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Silence in space! It's about time!

There was still "some" sound, and I find this one of the sillier "nitpicks" many hard-core sci-fi watchers have.

The "sound in space" is done for the audience's "benifit" of action and the average movie-goer doesn't know that there's no sound in space.

If you want to gripe at a character reacting to a sound he "hears" in space (one that cannot be transmitted through contact with a surface) that is one thing. But to gripe about hearing the whiz and whir of weapons and the "boom" of an engine engaging is just petty and silly.

It's a "fact" of movie cliches alot like explosions pushing, rather than consuming, objects.
 
I always thought of the sound in space thing as this: it's for dramatic purpose, but scientifically speaking, what we are hearing is the theoretical sound that would be made, if space had an atmosphere (in other words, what we hear when a phaser fires is how it would sound if it were fired in an air-filled test area or a planet's atmosphere).
 
You're confusing hard science fiction with all science fiction. Only the hard stuff cares one bit about scientific accuracy on any level. Which is why Star Trek, as a space opera (soft science fiction) ignores real science as a matter of course.

And you're confusing good science fiction with hard science fiction. That is a matter of taste, not fact. Some hard SF is good, some bad. Some soft SF is good, some bad. Star Trek has never been hard SF, and real science is irrelevant and often at odds with Star Trek.

It's good that the director threw real science a bone here, and if you like that, great.

I'm not sure where you're getting your definitions, but "hard" science fiction deals with the hard sciences (math, physicis, chemistry, even biology) and "soft" deals with economics, politics, psychology, and sociology. Space opera -- and I agree Star Trek falls into this category -- can range from hard to soft, good to bad, and Star Trek exhibits characteristics of all from episode to episode.
 
I'm not sure where you're getting your definitions, but "hard" science fiction deals with the hard sciences (math, physicis, chemistry, even biology) and "soft" deals with economics, politics, psychology, and sociology. Space opera -- and I agree Star Trek falls into this category -- can range from hard to soft, good to bad, and Star Trek exhibits characteristics of all from episode to episode.

Whatnow?

Never heard anything like that before! -The usual way to distinguish is as written on Wikipedia:

Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Islands of Space in Astounding Science Fiction. The complementary term soft science fiction (formed by analogy to "hard science fiction") first appeared in the late 1970s as a way of describing science fiction in which science is not featured, or violates the scientific understanding at the time of writing.
linky
 
I'm not sure where you're getting your definitions, but "hard" science fiction deals with the hard sciences (math, physicis, chemistry, even biology) and "soft" deals with economics, politics, psychology, and sociology. Space opera -- and I agree Star Trek falls into this category -- can range from hard to soft, good to bad, and Star Trek exhibits characteristics of all from episode to episode.

Whatnow?

Never heard anything like that before! -The usual way to distinguish is as written on Wikipedia:

Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Islands of Space in Astounding Science Fiction. The complementary term soft science fiction (formed by analogy to "hard science fiction") first appeared in the late 1970s as a way of describing science fiction in which science is not featured, or violates the scientific understanding at the time of writing.
linky

Uhhhh ... isn't that what I said -- at least regarding hard sf? Here's the quote from "soft science fiction" in a related link:
The description "soft" science fiction may describe works based on social sciences such as psychology, economics, political science, sociology, and anthropology. Noteworthy writers in this category include Ursula K. Le Guin and Philip K. Dick.[32][49] The term can describe stories focused primarily on character and emotion; SFWA Grand Master Ray Bradbury is an acknowledged master of this art.[50] Some writers blur the boundary between hard and soft science fiction.
Related to Social SF and Soft SF are the speculative fiction branches of utopian or dystopian stories; The Handmaid's Tale, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Brave New World are examples. Satirical novels with fantastic settings such as Gulliver's Travels may be considered speculative fiction.
 
Uhhhh ... isn't that exactly what I said?

If so, it wasn't very clear, to me at least.

It looked as if you talk about hard science fiction and soft science fiction, where the rest of us usually talk about hard science fiction and soft science fiction...

Hmmm, did I just confuse everyone even more....

