23 KiB
Rational!Big Hero 6
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Author: u/shulme45 *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2nmsa5/rationalbig_hero_6/
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Score: 10
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Created: 2014-11-28T02:50:32
Post:
I am not a rationalist. This seems like a fairly large problem in the way of me posting in a rationalist thread. As a matter of fact, I am also completely new to reddit, and only ever come here to occasionally peek at /r/rational for fic updates. That, and due to a number of factors, I have a patchy idea of how to write english perfectly anyway.
Despite all of this, I feel intelligent today, and had a few ideas on Big Hero Six. If you've seen it, and are a rationalist, you've probably already spotted the most attention-grabbing plothole. Sadly, I have yet to understand how to use spoiler text in my first post, as formatting help doesn't seem to help me there, so there's not so much I can talk about without spoilers.
All that background in place, I'd appreciate help. I am not a rationalist because I do not believe myself capable of performing such a delicate science, as it's difficulty is beyond me. I do appreciate and respect it, though. I'd like to do a rationalist! version of the movie, as a fanfic, but I can't quite get it. Tilt it this way, it's completely anti-climatic. Tilt it the other, and the villain's (It's a super hero movie, of course it has one) plot becomes unstoppable. If someone can teach me how to use spoiler text or PM me, if Reddit does that, I'd like to discuss some ideas about it with a rationalist of some degree or just someone else who respects rationalism and who has also seen the movie without threat of spoilers.
I attempted to figure out the spoiler tag hiding-thing, and failed. Thus, figuring out how to do that would be helpful. Please comment if you know how to do so.
Testing spoiler tags: SPOILER
Whew, that seems... A little clunky, but hopefully it will work. Okay, so. The main hero is a kid genius. That much is known from the commercials. SPOILER So, with this in mind, a rationalist! version doesn't seem too bad. But, I run into two problems.
If Hiro is empowered with more direct, rational thought,SPOILER This is anti-climatic. On the other hand...
Now, the first rationalist idea can be countered by the second. My only nerf for the second is the idea that SPOILER , but I'm not sure how valid that nerf would apply.
This is just basic thoughts on the way home from the movie. I won't really touch upon the obvious plot-hole other then that it exists SPOILER
So... Thoughts? Sorry for being dumb on a smart-people thread. Please go ahead and comment. Don't hold back- If my ideas have obvious logical flaws, I would rather have my tenuous thoughts destroyed then live to be in clear error.
EDIT:
Wait a tic. Here's a thought: SPOILER
Comments:
u/DaystarEld [+7] Pokémon Professor (an hour later)
Hey there, and welcome!
First, off: don't be so afraid of rationality. You're not "dumb" just because you notice others being "smarter" than you. Rationality is more of a skill than you think, and to some degree, a lower amount of "talent" can be made up by a larger amount of work and study.
So don't be so down on yourself! You never know what you're capable of until you try, and even if you don't ultimately accomplish what you want, you still learn from the attempt :)
Now, onto the story:
I very much enjoyed the movie, but you're absolutely right that the "genius" characters were cripplingly dumb. Hiro has somewhat plausible excuse: The villain is the real issue: if it was just some random guy that saw Hiro's invention and decided to steal it, his ridiculously poor use of the technology might be understandable, but as written, we need a lot more.
As for what role Hiro and pals might play in that, he might learn of the plan and realize that
The major problem, really, is Baymax.
Forget the thing. Why the hell is Baymax important at all? Hiro is unforgivably, brain-numbingly dumb to think that, no matter what upgrades he tries to give him, he would stand a chance against what he himself made and should know the capabilities of. He keeps saying Baymax can "take" the bad guy, no matter how many times the bad guy demonstrates that this is very much not the case. That kind of stupidity is only passable in a kid's movie.
Baymax can't just be a comic relief rock-em-sock-em-robot if he's going to have any relevance at all in the story. He has to be something more.
What that is, I think, is up to you, if you decide to write this. I would say that's your first real challenge. For my part, I'd be interested to see how it goes :)
u/shulme45 [+1] (an hour later)
Baymax could be given a huge, huge, huge rationalist upgrade if his total dependance on humans was removed. He can reason, but reasons only in canon to serve humans medically. Even as he becomes a superhero, this is purely for his patient's 'mental health'. If he was able to use his robotic inteligence to do goals other then "heal"... I can't even imagine that kind of potential this late at night.
