Went to see
Flight of the Phoenix last night. For those of you who can't even handle discusson of movie plots, stop now.
At any rate, the plane crashes in the middle of the Gobi and Giovanni Ribisi's character tells them that they can rebuild the plane. He designs planes for a living.
At the start, there is a tension between Ribisi and Dennis Quaid's character (the pilot of the plane). Now, Ribisi is respectful of Quaid's piloting skills. He directly points out that few pilots could have managed to keep the plane from disintegrating and letting them survive the crash they way he did. But, Quaid doesn't seem to respect Ribisi.
Now (big plot spoilers here), at some point smugglers appear over the next dune. Ribisi tells Quaid not to go over there. They're smugglers, they probably won't offer help, we have nothing to offer them, it's only going to be trouble. But, Quaid and a couple other characters go over and, sure enough, one of them gets killed in a scuffle. Ribisi and Quaid get into an argument which, when Ribisi calls Quaid on his "colossal arrogance", ends in Quaid punching Ribisi in the face. Ribisi then quits the plane project, and he's the only one who knows how to build it to make it fly. "All of you are expendable except me." He then forces the crew to submit to his authority ("Say 'please'" and "Who's in charge?" "You are."), including Quaid.
So, they get the new plane made out of the remnants of the old when Quaid finds out that Ribisi designs
model airplanes and everyone goes nuts. Ribisi tries to point out that the principles of aerodynamic flight are scalable and, as a designer of model planes, his designs need to be even
better than the real thing because model airplanes don't have pilots. One of the other characters grabs a gun and is going to shoot Ribisi when finally Quaid makes him stop (partly because a windstorm is picking up and the plane is fighting to burst its tiedowns and fly away.)
Now at the end, Quaid and Ribisi shake hands, but it brought up something that I often find when I come here: The inherent disrespect of those who are considered "brains" by those who aren't. The way I saw the film, you were supposed to sympathize with Quaid and his feeling of betrayal by Ribisi regarding how is claim of "I design planes" was only for model airplanes, despite the real justifications for why Ribisi is actually the perfect person for this job.
Now, I'm not trying to invoke the argument from authority, but I am noticing how people who have no grounding in a subject often feel they have some valid point to make in that subject. This attitude seems to be common enough that movies will invoke it in order to create a dramatic point. All through the scene, I was hoping Ribisi would punch Quaid to get him to shut up and listen, to consider that while Ribisi may not be right, Quaid has no justification for telling him he's wrong.
Where did we acquire this notion that everybody has something of value to add to every discussion? Is it part of the ideal of freedom of speech? I get the feeling that people who understand that they have the right to their opinion don't seem to realize that that does not mean their opinion is of any worth.
Did anybody else notice this?
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!
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