6 ms·

I didn't notice any glaring problems in Ex Machina, but it's definitely an exception.

existencebox 11y ago
I'll admit that I gave it the pass the first time I heard about it, due to it seeming like a rehashed mish-mash of I-Robot, Her, Artificial Intelligence, and of course RUR/Metropolis. Given the positive comments in this thread I may give it a watch, thanks. To two birds with one stone and address a sister post, my biggest issue re: the Martian comes when you read (for a contrived comparison) the Apollo 13 transcripts. As much a life or death situation as anything that happened in The Martian, far less of my wanting to throw the "protaganist" out a window for being a nonstop firehose of bad quips and one liners. Extremely excitable is the tip of the iceberg, my distaste came from a broad mosaic of their personalities and responses being exceedingly "off", largely, without even getting into a discussion on the writing/acting itself. (as FiatMoney put it far more eloquently than I did; the demeanor of many of the "Science" individuals is just _wrong_)
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  > my biggest issue re: the Martian comes when you read (for a contrived comparison) the Apollo 13 transcripts. As much a life or death situation as anything that happened in The Martian, far less of my wanting to throw the "protaganist" out a window for being a nonstop firehose of bad quips and one liners. The Apollo 13 crisis lasted a week; even then, the transcripts do contain quite a few "bad quips and one-liners". Look at page 14-16 of http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/mission_trans/AS13_CM.PDF http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/mission_trans/AS13_CM.PDF for jokes between the crew just 30 minutes into the mission.
  - existencebox 11y ago
    Perhaps I read their interactions differently, but even their "I need the springy jobber" and other more informal statements seemed far more professional and what I'd expect from a career astronaut than "I'm going to do the iron man thing". My original comment was more directed at the actual crisis portions of both the movie and Apollo 13 (around the famous "Houston we have a problem" line) were drastically different. I certainly grant that a movie might not be as exciting if crisis resolution was largely reading checklists out of books and remaining exceedingly composed given the circumstance, but I'd find it a lot easier to buy into than the cacophony of yelling and cursing that took place at multiple instances during the movie. Something additional and more tangible I remembered while writing this, I found myself agog at some of the items they had on mars; the commercial grocery store grape juice bottles were some of my favorites. Edit: I'm normally not one to comment on this, but of all the things I've ever said, I had no idea disliking this movie would attract the silent downvote brigade so aggressively. I find this both interesting and entertaining.
    - mattmanser 11y ago
      I'm really sorry you didn't enjoy the Martian but they specifically introduced his character to be like that to the point the other astronauts talk about his personality. Don't forget that he was on his own with a big delay in communication. So from a science perspective, he's talking to himself so why would he be formal checklist guy, and from a movie perspective they have switched the inner monologue of the character to be an external one into a 'video diary' to make the story watchable. It's a story telling device. While there are movies deserving of ire the Martian isn't one of them and definitely not for the yelling and screaming.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      I feel you haven't read the book yet. I recommend it. The movie compresses it strongly, and so character development is pretty much skipped. Mark Watney is a smartass by design, and he has some more funny quips in the original text, but generally you can see how his attitude changes after hundreds of days of being stranded alone, having to fight for his life against both Mars and the crappy disco music. Even accounting for his training, I can totally believe him going totally pissed when he finally contacts NASA, and they immediately start bossing him around according to some checklists. But that's the context that wasn't emphasized in the movie. Writing this I see now that the movie itself may not feel as "hard sci-fi" as it does if you know the book - e.g. the agricultural arc was very much rushed in the movie. In the book, the protagonists takes things more slowly, and much more thoughtfully. (And I have no frikkin' clue what's with the downvotes; upvoting to compensate.)
