Science in TV series and cinema

[hurgar]

I am a big Anime fan. Several years a go I brought one called Planetes. It is in a near future setting. The moon is colonized there are several space stations and most international flights are sub orbital. The main story is about Debris Section. They were formed after a suborbital flight was damaged and had casualties caused by debris. The story is decent for a anime but they use real physics for moving around in space. In the extra section there is several interviews with the people from NASA in charge of tracking space debris. It has 26 TV episodes. Unfortunately it is out of print. It came out in 2005/2006 in the USA. If you can find a copy it would be an interesting watch.

The plot summary from ANN. In the year 2075, mankind has reached a point where journeying between the earth, the moon and the space stations is part of daily life. However , the progression of technology in space has also resulted in the problem of space debris, which can cause excessive and even catastrophic damage to spacecraft and equipment. This is the story of Tchnora's Debris Section, its Eva worker, Hachirota Hoshino, and newcomer Ai Tanabe.

[iDan122]

Mission to Mars is horrible in physics, they were just so unrealistic. Seriously, rendezvous with something that is in orbit while you are in a interplanetary trajectory? Wtf?

[FortyCaliber]

Some movies and TV get close, and almost all of them get something right:

examples:

2001: Space Odyssey - pretty accurate for the space craft. the exception was the orbital station that was spinning: it was too fast, but even at appropriate rotational speed, normal people couldn't handle the Coriolis effect. Same goes for the vessel moving to Jupiter.

Firefly: Firefly/Serenity got the "no noise in space" aspect correct.

BSG: The vipers and raptors used liquid fuel and maneuvered using RCS thrusters.

Star Trek: while almost everything is unlikely, they do include "inertial dampeners" that prevent the crew from being tossed around the vessel at near relativistic speeds. They likely keep the vessel intact.

Avatar: The vessel that brought everyone to Pandora was actually designed by experts in the field at Cameron's request.

[Kerbface]

2001: Space Odyssey - pretty accurate for the space craft. the exception was the orbital station that was spinning: it was too fast, but even at appropriate rotational speed, normal people couldn't handle the Coriolis effect. Same goes for the vessel moving to Jupiter.

Yes for the 5.5rpm 5m radius Discovery centrifuge, but Space Station V too fast? Hardly! It's 1rpm, people have been shown to be able to adapt fairly easily to at least 2rpm. The lunar level gravity was not terribly well demonstrated on-screen in either craft though.

[KOCOUR]

Personally I'd love to make a film about the future that would involve lots of decadence, not looking it from a technical straight headed side of view, but more in the social/cultural way.. Facebook, laziness, happiness on an electrode, clones made just for sexual pleasure, lack of faith and influence of that on the way we think and what we want.. Then all this contrasted with some idealistic-technological thinking. Something like "just a little thought where could our ethics and principles go in the future". Also INVALIDS in space, why the f* do you need legs in zero g?

Please dont!

If you want to make films, focus on fun or nonsocial (prefarably technical) education, and avoid Social, enviromental, political, or religion themes as it was plague. Unless you aim to make fun of them. then its okay to write about them.

No matter what is authors initial intention, how much objective he want to be in that, if the theme is social,political, cultural or religion, it allways ends up with "black/white point of wiev" "hippie or nazi" bull****, and it allways feels like 17yearsold wrote it.

[Nibb31]

Personally I'd love to make a film about the future that would involve lots of decadence, not looking it from a technical straight headed side of view, but more in the social/cultural way.. Facebook, laziness, happiness on an electrode, clones made just for sexual pleasure, lack of faith and influence of that on the way we think and what we want..

Idiocracy.

[Nikolai]

If you want to make films, focus on fun or nonsocial (prefarably technical) education, and avoid Social, enviromental, political, or religion themes as it was plague.

Science fiction is always about the present, even if the setting is the future or the past. The best stories tell us about what it means to be human, here and now. And some of that will involve themes like you mention.

Think of the science fiction that has endured since it became a distinct genre. War of the Worlds isn't about alien invasion; it's about imperialism. The Time Machine isn't about time travel; it's about Victorian class structure.

There are themes (and ways to express them) that have been beaten to death, but something utterly removed from the human experience as we perceive it will fail to connect with consumers of your art.

[Xorth Tanovar]

Defying gravity was a real missed opportunity.

