Moderator: Edi
Metahive wrote:...who disowned the movie as BS. Need I say more?
It doesn't say that it made him look worse than he really was. If anything, it seems the film softened the image of the real Patch Adams.Wikipedia wrote:Adams has criticized the film, saying it eschewed an accurate representation of his beliefs in favor of commercial viability. He said that out of all aspects of his life and activism, the film portrayed him merely as a funny doctor.
The difference being of course that when other Saiyans or Half-Saiyans make boneheaded decisions, karma is very quick to have it blow up in their faces, unlike for Goku who can do no wrong.Scrib wrote: Well, to be fair, you can't rule out the possibility that he just has a saiyan-specific form of insanity. I mean, has any Saiyan acted reasonably in DBZ during a battle? Especially after they go SS. They all become sadistic bastards spoiling for a challenge. Combine this with their ridiculous ability to get even more powerful from near death experiences and you have a species that can actually benefit from/sustain a certain amount of insane behavior.
Can we think of any maverick/prima donna characters in fiction who do pay appropriate prices for their character defect?Vendetta wrote:I think you're just detecting a general case of bad character writing, which is the visible hand of the author in the progression of the character.
is the author arranging things for the character to be shielded from negative consequences that might organically arise from their behaviours and actions, including Being Wrong, Looking Silly, or Suffering Significant Loss.
I'm not so sure. Personally, I think that Kirk visibly sweats over his decisions, and lacks the deep fundamental arrogance that makes the prima-donna character work. He's not just coasting on ill-defined 'talents,' and he does experience a number of serious personal losses, even if a lot of them aren't his fault- this being a television serial, every time his friends or family come up, it's probably because one of them is going to die.FaxModem1 wrote:This might be why all of the people I've introduced Trek to prefer Picard over Kirk, as they see Kirk as nothing but an asshole who is prancing around on a starship telling everyone what to do.
I agree- that's the power-fantasy angle, though. Almost anyone who's spent any length of time dealing with regulations and bureaucracy will come away convinced that they could do a better job if they had the freedom to decide the terms on which the job gets done. They're often wrong, but they think so, because human beings really aren't wired to make happy cogs in a complex machine.Stark wrote:That's a good example because I was thinking scifi save the world by ignoring science and the military stuff, but that's much more down to earth. Does it mean the work is saying those processes that the 'maverick' ignores to get results are bad or limiting? Does it devalue them as a way of protecting people? In other contexts it might be political protocol protecting people from death, legal protocol protecting people from wrongful imprisonment, etc. These just get in the way!
I've been around long enough to know this board is a bit lean on the pleasantries, but really? I can't find who said it, but on another thread, someone said "hey, because Metahive." It looks like I've run into that too.Metahive wrote:Hey, fucker, [...] You can go fuck off now.
Yeah, it's not good for rigorous scholarship, but in the context of a discussion about general trends in movies, I think it's good enough.Metahive wrote:Also, Wikipedia.
You know, Metahive, you really ought to check facts before using them as basis for your argument.Metahive wrote:Hey, fucker, the movie has one of his colleagues getting freakin' murdered because of his bad advice! A colleague who in real life was not only of the opposite gender but who also was not murdered at all.
Yeah, nosiree, not depicting him worse than he is. O, and saying that all you do is making an ass of yourself in front of patients when the real method is more sophisticated than that is pretty insulting. You obviously have no idea of what you're doing. You can go fuck off now.
Also, Wikipedia.
Adams did, in fact, have a close friend and colleague who was murdered by a disturbed and violent patient. They flipped the gender, and combined certain aspects of his early relationship with his wife with the coworker in question.Daily Utah chronicle wrote:Jam-packed doorways, aisles and seats held more than 150 people last night to hear Patch Adams’ lecture on caring for patients for more than just their money in the College of Pharmacy’s Skaggs Auditorium. Adams-who has been lecturing for 21 years-agreed to speak at the U last night for a fourth of the price he usually charges.
President of the Compassionate Care group at the U, Markum McReynolds, raised $3,500 to bring Adams to the U. “Patch Adams was generous enough to come here, even though we didn’t raise enough money,” McReynolds said. The money will go to Adams’ practice, called the Gesundheit! Institute. Practicing only free medicine, Adams feels that medicine doesn’t have to be the way it is, but rather the way you make it.
“My mother taught me that love is the most important thing,” Adams said. “I haven’t charged a cent in 33 years of medicine.” Having been hospitalized three times in psychiatric units at the age of 17, Adams’ unpleasant treatment made him realize doctors should practice medicine out of love, and not money. “I couldn’t believe how adults behaved,” Adams said. “My last hospitalization, I decided to live relentlessly to serve medicine.”
Adams graduated from medical school in 1971 and opened his own six-bedroom hospital. The Gesundheit! Institute, which included six other employees, welcomed any patient, young or old, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.“ We would have five to 50 patients stay overnight,” Adams said.
Some of the patients, Adams said, were violent, disturbed and dangerous. “Our only rule was patients could not hurt anyone,” Adams said. Adams’ closest friend and co-worker was murdered by a patient, but Adams and his colleagues continued the practice.
“We wanted our patients to experience a sense of belonging,” Adams said. “Our goal was to eliminate the sense that the patient owed something. ”Malpractice insurance isn’t in Patch Adams’ vocabulary. He said malpractice insurance is like telling patients you don’t trust them. Either you practice and make mistakes, or you don’t practice,” he said.