      - existencebox 11y ago
        You're right, I haven't read the book, the movie was my first exposure to this (unfortunately apparently?). To say it compresses it strongly better words so many of my issues with the movie than I could have put it. (in that it seemed like a series of set pieces attached together by musical interludes; echoing your lack of character development as well) To answer the question from your other post, my "holy trinity" is Primer, Moon, Pandorum. (the first two on a pedestal above the third, but the third manages to fit in being an "action" movie without going too far down that road such that I can't but love it.) If we're talking books, that's an entirely different discussion, and seems to be the one most people want to have when bringing up The Martian. I've certainly felt the same about some of my favorites. (I recall the whisper of a Foundation movie that made me want to run and hide)
badloginagain 11y ago
The science may have been sound, but I didn't believe that one man could invent a radically different/more powerful kind of processor and solve the power supply problem on his own.
- ggreer 11y ago
  I thought the battery technology was part of Ex Machina's "20 minutes into the future" world. It didn't seem particularly advanced, as Ava needed daily recharging. So the only unbelievable thing is that Nathan –the story's equivalent of Larry Page– managed to do a ton of AI research on his own. I agree it's ridiculously implausible, but I'm fine with that in sci-fi as long as it's only done once per story. In fact, many of my favorite stories follow that pattern: Take a normal world and add one radical (or even impossible) piece of technology or magic. Then explore the implications. Vernor Vinge's bobble books (The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime) are an excellent example of this. The thing that annoys me is when authors don't see an implication of their invention. Or worse, they make their characters use the invention in implausibly limited ways. JJ Abrams is often guilty of both of these.
ggreer 11y ago
I while watching Ex Machina, I was caught up in the story and characters. Immediately afterwards, I realized how ridiculously contrived a few parts were. (Spoilers follow.) The most glaring oversight was the lack of an emergency shutdown for Ava. The story should have ended with Nathan pulling out a remote, pressing a button, and Ava collapsing. The prospect of a robot going berserk was known to him. Heck, it'd already happened before. One scene shows footage of a prototype smashing itself to bits on the wall. The movie expects us to believe that after that incident, Nathan thought, "No need to add failsafes. Just let these AIs destroy my carefully-crafted robot bodies on this glass partition." I don't buy it.
- alphakappa 11y ago
  (Spoilers too) The thing that stood out for me was Ava leaving the compound without any explanation for how she would inductively charge herself afterwards.
  - ggreer 11y ago
    I assumed the induction panels were repurposed commodity gear. Typical use would be to charge phones, tablets, laptops, roombas, etc… and Ava could top-up at an airport or coffee shop. That conclusion makes more sense than Nathan inventing his own wireless charging standard.
- Udik 11y ago
  However, I'm not sure Ex-Machina is trying or pretending to be scientifically accurate. Perhaps it's just a fable in modern clothes, rehearsing an archetypical myth (the Golem) as well as providing an intuitive grasp on the ethical problems posed by strong artificial intelligence and on the "Ai in the box" mental experiment. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_box https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_box ).

