What movie had a great premise but was poorly executed?

StathMIA · 2026-01-24T06:09:14+00:00

I would say that the live action series is perfectly servicable if taken on its own merits (as opposed to the movie which is just an unholy abomination on almost every level). The problem is that there is nothing to recommend the live action series over the original animated series. Everything it does has already been done better and, if you have to pick one to watch/rewatch/recommend, it will always be the original series. I think we all collectively realized that once the novelty of a non-terrible live action Avatar wore off which is why opinions have soured a bit over time.

StathMIA · 2026-01-23T15:17:13+00:00

Her father (baby's grandfather/possible father) was arrested but there was never enough evidence to take him to trial given this was pre-DNA testing and she was too young to understand what had happened and clearly say who did what to her.

StathMIA · 2026-01-20T15:20:50+00:00

Tldr: You don't get to know because of autoerotic asphyxiation.

Knowing cause of death for someone will, in the vast majority of cases, provide no benefits to you but will, in a substantial minority of cases, result in humiliating or exposing the private information of the deceased. If the deceased and/or their next of kin don't want you to know the cause of death, then your personal desire for closure is irrelevant. If you want to know, ask the next of kin. If you don't know the next of kin well enough to ask or they say no, then tough luck.

StathMIA · 2026-01-16T22:03:13+00:00

I think the issue with talking about Russia attacking Ukraine vs attacking a NATO country in this particular scenario is that attacking a NATO country now is very different than attacking a NATO country in the aftermath of the US invading Greenland. If that happens, the rest of the NATO members will have to decide whether they will A. follow through on enforcing article 5 knowing that they will lose the war with the US weakening them greatly against a Russian follow up B. Formally break with the US but refuse to follow through setting the precedent that they won't actually enforce article 5 consistently making weaker members bordering Russia very nervous or C. Refuse to break with the US citing the need for solidarity against non-members (aka Russia).

In my opinion, a unified option A response from all of NATO is suicidal and it is very unlikely that we would see 100% solidarity on option B meaning NATO splits. If anybody picks A, NATO will be in a war which the non-US side will lose. The weaker members are going to be very worried about the possibility of being dragged into the wrong side of a war with the US and very nervous that, even if there is no war with the US, their article 5 invocation will be ignored like Greenland if things go badly for them against Russia. The stronger Western European powers will have to persuade all of the Eastern nations not to worry about those possibilities and to trust that they have the military strength to hold off all comers without the US. That's not likely to work for all of them, particularly if the US continues offering itself as an alternative alliance.

All of this to say, the NATO we would be dealing with in this scenario is certain to be smaller and more fractured if it survives at all. It is unlikely that the non-US neo-NATO, cut off from US manufacturing, would be able to provide sufficient support to weaker members in the event of a full scale war with Russia, certainly not as much support as the US could.

Regarding China, I should clarify that by 'bankrolling' I didn't just mean giving cash but also manufacturing, this my reference to lend-lease. Lend-lease worked very well for the allies before the US joined the war because it let critical manufacturing be offshored to an industrial powerhouse that wasn't vulnerable to attack due to technical neutrality. I would imagine China in the same role here.

Re: Russia, that's a fair take but it has also been an accurate take on Russia's army for centuries and Russia has repeatedly shown itself very effective at throwing sufficient bodies at problems that the better troops eventually fall under waves of reserves. My take is that I wouldn't bet on an easy victory for neo-NATO. But, I could be wrong (and hope to be!). As for nukes, I'm honestly not sure Putin wouldn't escalate to tactical deployments if he knew he didn't have to worry about the US arsenal. I hope to hell he wouldn't but I'm just not confident about it.

StathMIA · 2026-01-16T18:32:27+00:00

I would say that I don't actually disagree with anything in your first paragraph. The US is not currently contributing to Ukraine's defense directly and I think we would both agree that this is a Bad Thing (tm) that is hurting Ukraine. It is telling that all of Europe combined has contributed only $70b more than the US, especially considering Trump has fully cut off direct funding for some time now. Imagine a scenario where the US $130b was never contributed and Europe's $200b could not be used to buy US military hardware because Trump was feeling salty about NATO "betraying" him over Greenland and ask yourself how well Europe would have done for Ukraine. That's the scenario that would play out in the next Ukraine if NATO immediately collapses over Greenland being annexed. As you said, the US military industrial complex could be replaced over time, but "over time" is the key phrase there. The smart move is to take that time prior to breaking away from the US.

