What irks you the most about movie space travel?

[Ralathon]

There does seem to be a bit of irony when we're all playing a game with a "star" that's a factor of ten off from the smallest star possible in a "solar system" where everything would pretty much fit within the orbit of Venus… and the #1 complaint on the poll currently is "unrealistic distances".

Everyone here plays with the Real Solar System mod obviously.

Anyway, even if the kerbin system is scaled down by an order of magnitude it still represents real life much MUCH better than most sci fi shows. How often have you said "Oh, I'm almost out of fuel. Let's land on this nearby planet!" while playing KSP? (the second part, the first part happens all too often).

I do think people drag it out a bit too far. People being turned off at an entire movie simply because it misses this incredibly small detail is nitpicking imo.

[tetryds]

There does seem to be a bit of irony when we're all playing a game with a "star" that's a factor of ten off from the smallest star possible in a "solar system" where everything would pretty much fit within the orbit of Venus… and the #1 complaint on the poll currently is "unrealistic distances".

A multiplying factor is a lot less invasive than all the issues mentioned here.

And yeah, we don't "land on a nearby planet" when running out of fuel like that

I mean, if they have fuel to land, and are heading the right way, why the heck they even need to land on a nearby planet?

Wouldn't it be easier to just wait and land on the planet you aiming for?

Jeez.

The void of these universes might be made out of some sort of liquid, that's the only explanation for this kind of stuff

[Simon Ross]

I'm actually pretty cool about movies playing with gravity, orbital dynamics etc... After all, they are made to entertain us. Certainly the only movies I have ever seen that were close to scientifically accurate were 2001 & 2010.

What does bug the hell out of me is when characters in a movie act in ways that are directly in conflict with who they are supposed to be. By far the worst film for this was Prometheus, a potentially fantastic film ruined by the characters doing things no scientist would ever do in real life

[Smidge204]

The thing is i don't even understand why directors think space fighters are so amazing

Big = Costly, in terms of time, materials and presumably money. Bigger also means an easier target. You can build more smaller ships with the same resources it would take to build one massive ship, which gives redundancy and flexibility (big ships can't be in two places at once). Even if we ignore inertia, there are incentives to making things only as big as they actually need to be.

Cinematically there's also more value: You can get to know each individual pilot as a character, so when one gets blown up there is more empathy with the audience than if a presumed thousand people you never even saw get fried when a big ship is destroyed. Drama!

As for how they "fly" - well, I can forgive a lot there as well. It's not any more realistic to have a ship suddenly change its velocity by 90 degrees, and presumably the thrust output would be optimized/concentrated to drive the craft "forward," so things like gradual turns and graceful arcing maneuvers are fine. Wings would not be needed for providing control surfaces, but do act as mounting points for control thrusters and weapons so they still serve some purpose.... I'm generally okay with space fighters acting like fighter jets.

Other points:

"Unrealistic Distances of Celestial Objects" - as said, space is big and boring. Unless there's good reason to emphasize realistic travel distances/times, skip it.

"Futuristic Laser Weaponry" - yeah, okay. Shouldn't be able to "see" the beams, and they should travel at light speed. I can forgive poor aim for lots of reasons under most situations, though...

"Planet Busting/Destroying" - Oh yeah, that's a lot of energy you need to do that. Not impossibly large amounts, though. Depending on the situation and implementation I'd be okay with it.

"The fact that hardly any sci-fi pilot stops to wonder about the universe" - Presumably space travel would be pretty mundane and commonplace - and knowledge about it so prolific that it would be taught to children as part of a standard education - would subvert much need for starry-eyed wonderment. Being chased/shot at is pretty distracting, too.

So yeah, I'll add to the "horrible writing/acting" pile. Generally bad production quality too. Nothing "takes you out" of a movie experience like a horrible edit or poorly executed special effect.

=Smidge=

[Winter Man]

People using the wrong terms for things.

people buggering me

I dare you to google that. Go on.

[NASAFanboy]

Some points I'm going to make.

Planet Busting is theorectially possible. You just need a whole bunch of bombs.

The pilots don't bother to wonder about the universe, because they simply don't care. In a scifi universe, space travel is about as mudane as driving a car from point A to point B on a regular commute you've done over and over. It's that boring.

[Seret]

The way the aliens are identical to humans, but with knobbly bits on their foreheads. And speak with American accents.

[Nikolai]

I must say topics like this irks me a little bit too. I really love people getting into the nitty gritty of how things work, but KSP players seem to wear it a bit too much like a badge sometimes. Even with your additional knowledge, you know nothing. Everyone should be acutely aware of that. Having a few shreds of extra information does not grant you any rights or puts you above others. On the contrary, I would say.

I would say the first rule of knowing - of science itself - is admitting you barely know anything.

