oscbenton1
4/20/2014 4:34:00 PM
On Sun, 20 Apr 2014 14:26:43 +0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
<ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>Hunter <<buffhunter@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>"Ed Stasiak" <a57160b@webnntp.invalid> wrote:
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>>>>Adam H. Kerman
>>(snip)
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>>>>We all heard in dialogue where Oleg got his information from and
>>>>that a Soviet agent in the US Navy revealed that the plans were false.
>>>>The trouble is that he analyzed what Oleg was told, and concluded
>>>>that the ship's captain took a shortcut
>
>>>No, Oleg was told the real reasons for the sub disaster by his high-
>>>ranking family (his dad, according to Barb May just below).
>
>>Oleg did say he got it from his father, translated to English in
>>glorious Soviet Hammer & Sickle yellow. :-)
>
>>>>That seemed way too clever for Oleg, whose knowledge of science
>>>>and technology is limited to reading
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>>>We don't know what kinda education Oleg received but by his own
>>>admission, he's always been interested in technology and that is his
>>>specific mission as a KGB agent, so odds are he's pretty well versed
>>>in a variety of fields.
>
>>Agreed. A simple working knowledge about some technical things,
>>perhaps at the level of a hobbyist would be enough. He doesn't have to
>>know the exact way a stealth plane is built to know that the fuselage
>>is built in such a way it reflects much less radar signals than a
>>normal plane but because the plane is built that way it is inherently
>>unstable in flight.
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>>>Not that he needs to be a naval engineer to understand what happened
>>>to the sub, which even a layman (like the viewers watching the show)
>>>could easily understand.
>
>>Absolutely. There is nothing difficult to understand that the
>>propeller failed under extreme stress.
>
>The propeller didn't just fail. It sheared a breach in the hull, causing
>the sub to sink as it was designed to do. That's the bit Oleg seemed
>to interpret, that the propeller's design created excess stress and
>premature metal fatigue, that someone with mere book learning couldn't
>interpret. He'd have had to work out the equations, which we didn't see
>him doing.
>
>Therefore, Oleg was used as a plot device to provide viewers the explanation
>for off screen events that are important to the plot. Oleg's dialogue was
>narration, not character development.
I dunno. I thought it was pretty effective. It seems to a lynchpin
for any number of possible plot threads.