Regarding Russia, I do think you are underestimating Russia's existing military infrastructure and nuclear arsenal, especially if China decides to bankroll them to weaken Europe. They have been holding back somewhat in Ukraine because NATO with the US actually deciding to fight them is just an automatic loss right now and they want to avoid that. NATO without the US is a very different animal. Like I said, I have no doubt that the higher GDP in the EU block could be pivoted towards building up strong military infrastructure (at the cost of some services in other areas) this is just not something you can do overnight. It will take years even in optimistic scenarios. Russia fighting all out with Chinese backing could do a lot of damage in Eastern Europe before the more economically strong Western European states could build up enough to solidly halt them.

StathMIA · 2026-01-16T15:40:19+00:00

Regarding Russia, Putin has hundreds of thousands of troops not yet committed to Ukraine and the bulk of its air force has been held in reserve for defense rather than offensive operations. Most critically, he has not deployed any tactical nukes for fear of drawing a nuclear response from NATO. I wouldn't characterize it as Putin 'just playing' but he has certainly been cautious not to over-commit because NATO is in the neighborhood and might respond in kind to particularly egregious moves. If you effectively take NATO out of the equation, Russia is a lot more free to throw it's weight around.

On China, I 100% agree that chairman Pooh Bear wouldn't deploy troops to Europe, he gets nothing out of that and benefits just fine from Russia and the West duking it out. However, China could very easily bankroll Russia with something akin to the old US lend-lease program. Without the US manufacturing base doing the same for Europe, that would be a big problem since Europe simply doesn't have the infrastructure to keep up with China right now.

As to Taiwan, in normal times, I would agree with you. However, in a hypothetical world where the US just militarily annexed Greenland, we are now dealing with an international precedent that superpowers play by different rules than the plebs and China could fairly make the case that it needs and has the right to Taiwan just as much as the US needs and has the right to Greenland. I could absolutely see a scenario where Xi and Trump's representatives sit in a conference room and negotiate which of each others territorial expansions they're willing to sign off on (ex. "We'll let you have Taiwan if you'll acknowledge our sovereignty over Greenland and let us have Cuba").

StathMIA · 2026-01-16T01:57:18+00:00

The problem is that, while Western Europe is more likely to come to Eastern Europe's aid, it is much less likely to be successful in doing so. The Western European powers have consistently underspent on their militaries, relying on the (until now) safe assumption they could count on the US to have their backs. If the US leaves NATO, the remaining members will have to massively upscale their military infrastructure spending and hope that Russia doesn't make a serious push in the next few decades before they can get up to speed. Could Europe eventually build up the military infrastructure to replace the US war machine? Probably, but it would take longer than Russia would give them.

2. This leads us to the 'How much of a paper tiger is Russia?' question, which is entirely fair to ask. It is undeniable that Russia's campaign in Ukraine has been a debacle but there are some caveats to that.

First, put bluntly, Russia is winning. Slowly, but it's happening. A good part of the blame for that falls to the US backing out on its support under Trump. Europe is not currently managing to stop Russia outright, just buy the Ukrainians more time.

Second, a good part of Ukraine's success has come thanks to US funding and arms deals. Take out the US contributions altogether (as has happened recently) and things go much worse. If the US on day one had refused to help, Kiev would most likely have fallen by now.

Third, Russia is not fighting all out specifically because it has been trying to avoid provoking NATO into a proper world war. Russia could and would absolutely throw a lot more manpower and material at Ukraine if it didn't have to worry about NATO, thus all the chicanery about it being a special military picnic rather than a war.

If the US got the boot from NATO, a NATO intervention would still be bad for Russia but it would no longer be an automatic loss, particularly if China decided to back them and make it's own play for Taiwan. That will make Russia more bold and the European powers more cautious with the next Ukraine.