Adams has dressed in clown attire for 25 years to entertain and help patients laugh. “I’m a clown that is a doctor, not a doctor who is a clown,” he said. According to Adams, a mother who has heard her child scream for weeks or even months would find that Adams’ sense of humor and entertainment would ease children’s pain without the pain medications. “It’s the art of distraction, without the pain meds,” he said.
Eleven years ago, Adams opened orphanages that accommodated more than 300 kids. “We would adopt the children at age 10, when orphanages in St. Petersburg would sell them to make a profit,” Adams said. Along with free medical care, the Gesundheit! Institute helps single parents find jobs while the hospital employees take care of their kids. “We insist on connecting politics, economics and environment with health issues,” Adams said.
The hospital received no donations in the first 12 years of service. Adams also did not get any money from the motion picture “Patch Adams,” which starred Robin Williams as Adams. A new hospital to be built in the near future will include 60 beds. Thousands of doctors and nurses apply every year to make $3,000 a year to work at the institute. “I have never been burned out,” Adams said. “Good health is living a healthy, exuberant life on a normal day. Anyone can learn to love.”
Metahive wrote:Take Son Goku for example. He has many inherent traits that almost always come to the fore whenever they are most convenient (Super Saiyan, Saiyan Death Experience Boost etc.) and for which he doesn't have to do anything. He can pick up and master new techniques in very short time and with little exercise. Sure he occasionally trains hard, but Vegeta trains even harder and yet always stays ten or so steps behind. He often defies counsel of both his peers and his nominal superiors (Kami, Kaiou and Kaioushin) and the universe conspires to have his often foolhardy schemes work out anyway ("Hey Cell, have a power replenishing Senzu Bean!" "Let's not use Potaras agains Evil Incarnate Kid Boo because that would be cheating").lance wrote:I'm not really seeing it, with any of those characters you mentioned. While they might have one or two of the traits you mentioned it seems like a stretch
I don't recall him defying his superiors, he barely scraped by graduating after that he got a learning bonus that meant he was literally putting the work of dozens into advancing himself.It's the same with Naruto...
See, i associate the maverickness more heavily with these traits so the goku, naruto and ichigo being mavericks is still questionable to me.The difference between them and their Hollywood counterparts is that they have a less obnoxiously selfish attitude and not the same sense of privileged entitlement.
I think you wrote this to describe Kirk and then just tried to shoehorn Maverick into it.Metahive wrote:-It's a white, heterosexual, young male
-Usually from at least an upper middle class background
-Who has oodles of untapped "potential" or at least is said to have such by other characters
-Who likes to "buck trends" and "defy authority", IE being a "maverick" or at least is presented as such
-Who's also hot-tempered, reckless and follows his guts more than his brain
Who exactly do you think looks stupid here fuck nuts?Metahive wrote:Hi, I'm a douche that can't properly analyze Top Gun and Star Trek and contrast their absolutely basic characters correctly. I miss basic themes and then say "I DUNNWANNA DISCUSS IT!"
Whatever.Havok wrote:Nah nah nah nah, I am so smart! I am so smart! S M R T! S M R T...S M A R T!
The reason why I don't go into a more in depth debate about Tom Cruise's character is because I watched the movie once ten years ago, have no copy of Top Gun at hand and don't plan on changing that, so they could theoretically BS me as much as they want about what happens in it.Eleas wrote:Given that the "maverick" moniker isn't unique to the character of Maverick but does seem to signify "seat-of-his-pants whiz who disdains authority" (like John McCain, if you recall), I can kinda see Metahive's point here.
Anyway, when you haven't seen a movie for ages and someone breaks down the plot to show you how it actually went, the correct answer is 'oh, thanks' or 'yes, but have you considered xyz'.Stark wrote:Right, and I'm happy to explain via PM why this judgement may be unfair.
you can't even remember one of the four characters you brought up as a main example of what you are trying to convey that you are sick of. 
Maverick was a rebel but not a childish one. Compliance with authority is not something you automatically gain as you age; we see in both adults and children a range of independence from 'daddy always knows best / do it by the book' to 'I know better / rules are suggestions'. Adult rebellion has adult motivation behind it; the character feels that they have to do something and authority/the rules are wrong or less important. Childish rebellion is rebellion for its own sake, or lack of impulse control, or due to simple lack of foresight. As noted above Maverick takes certain risks because he has something to prove (due to his upbringing), but he still complies with the vast majority of the rules (follows orders etc), has the skill to make the risks he does take reasonable ones (developed through long hours of practice), and generally understands and accepts the consequences.Simon_Jester wrote:Perhaps this has to do with the impact Top Gun had at the time; could Tom Cruise's "Maverick" character have seemed like more of a underdisciplined wild child to audiences in the 1980s than he does today?
I refer you back to my first "whatever" to accurately describe my interest in your schoolyard bully type of posting.Havok wrote:Bla bla bla
You certainly took me seriously enough to completely fly off the handle and post a dissertation about Maverick and nuKirk in response to me denigrating the former. Pfft, you really do care about me! I'm so flattered!Havok wrote:And you wonder why no one takes you seriously. You are a fucking joke.
" - bcoogler on this