD. If you're looking for a pleasant review of a kiddie movie, this isn't it.

Now, to be fair, I have now seen How to Train Your Dragon, and it would be cheap of me to not comment on it, having pre-emptively shit on it. So, what do I think of it, in a fair and impartial manner? I can't tell you, I can't be impartial about this, but I might approach fair. It's an enjoyable movie, and fun to watch, but it's garbage. It LOOKS great, but it SOUNDS awful. The dialog is worthless and the plot barely exists; when the plot does raise its sad little head, it's a ragged, ramshackle, slap-dash construct that fails miserably. The characters are threadbare, overused caricatures of 2-D copies of stereotypes of standard mythic tropes.

The story tries to make all of its hay off of the very, very tired scheme of "father who is diappointed by son he doesn't understand", "son tries to please father, but wants to do things differently than the way that things have always been done." They struggle, they conflict, they have a moment when the son succeeds, bringing them closer together, but then they realize that neither has actually changed, and they fall further apart. There's also the necessary reference to the absent mother, and how much they both miss her. Also, apparently in this world, adult vikings speak with Scottish accents, and the youths speak with modern American accents and patois.

I do not have the time or space to state every flaw, mistake, inconsistency, or incoherency in the movie, it would take longer than the movie. I will just pick on the theme that I already railed against, the theme that real movie critics have been praising - "Give peace a chance, understand other people, talking is better than fighting, make love not war" etc.

Bullshit. That's not what this movie is about. There are a couple genuine messages buried down in this movie, from where I can choose to extract them, as one pulls a functional kidney for transplant from a mangled and otherwise destroyed pile of meat that used to be a human being before the maggots burrow down to it.

The messages I get? 1) If you do not fight, you will die. Reviewers are viewing the Vikings as narrow-minded aggressors who kill the dragons because they hate them, and it takes one who thinks differently to discover the better way. That's wrong. The Vikings are struggling to survive in a hostile environment, and the depredations of the dragons would doom the Vikings if left unchecked. At the same time, the dragons are struggling to survive in a hostile environment, and if they don't take advantage of all the food they can find, they will die. Both sides are locked into fights they may not have chosen, but cannot quit, as they will be totally destroyed. This leads both sides to do increasingly risky and stupid things to stay alive.

Message two proceeds from the unresolvable conflict, to wit - 2) Brilliance is knowing when to change your approach. Sometimes doing more of the same is what is required for success, sometimes finding a new way is what it takes. I work in science, both of these approaches are needed, and knowing the difference is critical. Sticking when you shouldn't, and switching when you should have stuck will both destroy you. As seen in this movie. Both sides have intelligence, but neither is applying it effectively. The Vikings' study of dragons is limited to what it takes to kill them, and the dragons approach to life keeps sending them back to try stealing food from the same meat grinder. Either the dragons are too stupid/stubborn to recognize a losing proposition, or the Vikings are such ineffective dragon killers that it's an acceptable payout to loss scenario.

In an approach reminiscent of Enemy Mine, it takes two adversaries who fail to kill each other to figure out that they don't have to kill each other. They aren't "giving peace a chance", they just traded one scenario of no alternatives for another. They're unable to make choices, they can merely react to the situation that fate dumps on them. It's also not unlike The Forever War, in that the only contact the sides have is during combat, so that they have no way to communicate, or even ask "Why do those guys keep doing that? What is it they want?" Unfortunately, where Longyear and Haldeman have set up these scenarios in a more rational fashion to create masterful stories about more genuine characters dealing with conflict they don't want, this movie does it by accident and illogically.

I'm tired of stories that require ignorance and stupidity to hold together, as it's the application of intelligence that unravels the situation, and my question is, "Why did that take so long?"

Message 3 is a fusion of messages 1 and 2, in a pretty standard, hackneyed format for a coming of age story (at least in the pre-PC era). 3) When it's time to fight for your survival, you have put everything you've got into the fight, strength, skill, and cleverness. Go for the kill, and hold nothing back.

