Sound in outer space

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I don't know why they never bothered to account for that in the movies, but stuff like that got passed over on TV because it was unnecessarily complex and presumed that the audience watching small images would not notice such design details.

For the first several years of TNG, the carpet between the turbolift floors and the bridge floor is continuous, though of different colors:

Image

. Someone in the art department eventually put a dark floor insert a couple of inches wide "separating" the two areas as if the turbolift weren't, you know, built on top of the same solid floor as the rest of the set.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

This is Star Trek for goodness sake. When then majority of so called "alien" sentients are bipedal, with limbs with x amount of digits with, at the most, one pair of opposable ones, and all their anatomy almost in all the same places as ours, "hard science" took off long time ago.

Exactly.

Star Trek is built from a handful of pulp space opera tropes that were pretty clearly defined by the end of World War II. For the most part it comes by its scientific rationalizations second-hand, from sources that were outdated at the time that it was first aired.

People make rather a to-do about Roddenberry "consulting" with scientists, NASA, folks at the Rand Corporation and so forth - but go back and read "The Making Of Star Trek" and the various memos reproduced and so on, and what you find time after time is more or less "well, that was what the scientists told us but we found it undramatic so we did something different." It comes up specifically with reference to sound in space, yeah, but also to the hand weapons, clothing design and so forth.

The other common refrain in the book is "we don't know how it works but it looks like it works, we're willing to assume that it can be made to work in the future because we need it and it seems plausible to us and we avoid discussing how it works." That non-researched non-reasoning is invoked in regard to all the most basic technologies that make the Enterprise work in the show - artificial gravity, maintenance of environment and food supplies, faster-than-light travel.

The single-piece elevator doors (ever noticed that every turbo-lift door-half consists of only one element?)

Not in the earliest episodes of TOS:

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x10/corbomitemanuever053.jpg

The double-doors vanish halfway through the first season.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The double-doors vanish halfway through the first season.

I think he's talking about inner and outer doors, not right-and-left doors.

 

[miraclefan]

I agree. A talented enough composer could create music/instrument effects to replace the usual space movie sounds which are not supposed to be audible. Probably did not happen here though.

Agreed! The first episode of CRUSADE used 'music' instead of lazer-blast and explosion sounds, and it was VERY effective

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

The double-doors vanish halfway through the first season.

I think he's talking about inner and outer doors, not right-and-left doors.

That's what I meant. Maybe I should've said quadruple doors or dual set of doors.

The early episodes had an inner and outer door to the turbolifts as seen by the screencap I provided. There is a grayish-white inner door and the outer red turbolift door. This vanishes midway through the season and is never again seen in Trek.

You can see a dual-track for the two sets of doors here:

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x01-2-hd/themantraphd336.jpg

You can see the inner door here:

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x10hd/thecorbomitemaneuverhd074.jpg

It's really obvious when Kirk steps in, but I couldn't find a screencap of that.

 

[trevanian]

There's a whole different way of doing the nosoundinspace thing that nobody has done in a big feature (outside of 2001, such as the Pool retrieval sequence),...

And what a bore to watch that one is...
I'd prefer an Armageddon-like sound-design of any realism in my sci-fi action-movies.

Have we just come up with the movie's tagline?

STAR TREK ... For the ARMAGEDDON-lover in all of us

 

[Kryton]

Oh GAWD a MILLION TONS of NO to that. I despised the sound mix on that horrid abortion of an "entertainment" and would wish every copy out of existence in a heartbeat, were it within my power.

 

[MisterPL]

I'd rather have sound in space than rows of filmgoers filling it in for everyone.

"SSSSHHHHHHHHHhhhhhooooommmm!"

"PEEoo! PEEoo! PEEoo!"

"D-D-D-DOOOOooofffsssSSSSHHHH!!!"

Yeah, let Ben Burtt handle it.

 

[pookha]

Plus last time I check just about every scfi series or movie that features space battles uses sound in space.

really the ones that feature space as silent are few and far between.
starting with 2001.

 

[JuanBolio]

Plus last time I check just about every scfi series or movie that features space battles uses sound in space.

really the ones that feature space as silent are few and far between.
starting with 2001.

Firefly.

...and just because "everyone" does it doesn't make it right.

 

[ST-One]

Exactly.

Star Trek is built from a handful of pulp space opera tropes that were pretty clearly defined by the end of World War II. For the most part it comes by its scientific rationalizations second-hand, from sources that were outdated at the time that it was first aired.

