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Would you see this movie?
Topic Started: Feb 22 2011, 02:29 AM (5,470 Views)
Yorick
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If you're more familiar with the east coast why not set the film there?


I already have too many films and TV pilot set there. I want variety.

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Really? It did not seem like that. Especially with 3-4.


There's nothing incredible about translator chips and interstellar travel and Eli assimilating to human biology and culture is part of his journey.

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Why? What the hell do they do?

Having powers just for the sake of having powers feels like ripping off Superman/Smallville/I Am Number Four, or any number of teen superhero films.


1. His empathy comes very handy when it comes to understanding human culture
2. His agility and accellerated will be very useful when he faces the villain

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There's nothing to stop you from writing that in the script, of course the actual filmmakers can change it but that isn't necessarily my point.


Of course I'm going to write: Eli(alien language) 'Father, this is madness!' But I don't know if the filmmakers will invent a new langauge and use subtitles or just have the actors speak English as translated.

I'm just not gonna join any side in the alien appearance issue and just write vaugue descriptions and let the filmmakers be imginative or not when it comes to their appearance.

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A 'translator chip' is already a pretty bad explanation, for example you can have the protagonist 'conveniently' be taught English some time before the film, and it is already more credible than a 'translator chip'.


How so? It seems to be your own personal bias is the problem. There's nothing wrong with a chip at all. Nothing incredible or lazy about it. It's just plausible and convenient.

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Then it makes them bad filmmakers, it does not make you a bad writer. Unless your concept is really good enough that they can spend a little bit of extra money modelling and animating it.


I never said I was a bad writer and they wouldn't be bad filmmakers. ("Star Trek" was one of the most acclaimed films of '09 after all.) The concept is an alien teen living on Earth. His appearance has nothing to do with it. I could write the strangest creatures ever seen in film and it wouldn't matter to the concept at all.

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To have one's efforts thwarted is one of the worst things that can happen to a person, but one should rather make an effort than make no effort at all.


I can assure you that the lack of effort you think I have with the making of the story has nothing to do with my telling of it.

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For the purposes of drama some bit of technowizardry making English easy to learn is perfectly reasoanble. Maybe he needs to learn how to use the words correctly, what's polite, what's literal, words with multiple meanings.


It's like you're reading my mind.

He can't perfectly understand it. He has to learn slang and catch phrases and figures of speech. Plus, there scene where Eli encounters his surrigate family, it takes him whole minutes for him to learn the English language with his chip. He has to keep reading it and hearing it. At first it's like static but it gets clearer and clearer and then he can speak English. The chip records and translates. It doesn't store information if that's what you think.
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T.Neo
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I already have too many films and TV pilot set there. I want variety.


You really sound like you are milling out stories here...

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There's nothing incredible about translator chips and interstellar travel and Eli assimilating to human biology and culture is part of his journey.


Wrong. Even Google Translate doesn't work properly, and interstellar travel as it is portrayed in fiction and what it would be in reality are about as far apart as Earth and the Large Magellanic Cloud.

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1. His empathy comes very handy when it comes to understanding human culture
2. His agility and accellerated will be very useful when he faces the villain


That just makes it easier for him and puts him through less hardship (i.e. he's less of a hero than he would be otherwise).

Anyone can thwart a villain when they have agility and accelerated! :confused:

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Of course I'm going to write: Eli(alien language) 'Father, this is madness!' But I don't know if the filmmakers will invent a new langauge and use subtitles or just have the actors speak English as translated.


They don't need to invent a new language. They can just make up a bunch of alien, foreign sounds, and/or use an obscure foreign language, such as Quechua or Tagalog for the alien language (much to the amusement and/or annoyance of Quechua and Tagalog-speaking viewers).

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I'm just not gonna join any side in the alien appearance issue and just write vaugue descriptions and let the filmmakers be imginative or not when it comes to their appearance.


There are no 'sides' in the alien appearance issue. There are just people who fight for biological common sense, and then there are people who want everything in the universe, seemingly be it a sophont, an alligator analogue, or a flower, to look just like humans for no apparent reason.

