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Comments
Ren faire enthusiasts and Wiccans inherit the Earth.
And why is there never any gay leads in these sci-fi/action shows? Not a token lesbian, but an actual gay dude.
I choose: 1) surviving winter. 2) No shortage of new shoes which fit. 3) iphone battery still holds charge after 8 years.
C'mon, who's next?
I was suspicious that the show might be a propaganda tactic to present the idea that an actual popular revolution would inevitably result in a grueling dystopia, and so instill fear in the populace of ever actually rising up.
I haven't been able to bring myself to watch this show yet, so I have no idea if there are actually any elements of that in the show. Can anyone confirm or deny? Is the event that "shut off the electricity" presented as some kind of sabotage by "revolutionaries"?
@7: How about the absurdity of planes falling from the sky like spinning leaves, instead of continuing forward with their momentum and gliding like, well, gliders?
More notable, re: Revolution, is the ominous references to the dangers of gun control. And there's an undertone of Ann Rand that is truly unsettling.
That's not a revolution, though. It's just anarchy.
It's frustrating because a few tight-asses ruin it for everybody in this country. I guess that's their claim to fame. Maybe that's what they want on their tombstone.
Oh yes, the point of this post: those of you who don't have cable or satellite - go get the DVDs and you'll have the great advantage of seeing as many episodes as you want in one sitting and won't be tortured with the weekly wait for the next one.
Noone in the Army for example, would find solutions to the problems they now face with communications and logistics. Nevermind that the army, navy, and national guard have bases at or near most cities in the US, and would have large numbers of people available in the event of massive civil unrest.
There have been many examples of civilizations and societies that have survived enormous and widespread disasters, and part of the reason why is because the society existed in the first place. There was an organization and structure in place, and people got on with their lives and worked together to find solutions to problems. We don't always just completely lose our heads and even when we do, we eventually come to our senses and start to think logically, even as a group. Someone has to get the sewers running and food on the table, after all.
The concept of revolution is not so much in the tea party militia sense, the War Lords who run the story line enforce a strict gun control policy, but in a complete reboot of all political and technological structures as they currently exist. I have yet to identify any of the new structures as anarchist, Aynn Rand distopias, or the like.
And what's he doing? He's working for a dictator who has taken away your freedom. And he WANTS TO TAKE AWAY YOUR GUNS. And the American flag is illegal.
I love science fiction. I was willing to suspend disbelief on the absurd conceit that electricity doesn't work, but there are still sparks for guns, and fires will still light, and people are still alive, and electrons are clearly still moving. And I accept that a lot of science fiction is a bit on the right-wing side.
But I got two episodes into this, and couldn't watch any more (we're up to episode 3 in Australia now). There's a big-government conspiracy to destroy my way of life? The worst thing about the future is that we're not allowed guns and we can't wave an American flag? Someone who looks suspiciously like Obama is responsible for much of this, although he is working for The Man.
Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen such right-wing propaganda in sci-fi. Having given up at episode 2, I really shudder to think where this series is going to go. Is the electricity switching off all the result of a UN socialist-environmentalist plot enabled by US liberals? One would suspect so.
Actually, all gasoline engines require electricity to run the spark plugs. (nevermind electronic fuel injection and the computers that run the engines of any vehicles produced since about 1990) Diesel engines don't have this problem, but starting them without an electric motor is really hard.
But you're spot on about all steam engines. Jet turbines too. But what I said about how writers like to just toss out reason and go straight for the post-apocalyptic trope without much real explanation at all rings true anyway.
What it's really about is how we just can't deal with no electricity.
In a modern large plane with no electricity there is little in the way of control.
The rest of that site will keep you away from the TeeVee for a while too.
Either that or the characters (and producers) of Walking Dead are really, really dumb.
The premise would have some appeal if it were done seriously, since the energy crisis and the rising cost of gas have got people worried these days. Carrying such fears to an extreme (what if one day the oil ran out completely, or if an Electro-Magnetic Pulse wiped out all the elctricity?) would make an excellent plotline.
I do think if it were done properly, realistically, no one would want to watch the show.
I do wanna see what they do in Illinois winter with those tank tops, though o.O
@30: No, you don't *need* an oil-based industry to make electricity, but it helps. For example, here in BC most of our electricity comes from hydro dams. Want to run it entirely on coal? Sure, you can do that if you use steam locomotives to take coal from mines to power plants (or put the power plants next to the mines, which... they already do). And yes, you can run the mines on steam engines. It's kind of the way the world worked for near 100 years before the advent of oil.
I would expect the jet to glide forward just like a paper plane. But in the trailer we see the jets somehow spinning like shuriken and damn near plummeting straight down. Bogus.
Now whether or not they'll be enough on the ball to explain why we haven't fallen back on coal, etc, that remains to be seen.