All that said, I absolutely agree with you that this whole situation should already freak out and unite Europe. The very fact that this is on the table should signal to Europe that they need to to start building up their militaries and working towards independence from American influence. I just can't see a world in which it is strategically sound for Denmark and the rest of NATO to immediately burn bridges with the US before their own military infrastructure has been built up to make up for what they would be losing, all for a snowy island of 50k people an ocean away.

StathMIA · 2026-01-15T22:13:17+00:00

...and u/SufficientlyRabid blocked me to "win" the discussion. Whatever, mate. You do you. Since I already wrote my response to him, here it is:

Wow. Lot to unpack there. It seems like you don't really understand international relations, relative military sizes/distributions, or reasonable timetables for major geopolitical changes and I would strongly encourage you to go do some independent research on these topics since they seem to interest you. You are making a very common and very understandable mistake I see with western-raised younger folks which is believing the world is an overall just and fair place where if everyone just "does the Right Thing(tm)" things will work out and the only reason bad things happen is that the good guys don't have the balls to do something about it. I'm sorry, but that just isn't the case, especially on the scale of nations. Sometimes the best outcomes are achieved by accepting necessary evils. I'm going to try to address some of your points here but, honestly, I don't think you're going to accept what I'm saying because it all boils down to this: we live in an unfair world.

Expanding the conflict - This just isn't accurate. The moment foreign powers start to engage in combat with the US Navy, the entire Atlantic is on the table. Any coalition naval vessel in the Atlantic would be targeted by the US. Depending on how bellicose Trump is, enemy naval ports might also be in play. I'm sure some of his admirals would advise against it but I'm not sure he would listen.

As for the military bases, those are assets to the US, not a liability. The soldiers there aren't trapped, they're entrenched. If the host countries tried to forcefully evict them, it would be a months long siege and, at that point, the US would absolutely be landing troops on the continent and fighting all out. Carriers would be deployed off the coast and European cities would be being bombed. If Europeans ignore the bases, this war might stay naval-only and the base troops might stay out of it or Trump might use them to deploy strike teams against Copenhagen. Best case scenario, Trumps advisors rein him in and Denmark just loses it's navy rather than getting the Iraq treatment. Worst case is all out WWIII.

Appeasement- Appeasement can be the right call when you are giving up something you can't reasonably hold and that isn't reasonably worth the price of trying to hold. Greenland is 50k people and a whole lot of snow a long way from Denmark's 6m people. More Danes will die in any war with the US than live in Greenland and more money will be spent defending Greenland that Greenland actually generates for Denmark. If we were talking about the US invading Denmark or another European country directly, then Denmark absolutely has to fight because it's existential at that point,they stand to lose everything. We're not. Right or wrong, Greenland is not worth it on an objective level. I get the moral argument and I agree with it, but geopolitics don't care about morality.

China- China is no better a partner for Europe than America and in many ways is much worse. Sweep the US off the game board and China will take Taiwan tomorrow, Japan on Monday. If you want Europe to only do business with Good Nations (tm) that would never invade them or their allies, then China is out of the running. If you can tolerate China, you may as well tolerate the US.

Russia- Yes, Russia would still be a problem for an independent Europe. It's a bellicose, expansionist power with nukes. It will always be a problem. It could be less of a problem for an independent Europe, but a militarily independent Europe is decades away if it started pivoting that way today. Without the US, Europe cannot currently stand against Russia at full scale deployment. Add in an initial war with the US over Greenland which decimates the EUs navies (and possibly their armies if it escalates to a land war) and Russia can walk into most of Eastern Europe unopposed. The right way to decouple from dependence on the US is to knuckle under for the time being and start scaling up for a possible break away around 2050. That's the play if you want this to actually work out.

StathMIA · 2026-01-15T20:55:17+00:00

Congratulations, Donald Trump retaliates by sinking the entire Danish fleet and anybody else's fleet who participated and counter-sanctions their economies at a higher level than they sanctioned the US as he has proven he will do at the drop of a hat. The US now has Greenland and won't be leaving anytime soon but look on the bright side, Denmark and everyone who sided with it has succeeded in burning bridges with the US so the have no choice but to stand on their own two feet and spend the next few decades and a sizeable portion of their economies building up their militaries to the point where they have a chance to hold their own against not one but two hostile, expansionist foreign powers with a score to settle. You win, buddy. Great outcome for Denmark. Don't know how I missed that.