And then there are cheap filmmakers.

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How so? It seems to be your own personal bias is the problem. There's nothing wrong with a chip at all. Nothing incredible or lazy about it. It's just plausible and convenient.


It seems? It seems? You think?

It is not plausible, and "convenient" in your mind can very easily be "lazy" to someone else.

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I never said I was a bad writer and they wouldn't be bad filmmakers. ("Star Trek" was one of the most acclaimed films of '09 after all.) The concept is an alien teen living on Earth. His appearance has nothing to do with it. I could write the strangest creatures ever seen in film and it wouldn't matter to the concept at all.


I can do a whole lot of things I'm terrible at and say I'm not bad at them. Just saying... :ermm:

Maybe, Star Trek was 'most acclaimed' because it was Star Trek? You know, because it had everyone's favourite heros and had background and it also had shiny spaceship battles and it was made as a worthwhile film?

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He can't perfectly understand it. He has to learn slang and catch phrases and figures of speech. Plus, there scene where Eli encounters his surrigate family, it takes him whole minutes for him to learn the English language with his chip. He has to keep reading it and hearing it. At first it's like static but it gets clearer and clearer and then he can speak English. The chip records and translates. It doesn't store information if that's what you think.


Eh... that makes it better, as long as he has to actually learn what is going on, it isn't some contrived super-convenient translator microbe gizmo thing that can even translate the gurgles of a dishwasher into coherent speech. :rolleyes:
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Yorick
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You really sound like you are milling out stories here...


I know. It's my only gift. I love that stories and ideas can just pour out of me.

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Wrong. Even Google Translate doesn't work properly, and interstellar travel as it is portrayed in fiction and what it would be in reality are about as far apart as Earth and the Large Magellanic Cloud.


I think an advanced extraterrestrial civilization would build better translator chips and engines for interstellar travel than humans do...

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That just makes it easier for him and puts him through less hardship (i.e. he's less of a hero than he would be otherwise).

Anyone can thwart a villain when they have agility and accelerated!


His emotional and not physical experience is what matters, the villains also have powers (each one is different though), and after seeing "I Am Number Four" last night I'm losing his superhuman agility; I don't need the comparisons.

They don't need to invent a new language. They can just make up a bunch of alien, foreign sounds, and/or use an obscure foreign language, such as Quechua or Tagalog for the alien language (much to the amusement and/or annoyance of Quechua and Tagalog-speaking viewers).[/quote]

Dude, whatever.

I'm going to write it that way and the filmmakers are still the ones who'll decided if they want to let the actors speak another language with subtitles or not bother with subtitles at all like "Valkyrie," "The Hunt for Red October" and "Battle for Terra." It's really of no consequence or importance to me or the audience.

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There are no 'sides' in the alien appearance issue. There are just people who fight for biological common sense, and then there are people who want everything in the universe, seemingly be it a sophont, an alligator analogue, or a flower, to look just like humans for no apparent reason.

And then there are cheap filmmakers.


They have a reason. Humanoid aliens are just easier for audiences to relate to. It's not just laziness but practicality for financial and aesthetic purposes.

There's no shame in being cheap when it comes to million dollar productions.

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It is not plausible, and "convenient" in your mind can very easily be "lazy" to someone else.


How is it implausible? Its not lazy when you don't want to waste precious screen time having the protagonist struggle with speaking all the time. (Actually, he'll still struggle learning slang and catch phrases and figure of speech anyway.)

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I can do a whole lot of things I'm terrible at and say I'm not bad at them. Just saying...


This makes no sense.

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Maybe, Star Trek was 'most acclaimed' because it was Star Trek? You know, because it had everyone's favourite heros and had background and it also had shiny spaceship battles and it was made as a worthwhile film?


What a false and ignorant thing to say.

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Eh... that makes it better, as long as he has to actually learn what is going on, it isn't some contrived super-convenient translator microbe gizmo thing that can even translate the gurgles of a dishwasher into coherent speech


I can't believe that's what you were thinking this entire time. I'm not an idiot.
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T.Neo
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I know. It's my only gift. I love that stories and ideas can just pour out of me.


