Wednesday, November 30, 2005
What a difference a day made - Jamie Cullum
It's 4:18 am now. I wished I could say that I have been up studying - as I had planned to! No, for the past 4 hours plus, I was watching the last 5 episodes of "24" Season 2!
Last week, in between trying to complete me essay, I finished season 1.
Well, I have to blame Michael for this! He had been recommending "24" to me. But I had always wanted to catch it - and never had the chance. Well, I do now and I can't wait to get me grubby hands on Season 3!!!!
24 is simply brilliant! But altho most people feel that Seasons 1 and 4 are the best, I prefered season 2 over season 1! I just couldn't stop watching season 2! And season 2 - in my view - had more emotional scenes. But I won't go into details in case some of you have not watched it yet. if you are one of those, watch it.
24 has such an original premise - to show a series based on "real-time", to base the entire series on events which just takes place in one single day! If you think about it, it is extremely difficult - and it takes away one of the useful tools in story-telling - flashbacks. You can't have that in this series!
I must hand it to the scriptwriters, on how they keep the pace going. The action and suspense is there thruout all 24 episodes! And altho at times - for me - some things are predictable, and some things are unbelievable, the sheer entertainment value outweighs wat ever trivial shortcomings the critical person in me points out.
But complain I must - why is it that all the female characters in 24 are either extremely stupid or extremely evil? And why is it that when someone talks on the phone, they must turn away from whoever they are watching over/guarding/keeping an eye on?
But the complaints stop there. The acting is excellent, the characters are believable, the plot is tight, the action is never-ending, the twists are plentiful and at times, mind-blowing (so much so that Michael had to watch season 1 all over again!!! I was tempted to do that - it's like after watching "The 6th Sense" and you wanted to watch it all over again to see if you could have spotted the twist or to see if the story was consistent with the end-twist).
Besides the emotional scenes (I'm a sucker for "heroes") in season 2, I liked it also because of the issues it raised in my mind. Note: This is an EXTREMELY minor spoiler which I guarantee wont spoil it at all:-
Here's the scenario - you have the terrorist in your custody. The terrorist had planted a nuclear bomb in town which will go off soon, killing millions of people and in all likelihood, starting a nuclear war which will end the world. Only the terrorist in your custody knows the whereabouts of the bomb. Would you condone carrying out torture on him to reveal where the bomb is?
As a human rights student, I learn - and fully agree - that there are certain basic human rights that are considered as "non-derogable". Some rights are derogable during certain situations - like in times of war, your freedom to move about freely may be taken away on a temporary basis. But we believe that certain rights can never be taken away no matter wat the circumstances are. The right not to be tortured is one of such rights. It would be an extremely dangerous path to go on if we were to even suggest that torture is permitted in certain situations.
Or is it? After all, the torture of the terrorist could potentially yeild a result which will save the lives of millions.
But is simple mathematical equations the right way to deal with it?
What if he is so well-trained, he won't break under torture? Then would it justify that we threaten to kill his wife or his children if he doesn't tell us. Heck, we may have to kill one child just to show that we mean business. Then would the mathematical equation come in again - kill one in order to save millions? But where will it all end? Kill a hundred to save millions? Kill a thousand to save millions?
I have to admit that I was rooting for Jack to make the pretty girl (but evil) suffer to get her to tell where the bomb was. After all, she had... erm... go watch it!
O well... I better get to studying now - around 6 hours left before class. At least I was thinking of human rights issues as I watched the series! :-P
Maybe I should use this for my dissertation topic - "Are non-derogable rights truly absolutely non-derogable?" That's an idea... can i drag it to 20,000 words???
Last week, in between trying to complete me essay, I finished season 1.
Well, I have to blame Michael for this! He had been recommending "24" to me. But I had always wanted to catch it - and never had the chance. Well, I do now and I can't wait to get me grubby hands on Season 3!!!!
24 is simply brilliant! But altho most people feel that Seasons 1 and 4 are the best, I prefered season 2 over season 1! I just couldn't stop watching season 2! And season 2 - in my view - had more emotional scenes. But I won't go into details in case some of you have not watched it yet. if you are one of those, watch it.
24 has such an original premise - to show a series based on "real-time", to base the entire series on events which just takes place in one single day! If you think about it, it is extremely difficult - and it takes away one of the useful tools in story-telling - flashbacks. You can't have that in this series!
I must hand it to the scriptwriters, on how they keep the pace going. The action and suspense is there thruout all 24 episodes! And altho at times - for me - some things are predictable, and some things are unbelievable, the sheer entertainment value outweighs wat ever trivial shortcomings the critical person in me points out.
But complain I must - why is it that all the female characters in 24 are either extremely stupid or extremely evil? And why is it that when someone talks on the phone, they must turn away from whoever they are watching over/guarding/keeping an eye on?
But the complaints stop there. The acting is excellent, the characters are believable, the plot is tight, the action is never-ending, the twists are plentiful and at times, mind-blowing (so much so that Michael had to watch season 1 all over again!!! I was tempted to do that - it's like after watching "The 6th Sense" and you wanted to watch it all over again to see if you could have spotted the twist or to see if the story was consistent with the end-twist).
Besides the emotional scenes (I'm a sucker for "heroes") in season 2, I liked it also because of the issues it raised in my mind. Note: This is an EXTREMELY minor spoiler which I guarantee wont spoil it at all:-
Here's the scenario - you have the terrorist in your custody. The terrorist had planted a nuclear bomb in town which will go off soon, killing millions of people and in all likelihood, starting a nuclear war which will end the world. Only the terrorist in your custody knows the whereabouts of the bomb. Would you condone carrying out torture on him to reveal where the bomb is?
As a human rights student, I learn - and fully agree - that there are certain basic human rights that are considered as "non-derogable". Some rights are derogable during certain situations - like in times of war, your freedom to move about freely may be taken away on a temporary basis. But we believe that certain rights can never be taken away no matter wat the circumstances are. The right not to be tortured is one of such rights. It would be an extremely dangerous path to go on if we were to even suggest that torture is permitted in certain situations.
Or is it? After all, the torture of the terrorist could potentially yeild a result which will save the lives of millions.
But is simple mathematical equations the right way to deal with it?
What if he is so well-trained, he won't break under torture? Then would it justify that we threaten to kill his wife or his children if he doesn't tell us. Heck, we may have to kill one child just to show that we mean business. Then would the mathematical equation come in again - kill one in order to save millions? But where will it all end? Kill a hundred to save millions? Kill a thousand to save millions?
I have to admit that I was rooting for Jack to make the pretty girl (but evil) suffer to get her to tell where the bomb was. After all, she had... erm... go watch it!
O well... I better get to studying now - around 6 hours left before class. At least I was thinking of human rights issues as I watched the series! :-P
Maybe I should use this for my dissertation topic - "Are non-derogable rights truly absolutely non-derogable?" That's an idea... can i drag it to 20,000 words???
# posted by imissw : 4:14:00 am