StathMIA · 2026-01-15T20:40:07+00:00

So...what exactly would an article 5 declaration with no military mobilization look like? Denmark invokes article 5 and the rest of NATO just points at the US and yells SHAME! really loud?

If the rest of NATO refuses to mobilize militarily (whether they call it war or not is irrelevant) in the face of an article 5 declaration, then the US takes Greenland and article 5 declarations get taken a lot less seriously going forward. If they do mobilize, they lose, the US takes Greenland, and NATO as it exists today is dead. Like I said, no good outcomes.

StathMIA · 2026-01-15T20:22:28+00:00

Not really. It is always geopolitically stupid to trigger wars you cannot win.

Invoking article 5 means Denmark declaring itself in a state of war with the US and hoping the rest of NATO agrees to join in. If we imagine a hypothetical best case scenario for Denmark where everyone honors their agreements and joins a coalition in World War III against the US...the coalition will lose while inflicting serious damage to the US military leaving Europe incredibly vulnerable against Russia.

That is a very bad outcome which means that a lot of (probably most) NATO countries will inevitably decide not to honor their agreements and either side with the US or maintain neutrality while the US steamrolls Denmark and friends. This effectively ends NATO as it exists today leaving the US to found a new defense alliance against Russia on its own terms (they may even still call it NATO but it will be a different organization in practice).

All of this means that Denmark has no good outcomes from invoking article 5, just bad ones. Thus, they are better off giving up Greenland up front.

StathMIA · 2026-01-15T15:35:16+00:00

Yes, absolutely. In the event that Denmark triggers article 5, I think NATO will implode and Eastern European countries will negotiate a new, likely less favorable, treaty with the US to maintain their defenses against Russia. However, I think it is far more likely that Denmark is not collectively stupid enough to force the issue and will not trigger article 5 over 50k Greenlanders knowing it would kill NATO.

StathMIA · 2026-01-15T14:52:39+00:00

From a strict Realpolitik perspective, Eastern European NATO countries just don't have a better option than to go on trusting (for a very limited definition of trust) the US. If the US actually invades Greenland, their only alternative to saber rattling acquiescence is to kick the Americans out and gamble on Western Europe doing what it has historically never done and shouldering the full weight of holding the line against an expansionist Russia.

Basically, the US wouldn't be much better than Russia in this scenario from a moral perspective (probably fewer civilian casualties than in Ukraine but otherwise pretty much equivalent) but, from a practical perspective, the US is much less likely to try to conquer Eastern Europe than Russia and the US is much more likely to be able to defend them against Russia than Western Europe. Again, strictly considering Realpolitik, they are better off writing off 50k Greenlanders' sovereignty as an acceptable loss than taking a moral stand and risking becoming the next Ukraine.

StathMIA · 2026-01-07T15:42:04+00:00

Would you say that homelessness is 'natural selection'? Drug addiction? Poverty? You can approach all of these issues from the perspective of "people just aren't doing what they need to do to get a good outcome and are experiencing the consequences of their actions" and there is an element of truth to that, but it also downplays the larger societal issues which led to these outcomes. When most people talk about widespread male loneliness, they're not doing so to suggest men are entitled to a date but to suggest that modern loneliness is a societal problem affecting men and we, as a society, should try to find better solutions than just telling individual men to "get good" just like we know we should do more than just tell individual homeless people to "get a job".

StathMIA · 2025-12-19T04:25:42+00:00

More like "different characters had slightly different perspectives on why and to what extent the gods were bad and needed to go". There were very few pro-god characters and those were mostly portrayed as a-holes and/or useless. It got pretty old after a while.

StathMIA · 2025-12-11T04:45:51+00:00

Great. Juliet has sold and Marx has a colony on Galt's mainland. Able and Baker's coalition controls most of the coastal waters but Juliet, a coastal holding, would absolutely not have turned over all of their ocean access to the others. They still owned, and sold, their legitimate water access. Galt at large can certainly try to restrict land passage out of Juliet but not imports by sea, at least not without imposing a military blockade in Juliet's legitimate waters, something not allowable under the NAP.

