Text 10111, 126 rader
Skriven 2007-01-13 19:05:16 av Vorlonagent (13531.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: Suspension of disbelief - an open debate
====================================================

"Amy Guskin" <aisling@fjordstone.com> wrote in message 
news:0001HW.C1CE55B1011A90AFF0182648@news.verizon.net...
>>> On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 14:23:07 -0500, Jeffrey MacHott wrote
> (in article <veRph.65513$gL3.4494@fe12.news.easynews.com>):
>
>> Charlie Edmondson wrote:
>>> David Williams wrote:
>>>> OK...  Here we go.
>>> <much snippage for saving of bandwidth... 8-) >
>>>> So, does anyone else have any thoughts on the subject, and/or examples
>>>> of violations of SoD they'd like to share?
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> David W.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Ok, I have my own SoD violation, in one of my favorite movie series - 
>>> LotR!
>>>
>>> In Return of the King, during the big Minas Tirith battle, Legolas does
>>> this fantastic fight on the Oliphant.  While I had been struggling up to
>>> then to deal with the changes from the book, this sequence, obviously
>>> added to just show how advanced the SFX were, took me right out of the
>>> film with a huge groan!  But then, that is only my opinion...
>>>
>>> Charlie
>>
>> Ahh, is that the one with Legolas revealing that his feet are coated in
>> Wacky Tacky?  Along similar lines, StarShip Troopers (yeah yeah, I
>> know), with Johnny Rico doing the Tanker Bug Rodeo on Planet P.  In the
>> same movie, the rather bottom-heavy order of battle of the Terran
>> military forces, consisting almost entirely of infantry and ships that
>> apparently serve only to carry them from place to place.  No armor, no
>> light vehicles (ie: Jeeps, HMMMV's, Technicals, Warthogs, The Robert E.
>> Lee with troopers firing shotguns from the windows while squealing
>> excitedly, nothing), impressive but seemingly rarely utilized air
>> support, with no CAS ability shown (despite the fact that Close Air
>> Support is the perfect chance to show off special effects, involving
>> fast moving shiny objects, things to be blown up, and lots of things
>> blowing up).  That said, by the end of the movie, they DID at least
>> partially rectify the problem by having the infantry equipped with
>> ridiculously overpowered small arms, including a rifle that blows up
>> mountains.
>>
>> Now that I think about it, the fact that the Terran Federation was using
>> infantry in any large scale purpose in that war, when the nature of the
>> enemy (swarming insects) would tend to make the war more appropriate for
>> orbital bombardment and air strikes (air strikes especially handy what
>> with the farter bugs being able to shoot down the ships in orbit) <<
>
> <sound of ungrokkable example zooming over Amy's head once again>

All Jeff's examples boil down to teamwork.  In this case, "lack of".

But of course, you need a team first.

An army...a REAL army... is effective because it has different kinds of 
units with different abilities to cope with different kinds of problems. 
Tanks, artillary, air support, they're all specialty players on the team and 
work to massively improve how the footsoldier performs by clearing away the 
stuff he/she has trouble dealing with.  These things are referred to as 
"force multipliers" for this reason.  There are even different kinds of foot 
soldiers.

For a more down-to-earth example of teamwork, consider the battle sequence 
from the start of Gladiator where Maximus' forces take on some barbarians.

But back to Starship Troopers.  Wouldn't it have been nice to have some 
starfighters in the air keeping those flying bugs off Our Heroes' backs? 
(Technically CAS is strafing or dropping bombs.  We see this *once*)

At once point, we see Johnny Rico shoots a handheld "nuke" down a bug 
tunnel.  It must've been the only one on the planet because nobody else used 
one at any point in the movie.  They apparently also issued Rico the only 
hand-grenade on the planet too (he uses it aganst the bug flame thrower). 
Both weapons would have come in handy in that "Fort Apache" seige.  When you 
have wall-to-wall bugs like that, you can toss out explosives to marvelous 
effect.  But all the stupid humans had was varying flavors of machine gun.

Replace the Mobile Infantry with either the Allied or Axis forces from WWII 
and the results would be a whole lot better because you'd see a team effort. 
There'd be bombardment of the landing zone before an attempted invasion and 
bombardment of enemy troop concentrations during the invasion.  There's be 
airplanes overhead to keep the flying bugs busy (a piston-engine plane could 
keep up with the flying bugs).  If/When the ground forces clear enough space 
for there to be an actual backfield, transports start landing dropping off 
tanks and artillary as well as fresh supplies of ammunition.  You run it 
like a machine, which is why the military puts such a huge emphasis on 
following orders. If the machaine goes *spoing*, people die.  Lots of them. 
It's like that credit card commercial where the guy pays cash and brings the 
whole restaurant to a crashing halt.  Only with much more blood.

The Mobile Infantry was a one-trick pony and the trick was poorly adapted to 
the enemy.  For all intents and purposes, they had one unit type: gropo. 
The gropo had one weapon: his machine gun and used only one tactic: frontal 
assault.  There was more variety available to a Napoleonic army, even a 
Greek or Roman army.  The bugs had their gropos, air support, flame 
throwers...all kinds of stuff.  Is it any wonder the humans got trashed so 
badly throughout the movie?  That kind of singleminded bloodletting is what 
both sides did to themselves in World War I.

The one gripe I'd add was that during the first invasion the Earth ships 
arranged themselves in neat little close-packed formations.  And got knocked 
out of the sky by the "farter" bugs, collided with each other for further 
damage.    They did the same dame thing in the second invasion and had the 
same results.  What's the definition of "insanity...?"

-- 
John Trauger,
Vorlonagent

"Methane martini.
Shaken, not stirred."

"Spirituality without science has no mind.

Science without spirituality has no heart."

-Methuselah Jones
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