Fist chip: Oy, that's a spoiler, shh. Secondly, because he's a character, as far as meta goes, and thirdly, because SPOILER , and so of course he's important, at least to Hiro. I will admit he is kind of cripplingly dumb at times, so I'm not sure how a rationalist! upgrade would fit him.
u/shulme45 [+2] (an hour later)
Additionally, I had another plot idea for a fanfic, less rationlist by core but still maybe worth considering: SPOILER I am very interested in seeing how that additional plot detail would change the story.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (an hour later)
That would be interesting, yeah.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (an hour later)
Right, the character himself is important, but functionally, he has no uses as-is, other than being a medic. If Baymax was actually true artificial intelligence, that would completely make him useful and awesome. It would also completely change the story. If you're okay with pretty much tossing the script as written, that's the route i'd go.
Hm. I guess that is a spoiler. The phrase only makes sense if you know what happens, and by then it's kind of obvious anyway, but I'll bleep it :)
u/shulme45 [+1] (an hour later)
Frankly, I'm not sure if I'd be up to such a challenge. Functionally speaking, when Directed, Baymax actually is shown to be useful- SPOILER If you take away the kid-friendliness, [SPOILER](#s " And give him that same useful effective downloaded strategies, massive strength, and single-minded red-death-chip focus, without his team-mates fighting him, able to move with robotic precision with no movement wasted... He'd be scary levels of strong, like a terminator at 1.5 speed. He even moved faster after the "I am not fast" comment- Hiro upgraded his speed. ")
u/shulme45 [+1] (an hour later)
actually, even just adding in SPOILER would be an amazing combat boost compared.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (an hour later)
True, he should be able to react faster than a human controller could, but he's just one robot: he can't be everywhere at once to protect everyone from the true threat an intelligent villain with microbots would pose.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (an hour later)
Against the brute-force version of the villain, yes, the fully upgraded Baymax eventually shows some use. But breaking tendrils is just a stalling tactic without the portal to suck them up, and ultimately, him being useful is just what the story required. Against a villain that actually used the microbots to their true potential, he is too localized to stop such pervasive, fast, and deadly threat.
u/shulme45 [+1] (2 hours later)
Maybe so, but [SPOILER](#s " The controller is shown, at least on screen during the final showdown, to focus on whatever the villian's focusing on. He gestures, presumably as a focusing measure, which seems to lend itself to single-targeting. I will give you "Not fast enough", though.")
u/AnarchistMiracle [+3] (58 minutes later)
The really obvious plot hole to me was Spoiler
u/shulme45 [+1] (an hour later)
This was also an obvious plothole to me. SPOILER
u/fljared [+1] United Federation of Planets (an hour later)
But if it was not:
u/shulme45 [+2] (an hour later)
My question then is SPOILER If he wanted SPOILER, then everything he needed was around him. Hell, SPOILER
u/fljared [+1] United Federation of Planets (an hour later)
[He wanted to] (#s "kill Krei in the same way that Krei killed his daughter. He spotted the opportunity in the microbots.")
Also, your second suggestion is not as foolproof as you think
It's all rather moot though since
u/shulme45 [+1] (2 hours later)
Maybe so, .SPOILER
u/shulme45 [+1] (an hour later)
u/failed_novelty [+3] (12 hours later)
I was shocked at the stupidity of the characters as well.
Hiro's microbots are neat, but the real prize seems like it should have been the headband. A brainwave-reading piece of technology that can transform complex thought to complex instructions without invasive implants? Seriously, the psychic-tech impressed me much more than the metal Lincoln logs.
Beymax was innately capable of performing about 30 different complex medical scans in about 1.5 seconds from across the room. His helmet increased this ability to several dozen blocks (through walls, even).
The chemist girl wasn't performing science, that was alchemy. Some of her reactions were similar to real chemical reactions, but much bigger and faster. Say goodbye to the second law of thermodynamics.
Those are my top 3 gripes, but there are many more.
u/shulme45 [+2] (13 hours later)
Honey Lemon, Chemist Girl, pretty much behaves like some kind of idiot savant compared. It looks as if she could whip up a chemical cocktail to do pretty much anything in seconds with a device slung over her shoulder, but it fails to be put to intelligent enough use, especially with the kind of intelligence that she must have to do so in the first place.
Baymax starts off as an idiot, but does gain character development- Very well done character development, as the robot develops only from it's experiences, and we are shown just what it's learning from. Good effort put in there, I'd say. Shame his self-optimization levels seem to be low.
u/failed_novelty [+1] (13 hours later)
That was her name! Thanks.
But seriously, she reduced a 300 pound metal sphere to about 2 cubic feet of powder. Nothing in science can do that.
u/shulme45 [+1] (14 hours later)
I checked TVTropes. It mentions that that particular substance CAN be reduced to powder very easily... Though her 300 pounds should have been 3000 pounds for it's size (The Tungsten Carbide I think it was called, is apparently very dense.)