Like, for example, the way that you just know that people who want a dose of realism in their sci-fi do so because they want to show off their hard-won knowledge?

That may well be true for some, but not all. Speaking for myself, my interest continues to be drawn to space travel because space travel is hard. It's very counterintuitive, and challenges our best attempts to understand. That challenge is not only interesting -- it's inspiring, even more so because people attempt to live and work within it.

I, for one, would like to see some of that inspiration transferred to some of my entertainment -- people struggling to understand a hazardous and confusing environment that still operates according to consistent rules, and managing to use that struggle to understand as the leverage they need to succeed. Honestly, even though (for example) Gravity didn't get every detail of physics correct, it got enough right to still meet this criterion without dumping information on the viewer; in my opinion, it succeeded beautifully.

Sometimes, my brain likes to be entertained, too. We can understand why movies about sports figures struggling and finally winning make for inspiring entertainment, or people trying to figure out how to succeed in the business world; why not struggling and succeeding in the face of realistic challenges in space?

[Nikolai]

The way the aliens are identical to humans, but with knobbly bits on their foreheads. And speak with American accents.

How about the way aliens are monolithic in their religion, art, language, and fashion sense?

Or the way aliens are reducible to single characteristics (usually flaws), even when humans are not -- e.g., Klingons are warlike, Ferengi are greedy, Romulans are sneaky, Borg are vampires, Vulcans are logical, etc.?

[Seret]

How about the way aliens are monolithic in their religion, art, language, and fashion sense?

Absolutely. Alien civilisations are always completely homogenous, with no nations or factions having different agenda.

That and single-ecosystem planets. Star Wars is particularly bad for this.

It always bugs me a little bit whenever they visit an exoplanet that has a breathable atmosphere. The odds against that are absurd.

[vetrox]

Theres the odd think that irks me (i love the word irk btw). Although normally its not the physics that bothers me. Admittidly ksp has changed my perception of sci fi some what I am still able to enjoy a movie.

I enjoyed star wars pre ksp and i enjoy it now. The only difference now is I have to imagaine all the fighters have a magical science fiction device that magically negates alot of G effects and allows them to hover over planets at great distances.

What does bother me is my own knowledge on a movie thats marketing itself as realistic. I really enjoyed gravity but i was still screaming (with my mind) about the debris coming back every 10 minutes or w/e it was because that is not how it happens but it was still a great movie. If i hadnt played ksp i wouldnt have known and would have enjoyed it just as much

I can still play all my beloved sci fi games without being annoyed.

My new fandangled ksp knowledge does mean i know a little bit more but its no different from watching an action movie (hiding behind a car makes me immune to bullets...shooting a car once makes it explode) Shooting barrells that are filled with something highly explosive (that just happened to be scattered around a compound) explode when u shoot them.

The normal "movie" things bother me, regardless ie: the obligatory romance plot. The best type of romance plot is the one where someone dies. Sometimes...just sometimes...i wish the badies would win...or reach a stalemate or one where the protagonist dies! If there is ever a halo movie it would be amaze balls if the master chief died at the end. Nothing like the emotional response from a character you love dies ( ***SPOILER*** just like when sgt johnson dies in halo 3***SPOILER*** )

However after saying all this. There is nothing better than a day round your best mates house doing NOTHING BUT picking out things that are wrong in movies. You cant have an interesting and entertaining movie without cutting some reality and when u specifically watch a movie (any movie not just a sci fi) do you notice by how much!

EDIT: My favourite sci fi movie so far is district 9. I dont remember having a hard time with any of the sci fiey stuff on that one.

Edited December 11, 2013 by vetrox

[Death Engineering]

I can accept 'warp' drive, or other FTL interpretations, I can accept 'sub-space' communication. I can even accept 'transporters' (as long as the Heisenberg Compensator is working). However, nothing breaks immersion for me more than having someone bring up a planet/ship/station on their viewscreens and then claiming they're looking at it in real-time (by their point of reference).

People in the story will be looking at an image on their viewscreens of something that is a great distance, even light years, away. How is that possible? Light from the point they are viewing needs to travel to their viewscreens in order to see what is (was) there. By the time the light arrives, whatever they are trying to view is long gone (or not there yet, depending on the point of reference).

So next time Picard orders Wesley to put it "on screen", ask yourself how far away their target is and how long light would need to have travelled to get there.

edit: Someone please tell me I'm wrong so I can enjoy Star Trek again!

Edited December 11, 2013 by Death Engineering

[vetrox]

edit: Someone please tell me I'm wrong so I can enjoy Star Trek again!

FTL view screen?

[Death Engineering]

FTL view screen?

Yeah maybe. My wife says I'm not supposed to ask questions like that and also when the ship is ordered "full stop" when in deep space, what is the point of reference it is stopping at?