I'll admit that I gave it the pass the first time I heard about it, due to it seeming like a rehashed mish-mash of I-Robot, Her, Artificial Intelligence, and of course RUR/Metropolis. Given the positive comments in this thread I may give it a watch, thanks. To two birds with one stone and address a sister post, my biggest issue re: the Martian comes when you read (for a contrived comparison) the Apollo 13 transcripts. As much a life or death situation as anything that happened in The Martian, far less of my wanting to throw the "protaganist" out a window for being a nonstop firehose of bad quips and one liners. Extremely excitable is the tip of the iceberg, my distaste came from a broad mosaic of their personalities and responses being exceedingly "off", largely, without even getting into a discussion on the writing/acting itself. (as FiatMoney put it far more eloquently than I did; the demeanor of many of the "Science" individuals is just _wrong_)

JoshTriplett 11y ago
> my biggest issue re: the Martian comes when you read (for a contrived comparison) the Apollo 13 transcripts. As much a life or death situation as anything that happened in The Martian, far less of my wanting to throw the "protaganist" out a window for being a nonstop firehose of bad quips and one liners. The Apollo 13 crisis lasted a week; even then, the transcripts do contain quite a few "bad quips and one-liners". Look at page 14-16 of http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/mission_trans/AS13_CM.PDF http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/mission_trans/AS13_CM.PDF for jokes between the crew just 30 minutes into the mission.
- existencebox 11y ago
  Perhaps I read their interactions differently, but even their "I need the springy jobber" and other more informal statements seemed far more professional and what I'd expect from a career astronaut than "I'm going to do the iron man thing". My original comment was more directed at the actual crisis portions of both the movie and Apollo 13 (around the famous "Houston we have a problem" line) were drastically different. I certainly grant that a movie might not be as exciting if crisis resolution was largely reading checklists out of books and remaining exceedingly composed given the circumstance, but I'd find it a lot easier to buy into than the cacophony of yelling and cursing that took place at multiple instances during the movie. Something additional and more tangible I remembered while writing this, I found myself agog at some of the items they had on mars; the commercial grocery store grape juice bottles were some of my favorites. Edit: I'm normally not one to comment on this, but of all the things I've ever said, I had no idea disliking this movie would attract the silent downvote brigade so aggressively. I find this both interesting and entertaining.
  - mattmanser 11y ago
    I'm really sorry you didn't enjoy the Martian but they specifically introduced his character to be like that to the point the other astronauts talk about his personality. Don't forget that he was on his own with a big delay in communication. So from a science perspective, he's talking to himself so why would he be formal checklist guy, and from a movie perspective they have switched the inner monologue of the character to be an external one into a 'video diary' to make the story watchable. It's a story telling device. While there are movies deserving of ire the Martian isn't one of them and definitely not for the yelling and screaming.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    I feel you haven't read the book yet. I recommend it. The movie compresses it strongly, and so character development is pretty much skipped. Mark Watney is a smartass by design, and he has some more funny quips in the original text, but generally you can see how his attitude changes after hundreds of days of being stranded alone, having to fight for his life against both Mars and the crappy disco music. Even accounting for his training, I can totally believe him going totally pissed when he finally contacts NASA, and they immediately start bossing him around according to some checklists. But that's the context that wasn't emphasized in the movie. Writing this I see now that the movie itself may not feel as "hard sci-fi" as it does if you know the book - e.g. the agricultural arc was very much rushed in the movie. In the book, the protagonists takes things more slowly, and much more thoughtfully. (And I have no frikkin' clue what's with the downvotes; upvoting to compensate.)
    - existencebox 11y ago
      You're right, I haven't read the book, the movie was my first exposure to this (unfortunately apparently?). To say it compresses it strongly better words so many of my issues with the movie than I could have put it. (in that it seemed like a series of set pieces attached together by musical interludes; echoing your lack of character development as well) To answer the question from your other post, my "holy trinity" is Primer, Moon, Pandorum. (the first two on a pedestal above the third, but the third manages to fit in being an "action" movie without going too far down that road such that I can't but love it.) If we're talking books, that's an entirely different discussion, and seems to be the one most people want to have when bringing up The Martian. I've certainly felt the same about some of my favorites. (I recall the whisper of a Foundation movie that made me want to run and hide)

badloginagain 11y ago

The science may have been sound, but I didn't believe that one man could invent a radically different/more powerful kind of processor and solve the power supply problem on his own.

ggreer 11y ago
I thought the battery technology was part of Ex Machina's "20 minutes into the future" world. It didn't seem particularly advanced, as Ava needed daily recharging. So the only unbelievable thing is that Nathan –the story's equivalent of Larry Page– managed to do a ton of AI research on his own. I agree it's ridiculously implausible, but I'm fine with that in sci-fi as long as it's only done once per story. In fact, many of my favorite stories follow that pattern: Take a normal world and add one radical (or even impossible) piece of technology or magic. Then explore the implications. Vernor Vinge's bobble books (The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime) are an excellent example of this. The thing that annoys me is when authors don't see an implication of their invention. Or worse, they make their characters use the invention in implausibly limited ways. JJ Abrams is often guilty of both of these.

ggreer 11y ago

I while watching Ex Machina, I was caught up in the story and characters. Immediately afterwards, I realized how ridiculously contrived a few parts were. (Spoilers follow.) The most glaring oversight was the lack of an emergency shutdown for Ava. The story should have ended with Nathan pulling out a remote, pressing a button, and Ava collapsing. The prospect of a robot going berserk was known to him. Heck, it'd already happened before. One scene shows footage of a prototype smashing itself to bits on the wall. The movie expects us to believe that after that incident, Nathan thought, "No need to add failsafes. Just let these AIs destroy my carefully-crafted robot bodies on this glass partition." I don't buy it.

alphakappa 11y ago
(Spoilers too) The thing that stood out for me was Ava leaving the compound without any explanation for how she would inductively charge herself afterwards.
- ggreer 11y ago
  I assumed the induction panels were repurposed commodity gear. Typical use would be to charge phones, tablets, laptops, roombas, etc… and Ava could top-up at an airport or coffee shop. That conclusion makes more sense than Nathan inventing his own wireless charging standard.
Udik 11y ago
However, I'm not sure Ex-Machina is trying or pretending to be scientifically accurate. Perhaps it's just a fable in modern clothes, rehearsing an archetypical myth (the Golem) as well as providing an intuitive grasp on the ethical problems posed by strong artificial intelligence and on the "Ai in the box" mental experiment. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_box https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_box ).