This is one of my pet peeves, too. I've been explosively decompressed. It can do bad things to your sinuses, your dental work, and your "other innards," but I certainly didn't explode. Not even my other innards. It probably helped that I had been gradually decompressed first. If you ever get the opportunity, I highly recommend decompression to the point of mild hypoxia. Bring your smartest friends, a deck of Trivial Pursuit cards, and a video camera.
Science fiction pet hate
- Thread starter Deckerd
- Start date
The fact that Generation Stupid has flocked to comic book movies, making them the new surrogate "SF" movies.
Where's the next "Contact"? Hell, I'd even take an "Event Horizon" at this point over another twenty two year old agonizing over his spider bite or somesuch other dipshit crap!
Where's the next "Contact"? Hell, I'd even take an "Event Horizon" at this point over another twenty two year old agonizing over his spider bite or somesuch other dipshit crap!
I just want a movie set in a spaceship, dammit! I don't feel like that's asking too much!
Tell me about it!!!
God I long for the '80's(for more than one reason!)! Remember summers of Blade Runner, Dune, The Last Starfighter, the Star Treks and all those wonderful Amblin' genre films?
Seemed like there were at least one or two BIG actual SF films every year. Now we get Spider Boy and Atom Girl or whatever shit.
God I long for the '80's(for more than one reason!)! Remember summers of Blade Runner, Dune, The Last Starfighter, the Star Treks and all those wonderful Amblin' genre films?
Seemed like there were at least one or two BIG actual SF films every year. Now we get Spider Boy and Atom Girl or whatever shit.
The novelization of the film tried to address that by saying that the field generator was hit in the battle and changed the gravitational orientation aboard the ship. It was BS to try and make up for the movie's mistake, but it's better than nothing I guess (or maybe not; depends on if you'd rather just not have it explained at all).
Contact was from 1997. Are you under the impression that there's been some fundamental change in intelligence in the past 13 years?
As for examples of quality science fiction in the 2000s:
Moon
District 9
AI
Minority Report
Solaris
Donnie Darko
Primer
The Prestige
Sunshine (except the end)
Déjà Vu (I love this movie, but a lot of others disagree)
Wall-E
Serenity
The Matrix Reloaded (yeah, I liked this one)
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I don't know how many shows or films are guilty of this, but it always bothered me on Star Trek--Half-humans. I am willing to accept that aliens look a LOT like humans because that is all the budget allows, but my willful suspension of disbelief can only be stretched so far.
It is ludicrous for us to be expected to believe that humans can reproduce with a species that evolved on another planet. Apparently there is no problem with the fact that Vulcans have "copper-based blood"--close enough!
In most cases, it isn't even necessary for the story, except for keeping the character from becoming "too" alien.
It is ludicrous for us to be expected to believe that humans can reproduce with a species that evolved on another planet. Apparently there is no problem with the fact that Vulcans have "copper-based blood"--close enough!
In most cases, it isn't even necessary for the story, except for keeping the character from becoming "too" alien.
Don't hold your breath. They are a rare beast and always have been.My peeve is I so much want to see a genuine and well thought out far future space adventure, the kind of thing we sometimes get in SF literature.
I thought the other point was that the battle was taking place in the upper atmosphere of Coruscant and the sliding was a result of the artificial gravity being partially disabled and the planet's gravity was taking over.
I enjoy ID4 (probably less than I did when I initially saw it) but there is a line during the initial dogfight scene where a pilot says, "There's too many of them!"
In Return of the Jedi, we hear: "There's...too many of them!"
And, I too thought this was going to be about sci-fi pets we hate...
....like Twinkie (who also goes by Twiki) from Buck Rogers....
Bidi Bidi Bidi....
In Return of the Jedi, we hear: "There's...too many of them!"
And, I too thought this was going to be about sci-fi pets we hate...
....like Twinkie (who also goes by Twiki) from Buck Rogers....
Bidi Bidi Bidi....
Gratuitous bleeping and flashing background lights that seem to serve no other purpose on a set other than to be bleeping and flashing and flashing and bleeping and...
Shatner said it best.
Shatner said it best.
I like what Caprica is doing, too. They aren't going for the obvious routes. I'm willing to give them time to develop the AI thing. I think they're on the right path.
More pet peeves:
Too many sci fi shows on TV that are actually cop shows with sci fi window dressing; with FBI agents and cops as lead characters rather than scientists; not enough shows set in starships going boldly. Not enough shows that seem to give a flying frak about sci fi at all. Caprica is the only one I can think of that is making an effort to explore a sci fi concept (vs. being about law enforcement or fighting a battle or personal relationships).
*Shrug.* It's less ludicrous to believe that with a lot of effort and technological help, humans can reproduce with humanoid aliens than it is to believe humanoid aliens evolve all over the place by random accident.
For the first few seasons of SG-1 (indeed, for the majority of the show), it was possible to handwave the language problem without much suspension of disbelief. The inhabitants of Abydos speak English where they didn't in the movie? No problem-- Daniel obviously taught them in the interim. The Abydonians are shown to worship everything he did, so this is quite reasonable.
