Amph The 2015 Box Office Bloodbath (And the winner is...)

Sadism exists, wocky.

Case in point, my behavior towards you.

 

At least some Star Wars droids are sentient. That's all you need to know.

 

I honestly don't understand how or why. "Torture" scenes are really bizarre and non-sensical. I mean, theoretically, could I go try to "torture" my furnace, too? Yes, but it wouldn't make it alive. It would just make me a weirdo. I'll accept you guys knowledge of the series though, since apparently it's superior to mine. I haven't seen any sentient droids, though.

 

There is nothing to suggest they are not sentient.

 

Children need to be able to sense pain so that they can learn. If Star Wars droids are sentient and capable of learning, some kind of pain sensors would be helpful to them as well. That would open the door to droid torture unfortunately. The droid torture chamber can only be explained by self-aware droids.

We can argue about whether Lucas has already fallen down the "dare to be cute" hole on his way to the prequels. But canon is canon.

 

My own recipe for mac and cheese is horrific. It involves crushing Ritz crackers and pouring cans of Campbell's cheddar cheese soup. It's a variation on my grandmother's famous recipe from a time when "cooking from scratch" included combining pre-processed snack foods into higher order complete meals.

 

Sounds like a good way to meet MacBeth.

 

Wocky I agree with you. AI are not people.

 

lest we stray back on course:

 

Speaking of mac & cheese and torture droids, I'm guessing Hunger Games is gonna drop probably to 40 mil next week. I'd say Creed would take #1 but, at least in my neck of the woods, the major theatre chain isn't running it at all (which is aggravating) so I have to go to the other one around here. So maybe that's indicative that Creed isn't going as wide as one would assume?

 

Ah, right, Good Dinosaur, totally blanked on that. (But I'm gonna say when the dollars and cents are all counted, Inside Out will still be a higher grosser outta the two Pixar movies this year)

Interesting side note, THR article about how the "favour" movies for the big stars (they do the blockbuster then get cash for their indie passion project) may be going away

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/will-by-sea-kill-hollywood-842647

I'm of the opinion that the era of the movie star is pretty much dead. Hell, even the last quantifiable big movie stars, Tom Cruise & Will Smith, are now attaching themselves firmly onto the franchise side of the equation with their star power. Ticket buyers throw money at brands, not stars. Well, okay, a star can HELP but not automatically make it a winner.

 

I would posit the notion that perhaps 99% of the droids in the GFFA - possibly including even Threepio - are "dumb AIs" like Siri. They are extremely advanced machines but quite possibly not self aware. They are programmed to be cognizant of their designations, functions and, if so required, to be able to effectively communicate with other sentients such as their owners. But their knowledge base and its capacity to expand or evolve is severely limited by several factors such as function, hardware and software limitations. Their undergoing periodic memory wipes certainly doesn't help matters either. So, many of the galaxy's artificial beings are effectively under their organic masters collective thumbs.

You could argue though that astromech droids such as R2D2 are not your average kind of droid. Their role requires them to be able to run extremely complex calculations and processes in order to effectively carry out their functions. R2 has always been shown as special. Kinda marching to the beat of a different drummer, being a quirky character not afraid to take the initiative to save the day. But, above all, displaying a sense of curiosity that even while it usually lands him in trouble, also makes him able to more effectively helps his friends and allies. Perhaps the little **** has managed to go through many cycles without a memory wipe or otherwise fooling techs that have attempted to do so. His shape, unassuming appearance and seeming inability to verbally express himself to sentients has perhaps fooled people in dismissing him as just another droid while in reality his knowledge base and cognizant abilities have expanded far beyond his model's specs. So, if the rest of his kind are Siri, he is more like Cortana (not the app, and definitely before going all rampant and "evil").

So calling him an oversized roomba is, indeed, fightin' woids.

 

I'm reposting this from 7SA for those who aren't following its box office thread:

The 2015 The Force Awakens Holiday Box Office Hobbitometer




Apologies if this is a bit technical, but as you can see, the emerging industry standard for measuring the box office performance of The Force Awakens is the double hobbit. The double hobbit = $169,234,606, but can be rounded to $170 million for unit conversion when precision isn't an issue.

By now, The Force Awakens may have sold nearly $60 million in online tickets, so before even opening, it's closing in on .5 dh, or the current December opening weekend box office record. .5 dh = 1 demidoublehobbit (ddh), or the opening weekend total of The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey.

Pundits now consider the double hobbit to be the box office floor for TFA's opening weekend. The holy grail is the all time opening weekend record, which will come at about 1.234 dh.

The color red of course represents the ensuing box office bloodbath.

 

As Jabbadabbado has demonstrated many times, that is clearly a rectal thermometer...

 

thank you. I was deciding whether to add in the joke about how best to measure the temperature of pop culture.

 

sooooooo.

Captain America Civil War trailer would make a great segue into the 2016 Box Office Bloodbath thread... if we had one.

 

Some good reviews for Creed coming in.

 

I like to buy multiple copies of the Divergent DVD's and books, put em' in a blender, throw an egg on top, mix it all, dump 4-5 boxes of Kraft basic when it's all nice and soggy, and then eat the whole damn thing while I make box office predictions. It's brain food.