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Primer (film)

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Re: Primer (film)

#71

Post by ibejoeb »

I can't say it's my favorite, but I like it and respect it. I think I like it more knowing how it was done. It's hard to characterize it without sounding negative, but these guys were practically neophytes. The budget was tiny, and the actors are not conservatory trained or anything. It's shot very nicely, and it mostly feels quite natural. It was bootstrapped to success. In that way, it's a good spiritual match for the HN community.

Criticisms: it's twisted beyond comprehension, and it's jargony almost to a fault. I find it tough to get some people to sit through it.

Re: Primer (film)

#72

Post by moultano »

SandB0x wrote: post #48
jokermatt999 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I don't get all the Avatar hate. The story was bad, but the cinematic experience was excellent. It was a summer blockbuster style movie. I didn't go into it expecting a plot, I went into it expecting action, explosions, and shiny things. It delivered superbly on those things. Don't judge Avatar against hard sci-fi, judge it against something like Star Wars or the new Star Trek movie. Its purpose was to enter…

I found it impossible to relate to or care about any of the characters. If you haven't seen it, find the incredible review of the Phantom Menace on YouTube by Red Letter Media. The most insightful part is where he asks people to describe the nature of the characters in both trilogies. For the original movies, people instantly recall, for example the "dashing...arrogant..scoundrel" Han Solo. For the newer films, nothi…

I think people could do a pretty good job of that for Avatar. The characters were nothing if not archetypical.

Re: Primer (film)

#74

Post by isleyaardvark »

pingou wrote: post #70
sandaru1 wrote: post #56

speaking of (relatively) low budget films, "The Man from Earth" is awesome (it's low budget relative to Hollywood, not relative to Primer; $200,000) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Earth

I loved Primer. But The man from Earth was just boring, I don't get why so many people liked it. Bad actors, the hero claims are either dull or ridiculous (I laughed a lot when he pretended to be J.), and most important of all, not surprising. I knew what the movie was about before I saw it, and if it can't show me more than I can imagine myself, it just sucks. I'll be happy to get some downvotes so that some of you…

The actors themselves have done good work, but they did the best they could with the writing. I was annoyed by the historical inaccuracies, but mainly it came off as though it was written by a college freshman.

Re: Primer (film)

#75

Post by mattheww »

Panoramix wrote: post #69
mattheww wrote: post #63

Bad news guys. Carroll, Farhi, and Guth along with 't Hooft already looked into this in the 1990s. The only way time travel is possible is if there is already a time machine in the universe. If there isn't one already, it's impossible to create one in an open universe, and in a closed universe, it's not possible to create one and then use it before the universe ends. The proofs are in 2+1 dimensions, but they're gene…

As I understood it, this pertains to a specific implementation of a time machine i.e., the Gott time machine. The jury is still out on other implementations, though of course everything seems to point towards them being impossible.

You're right, but what other implementations have proven they can actually produce a closed time-like curve?

Re: Primer (film)

#76

Post by cj »

FYI - you can stream this movie from netflix on demand.

(though the movie has only 1.5/5 stars, interestingly enough.

Re: Primer (film)

#78

Post by brandonkm »

>After principal photography, Carruth took two years to fully post-produce Primer. He has since said that this experience was so arduous that he almost abandoned the film on several occasions.

Wow. This particular fact really stood out to me. I'm glad he chose to be resilient and finish the project. Theres a lot of parallels founders can draw upon from the making of this film (budget, style, technique, etc.).

Re: Primer (film)

#79

Post by jganetsk »

bd wrote: post #10

If you liked Primer, check also Timecrimes: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480669/

I prefer Timecrimes to Primer... it doesn't try to confuse the viewer.

SPOILER ALERT.

Also, single timeline based time travel is just plain better than multiple timeline based time travel. There are just way too many problems that having multiple timelines introduces. I don't think you can ever tie up all lose ends with multiple timelines... someone can always just build a time machine later and fork the past. Maybe Primer addresses this with the limitations of their devices.

Re: Primer (film)

#80

Post by Panoramix »

mattheww wrote: post #75
Panoramix wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understood it, this pertains to a specific implementation of a time machine i.e., the Gott time machine. The jury is still out on other implementations, though of course everything seems to point towards them being impossible.

You're right, but what other implementations have proven they can actually produce a closed time-like curve?

Well, you have wormholes (but they require exotic matter) and anything with singularities in it; there is the Gödel solution of a "rotating Universe" (which could be true for a "parallel" universe), the van Stockum's solution and so on. I guess until closed time-like curves are proven to be unphysical (which seems likely), physicists will keep coming up with possible solutions to Einstein's equations which allow for CTCs (and refuting them). And who knows, maybe one of them can be implemented by humans.

On the other hand, it would be very interesting to know what is the mechanism by which the Universe protects itself against CTCs.

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