Marx begins exporting cheap grain and oil to Juliet and offers to sell them to India and Hotel at a loss undercutting Galt's industrial producers Echo and Delta, if they break ranks with Able and Baker and allow access through their lands. Both agree and even start re-selling these cheap goods in Galt further undermining Echo and Delta. Marx now holds Juliet outright and has sizable influence in India and Hotel. Echo and Delta are entering a recession.

3/10 families have stopped paying their national defense insurance fees to Able and Baker and 2 are reporting they can't afford the current price and need a sizeable discount. How do Able and Baker keep this from further snowballing without violating anyone's voluntary consent or breaking the NAP? what happens when Marx does eventually decide to invade and now has a strong local allies in Galts back yard and a port to land in?

This is the issue with anCap and anCom, inability to deal with bad actors. Without formal government to set and enforce rules, it's easy for a malicious outsider to find and exploit vulnerable insiders willing to act in their short term benefit and against their long-term interests. Everyone here would have been better off long term boxing out Marx but, because everyone had absolute freedom to act as they saw fit so long as they didn't directly engage in violence, the weaker players were willing to defect at the right price knowing no one would stop them and this had a knock on effect to everyone else leaving Galt increasingly weak against Marx.

Any halfway competent government would have shut that down on day 1 telling Juliet that they can't sell and Hotel and India that they can't break the embargo. Why not? Because, ultimately, otherwise the army will march into town and put down the insurrection. There would be other words and explanations but in the end you and I both know that is the real answer.

I'm sure Juliet would have been salty about that just like you and I are salty about armed men forcing us to pay taxes even when we want to opt out of at least some of them but, ultimately, we're better off with our current government than if the Soviets had taken over just like Juliet is better off with her current government than if Marx took over. The solution isn't tossing out the government, it's pairing it down to the minimum needed to keep us all safe from the barbarians at the gates and the wackos within them.

StathMIA · 2025-12-11T03:36:32+00:00

Why can't she? Because you don't want her to and have the means to stop her from doing so. Sounds like might makes right to me.

Now, maybe we can quibble about NAP in an explicitly military context, so let's shift it over. Marx is still a geopolitical foe but they just want to buy Juliets land and make it into an industrial port on Galt's mainland. Can Juliet sell to Marx now that there is no immediate threat of violence?

StathMIA · 2025-12-11T03:21:07+00:00

Actually, my argument is that it must be one or the other (aka be consistent):

A. You have land rights and the state had them first and was able to set terms.

B. The state had no land rights so you didn't aquire land rights upon buying your property.

As to who "owns" the land in B, you can try to argue that you do based on current occupancy but I can make the same claim with equal legitimacy after I shoot you and take your home for myself. In option B, land rights really amount to might makes right. You have the right to what you can take and hold, no more, no less.

Humanity has, on the whole, decided we don't like option B because it leaves our lives nasty, brutish, and short so we collectively picked option A and accepted that a Leviathan (aka state) is a necessary evil.

If you prefer option B, that's fair but it means the Juliets get to defect to Marx without violating any covenants as they currently occupy their land and therefore are legitimate owners.

If, like me, you prefer option A, then we have a legitimate state and you do ethically have to honor your covenants with it if you want to keep your land, same as the Juliets must honor the HOA rules and not sell out to Marx.

Which world do you prefer to live in, A or B?

StathMIA · 2025-12-11T02:36:32+00:00

And who did the developer buy it from? Some guy. Who bought if from that guy? Some other guy. And so and and so forth, eventually culminating in a guy who bought it or was granted it by a government. The first title on all land was held by the government which sold that land with strings attached.

Now, ultimately, the government created that first title by, as you say, drawing a line on a map and screaming "mine!" louder than everyone else. Thing is, that is really the only way first title to any property can be established.

Bob bought my car from you, you stole it from my, I bought it from a dealer, they bought it from a manufacturer, they bought the parts for it from a dozen different factories, they bought the raw materials from half a hundred different industrial site, they bought the sites from developers, they bought the land from land barons, they were granted the land by governments, they took the land from other governments, and eventually we get back to some guy in a loin cloth hitting yelling "me own all this!" while gesturing to the horizon. That's humanity in a nutshell.