All encounters with the Goa'uld, Jaffa, or Goa'uld-occupied worlds: They're speaking Goa'uld, the same language spoken on Abydos. Daniel and Teal'c are fluent in it, and Jack can get by due to his experience from the original mission. Sam is the only character that requires an explanation, and it's reasonable that she's cramming the language offscreen. (Later, the Goa'uld come to the SGC and talk to folks like General Hammond, but this takes place late enough that he should have had enough time to learn it.)
"Cold Lazarus", "Fire and Water", "Tin Man", "Enigma" and "The Nox" all feature aliens or technologies that could theoretically learn English in a hurry and get around the language problem. "Emancipation" is about the only S1 episode where the culture had no obvious reason to understand either English or the Goa'uld language. But the less said about that ep, the better.
S2 is roughly the same, "The Gamekeeper", "Message in a Bottle", "Spirits", "The Fifth Race", and "Show and Tell" all having handwave technology/aliens, and the majority of others dealing directly with the Goa'uld or Jaffa again. However, there are three anomalous episodes, these being "Prisoners", "Touchstone", and possibly "Holiday", where the cultures or people in question cannot reasonably know English. This is where it takes a downturn, if three episodes are too much to overlook.
S3 continues this trend. In "Learning Curve", since we don't actually see first contact with the Orbanians, there might have been enough time to exchange languages. Ditto with "A Hundred Days." (To be fair, the same was true in S2 with "Touchstone".) But along with these iffy ones, there are several real anomalies: "Past and Present" and "New Ground." And probably "Demons".
For the next few seasons, the pattern is the same. 1-3 anomalous episodes where the characters really shouldn't be able to speak upon first contact, and 1-3 episodes where we don't actually see first contact, so it's possible to explain it away. That number of episodes is annoying, but it's not as bad as it could have been.
In the last few seasons, the incidents actually get fewer, primarily because the characters don't explore many new worlds.
Now, with the advent of Atlantis, none of these explanations work anymore, and we're stuck with "the gate did it." That really is a pet peeve.
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Silvercrest is right that Atlantis had a real problem. Even the idea that the "humans" in Pegasus were speaking a version of Ancient is pretty shaky, because the Wraith breaking up the Ancient civilization would lead to the development of new dialects/languages. Even worse, unlike Go'a'uld, where humans could learn from native Go'a'uld speakers, nobody on Earth could claim to be a speaker of Ancient! (Except temporarily Jack.)
I had assumed that all the advanced aliens, including the Asgard, would know Go'a'uld, in the same way the Chinese for instance know English, from previous contacts. The guy in Fire and Water for instance would expect a slave of the go'a'uld to speak Go'a'uld. Human cultures like the one in New Ground, which originated with abandoned slaves would be using the language forced upon them by the go'a'uld when they were captured.
The really weird thing is that the go'a'uld actually spoke a modernized Egyptian. The premise is basically that the Egyptians got their culture, including language and script, from the go'a'uld. This is insane, but the whole premise of Stargate is insane. Which is why doing it as a adventure/comedy (with occasional drama slipped in,) could turn out a superior product. And why trying to go serious has been more and more disastrous each outing.
As for English just being a convention, like gravity in spaceships, it really is an extraordinary convention to expect to find something as homey and familiar as our native language when traveling in outer space! It's like pretending you could find the the US military or the Fifties.
(And gravity in spaceships is Not Good too.)
I had assumed that all the advanced aliens, including the Asgard, would know Go'a'uld, in the same way the Chinese for instance know English, from previous contacts. The guy in Fire and Water for instance would expect a slave of the go'a'uld to speak Go'a'uld. Human cultures like the one in New Ground, which originated with abandoned slaves would be using the language forced upon them by the go'a'uld when they were captured.
The really weird thing is that the go'a'uld actually spoke a modernized Egyptian. The premise is basically that the Egyptians got their culture, including language and script, from the go'a'uld. This is insane, but the whole premise of Stargate is insane. Which is why doing it as a adventure/comedy (with occasional drama slipped in,) could turn out a superior product. And why trying to go serious has been more and more disastrous each outing.
As for English just being a convention, like gravity in spaceships, it really is an extraordinary convention to expect to find something as homey and familiar as our native language when traveling in outer space! It's like pretending you could find the the US military or the Fifties.
(And gravity in spaceships is Not Good too.)
The comics and novels have mentioned genetic manipulation and gene therapy and medical assistance when helping people of two different species have a child, but the TV shows have gone so far as to show unintentional pregnancies or offspring conceived in places without any obvious medical care.
What gets me - even worse than humanoid aliens and alien/human hybrids - is the assumption that aliens have genitalia that would be even remotely enticing to a human!
Galaxy Quest had the right idea: if you're a weird enough nerd, "interesting" genitalia might be attractive.
Another pet peeve: advanced aliens who always act, talk and dress stiffly and boringly, to signify their advancedness.
And generally, I dislike capes/tunics/gowns/other medieval-ish wear in sci fi, just on general principle.
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