You're not alone... you should hear some of the stories I come up with...

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I think an advanced extraterrestrial civilization would build better translator chips and engines for interstellar travel than humans do...


The translator chip is not the problem. The translation is.

And I'm sure they would be able to build far better interstellar vehicles than we do (we haven't built any and surely won't for some time), but they will still be, literally, light-years away from science fiction spacecraft.

Nothing, nothing at all, in the Millenium Falcon, for example, makes any sense from a spacecraft point of view.

Only some things that are inspired by real spacecraft, in a cute way, but nothing else.

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His emotional and not physical experience is what matters, the villains also have powers (each one is different though), and after seeing "I Am Number Four" last night I'm losing his superhuman agility; I don't need the comparisons.


You see; once you get a better feel for things, you can understand the comparisons better, kind of.

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I'm going to write it that way and the filmmakers are still the ones who'll decided if they want to let the actors speak another language with subtitles or not bother with subtitles at all like "Valkyrie," "The Hunt for Red October" and "Battle for Terra." It's really of no consequence or importance to me or the audience.


Ahem. There will be members in the audience that get annoyed by aliens who constantly speak English.

You're not getting my point. I'm not arguing against you here, I am arguing against the hypothetical filmmakers.

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They have a reason. Humanoid aliens are just easier for audiences to relate to. It's not just laziness but practicality for financial and aesthetic purposes.


Asthetic purposes? What asthetic purposes? What's the fun in seeing an alien that is exactly identical to the species that you, and your over-6-billion-fellow-inhabitants-of-Earth belongs to?

Also: finance means little, when you have the budget... some effects can be quite cheap nowdays anyway.

The more and more I think about it, the more and more I find the "easier for audiences to relate to" excuse to be utter rubbish. If anyone thinks an audience can relate only to a human or something that is nigh-identical to a human, they should look at nature documentaries. A good nature documentary story is one that is able to elicit an emotional connection between the 'protagonist' an the audience.

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There's no shame in being cheap when it comes to million dollar productions.


Yes, yes there is. There is a shame on not using millions of dollars to actually do worthwhile stuff when you could anyway.

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How is it implausible? Its not lazy when you don't want to waste precious screen time having the protagonist struggle with speaking all the time. (Actually, he'll still struggle learning slang and catch phrases and figure of speech anyway.)


It is lazy because you're too lazy to put a good struggle with language into the script. At least, you are putting a slight struggle with language into the script... the "universal translator" or "translator microbes" of science fiction really are a deflated trope.

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This makes no sense.


You never said you were a bad writer.

Even if you were the worst writer in the world, which even I think you aren't, you still wouldn't say that you're a bad writer.

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What a false and ignorant thing to say.


What from here to the Moons Of Mars is false and ignorant about that? I just summarised everything that made the 2009 Star Trek film what it was!

I liked Star Trek 2009... I am neither a fan of Star Trek nor do I know much about the original material, but I still enjoyed it nontheless.

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I can't believe that's what you were thinking this entire time. I'm not an idiot.


Good. Prove it.

Are you saying that the people who used universal translators and such are idiots?
Edited by T.Neo, Mar 6 2011, 05:40 PM.
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Yorick
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You're not alone... you should hear some of the stories I come up with...


I would love to. Actual writing beats criticism any day of the week.

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The translator chip is not the problem. The translation is.

And I'm sure they would be able to build far better interstellar vehicles than we do (we haven't built any and surely won't for some time), but they will still be, literally, light-years away from science fiction spacecraft.

Nothing, nothing at all, in the Millenium Falcon, for example, makes any sense from a spacecraft point of view.

Only some things that are inspired by real spacecraft, in a cute way, but nothing else.


Dude, they're movies. Use your suspension of disbelief.

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You see; once you get a better feel for things, you can understand the comparisons better, kind of.


I got the comaprisons from day one and you haven't even seen the film.

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Ahem. There will be members in the audience that get annoyed by aliens who constantly speak English.

