KSP Has Spoiled My Enjoyment Of Hollywood Space Movies

[NeoMorph]

Has anyone else noticed this... You go to watch something like "Gravity" and most of the movie you are going "BUT THAT'S NOT RIGHT!!!!". For example I seem to remember that the Tiangong is in a 350km orbit and the Karman line (edge of atmosphere) is around 100km. Yet if you watch the movie Gravity you see the Tiangong flying right on the edge of the Karman line... and all from some dodgy Kessler Syndrome incident... I... DON'T... THINK... SO....

Yup... I wouldn't have known that if it hadn't been for KSP. Hell, I didn't even know a gravity turn from a Hohmann transfer manoeuvre. But learning all that stuff (and I'm still learning) has made me appreciate KSP more...

And yet even though it's kind of spoiled some movies it does make me grin when I imagine Jeb replacing the lead actor. It does make me wonder if KSP is going to influence a new breed of rocketeers/astronauts. I just hope they don't follow in Jeb's footsteps.

But ultimately what I would LOVE to see is someone doing a remake of Gravity... but done in KSP with Valentina as the heroine.

Edited April 3, 2016 by NeoMorph

[Kosmognome]

Yeah, I hate those things.

 

But, as a student of computer science, it not worse then seeing all the horrible, horrible "hacker" terminals and stuff like that in movies. Most of the times, IT is represented even worse then orbital mechanics on TV.

[zarakon]

KSP makes Interstellar an awful experience

[HebaruSan]

My headcanon is that Sandra Bullock goes into a coma in her suit and dreams/hallucinates everything after the shuttle gets wrecked. Explains everything for me since they made a point of how green she was.

[Deddly]

I think the general rule is that knowledge in any particular field ruins your fun in movies that have anything to do with that area.

[tater]

8 minutes ago, zarakon said:

KSP makes Interstellar an awful experience

Watching Interstellar makes Interstellar an awful experience.  

[HebaruSan]

Just now, tater said:

Watching Interstellar makes Interstellar an awful experience.  

What's Interstellar's equivalent of "Those things aren't on the same orbit" and "The MMU doesn't have that much Δv" and "What the heck orbit is that debris cloud on anyway"? I thought they got gravitational time dilation at least sort of right, and that's something KSP doesn't teach you about (much like wormholes or crop biology).

[dangerhamster]

Common sense ruins more movies than knowledge..... have you seen Red Tails?

[genbrien]

Go check any Fast&Furious.....

[tater]

15 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

What's Interstellar's equivalent of "Those things aren't on the same orbit" and "The MMU doesn't have that much Δv" and "What the heck orbit is that debris cloud on anyway"? I thought they got gravitational time dilation at least sort of right, and that's something KSP doesn't teach you about (much like wormholes or crop biology).

Aside from just "bad plot" in general (which is enough), let's see.

SSTO Ranger needs SLS (?) to get to orbit.

Ranger and cargo ships are SSTOs in the first place.

The black hole stuff... hitting the event horizon dilates time infinitely, which sort of makes any time lost on that water planet noise.

The water planet? Should be bathed in lethal radiation from the BH, so they'd not bother checking it out in the first place.

The energy to get to the water planet would be... excessive.

The dilation effects are somehow made out to be only at the planet, but it would be a gradient... if they lost years on the surface, they also lost a lot just getting there. 

 

The whole plot around the possible habitable worlds would have worked just as well with no black hole, using a distant binary system with 1 world around 1 star, and the others around the 2d star. Travel times and propellant mass alone could do what they needed without the nuttiness of the BH they introduced. An alien star gate is just something you have to suspend disbelief on... going into a black hole is NOT something I suspend disbelief on.

Edited April 3, 2016 by tater

[Kosmognome]

25 minutes ago, Deddly said:

I think the general rule is that knowledge in any particular field ruins your fun in movies that have anything to do with that area.

Not necessarily - The Martian is quite well researched and the orbital mechanics make sense. I much enjoyed the movie (I did not know about the book beforehand and was made aware of the film by the reddit challenges).

although I have to admit those cases are rare.

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

Most recently KSP has ruined the following movies for me:

2001 A  Space Odesseyy 

2010 The year we make contact.

The Martian

 

 

[Skybird0]

Personally, 2001 A Space Odyssey wasn't that good of a movie anyways...