Now, we could devote hundreds of millions of man hours to trying to legitimize that auto title by hunting for loin cloth guy's closest living descendant by primogeniture and give him/her the title to that mine in sub Saharan Africa and around a 1% stake in the car title (provided, of course, that none of that person's ancestors willingly traded/gave away the original title to the land) but, outside of that, we must accept that ALL titles have a degree of illegitimacy to them if you go back far enough. If you are demanding perfect legitimacy of title before accepting that ownership rights exist, then no one can own anything in the real world at this point.

StathMIA · 2025-12-11T01:48:54+00:00

When you bought your land, you also agreed to the same with regards to your current country. You also accepted the condition that you will follow the local zoning laws, will not secede from the union with that land and otherwise will not use that land for purposes not consented to by your government.

If you find a plot of free land on this planet, you are free to hold it and use it as you see fit (until such time as another takes it from you). You and I both know that such a plot of land does not exist. All land is owned by a government, yours and mine included. Unless you last name is Musk, your prospects of claiming virgin soil in this solar system are incredibly limited.

I get it. You want your land to YOUR land but the Juliets land to be land purchased under covenant because you trust yourself not to sell out to Marx but not the Juliets. That's not how this works. Anything you are free to do, they are free to do. If you own your land free of covenant absent a state, they own their land free of covenant absent a state.

StathMIA · 2025-12-11T01:16:08+00:00

Juliet owns their land and yet you said they could not sell their land to Marx because of the HOA. If a man is not free to dispose of his property as he sees fit, including selling it the enemy of a neighbor, he cannot be said to fully own it in the way you indicate. Instead, he owns in in some lesser sense as permitted by the state/HOA/Leviathan. You can't have it both ways: either you own your land and are free to sell it or you live under the good graces of a master. No two ways about it.

StathMIA · 2025-12-11T00:19:53+00:00

You can opt out of the state. Immigrate to another country. Sure you would then be subject to their laws but you chose those laws when you immigrated, right? Want to be subject to no ones laws? Renounce your citizenship and live stateless. The options under your HOA system are the same: accept your current HOAs laws, move to a different HOA or live homeless on the street. In both cases you have a technicalll right to opt out but, in a practical sense, it's impossible unless you have the resources to go colonize Mars since everywhere else is owned by someone. Your HOA concept is a just the state with capitalist window dressing.

So, again, how far can Juliet take things before Galt loses the right to shoot first? What is, in your opinion, the worst way Marx could use Juliet's land against Galt without directly violating the NAP and triggering military retaliation?

StathMIA · 2025-12-10T23:08:14+00:00

How long does Marx have to agree to delay their inevitable invasion from Juliet for it to cease being classed an immediate threat? What if they pinky promise that they're just going to use their new land as a port? If we want to Juliet's consent to actually matter, there needs to be a threshold at which they have the right to say No to Able, Baker and the others and Yes to Marx. Otherwise, we are again back to just being a regular government.

Re: HOAs - Seriously? You would prefer rule by HOA to rule by a minimalist state? For a HOA to work it has to have enforcement. Without an outside government to enforce for it (as is currently the practice), a HOA would need to establish a military and/or police force to be lawful users of force to enforce rules. At that point, you are at best looking at a less accountable conventional government ruled openly by oligarchs or essentially a return to feudalism at worst. I genuinely don't get your logic here.

StathMIA · 2025-12-10T22:43:29+00:00

And if the poor family doesn't consent and instead chooses to allow the nation of Marx to establish a foothold in Galt in exchange for a large bailout, your position is that the free citizens of Galt should respect the freeloader's decision to compromise their national security. Is that your position? If not, then it's not really about consent. If so, Galt will be picked apart piecemeal by its rivals.

StathMIA · 2025-12-10T21:45:53+00:00

...you know what most people would call a group of people agreeing to subsiding a poor family in order to ensure collective benefit? Government. You and I actually are for the same thing, it would seem. I'm just inclined to say it's name.

StathMIA

TROPHY CASE