You're not getting my point. I'm not arguing against you here, I am arguing against the hypothetical filmmakers.


They should only get annoyed if the aliens speaking English on their home planet are ACTUALLY speaking English and not simply their langauge translated for the sake of convenience.

Anything else just makes them anal geeks who I wouldn't want to see a movie with anyway.

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Asthetic purposes? What asthetic purposes? What's the fun in seeing an alien that is exactly identical to the species that you, and your over-6-billion-fellow-inhabitants-of-Earth belongs to?

Also: finance means little, when you have the budget... some effects can be quite cheap nowdays anyway.

The more and more I think about it, the more and more I find the "easier for audiences to relate to" excuse to be utter rubbish. If anyone thinks an audience can relate only to a human or something that is nigh-identical to a human, they should look at nature documentaries. A good nature documentary story is one that is able to elicit an emotional connection between the 'protagonist' an the audience.


They wouldn't be exactly identical. Just primate-like.

What if you don't have the budget or would rather spend money on f/x for a great scene rather than make-up for creatures that wouldn't even make the bulk of the screen time? Effects are getting cheaper but we're not there yet.

No one watching nature docs expects to empathize with the struggles of a lion finding food to eat or birds migrating south for the winter unlike sentient beings who have similar problems to us.

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Yes, yes there is. There is a shame on not using millions of dollars to actually do worthwhile stuff when you could anyway.


The only things worthwhile is the cast and script. The rest is extra. Some of the worst movies I've ever seen are terribly expensive (ex. Titanic, the "Pirates of the Caribbean" trilogy) and some of the best movies I've ever seen are were very cheaply produced (ex. The Squid & the Whale, Interview). I hate lousy production values too but the acting and writing comes first and the rest second. And don't forget that the aliens' appearance has aboslutely nothing to do with the story.

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It is lazy because you're too lazy to put a good struggle with language into the script. At least, you are putting a slight struggle with language into the script... the "universal translator" or "translator microbes" of science fiction really are a deflated trope.


It's not lazy when 'a good struggle with the language' has nothing to do with the story and it's just a distraction and slows the movie down.

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You never said you were a bad writer.

Even if you were the worst writer in the world, which even I think you aren't, you still wouldn't say that you're a bad writer.


If I was bad at something, I'd admit to it. If I'm good at something, well I won't brag, but I'll admit to that.

What from here to the Moons Of Mars is false and ignorant about that? I just summarised everything that made the 2009 Star Trek film what it was!

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I liked Star Trek 2009... I am neither a fan of Star Trek nor do I know much about the original material, but I still enjoyed it nontheless.


That movie was accalimed because it was GOOD not because it was a "Star Trek" adaptation.

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Good. Prove it.

Are you saying that the people who used universal translators and such are idiots?


They're not idiots either since the fiction I've always seen or read where translator chips were employed, their devices weren't dictionaries but truly translated speech for them!
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Holben
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Yorick
Mar 6 2011, 11:26 PM
I would love to. Actual writing beats criticism any day of the week.
I dunno about that, i'm better at giving feedback in most things.
When i come up with ideas, they don't fit too well with science. So i bury them.

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Dude, they're movies. Use your suspension of disbelief.
But i would rather not- it takes something away.

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They should only get annoyed if the aliens speaking English on their home planet are ACTUALLY speaking English and not simply their langauge translated for the sake of convenience.

Anything else just makes them anal geeks who I wouldn't want to see a movie with anyway.
Almost all sci-fi is in English. This is not good, but it is the human thing. Language construction is HARD
Subtitles i'm fine with though, but some hate them.
I watch most movies, and most i find problem with. However, i still watch the film- maybe i enjoy attacking them.

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They wouldn't be exactly identical. Just primate-like.
Now, y'see, i reckon the most common sapient bauplan will be centauriforme. Primates achieving sapience requires climate change, niche unlocking, changes in other animals...

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It's not lazy when 'a good struggle with the language' has nothing to do with the story and it's just a distraction and slows the movie down.
But it takes something away from the film.
People still speak in films and breathe.

Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

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Canis Lupis
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Holben, while I agree with you on the front of centaurs probably being the most common sapients out there, just think about cost in a movie.

Yes, I know the "Harry Potter" movies and "The Lightning Thief" and some other movies with Greek mythology elements had centaurs. But which is really cheaper to have in a movie where your actors are humanoid: centaurs or a humanoid?




Though I do agree that humanesque aliens are not the way to go. People are tired of seeing those. And I mean tired.

Besides, people can empathize with non-humanesque aliens. Look at "District 9." I know a lot of people really felt bad for the Prawns througout the movie and look how much different they are from Humans. Plus, as far as I know (and please correct me if I'm wrong, as I probably am), that movie didn't really have that large of a budget to start with anyway.

I just think that the plight of your aliens has to be Human-like. Their emotions have to be Human-like. The audience member has to be able to place themself in the alien's shoes and wonder "How the hell would I deal with that?" Humanesque aliens just make the job too easy for the audience members.

Really really stupid audience members aside, your audience wants to be challenged a little instead of being spoonfed every detail.
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colddigger
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I think we should bring back rubbersuits and puppets.

Then centaurs'll be hella cheap, just two guys in a horse costume without the head.
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Yorick
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Besides, people can empathize with non-humanesque aliens. Look at "District 9." I know a lot of people really felt bad for the Prawns througout the movie and look how much different they are from Humans.


That movie had a human protagonist we had to follow though.

Anyway, it wouldn't matter how differently or not I'd write the aliens, the budget and the filmmakers will dictate how primate-like the aliens in their regular form (which won't be featured much in the story and isn't important to it) will be.

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Plus, as far as I know (and please correct me if I'm wrong, as I probably am), that movie didn't really have that large of a budget to start with anyway.


Incredible how that movie only cost $30 mil to produce and its f/x were mind blowing while "Avatar" still won the Best F/X Oscar for its horrid graphics even though it shouldn't even have bee nominated.

I miss the late, great Stan Winston's puppetry and make-up work.
Edited by Yorick, Mar 7 2011, 10:45 PM.
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

Yes, it did have a Human protagonist. So what? I and others still found ourselves sympathizing with the plight of Christopher and his son.
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The raptors in Jurassic Park when the Rex kills them. I mean sure they were total bastards that nearly gave me a heart attack when the jumped out of nowhere, but they were still heartwarming damnit!
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"You shall perish, whatever you do! If you are taken with arms in your hands, death! If you beg for mercy, death! Whichever way you turn, right, left, back, forward, up, down, death! You are not merely outside the law, you are outside humanity. Neither age nor sex shall save you and yours. You shall die, but first you shall taste the agony of your wife, your sister, your sons and daughters, even those in the cradle! Before your eyes the wounded man shall be taken out of the ambulance and hacked with bayonets or knocked down with the butt end of a rifle. He shall be dragged living by his broken leg or bleeding arm and flung like a suffering, groaning bundle of refuse into the gutter. Death! Death! Death!"



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"You shall perish, whatever you do! If you are taken with arms in your hands, death! If you beg for mercy, death! Whichever way you turn, right, left, back, forward, up, down, death! You are not merely outside the law, you are outside humanity. Neither age nor sex shall save you and yours. You shall die, but first you shall taste the agony of your wife, your sister, your sons and daughters, even those in the cradle! Before your eyes the wounded man shall be taken out of the ambulance and hacked with bayonets or knocked down with the butt end of a rifle. He shall be dragged living by his broken leg or bleeding arm and flung like a suffering, groaning bundle of refuse into the gutter. Death! Death! Death!"



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Yorick
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Yes, it did have a Human protagonist. So what? I and others still found ourselves sympathizing with the plight of Christopher and his son.


Without a human protagonist, it likely wouldn't have been greenlighted.

Also, the aliens' appearance actually had a lot to do with the theme of that story unlike mine. We cared for the Prawns despite them looking like cockroaches which is what the filmmakers were going for. Break the mold and show the audience the ugliness of prejudice and fearing the unfamiliar. My story is just about coming of age.
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