No idea if that's true, though.
u/shulme45 [+1] (14 hours later)
Also, the metal lincoln logs are fairly good prizes, too. Brainwave reading technology as evidentally flawless of Hiro's is good... But your limited by the constraints of whatever it's hooked into. You may be able to navigate your computer 300% faster at minimum, but it still does whatever the computer could do before and no more. The Micro-Bots, on the other hand, were shown to be able to do more or less anything imaginable, and thus their pairing with the headband is what greatly increased their technological potency, so to speak.
...does it count as spoilers if it's in the first part of the movie?
u/fljared [+1] United Federation of Planets (an hour later)
u/shulme45 [+1] (an hour later)
I suppose this would be acceptable, but this movie did pretty well as far as foreshadowing goes- Some foreshadowing for such a thing, even if just background papers on a table, would have been nice.
u/shulme45 [+1] (an hour later)
Additionally, it's nice to see that I was right- Coming here allows better practiced rationalists to pick apart what I, a reasonably tired mind, could not pick out as a problem.
u/shulme45 [+1] (2 hours later)
Anyway, if someone would like to discuss the theoretical possibility of a rationality version of the story with me over PM, feel free to do so. More or a discussion then a actually planning a fic thing, though.
u/shulme45 [+1] (2 hours later)
Again, please do not take offense to my ignorant replies. I'm mostly throwing unpolished ideas out there to be deconstructed and used as supporting ideas to build better, probably mostly-unrelated ideas.
u/shulme45 [+1] (2 hours later)
Also, something that bugs me?
[SPOILER](#s "I remember a throwaway line from the beginning, where Hiro starts to describe how he built what would become the microbot's prototype- "Hey genius, he invented those!" Well, if the Big Bad invented the technology Hiro uses, then why didn't HE invent the Microbots first? ")
u/Sylocat [+1] Canterlot Campaign (3 hours later)
Well, the easy answer to most of these is, "." But that's no fun for this subreddit, so let's break it down further.
There's another counter to your first idea:
u/shulme45 [+1] (3 hours later)
n
That seems a reasonable enough counter. Of course, if the characters WERE rationalist, then that wouldn't really be /as much/ of a problem, I'd imagine since, you know, being intelligent, they'd realize and attempt to combat it. I well know I'm not smart enough to follow through on a fanfiction with such heady topics like rationality, and I keep taking minor emotional hits anyway as I see my topic continually upvoted and downvoted (Why? What is wrong with it? If it's something, i'd like to know.)
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (13 hours later)
Don't worry about the upvotes and downvotes: Reddit uses a score randomizer to fluctuate the true values. I believe it's done to help combat vote brigading.
You're sitting pretty firmly on 92% upvote rate which means you only have 1 or 2 downvotes, and that might just be Reddit :)
u/shulme45 [+3] (14 hours later)
Oh, okay. Normally, I would not care so much, but I am venturing into a difficult area to ask help from people much smarter then me, so... A fair bit concerned about this particular group not caring for my ideas.
u/AmeteurOpinions [+2] Finally, everyone was working together. (14 hours later)
A fair bit concerned about this particular group not caring for my ideas.
Pfft. Look at what we did for Frozen which eventually resulted in the excellent A Bluer Shade Of White fanfiction.
u/shulme45 [+2] (14 hours later)
I vaguely remember someone pointing out an idea for rationalist!Frozen (Free ice golems for everyone!) but I don't believe I've read that yet. I'd like to, though. Still, I'm mostly concerned because people here almost certainly have more rationalist training then I, and so thus I wander in, a noob to the slaughter. And not the fake noob Hiro pulls in the first ten minutes, either.
u/AmeteurOpinions [+2] Finally, everyone was working together. (14 hours later)
I think that, in this sub at least, it's less of formal rationalist training (I don't have any myself) and more a fact of us having read too much science-fiction and wishing everyone else would get with the program already.
u/shulme45 [+2] (14 hours later)
Well, formal training is exceptionally hard. Still, I come here, and everyone easily starts pointing out flaws I had not considered. I think with a sufficiently intelligent [or number of intelligent] writer, a rationalist version fic of Hero Six would be interesting, given that two characters are designated as geniuses, and the other supporting heroes are probably also geniuses, as it's their technology used later on to become their powers. This doesn't really do anything plotwise (As the plot is more or less centered entirely around Hiro, Baymax, and the villian), so it probably does not count as a spoiler.