Finally, what really happens in this movie is not that Vikings learn to understand dragons and discover how to live in harmony. What happens is that Vikings and dragons team up to fight an even worse foe, in an incredibly brutal conflict that could have been avoided, and which is potentially genocide for the dragons. So I guess the message is, if you learn to understand your opponent, you can get them to betray their side and sow the seeds of their own destruction.

I knew someone who refused to see R-rated movies, because they refused to patronize "crap". I could not accept this thesis. Dirty words do not crap make, sex, drugs, violence, and crudity do not crap make. The same old formulas, weak characters acting stupidly, using flash to hide poor writing, and wasting the potential of the source material does crap make.

How not to make a movie about dragon training

Now, I haven't seen the movie How to Train Your Dragon yet, but that won't stop me from picking on it. Some critics are wetting themselves praising the movie for its message of tolerance, as a young Viking lad discovers that rather than killing dragons, as is the custom of his tribe, he can work with them. I've read the book, and here's my problem - in the book, the Vikings don't kill dragons, they train them. Each Viking lad must catch and train a dragon to become a full member of the tribe, as dragons are very useful to the Vikings, essentially filling the role of dogs. The drama in the book comes from a different perspective on HOW to train dragons (hence the name), and that there's more to dragons than the Vikings think. If the book can be said to have any message at all, it is that the small and weak aren't completely useless, that adversaries can become allies in a common cause, and that baser instincts can sometimes be overcome.

Now, of course books must be altered to be made into movies, a direct conversion of most books would be terminally dull on the screen (see Harry Potters 1 & 2). But, this sort of massive change to the core sentiment of the book in an effort to create a better "message" is irritating bullshit. Especially when the message is tolerance; tolerance is overrated, and used as a weapon. Tolerance goes both ways. The people who seem to preach tolerance the most are some of the most intolerant people around, they're just intolerant of things they've gotten labeled as evil, like intolerant people.

The movie may be entertaining, the movie may be fun, but it corrupts the spirit of the book, and shouldn't have the same name, and I don't give a shit about the message.

Significant health problems

This question and answer were forwarded to me by an MD I know:

From CNN:

"Question: Over 30 million couples suffer from infertility in the United
States. Most insurers will not cover this problem. Will the new bill
finally address this as a significant health problem?


Answer: There is nothing in the bill regarding this issue. One benefit is
that insurance companies cannot deny coverage to couples who suffer from
infertility because it was deemed a pre-existing condition. However, in
terms of covering infertility treatments or in-vitro fertilization, none of
that is made mandatory under the bill for insurance companies."

His response - "I wonder if his auto insurance affords for custom paint jobs?"

My thoughts:

I guess it depends on your definition of "significant health problem". If anything that makes you sad is a significant problem, then you're set. If creating stress, weakening your immune system, spreading disease, lowering living standards, resource consumption out of proportion to size and productivity, and shortening lifespans is a "significant health problem", then fertility should be treatable under the health plan.

2010 Census - Un-F*&$ing-Believable

One week before the census forms were mailed, the Census Bureau spent $42 million to send out letters warning us that the Census was coming. Then the Census forms came. I have not been able to fill it out, as it asks about who is living at this address as of April 1, 2010, and it is not yet April 1. Anything could happen between now and then, and I'd hate to send the U.S. government inaccurate information because I jumped the gun. Although, the idea of screwing up the government by filling out their paperwork, then dying, and having my rotting corpse affecting congressional districts for the next 10 years does appeal to me.

That's not the un-F*&$ing-Believable part thought. Today, I got a postcard reminding me that I'd gotten the census form and asking me to send it in as soon as possible. The card was dated March 22. Is the Census Bureau terminally stupid? Are they deliberately doing this to make a mockery of themselves? Who is in charge of this? Are they purposely trying to make me NOT follow the official instructions?

This is what happens when you put brain-dead government drones, who work for the government because they can't get a real job anywhere else, in charge of something, that doesn't even serve a real purpose anymore.

HDTV double edged sword

When watching Rules of Engagement in HDTV, Patrick Warburton is the best looking cast member.