Kirk vs Picard (WWF vs Shakespeare)
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I'd enjoy it [Interstellar] more if I weren't sitting next to two guys groaning all the time because they apparently expected J.J. Abrams' Star Break 3.
My wife was a bit bored by the first half hour or so (before all the SPACE) but she was very interested in the implications of general relativity by the time we got home.
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My wife was a bit bored by the first half hour or so (before all the SPACE) but she was very interested in the implications of general relativity by the time we got home.
They got it half-right, but there were still some big missteps.
[spoiler]
It turns out that one of the three planets orbits very close to the
black hole, so close there will be severe relativistic effects. Relative
to a distant observer, time slows down near a black hole (true),
so one hour on the planet will equal seven years elapsing back on
Earth. Right away, this is a big problem. To get that kind of time
dilation (a factor of about 60,000), you need to be just over the
surface of the black hole, and I mean just over the surface, practically skimming it. But because of the way black holes twist up space, the minimum stable orbit around a black hole must be at least three times the size of the black hole itself. Clocks would run a bit more slowly at that distance than for someone on Earth, but only by about 20 percent.
[/spoiler]
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Well, that'd be the criticism that the author admits he was wrong about Although, kudos to the guy for admitting he fucked up and owning it.
More generally, I suppose this is the same line of argument I've heard against Gravity as well, where a bunch of joyless nerds pick apart some details of the film which are trivial as far as the plot's concerned, and then declare the movie "ruined". zOMG you guises, ALL the spacestations were at the same height, that's stupid! Sure, whatever, just admit you want to watch Sandra Bullock spend the entirety of the movie with a slide rule, rather than actually, you know, doing anything. Why are they even sending depressed bereaved mothers into space in the first place, they'd never pass the physical! Like they actually have the capacity to enjoy watching a movie as opposed to a physics lecture in the first place.
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a bunch of joyless nerds pick apart some details of the film which are trivial
If only we had a simple, two-word phrase to describe those who engage in such nitpicking*.
Gravity
After 900+ hours of KSP, nitpicking about precise orbital parameters is something I have an inclination to do**.
*And some "badges," if you will, to identify those of us who do it frequently.
**Such nitpicking will never reach an apogee.
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More generally, I suppose this is the same line of argument I've heard against Gravity as well, where a bunch of joyless nerds pick apart some details of the film which are trivial as far as the plot's concerned, and then declare the movie "ruined".
Well I did have a similar complaint, but not so much because I went nitpickig. I just found the chain of events rather implausible which broke my immersion a bit.
I mean, ALL of the stations went down? And ALL the communications satellites as well? At the same time? That's some epic bad luck right there.
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*And some "badges," if you will, to identify those of us who do it frequently.
And surely no one would ever brag about having, say, three of such badges.
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They got it half-right, but there were still some big missteps
Until we observe something that proves that wrong.
What if it were a planet suspended between two black holes...?
(It would be ripped in half).Ok, ok.... whatever, I give up.
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What if it were a planet suspended between two black holes...?
(It would be ripped in half).That depends on the gradient of the local gravitational field; it doesn't matter what is producing the field (neutron stars, black holes, whatever). However, something in such a location is very unlikely to stay there; L1 is not a place where a stable equilibrium exists, especially when the major masses are similar.
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Imagine a movie realistically portraying two groups of engineers struggling to build the best flying robo-soldier army to defeat each other. Maybe in the format of a "mockumentary" explaining the engineering problems they find and how they solve them. I'd watch the fuck out of that.
Of course, the end game of that is A Taste of Armageddon.
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he's a fun guy to a watch but a sir patrick stewart he is not.
You say that like it's a bad thing. Watching TOS I felt like I was watching something actually happen. Watching TNG I felt like I was watching a play whenever Picard was on.
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You say that like it's a bad thing. Watching TOS I felt like I was watching something actually happen. Watching TNG I felt like I was watching a play whenever Picard was on.
Patrick Stewart is awesome. That is a universal law
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Patrick Stewart is awesome.
You'll notice I didn't disagree. I just don't think he was a good fit for that show.
You can level the same criticism of 2/3 of the Voyager cast, for example.
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You'll notice I didn't disagree. I just don't think he was a good fit for that show.
Hmm… OK, I'll believe you ;)
@FrostCat said:You can level the same criticism of 2/3 of the Voyager cast, for example.
QFTOddly, Voyager is the only Star Trek I've ever watched a significant amount of.