Edit: Don't just edit your previous post, dammit, write a new one when you want to add to what you had to say :klingon:
 
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"Finally, silence in space"
Just catching up with Firefly after 7 years ... ;)

It was nice to hear - or not hear - but it also struck me that the silence of space had little to do with realism, as it was inconsistently used; it was more a matter of artistic license in order to increase the drama of specific scenes, some that just happened to take place in space. Still, it worked, so that's what matters.
 
No sound in space is far better, IMO, but having sound in some scenes and silence in others? That's jhust silly.
 
"Finally, silence in space"
Just catching up with Firefly after 7 years ... ;)

It was nice to hear - or not hear - but it also struck me that the silence of space had little to do with realism, as it was inconsistently used; it was more a matter of artistic license in order to increase the drama of specific scenes, some that just happened to take place in space. Still, it worked, so that's what matters.

It did work dramatically, but I thought it was also a tip of the hat to the science. They basically were saying, "yeah, we know there's no sound in space. But silent space battles leave most audiences flat, so we're just going to do this little bit."

Reminds me of the zoom in "Russian changes to English" shot in Hunt for Red October.
 
"Finally, silence in space"
Just catching up with Firefly after 7 years ... ;)

It was nice to hear - or not hear - but it also struck me that the silence of space had little to do with realism, as it was inconsistently used; it was more a matter of artistic license in order to increase the drama of specific scenes, some that just happened to take place in space. Still, it worked, so that's what matters.

It did work dramatically, but I thought it was also a tip of the hat to the science. They basically were saying, "yeah, we know there's no sound in space. But silent space battles leave most audiences flat, so we're just going to do this little bit."

Reminds me of the zoom in "Russian changes to English" shot in Hunt for Red October.

Isnt it just entertainment evolution? -nuBSG also underplayed the sound in space thing - and it worked very well.
 
No. Hard SF deals with realistic physics et al. Soft SF deals with whatever physics they want, or ignores physics all together. Yes, soft SF can include psychology, social sciences, etc, but it's not required.

No, hard SF cannot exclude realistic physics. Space opera, by definition is soft SF because they have to include faster-than-light travel to be viable.

Individual stories in a universe may be more hard or more soft than others. But the inclusion of warp drive (or any other FTL travel) makes it soft SF.
 
No. Hard SF deals with realistic physics et al. Soft SF deals with whatever physics they want, or ignores physics all together. Yes, soft SF can include psychology, social sciences, etc, but it's not required.

No, hard SF cannot exclude realistic physics. Space opera, by definition is soft SF because they have to include faster-than-light travel to be viable.

Individual stories in a universe may be more hard or more soft than others. But the inclusion of warp drive (or any other FTL travel) makes it soft SF.

Nope, space opera can be as hard as anything else; as a genre it's not set in stone whether it's FTL spaceships fighting with phasers or rocket ships beaming lasers at each other, whether it spans multiple solar systems or just multiple cultures in one system - the science just has to be solid if it's to be considered hard SciFi.
 
I like this post... It's exciting! ;)


Seriously, I just wanted to toss out that I'm enjoying being a fly on the wall during this Hard/Soft sci-fi, Space opera debate.
 
I like this post... It's exciting! ;)


Seriously, I just wanted to toss out that I'm enjoying being a fly on the wall during this Hard/Soft sci-fi, Space opera debate.
That's nice! :bolian:

But, don't you have any opinions on the matter? -I mean, apart from the hard/soft part -which is simple, it's clearly a matter of points of view... has been for as long as people have debated it!
 
Reminds me of the zoom in "Russian changes to English" shot in Hunt for Red October.
Yep, that was a brilliant transition - it set the stage so we knew they were speaking Russian, and yet allowed the audience to hear and comprehend the nuances of the dialogue instead of being forced to read it and miss the subtleties.
 
I loved this aspect too.

Even though we do hear some sounds such as shuttles and weapons fire etc, it was conveyed well.

Not so much like 2001 or Firefly/Serenity where its done SILENTLY, this had subtle sounds.

Sepecially the Kelvin battle, that was chilling.


Loved the new warp jum, wow.

I felt people jump when a ship went into warp. :lol:
 
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