I wonder if this extends to wiping out lightning and other natural electrical phenomena (static electricity, anyone)? (Can't remember if the tornado had any lightning, but it did have thunder...)
I also wondered whether or not global warming would be touched on here. If we have passed a tipping point as some think, then the process may be continuing anyway even after Revolution's "lights out".
Anyway, I'm interested enough to keep following it. And the leads are cute enough for the eye candy.
The Monroe Republic apparently extends from Wisconsin to Indiana and possibly Georgia. That's a hell of a lot of territory for one whack job. Apparently no one else has guns.
I have to say it's damned convenient that the change to to the laws of physics means not only that electrons don't flow through metal anymore -- by the way, does anyone have a magnet and a length of wire? -- but also that planes no longer get lift from their wings... however, guns work fine!
Oh, also, you don't faint from blood loss, and you die even after your blood loss has been stopped. Pretty sure that don't happen. Blood isn't fuel; you don't use it up and then die. Of course, if "the laws of physics changed", then maybe the laws of biology did too. Who knows. Everything goes as long as it gives the writers something to write about. Just as long as guns still work.
(Also if the woman had lost so much blood as to die, the others ought to be swimming in puddles of it. Yet there's no blood to be seen.)
Yay! I'll be watching!
Yes, well, the RW series suffered from two major flaws 1) they were made in the 1980's. and 2) Mel Gibson.
35,
Since when is Hollywood or television bound by the laws of physics? This isn't Carl Sagan's Cosmos here. Of you applied the same standard to True Blood or the Walking Dead, we'd be watching shows about Cajuns giving each other hickies and college students the morning after a dorm party.
I did sit through the pilot, to be fair, and not one thing about it made me want to return for more. There's too much decent TV to watch to waste time on this. And by "decent" I include "the cartoon based on 'How to Train Your Dragon,' which is slightly more realistic in how it treats the laws of physics."
And yes the first thing I though of when I saw the commercial for Revolution was why didn't steam power work?
Absurd premise indeed for any elementary school educated person.
The McGuffin of this show is that some 'force' is keeping the power off, magically in some way, and they make absolutely no secret that it's absurd or supernatural or something mystic-y by the third episode. The guy who is stated repeatedly (usually by him in his charmingly self-deprecating crazy egocentricity) to be a former old-world tech whiz billionaire is dumbfounded and astonished by a little trinket allowing or causing power to flow to multiple devices in a home, to the point of fully charging--instantly--cell phones. But as soon as the magic device 'powers down' it blocks the devices, including the clearly fully charged iphone, from working again.
That shit is magic, yo. It pushes Revolution from science fiction to science fantasy, and makes it a lot easier to sock up.
For a more visually "realistic" apocalyptic story: watch The Walking Dead.
I agree. It's just a TV show. They haven't even given an explanation for why electricity stopped working, so arguing about how their explanation isn't possible doesn't make sense yet. But so far it is a fun show. And being an archery fan I like the large number of shows and movies recently incorporating archery.
People seen to have no problem with the impossibilities of Star Trek. Transporters wouldn't work due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. So what did the writers of Star Trek do? They make up something called a Heisenberg Compensator. How does it work? They never say. It is no different than saying "and they did magic and the transporters work". And people seen to have no problem with the impossibility of transporters, yet they can't accept that there is some explanation why electricity might stop working in some instances and not others.
As for the steam, perhaps everyone but me missed the trailers for tonights episode which cleary features a steam powered train. Yes, steam engines still work and exist in this world. And apparently the militia pretty much controls them. Not hard to do when they require tracks to run on and can't devaite from a few set courses.
It's not the greatest show in the world, true, but lighten up people. I don't know the politics of the people making it, but it's fantasy. It's like getting upset over all the religous / Mormon propaganda in the revamped Battlestar Galactica. Sure, it's there. But it is easier to stomach if you keep in mind that he whole show is a fantasy.
If there is any message to this show it is that the getting organized first gives you huge advantage.
I'm also not seeing 'access to better guns' - tanks, rocket launchers, grenades..etc, maybe, but I don't think there is a clear winner between a guy with an M16 and a guy with an AR15 (or other 'citizen legal' firearm).
@61 both have plastic shell bodies which will become brittle over time. Wood stock rifles are more likely to survive long term, if properly oiled.
I'm going to go with #61 on this.
Not to mention the military being composed of people who came from exactly those towns and cities that they have supposedly gone pro-gun-control on.
Don't forget that automatic fire eats up ammo a LOT faster than semi-automatic fire.
And without electricity the militia is going to have to cart around that extra ammo by hand (or with animal power).
But that's just that issue.
Bandits and raiders from the political division next door are another issue.
