WatchmenComicMovie.com Forum

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"The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part.

"There's a cello in your house now."

Okay, let the bioscience technology major through. *cracks knuckles*

As one of my professors once told me, "Science isn't a lab coat, it's a method." It's the practice of proving or disproving ideas through the generation of documented and verifiable evidence.

Technology and science are coexistent. The simple act of polymerase chain reaction, for example, could never be accomplished without micropipettes, thermocyclers, and huge bioinformatics databases, to say nothing of the machines and chemicals needed to make oligonucleotide primers. And I won't even get started on all the technology that goes into isolating Taq polymerase to begin with.

All of this amazing technology is necessary to figure out how stretches of DNA can be reliably duplicated. Yet all of that technology could never have been created without breakthroughs in physics, engineering, chemistry, computer science, and of course, molecular biology.

My point is this: Technology in itself isn't necessarily science. It's sure as hell a product of science, but unless every single machine and tool you've ever owned is being used to test and/or prove something, it's not science. By the same token, science is not technology. Newton and Galileo did perfectly fine without any of the supercomputers we have today.

If you take nothing else away from my post, just remember this: "Science isn't a lab coat, it's a method."

Now, let's get back to the Marvel Movieverse's approach toward Asgard. Thor explicitly stated in no uncertain terms that where he's from, magic and science are considered the same thing. So here's a thought: What if that's actually true?

As far as I can recall, we know that the Asgardians can travel intergalactic distances at near-instantaneous speeds, and we know all the miraculous things that Mjolnir can do (flight, indestructibility, limitless control over electricity, etc.). But do they know the structure of DNA? Do they have machines that can hold and process huge amounts of data?

For centuries, our scientists have focused on things like radio waves, computer science, bioscience, etc. But what if, instead of all that, the Asgardians turned their scientific attention toward some unknown property of the universe that we haven't discovered yet? I submit to you that if we had discovered the secret of faster-than-light travel before we learned how to split the atom, the world would be a lot less crowded and with significantly less radiation.

...Have I sufficiently killed this tangent yet?

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This is truly a madhouse. And I'm the lunatic running it. I've spent three years wondering if I should be proud or ashamed.

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Well, just because they didn't have modern technology doesn't mean they didn't have any technology, the obvious one being telescopes, but as humans we all stand on the shoulders of giants as it were, we use and take for granted the technologies of prior generations, if it wasn't for technological innovations such as mills, farming irrigation, do you think Newton and Galileo would have had enough time to ponder the universe?

i read an interesting article once about the difference in intelligence between primates and humans, and honestly, it is pretty negligible, humans just have an advantage that we don't start at the bottom of the ladder ever generation, we build on previous knowledge.

now imagine we advance so far that technology needs absolutely zero human intervention, and no one wants for anything, and the population is nearing immortality, it would only take one generation (or less assuming that the last generation that was present for the current status quo has a fallible memory) for everyone to forget how everything works.

now imagine that is the case for Asgardians, lets say Odin was a young man when the Asgardians stopped being relied upon by their own technology, perhaps 3000+ years ago, the race becomes restless and bored, they begin exploring the universe without a care since it is effortless to them, they discover Earth, and are seen as gods, and in turn they play up to the expectations of their worshippers, pretty soon they forget that they were anything else.

this is obviously not without precedent in Marvel comics as this is similar to the explanation for the Asgardians in Earth X, nor is this type of "a technological civilisation becoming like gods and then forgetting they were anything else" in the books Ilium and Olympos, where advanced humans create a replica earth on which they play out Homer's Iliad and take on the personas of the Greek pantheon, (although iirc they forget they were ever human on purpose as a sort of method acting thing) and the idea of a technological race believing they are gods has obviously been seen many times in the Stargate franchise.

after the quote in Thor I find it impossible to rule out the fact that Asgardian magic is simply sufficiently advanced technology. if science and magic are the same thing where Thor is, then everything they have which is a product of magic, Mjolnir, Bifrost, the Casket of Ancient Winters, the Cosmic Cube, the Infinity Gauntlet, etc is also a product of science, which by your definition makes it technology.



apparently not.

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We're all actors, Laurie. I'm just an actor who read the script.

I actually spent a couple of minutes the other night turning the electric light on and off in my living room, thinking to myself... "marvelous!".

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...evidently chicken-town.

dude this made me laugh so hard.
I commend you for making my day.

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Oh, hey, here's some new Whedon on The Avengers!

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...evidently chicken-town.

Japanese Trailer with new footage
http://special.movies.yahoo.co.jp/detai ... 315076798/

Sweet, there was actually quite a bit of new footage in there.

I especially liked the quick shot of Thor and Loki battling on top of some skyscraper in full costume.

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"The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part.

"There's a cello in your house now."

Fixed.

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I think I love you, Project.

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"The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part.

"There's a cello in your house now."

Yeah, that Japanese trailer was beautiful. I swear, this movie just keeps looking better and better.

Question: In regard to the Iron Man armor's chest reactor, Joss Whedon said "The circle has meaning, the triangle doesn't." Could anyone enlighten me as to what he's talking about?

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This is truly a madhouse. And I'm the lunatic running it. I've spent three years wondering if I should be proud or ashamed.

I've got no friggin' clue, but I don't claim to be extremely familiar with Iron Man lore.

Maybe it's because the triangle is associated with his Extremis armor and he had the circle for much longer than that? Like throughout the majority of his history? And it's associated with his origins? I dunno. Wild mass guessing.

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"The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part.

"There's a cello in your house now."

Goddammit. What is it with Japan hitting it out of the ballpark with trailers lately?

Much better than the last American one, that's for sure.

Because the actual reactor in his chest is circular, having it a triangle on the suit means it's basically a circle with some sheets of metal coving it up to make it look like a triangle, but it's still a circle underneath.

That's my understanding anyway.

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We're all actors, Laurie. I'm just an actor who read the script.

Well, there has always been symbolisism to the circle with it's unending nature, etc.

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@RealSlimCAvery

Well, in Iron Man 2, the new element was made into a triangular piece, and the reactor was modified to accept it, but the reactor itself was still circular.


Also, just watched the new Japanese trailer, bah why can't two months just zip ahead already?

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