People make rather a to-do about Roddenberry "consulting" with scientists, NASA, folks at the Rand Corporation and so forth - but go back and read "The Making Of Star Trek" and the various memos reproduced and so on, and what you find time after time is more or less "well, that was what the scientists told us but we found it undramatic so we did something different." It comes up specifically with reference to sound in space, yeah, but also to the hand weapons, clothing design and so forth.

The other common refrain in the book is "we don't know how it works but it looks like it works, we're willing to assume that it can be made to work in the future because we need it and it seems plausible to us and we avoid discussing how it works." That non-researched non-reasoning is invoked in regard to all the most basic technologies that make the Enterprise work in the show - artificial gravity, maintenance of environment and food supplies, faster-than-light travel.

The single-piece elevator doors (ever noticed that every turbo-lift door-half consists of only one element?)

Not in the earliest episodes of TOS:

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x10/corbomitemanuever053.jpg

The double-doors vanish halfway through the first season.

Great find

 

[ST-One]

There's a whole different way of doing the nosoundinspace thing that nobody has done in a big feature (outside of 2001, such as the Pool retrieval sequence),...

And what a bore to watch that one is...
I'd prefer an Armageddon-like sound-design of any realism in my sci-fi action-movies.

Have we just come up with the movie's tagline?

STAR TREK ... For the ARMAGEDDON-lover in all of us

What? Can't you enjoy totally different types of sci-fi-movies?
I can get enjoyment out of TMP and Armageddon, Star Wars and Event Horizon, Starship Troopers and Contact.

 

[Phily B]

Firefly didn't have space battles, just the ship moving away.

The one time it did they had sound in space (Serenity).

 

[pookha]

Firefly didn't have space battles, just the ship moving away.

The one time it did they had sound in space (Serenity).

they are right..
you tube battle from serenity

 

[trevanian]

And what a bore to watch that one is...
I'd prefer an Armageddon-like sound-design of any realism in my sci-fi action-movies.

Have we just come up with the movie's tagline?

STAR TREK ... For the ARMAGEDDON-lover in all of us

What? Can't you enjoy totally different types of sci-fi-movies?
I can get enjoyment out of TMP and Armageddon, Star Wars and Event Horizon, Starship Troopers and Contact.

Sure I can, and do. But this is a TREK discussion. With that in mind ... if I want to watch a dumb space opera with lotsa noise in vacuum, I'll see the last half-hour of STAR WARS or catch BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS.

 

[trevanian]

Firefly didn't have space battles, just the ship moving away.

The one time it did they had sound in space (Serenity).

So you don't think the silent ramming airlocks thing when they have to rescue Mal from the German guy constitutes battle? It WAS called WAR STORIES, wasn't it?

 

[Deckerd]

Firefly didn't have space battles, just the ship moving away.

The one time it did they had sound in space (Serenity).

So you don't think the silent ramming airlocks thing when they have to rescue Mal from the German guy constitutes battle? It WAS called WAR STORIES, wasn't it?

Just about every episode had explosions in space. The drama was just as good without sound.

 

[ST-One]

Have we just come up with the movie's tagline?

STAR TREK ... For the ARMAGEDDON-lover in all of us

What? Can't you enjoy totally different types of sci-fi-movies?
I can get enjoyment out of TMP and Armageddon, Star Wars and Event Horizon, Starship Troopers and Contact.

Sure I can, and do. But this is a TREK discussion. With that in mind ... if I want to watch a dumb space opera with lotsa noise in vacuum, I'll see the last half-hour of STAR WARS or catch BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS.

Yeah... lets discuss Trek then:

TMP - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwLrEcwtFM4
TWOK - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAAl2zfk684
TSFS - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpNhTsnu87g
....

Need I go on?

 

[Tyberius]

I've said it before, but I'll say it again:

The sound we hear as audience members isn't necessarily the supposed sound in space.

The sound we hear is the sound in the ship as a result of those activities.

The phaser blast makes some sort of noise in the hull, the flotsam and jetsam from the space battle bouncing off of the hull or shields causes an audible feedback.

Do we as audience members hear the same sound as the combatants on screen? Probably not. But the fictional combatants would likely hear something.

 

[Phily B]

Firefly didn't have space battles, just the ship moving away.

The one time it did they had sound in space (Serenity).

So you don't think the silent ramming airlocks thing when they have to rescue Mal from the German guy constitutes battle? It WAS called WAR STORIES, wasn't it?

Big difference, Galactica has muted sounds because space battles without sound = epic fail. Firefly never had any gun fights, and I don't really remember that episode cause I only watched Firefly once.