Without guns, the citizens of Monroe that are close to the border will be easy targets for raiders.
Which means that Monroe's borders should be shrinking inwards as border towns are deserted.
So the choice becomes own a gun and face death from the Monroe government or don't own a gun and a raider will take your supplies and you'll die come Winter.
And that isn't even addressing the issue of other predators (wolves / coyotes / etc) killing and eating the livestock.
I also don't like the idea that they are going to try to explain the reason that everything shut off. The complete loss of electricity just doesn't work scientifically. Now if they just didn't ever explain WTH happened and actually made note of how silly it is that electricity stopped working but lightning still happens and people are still alive in show I would be on board.
Dies the Fire does this really well. It sets up the premise that everything has stopped working (electricity, steam power, explosives) and then doesn't explain itself (at least not in the first series, I think the second series just says magic gods did it to fuck with us, dunno haven't read it). This works great, sure the question is always there but it's just something you can't do anything about. The series isn't about how it happened but about what people do next.
From what has been suggested in the show so far it seems like the premise is that a whole lot of people died pretty quick. Not just from starvation and disease, but bandits and community squabbling.
The idea being that everyone was in disarray, except the militia.
And I don't get why everyone things everyone in the show should be starving and in rags. People starved initially, particularly in the cities. However once the militia took over and squelched the bandits people settled into communities where they could grow crops and hunt or raise livestock. While some people clearly have a hard time of it there is nothing to suggest that at the time of the main storyline of the show that starvation and deprivation are widespread much less universal.
There are plenty of holes in the show, certainly. But really, not any more than in Star Trek, or Babylon 5, or Lost, or Heroes, or any number of other similar shows with fantastical premises and lots of convoluted story lines.
I think the problem people have with suspension of disbelief with this show is because it isn't fantastical enough. Aliens are so far fetched that the fact that they almost always seem to have two arms, two legs, two eyes, two ears, one mouth and a nose doesn't make us scream bullshit, and phasers and deflector shields, transporters, warp drives, replicators, travel through singularities and the like seem acceptable.
But because this show is set in a world very close to ours the idea that when the power goes out a well armed militia can round up most of the guns seems like an unacceptable contrivance, even though that is far more likely to happen than transporters or aliens that evolved on vastly different planets and environments that look almost exactly like humans with just an wrinkly nose or pointed ears.
Pretty much all the nuclear reactors would melt down once the pumps stopped supplying water to keep the fuel rods cool covering most of North America and Europe, Japan and large parts of the rest of the world in a radioactive cloud.
The millions of gallons of toxic chemicals that need to be maintained in temperature controlled storage containers would eventually heat up and explode, covering large areas with deadly toxic gases.
Modern construction apparently doesn't hold up well without constant maintenance. Buildings would begin to crumble and fall in a couple of decades as the lack of environmental control in them causes pressure differences that pop out the windows allowing the elements to enter and a weaken the structures.
So really, most post apocalyptic storyscapes are complete fantasy no matter the scenario.
So, in my personal, primitive world of no cable or internet, I watched the first 2 episodes.
Meh ---was okay. I agree with all comments.
Isn't this the same thing like Falling Skies without the giant alien bugs?
In Babylon 5, there were plenty of aliens that were completely... alien. With differing atmospheres, biologies, and numbers of legs. Some of them you didn't even know what they looked like because they were always wearing what amounted to space suits.
The physics also made sense, mostly. The Earth Alliance light fighter ships have even been adopted by NASA as the kind of fighters that they would build, if they were tasked to build them.
Menbari - two legs, two arms, two eyes, two ears a nose and mouth.
Centari - two legs, two arms, two eyes, two ears a nose and mouth.
Narn - two legs, two arms, two eyes two ears a nose and mouth.
Dilgar - two legs, two arms, two eyes, two ears a nose and a mouth.
Drazi - two legs, two arms, two eyes, two ears a nose and a mouth.
Pak'ma'ra - two legs, two arms, two eyes two ears a nose and a mouth.
I could go on. Randomly choosing a few to breath a different atmosphere, and having the occasional alien be non humanoid, doest change the fact that it is still pretty much impossible for that many aliens to evolve independently on different planets and have them all basically end up looking like humans in makeup.
As for the physics, not that well done. They did try, but the physics of simulating gravity by revolving the station would only work so long as items were in contact with the ground. If you were to jump high you should float up, but that didn't happen. They did address it in one episode where the captain jumps from the monorail and starts to float down. It is mentioned that although he should just float down at the same rate he would still get squashed because the floor is moving too fast. Yet in all other situations gravity on the station acts and reacts as if they were in an actual gravity well of a massive object an not in a spinning tube.
And again, they solved the issue of faster than light travel with what basically amounts to magic. They just call the magic "jump gates".