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Oddly, Voyager is the only Star Trek I've ever watched a significant amount of.
TOS was a straightforward action adventure. The rest of the series had Messages To Impart, and frankly, it got in the way of the story telling.
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Actually, Enterprise not so much. For all its failings it felt, to me, most true to TOS.
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TOS was a straightforward action adventure.
Haha what!?
The rest of the series had Messages To Impart, and frankly, it got in the way of the story telling.
The original series not only had Messages to Impart, but they were imparted in the most ham-fisted way possible! (As were those in early seasons of TNG before Roddenbery died.)
Do you seriously not remember the episode where the two dueling aliens were white and black, but one had the white on the left and the other had the white on the right? They might as well have flashed up a giant caption reading, "RACISM IS BAD" during the last half of that episode. Sheesh.
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Watching TOS I felt like I was watching something actually happen. Watching TNG I felt like I was watching a play whenever Picard was on.
Seriously?
Watching TOS was like watching WWF during the fights.
"Da da da dun duh dunnnnn..."Kirk: I'm going to rip him to shreds.
Announcer: And there you have it folks. The Kirk against....
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TOS is the best Trek because of its tongue-in-cheek goofy charm, and the opportunity to watch Shatner, Nimoy et al devour the inexpensive sets.
Every* other incarnation of Trek takes itself entirely too seriously, and becomes po-faced and dreary as a result. This is Trek Truth.
*except Voyager
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The original series not only had Messages to Impart, but they were imparted in the most ham-fisted way possible!
I knew someone would bring that up.
All the shows had Messages. TOS seemed more about fitting a message into a story, whereas later series seemed to try to write a story around the message. But the thing that bothered me more was really how the later shows--as I said--felt more like I was watching something everyone knew was a play, rather than how good fiction should be, which is I feel like I'm watching people actually going about their lives. Patrick Stewart--and I'm not meaning to single him out here--may be a great Shakespearan Actor, but he's not a convincing starship captain.
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Seriously?
Watching TOS was like watching WWF during the fights.
Yes, seriously. It feels less affected than TNG.
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Every* other incarnation of Trek takes itself entirely too seriously
Yes.
Also I don't know why you think Voyager doesn't take itself too seriously. it was the most dreary and wooden of all of them.
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which is I feel like I'm watching people actually going about their lives
So..... you want to watch them take a piss?
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Also I don't know why you think Voyager doesn't take itself too seriously.
Whaaa? Nah. Voyager actually had a pretty good self-aware sense of humor.
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Also I don't know why you think Voyager doesn't take itself too seriously. it was the most dreary and wooden of all of them.
Mostly because of the guy-goes-faster-than-light-then-turns-into-a-lizard episode. Voyager was pretty dumb.
EDIT: Also Neelix. Neelix was also pretty dumb...
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Voyager also had this:
[img]http://schend.net/images/animated/coffee.gif[/img]
And this:
[img]http://schend.net/images/animated/holodeck_wackiness.gif[/img]
And "get that cheese to sick bay!"
I mean it wasn't exactly a comedy show. But when Voyager did comedy, it was funnier than Next Generation at least. Remember that dire episode with Mrs. Troi and the mud baths? Torture. (But maybe not DS9, which was surprisingly good at comedy.)
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I mean it wasn't exactly a comedy show. But when Voyager did comedy, it was funnier than Next Generation at least.
Ok, I'll give you that.
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That DS9 episode with the mad scientist who wants to make people immortal by making sure their cells never get "bored", that was funny as hell.
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I think the biggest problem with Voyager was the technobabble. Voyager used technobabble as filler. Compare a TNG technobabble:
RIKER... Everyone's still trying to figure out exactly how you did it.
BARCLAY :It... it just occurred to me that I could set up a frequency harmonic between the deflector and the shield grid... using the warp field generator as a power flow anti-attenuator and that of course naturally created an amplification of the inherent energy output.
RIKER: Uh huh............................Nice job.
Versus ST:VOY:
SEVEN: Each Cube has specially designed conduits. If we install similar conduits throughout this vessel, then generate a sufficiently powerful field, we may be able to force Voyager back into temporal sync.
CHAKOTAY: Temporal sync with what?
SEVEN: The vessel will return to the moment of the original chrono-kinetic surge. Since the surge will last for six or seven seconds, Commander Chakotay will have a short time in which he could try to counteract the warp core reaction.