...and after downloading and watching the only episode of "L5", I'd say another opportunity missed. Looked like it had potential. http://www.l5-series.com/

Then again, Ellison's "Phoenix Without Ashes" was trashed by corporate types, it could have been so much more had the original vision been preserved.

[Tankbuster32]

There is a fictionsl documentary about what is essentially a grand tour of the solar system called: Space Odyssey: Voyage to Other Planets and Beyond. It's quite good and realistic. Also if you like hard sci-fi you should read Alastair Reynolds' books.

[Moon Goddess]

Science fiction is always about the present, even if the setting is the future or the past. The best stories tell us about what it means to be human, here and now. And some of that will involve themes like you mention.

Think of the science fiction that has endured since it became a distinct genre. War of the Worlds isn't about alien invasion; it's about imperialism. The Time Machine isn't about time travel; it's about Victorian class structure.

There are themes (and ways to express them) that have been beaten to death, but something utterly removed from the human experience as we perceive it will fail to connect with consumers of your art.

This is true in general, but usually not to the extent as Wells. Verne has social issues in his writing but the tech was definitely the forefront of his work. Now, that's also the reason why I've always felt Wells was vastly superior to Verne.

[Nikolai]

Verne has social issues in his writing but the tech was definitely the forefront of his work.

Excellent point. And I agree with you that the social issues are still present in Verne; if you read between the lines, you can even see that From the Earth to the Moon, for example, is about military manufacturers trying to come to grips with the end of the American Civil War, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is about overcoming nature versus reconciling with nature. Verne may have cared a lot more about making sure the technical details were correct, but if he had made them solely about technical education and didn't relate them at all to the human condition, I'd argue that a lot fewer science fiction fans would know his name today.

[KOCOUR]

Well i been taken bit too much to the word!

Of course if you are writing storry it would probably contain living sentient creatures, probably humans, and so it will also neccesarily contain social, or political themes. Just not make those themes the main focus of the storry, and/or do not present them too much.

[magnemoe]

Please dont!

If you want to make films, focus on fun or nonsocial (prefarably technical) education, and avoid Social, enviromental, political, or religion themes as it was plague. Unless you aim to make fun of them. then its okay to write about them.

No matter what is authors initial intention, how much objective he want to be in that, if the theme is social,political, cultural or religion, it allways ends up with "black/white point of wiev" "hippie or nazi" bull****, and it allways feels like 17yearsold wrote it.

Pretty much this, one thing I loved about the Rome series was how alien they was. Two examples, mother suspect kid had an gay affair with Caesar, she was very upset then he did not follow up.

Multiple times couples had sex with servants in the room. Simple stuff but made them more alien then Klingon or Na'vi. Now how would society be in 1000 years.

Yes it would be way richer unless you do something post apocalyptic, but mores has changes a bit the last 60 or 200 years. Even weirder with gene manipulation people would probably change more the next 2-300 years than the last 30.000.

So make attitudes change, often in weird ways but make it logical. Yes and you can add pointed fingers as long as its done an fun way but don't preach unless its an info dump.

[Lanfranc]

Please dont!

If you want to make films, focus on fun or nonsocial (prefarably technical) education, and avoid Social, enviromental, political, or religion themes as it was plague. Unless you aim to make fun of them. then its okay to write about them.

No matter what is authors initial intention, how much objective he want to be in that, if the theme is social,political, cultural or religion, it allways ends up with "black/white point of wiev" "hippie or nazi" bull****, and it allways feels like 17yearsold wrote it.

Um. What about Star Trek, just to take one example? In the course of the different series, it has tackled racism, war, the Cold War, religion, civil rights, technology, cultural encounters, historiography, imperialism, environmentalism, just to take a couple of themes off the top of my head, and mostly done so very well.

At the end of the day, stories have to be about something, have to have a theme. If you don't have a theme in your story, you don't really have a story at all.

[KOCOUR]

Well man, i hate Startrek!

[czokletmuss]

Has anyone saw the "Europa Report"? Is it good?

[Kerbface]

I want to see the Europa report, but I can't seem to find any information about where and when it's being released and in what formats...

[Eric S]

I saw Europa Report on demand through Comcast as a "before it's in theaters" feature. It had an expiration date this week, so I'd expect that to mean it will be in theaters soon. Googling around gave me conflicting release dates of June 15 and August 2, with the latter matching up with my prediction.