[vetrox]

Yeah maybe. My wife says I'm not supposed to ask questions like that and also when the ship is ordered "full stop" when in deep space, what is the point of reference it is stopping at?

Galactic center? (just trying to make star trek a little more plausible for you )

[Superfluous J]

The way the aliens are identical to humans, but with knobbly bits on their foreheads. And speak with American accents.

Unless it's Doctor Who and then they have British accents.

Though one of my favorite lines in all of Sci Fi is from Eccleston's Doctor. Maybe even from the pilot episode. He tells Rose he's an alien and she asks, incredulously, "If you are an alien how come you sound like you're from the North?" and he replies, hurt and defensively, "Lots of planets have a North!"

Yeah maybe. My wife says I'm not supposed to ask questions like that and also when the ship is ordered "full stop" when in deep space, what is the point of reference it is stopping at?

The nearest gravitational body or important object. Similar to the SOIs in KSP. If you're near Earth, you'd come to a stop relative to it, or its surface. If there's a space station or ship nearby, you'd do so relative to it. Granted, it'd be up to the pilot to make that decision and if he or she got it wrong...

[tetryds]

About "FTL view screens": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement

[Skyrunner27]

Movies having ships leave their engines on but still maintain some sort of orbit around a celestial body.

[jfull]

About "FTL view screens": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement

By its very nature, quantum entanglement can't actually be used to convey information

[1of6Billion]

I can accept 'warp' drive, or other FTL interpretations, I can accept 'sub-space' communication. I can even accept 'transporters' (as long as the Heisenberg Compensator is working). However, nothing breaks immersion for me more than having someone bring up a planet/ship/station on their viewscreens and then claiming they're looking at it in real-time (by their point of reference).

People in the story will be looking at an image on their viewscreens of something that is a great distance, even light years, away. How is that possible? Light from the point they are viewing needs to travel to their viewscreens in order to see what is (was) there. By the time the light arrives, whatever they are trying to view is long gone (or not there yet, depending on the point of reference).

So next time Picard orders Wesley to put it "on screen", ask yourself how far away their target is and how long light would need to have travelled to get there.

edit: Someone please tell me I'm wrong so I can enjoy Star Trek again!

No, you're right about that. The good thing is, it's acknowledged (at least once). Check the link, or google "Picard maneuver"

[Nuke]

horrible approach paths to planets/stations/etc. you dont fly directly at the thing you are going to land at, you have to lead it.

[Aghanim]

Movies having ships leave their engines on but still maintain some sort of orbit around a celestial body.

Its depends on the thrust level

For the poll, basically I just ignores the mistakes/inaccuracies unless if the movie do the same mistake as other movie, like several SyFy movies basically copies The Core's plot

Edited December 12, 2013 by Aghanim

[brdavis]

Planet Busting is theorectially possible. You just need a whole bunch of bombs.

A lot of bombs. A whole whole lot of bombs. Each of which is really really really big. To the point of being utterly silly.

The gravitational binding energy of the Earth is around 2e+32 J - so the reduce the Earth to a cloud of expanding rubble, you have to add in at a minimum that much energy. Assuming you don't loose anything to heating the rubble (neat trick), compare it to some other really really energetic event - like, say, the Chicxulub impact (around 5e+23 J). "Planet busting" the Earth would be like 400,000,000 Dinosaur-killer impacts in terms of energy. It's the equivalent of the solar energy intercepted by the Earth, all of it, for 36 million years.

If you can handle these sorts of energy… you have no need for planets. Or probably even stars. And it's overkill by ten's or orders of magnitude as a method to kill a civilization… or even to completely sterilize a planet.

No… "planet-busters" would be another dumb one for me. I can only think of one story that's ever done it halfway convincingly is Bear's "The Forge of God"… and it was honestly still a huge huge stretch to figure out why anyone would ever even consider doing it.

[brdavis]

However, nothing breaks immersion for me more than having someone bring up a planet/ship/station on their viewscreens and then claiming they're looking at it in real-time (by their point of reference).

Read "Downbelow Station" - ships doing combat at real-space FTL. No, not possible… but Cherryh at least addresses the "what you see isn't where it is" with a technique called "longscan", essentially a probabilistic mapping of where other ships might be in an FTL firefight. It may not be great science… but it's a great example of addressing a flaw and turning it into an strength in the story (the space-based conflicts are very interesting).

[Superfluous J]

"Planet busting" the Earth would be like 400,000,000 Dinosaur-killer impacts in terms of energy. It's the equivalent of the solar energy intercepted by the Earth, all of it, for 36 million years.

And here's the big problem with blowing up an entire planet. No self-respecting alien overlord would blow up *one* planet when he could instead render 400,000,000 planets uninhabitable for the same cost.