More evidence that it is adults who can't tell the difference between pretense and reality, fiction and non-fiction: an "anti-war activist" who is also (unsurprisingly) a vegetarian (but what about the helpless vegetables, who can't run away? does no one weep for them?) has made a "documentary" condemning the "murder" of "over nine billion people" -- in the plotlines of movies. No, really. Here's my favorite quote:
He justifies his figure of nine-billion Hollywood dead from just two movies. In Star Wars,a blue and white planet is vaporized and although it is called Alderaan, Livingston argues that out of 109 planets known to astronomy only one contains humans and the people in the film refer to it as "home." Given Earth's population, "that is six-billion dead right there," he says.The Globe and Mail article is huffing and puffing over the efforts of studios to prevent this fellow, one Peter Livingston, from using clips of their films in his so-called "documentary," but leaving that aside, has no one taken him by the hand and told him: "Peter -- Peter dear, we have to tell you this: the people up there on the big screen? They're just pretending to die. No, really. They get up after the cameras are off and go home. Yes -- it's called acting." I can't wait until he visits a library and realizes the shelves are just pulsating with a thousand years or more of death and destruction.
Damian Penny points out that there is another culture here on earth that really does "glorify death and murder" -- real death and murder, as opposed to fictional death of imaginary people. But it's our culture that is evil. Right.
Posted by Andrea Harris at January 2, 2003 12:37 PMI think it was Larry Niven who said, "How intelligent do you have to be to sneak up on a plant?"
Posted by: MonkeyPants at January 2, 2003 at 12:44 PMOkay, this guy is seriously undercounting.
Assuming (conservatively) that the earth has been destroyed approximately 25 times in various science fiction movies over the years (and adjusting downward for lower population in the 1950s heydays of bad science fiction movies), I get 25 x 4 billion = 100 billion people killed. Granted, they must be the same people killed over and over, but it still counts. And that's just on Earth.
Now, moving on to the Martians killed in the movies (yes, I know they don't really exist, but that's irrelevant to this analysis)....And the fictional galaxies! Must not forget the fictional galaxies!
Posted by: Ken Summers at January 2, 2003 at 03:05 PMApparently, this guy has far fewer functioning brain cells than the number of movie deaths he claims! He must have missed the beginning of Star Wars. You know, where it says:"Long ago, in a galaxy far,far away". Obviously not earth. But, something that subtle probably would seem insignificant to such a deep thinker.
Posted by: rinardman at January 2, 2003 at 05:58 PMUm, where exactly is the link to this Globe & Mail article? I know I shouldn't really care since it sounds like fucking shit but hey - respect the nitpick much...
Posted by: Steven Chapman at January 3, 2003 at 11:33 AMWhoops -- forgot to snag it from Damian Penny's site. All fixed.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 3, 2003 at 12:06 PM