There were a few things that bothered me about the movie, but the science was far more accurate than I'm used to in movies. It was also pretty easy to figure out who died shortly after they revealed that someone had died (not a real spoiler, the reveal that someone died happens in the first 5 minutes, and then the movie starts bouncing around in time).

[Valley]

I know it is anime but anybody ever watch Planetes?

[nhnifong]

Personally, I'll excuse any lapses in scientific knowledge if the directors and writers and actors are making an effort to tell a consistent, entertaining story. I can understand why sci-fi and fantasy are similar genera. Whether its hard sci-fi, or soft, or pure fantasy, some effort must be taken to build a setting. After establishing that, you can introduce the other elements which may not be believable out of context.

2001 A Space Oddesy was hard sci-fi, and so Kubrik might have felt excused from the obligation to build a setting. Or maybe he just wants to **** with your head. So what you get is a bunch of non-sequiters overlaid on a hard-scientific setting. I thought it was a bad movie for that reason.

In contrast, Apollo 13 was based on a true story, and was also somewhat excused from building a setting. It also had a pretty hard sci-fi portrayal of space flight. But the difference was that the developments and conflicts that arose were of the same caliber as the setting and they fit into it nicely. That's what makes a portrayal of a situation believable, whether it fits into the setting.

[Kaleb]

I want to see the Europa report, but I can't seem to find any information about where and when it's being released and in what formats...

I really want to see this too, and also can't find information about if/when/where it will be released theatrically in my area. I mean, August 2nd is its theatrical release date, but the theaters here don't seem to carry it (the June date was apparently the on-demand release date). I've never used video on demand, iTunes, etc... so I'm hoping to avoid that route if possible.

I did manage to find, here, that the DVD release date is October 8th, so maybe I'll just wait for that, and redbox it?

[czokletmuss]

Speaking of new hard (?) s-f movies, the extended trailer for "Gravity":

http://youtu.be/uuMU2q00w3I

[hugix]

I really want to see this too, and also can't find information about if/when/where it will be released theatrically in my area. I mean, August 2nd is its theatrical release date, but the theaters here don't seem to carry it (the June date was apparently the on-demand release date). I've never used video on demand, iTunes, etc... so I'm hoping to avoid that route if possible.

I did manage to find, here, that the DVD release date is October 8th, so maybe I'll just wait for that, and redbox it?

I've already seen it and it is an utter piece of ****. The storyline doesn't build up any tension. Cool moments in the voyage are played out way to fast. It has absolutely no suspense. The landing for instance, it doesn't go picture perfect (Not a spoiler you could have guessed this before, it is a movie!) but there is no suspense at all. They try to land, come across some problems fix it as best as they can and land...

Even the EVA scene is lacking suspense. The EVA'ing astronaut sees something intresting, goes towards it. something terrible happens and the view is switched to a monitor screen with a ASCII art like representation of what is happening.

---[spoilers, select to read]---

And the ending is a complete joke, it almost smears poop in the faces of all the astronomers and astrobiologists researching Europa. It turns out that the entire crew is being eaten by a glow in the dark giant squid that is living underneath the ice of europa.

---[end spoilers]---

I did like the science parts of the movie, there is some orbital mechanics in it, radiation is always a risk, the team are not just "astronauts" but have real science / aviation backgrounds. To bad that the ending revolves about something completely unscientific

[The Jedi Master]

Simple.

1.Science is hard

2.It's a movie

Though I must admit, I would sit through Race to Mars if I actually had the attention span...

[Pingonaut]

To be fair, Star Wars isn't supposed to be realistic (and you have to know the back story to like the new 1-3 movies).

I do agree, I don't know why movies have to include alien conflict. A "Revolutionary War" of sorts, from a colonized planet facing up against a civilization on Earth. The problem is, to make a "realistic" space movie that's good it would have to be made with people knowledgeable of that in mind, and most movie-goers aren't.

There was one Mars movie that included the 20-40 minute delay in communication, but that was the only thing I saw good about it. Once they got to Mars they breathed air and their rover turned into a killer robot dog. I guess movie makers just want something more "interesting" or exciting (and a realistic sci-fi could be both if done right).