1. Chris Toohey09/10/2008 01:14:55 PM
Homepage: http://www.dominoguru.com

re: Something that bugs me
I absolutely agree with you... up until your T2 example. See, the T2 "oozed" through the bars, maintaining control of it's matter, but simply manipulating itself. It's the same principal behind its ability to make long pointy sticks out of its arms and not having them simply drip off or go limp like spaghetti- it's the robots ability to manipulate it's matter at the sub-atomic level and still maintain control that allows it to pour itself through the cracked helicopter window.

But back to the actual point - yeah, it's a plot device that's almost always overlooked in fiction: if you suddenly phase-shift to the point where you can pass through solid matter, the solid matter that's keeping you exactly where you are at the given moment would logically fall to the same laws as the matter you're attempting to pass through.

If you suddenly had the ability to maintain your "vertical" in that phase, I'm certain that you would also have issue with the rotation of the earth... which would basically be horizontally thrusted at near 1000 mph.

Y'know... perhaps people HAVE evolved this ability, but the die so horribly and quickly that we just don't have record of it!

2. Bob Balaban09/10/2008 08:35:33 PM
Homepage: http://www.bobzblog.com

You're criticizing BUCKAROO BANZAI!??? What are you, a member of Hanoi Shan's World Crime League?

Come on! Of course he's not going to accelerate towards the center of the earth. The way-cool race car projected the over-thruster beam ONTO the mountain before he drove through it! The phase-shift occurred in FRONT of him, not BELOW him.

That is definitely one of my all time fave movies. New audience cheer proposal for Lotusphere09: "Where are we going?" "8.5!"
"When?" "REAL SOON!"

3. John Smart09/30/2008 11:00:30 AM
Homepage: http://www.greyduck.com

Holy crap!!! So that means that if you phase shifted, then you could fall straight through the center of the earth and end up at the other side in a jiffy!!! Not accounting for friction, that would take... hmm... radius = 0.5at^2 to fall to the center, so approximately 15 days, times two to keep falling 'up' to the other side....



... ok, so maybe that's not such a good mode of transportation.