[tater]

 

1 minute ago, Skybird0 said:

Personally, 2001 A Space Odyssey wasn't that good of a movie anyways...

I remember seeing a quote that said 2001 was a Great movie, but not a good movie. I tend to agree. It was great in the sense it was important, but it is hard to watch, and utterly fails at telling a story, IMO. If you haven't read the book, you have no real idea what happened.

[Scotius]

Not only movies - TV shows and games too At least the ones trying to have pretence of being 'realistic' (vide Gravity). Anyone played "Jupiter: Nexus Incident"? That game in its first part tried to show 'realistic' space combat - slow ships using weak lasers, slow missiles and rotating crew modules...that can stop in space like they hit an invisible bumper. Ehhh... worthy of a cringe

[GDJ]

52 minutes ago, zarakon said:

KSP makes Interstellar an awful experience

 

43 minutes ago, tater said:

Watching Interstellar makes Interstellar an awful experience.  

It wasn't great, but it wasn't that bad. Yeah, some of the plot was kinda "  " and sometimes it was "  " but all in all I enjoyed it as entertainment.
Besides, Anne Hathaway was and still is....DAMN!  

The Martian was a heck of alot closer to being plausible. And Matt Damon did a heck of a job.

[tater]

My reaction to Interstellar was the same as my reaction to Pearl Harbor.

Someone gave me a (used) copy of Pearl Harbor since they knew I was a WW2 buff. I thanked them, and threw it in the trash. I could have traded it in someplace, but them some poor soul would have watched it.

[cantab]

Interstellar was a good film, and a few iffy bits of science didn't stop it being good.

Gravity was a bad film, and a few iffy bits of science didn't make it bad.

(Most of the quibbles about Gravity can be handwaved away if you suppose it's in an alternate history where the relevant orbits are all coplanar anyway).

[N_Danger]

 A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. If you know something of the subject, all you do is pick apart the inconsistencies and don't enjoy the movie.

I'm also a military history buff and I find that almost every war movie is un-watchable because of that.

To be fair though space travel is a difficult subject to depict on a big screen in 2 hours.

 Interstellar and Gravity were good ideas done badly. I think because some movie execs thought "we need more special effects and excitement here"

[HebaruSan]

1 minute ago, tater said:

My reaction to Interstellar was the same as my reaction to Pearl Harbor.

Someone gave me a (used) copy of Pearl Harbor since they knew I was a WW2 buff. I thanked them, and threw it in the trash. I could have traded it in someplace, but them some poor soul would have watched it.

Did you at least enjoy the robots, or is your heart just too hard and cold and black? 

[GDJ]

Only watch bits and pieces of Pearl Harbor. Wasn't fussy about it.

2001: Not bad. Yeah, reading the book helped alot.
2010: A much stronger movie, better plot, far stronger cast in regards to acting ability.

1 minute ago, HebaruSan said:

Did you at least enjoy the robots, or is your heart just too hard and cold and black? 

Yeah, I thought the robots were the most human aspect of Interstellar. Ironic, eh?

Edited April 3, 2016 by GDJ

[Kerbart]

32 minutes ago, Kosmognome said:

Not necessarily - The Martian is quite well researched and the orbital mechanics make sense. I much enjoyed the movie (I did not know about the book beforehand and was made aware of the film by the reddit challenges).

although I have to admit those cases are rare.

The point is other fields. Makes you wonder how botanists look at The Martian. Or decision makers inside NASA. Best thing is not to cringe too much over those things or you won't enjoy any movie.

[tater]

3 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Did you at least enjoy the robots, or is your heart just too hard and cold and black? 

The robots were OK. Anne Hathaway... is relevant to my interests. So my heart is not entirely cold and black.

PH was irredeemably awful. Watch Tora, Tora, Tora, instead.

[theend3r]

23 minutes ago, tater said:

 

I remember seeing a quote that said 2001 was a Great movie, but not a good movie. I tend to agree. It was great in the sense it was important, but it is hard to watch, and utterly fails at telling a story, IMO. If you haven't read the book, you have no real idea what happened.

I really enjoyed it. It's slow (long scenes) which makes it hard to watch in our age of quick cuts and the story is... difficult. The effects are incredible for a 1968 film, though, even today.

[tater]

Yeah, I recently watched it in fact. I'm fine with many of the long takes, honestly the only part I really hate is the entire ending sequence.