AWKWARD ZOMBIE

I hate it when they do that. "Hey, you know how this is total bullshit? Yeah, we're gonna do it anyway, but pointing out our faults mean we dont have to fix them, right?"

ACTUALLY this is not a paradox, interestingly enough! We see two different Future Joes in the movie, from two different timelines. One that Present Joe just kills and then gets his Gold Payday. That Present Joe becomes the SECOND Future Joe, which throws off the whole loop of the timeline by NOT getting killed by himself. In the movie there are 3 distinct timelines. There's the normal "looped" timeline in which Joe kills himself, lives his 30 years and accepts that he must die and then dies, letting the loop continue, the timeline in which Joe kills himself but then decides he doesn't want to die so knocks Past him out and the timeline, which the movie follows, that Future Joe is creating. If Present Joe had killed Future Joe, the third timeline would've repeated indefinitely. Because he killed himself he created a new fourth timeline in which the kid does not become a villain. Because Future Joe is from the second timeline and not this new one, all the stuff he did stays.

I hope that clears things up! I honestly really like this movie so when people say it's got paradoxes in it I like to clean up the view a little bit. The only problem is they did this in a way that's really hard to clearly see the first time you watch it. It took me around 4 times to get to the conclusion I have, which explains it nicely and keeps its own rules.

Just watched Olympus Has Fallen thanks to RedBox. It's a very amusing movie, exciting and choreographed excellently. I'd even go so far as to say it's better than White House Down, if only because the attacking forces are less campy and the violence has been up'd to eleven (WHD seemed almost abuse gore discretion shots), plus the whole beating-women-on-screen thing. They really pulled no punches with this flick. I only have one issue with the plot in its entirety.

Terrorist leader Kang eventually receives all three codes to the Cerberus protocol and plans to use it to detonate the entire US nuclear stockpile from inside their subterranean silos, effectively burning and radiating 60% of the North American continent and possibly collapsing the landmass to underneath sea level with the resulting shockwave.

My problem is that when in-universe DARPA (I'm assuming) developed the Cerberus fail-safe protocol- specifically to self-destruct any intercontinental ballistic missiles that've been mistakenly launched and can only be accessed within the PEOC bunker beneath the White House, the film writers figured this subplot had to facilitate three facts:

1) The best way to abort a long-range missile strike sequence and prevent the definite "Level 11 Fuckshit" situation is to detonate the nuke before it can reach its target. Not to nullify the automated fuse or use shaped charges to destroy the guidance computers or the propulsion rocket, but to prematurely activate the supremely-lethal nuclear warhead riding an ICBM into Korea while it's still flying over the ocean. Collateral damages aside, I'm sure none of our worldly neighbors will be the least bit frightened or upset about a random, spontaneous nuclear detonation over international waters. Japan might shit itself, but they don't have an army, so who cares?

2) The missiles do not have to be launched to be self-destructed, only actively tethered to the United States Defense Network. This means that the entire nuclear arsenal can, at anytime, be hijacked from the President's private clubhouse and turned into their own network of soupa landmines prepared to cave in the country from underneath, leaving the remains of the crater burned, irradiated, and eventually drowned glass.

3) Apparently, this means that before Cerberus, there were no other effective methods to cancel an in-flight missile short of bringing it down with a THAAD missile. They couldn't have perhaps used a program that must circulate approval through the White House, Pentagon, NORAD, and the NSA; they had to leave the power to stop nuclear misfires in the hands of three people and had to be in a very specific, isolated location, and all other high-power facilities of government held absolutely zero ability to influence or deter the situation. Doesn't it take just one weak link in the Chain of Command to render our nukes at a standstill?

Many would say I'm nitpicking about this, and during the movie, they'd be correct; this one issue is very small compared to the intensity and drama, but under analysis and scrutiny, it's the piece of the Jenga Tower that brings the whole thing crashing down. If they simply asserted that forcing US infantry to withdraw support from South Korea AND disabling the ICBM network under US control would render them helpless to stop North Korea from steamrolling and assimilating South, they'd have done the necessary damage and maintained plot credibility. I'd have bought that, without complaint, but of course nooo. Holding a gun to President Harvey Dent's head isn't dramatic enough, nor is beating the women of his staff shitless on national TV. If nukes are mentioned, you HAVE to use 'em, right?

Fucking A... they were that close to making something amusing and believable, then they had to go the traditional route: attempt to completely fuck America. Do ANY freedom fighters ever quit when they win? Or do they, like... get royalties in the afterlife for doing absolutely as much damage as possible until they die? Seriously, was Kang so butthurt that the landmine that killed his mother was built in the States that he has to bring down the entire nation? What a whiny bitch.

I can understand having disdain for American weapons after that, but as with all terrorist leaders, he seems to undermine the massive hypocrisy generated by taking his grief out on a country without realizing the countless others they're leaving in similar (if not identical or worse) circumstances. He's not just killing millions of mothers and their children, he's leaving a hole in the global power balance that could cause his country to be wiped off the face of the earth in the resulting crossfire when shit truly hits the fan. In that one act of vindictive bullshit, they're basically turning the world upside down and rolling around in the shattered glass while everything else catches fire. Dick move, much?

Otherwise, it's a really good movie! I like it.

EDIT: Okay, I have two probl- god daisies it!.. seriously, the whole Hydra advanced anti-aircraft minigun turret weapon on the White House roof, what happened? Do they make everything else so convoluted and difficult to operate for security purposes, but in the event of a hostile takeover, our nation's next-gen automated weapons should have a terrorist-friendly user interface? Why did it shoot down the Black Hawks, but not the AC-130 committing to strafing runs on innocent civilians not 300 yards from the North Lawn? Have the people designing these things never heard of an IFF beacon, or is the Hydra really just that easy to use by somebody who's never seen the fuckin' thing before?

And before you tell me it was brought with them, no. I saw those balaclava-wearin' mooks scatter across the front yard on the offense, and none of them were dragging that beast behind them by a rope. That shit was already there, but of course all virtual means of dissident lockout can be easily overturned by the appropriate nerd and/or Asian chick in a matter of minutes. For the "most-protected building on the planet", I wouldn't feel very safe around the President since his security measures are all capable of shitting themselves at the slightest of tampering.

Gawd... I talk too daisies much. THIS MOVIE IS STILL AWESOME AND I LOVE IT.

I think GDT's works show the amount of love and work he puts into his movies. He doesn't just direct a movie, they're all very personal works for him.

I remember him saying something like that in one of his interviews. Even franchise movies like Hellboy are personal to him

At the Mountains of Madness will never be made
;_;

I think he said in an interview that if Pacific Rim did well enough, he would try his damnedest to get AtMoM made.

Here we go, I even found a source.

I THOUGHT IT FLOPPED HARD WHAT THE FUCK
FUCK YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
edit: spoilers in the article

So much for At the Mountains of Madness.

are you kidding everyone saw it and everyone loved it

cheddar's the only thing that matters for a summer blockbuster. To the people who greenlight them at least.

It did really well everywhere besides the U.S. It was WB's biggest opening day in China ever, even beating out The Dark Knight Rises

Here is a website for people that enjoy seeing rough drafts of animations and animated movies.

http://livlily.blogspot.ca/