CHAKOTAY: Even if we could replicate these conduits, we'd have no way to get them through the temporal barriers.
JANEWAY: Bioneural circuitry.
ME: WAT
CHAKOTAY: Captain?
JANEWAY: It runs through every section of the ship, almost like a nervous system. If we could inject the gel packs with your serum, we could use them to transmit the chronoton field.
ME: facepalm2.jpg
SEVEN: The warp core could be recalibrated to generate that field.
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During Voyager, listen for the word "protocol". Once you notice that its used like 47 times an episode, it'll drive you crazy.
I almost wonder if it was some kind of inside joke with the writers.
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This thread is like asking if cancer is better than being dead.
"Well, on the one hand cancer has a good sense of humor about what it does to you."
"Death takes itself too seriously. And the shit people say at funerals is mostly bogus filler material"
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The moment that Star Trek changed from being technology predictor, to technology reactor.
Voyager seemed to want to incorporate every incoming technology idea of the day after it was a buzz word.
Whereas the original went out to the scientific journals and brought that information to us.
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Voyager seemed to want to incorporate every incoming technology idea of the day after it was a buzz word.
That would be fun today:
Captain: crew, we need the navigation route to system HUJB-1045 so tell the big data scientist to connect to the galactic cloud and map-reduce the best available routes using Mamath (the ship's machine-learning AI)
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Patrick Stewart--and I'm not meaning to single him out here--may be a great Shakespearan Actor, but he's not a convincing starship captain.
I think he fit the milieu's idea of a starship captain much better than Kirk. By that I mean the New Federation Man. Kirk was a little too cowboy (or a little too New Federation Man), and the character just didn't quite go together. He lost a bit of the NFM bullshit in the movies, I think, and they were better for it.
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Also I don't know why you think Voyager doesn't take itself too seriously. it was the most dreary and wooden of all of them.
I'm not sure I ever made it through an entire episode.
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During Voyager, listen for the word "protocol". Once you notice that its used like 47 times an episode, it'll drive you crazy.
A lot of TV shows have a hard on for that word. It's really stupid and annoying.
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During Voyager, listen for the word "protocol". Once you notice that its used like 47 times an episode, it'll drive you crazy.
I almost wonder if it was some kind of inside joke with the writers.
Oh good grief yes.
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The moment that Star Trek changed from being technology predictor, to technology reactor.
I've been having a bit of fun watching this. You can see the point where they got a couple of real LCD monitors in addition to whatever CGI or whatever they were using for displays, because they felt the need to use them for displays, but I guess the computers they had access to weren't up to what they wanted them to do, so you'll see a screen with some animation, and it's pretty jerky and very low-res and thus blocky.
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. By that I mean the New Federation Man.
Yeah, it was always fun the couple of times Janeway, who ignores all local laws when it suits her, call Kirk a cowboy. "Oh, he'd never last in today's Starfleet." Sure, lady. If the Federation was honest, you'd spend 70 years in jail when you get back.
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A lot of TV shows have a hard on for that word. It's really stupid and annoying.
QFT because a like isn't enough. Apparently TV writers think it's cool because it's three syllables or something.
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Apparently TV writers think it's cool because it's three syllables or something.
I think it sounds really official or scientific or something to them. They are immune to douchey, apparently.
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The vast majority of TV writers are hacks.
The Walking Dead is a good show probably primarily because the writers aren't complete hacks. They'll have an opportunity to do the cliché-ridden thing every other show does, and do something different.
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Season 5 is dropping the ball.... idiot ball.... everywhere.
And it's becoming too cliche....
They do cliches, it just spans the whole story arc, so you don't notice it.
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Yes they are. We just talked about this yesterday.
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Yeah, it was always fun the couple of times Janeway, who ignores all local laws when it suits her, call Kirk a cowboy. "Oh, he'd never last in today's Starfleet." Sure, lady. If the Federation was honest, you'd spend 70 years in jail when you get back.
Kate Mulgrew was playing Janeway as a mentally ill person, wasn't she? I read it somewhere, it was her way of making sense of what the scriptwriters were throwing at them...
Lagrange point - Wikipedia
![http://schend.net/images/animated/coffee.gif[/img]](http://schend.net/images/animated/coffee.gif%5B/img%5D){kind=link}
![http://schend.net/images/animated/holodeck_wackiness.gif[/img]](http://schend.net/images/animated/holodeck_wackiness.gif%5B/img%5D){kind=link}