And has issues with perspective.
Starship Size Argument™ thread
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A work of fiction dealing with fanciful far-future technology that's always been inconsistently and often incorrectly depicted? A bit of minutiae that should be a fun tangent to discuss at most but shouldn't stand in the way of one's enjoyment or lack thereof of more important things like the story and characterization?
I didn't think this argument could get any more tedious, but you proved me wrong. So it's not fair to say you haven't proven anything in this thread, because you'll always have that.
Says the guy who still insists the Enterprise is only 300 meters long.
The bureau of weights and measures was broken into last month. The metre was found to be stolen and replaced with a fathom. Adrian Lester and Jaime Murray were earlier spotted near the facility. The bureau officials said they could not metre how anyone could have gone in, given the tight security measurements, but the Enterprise was now officially 300 nuMetres.
So, back to size, if they said the official size was 1 cm, we'd have to find a way to make that work. As it is, it's 700+ meters. Which, works.
I don't get the need to prove the official numbers wrong. Isn't more about taking what's official and asking "how do these pieces fit together?"; over, "fuck what the people that made it say, my opinion is more valid than the people that worked on the movie cause I'm a fan!"
I don't get the need to prove the official numbers wrong. Isn't more about taking what's official and asking "how do these pieces fit together?"; over, "fuck what the people that made it say, my opinion is more valid than the people that worked on the movie cause I'm a fan!"
What exactly is 55 millimeters per second? That's a speed. What does it indicate?
I've never heard of measuring a gravitational field by speed. I've heard of measuring it by acceleration, though.
At an altitude of 300,000 km above the Earth, I get an acceleration, due to the Earth's gravitation, of about 4.2 millimeters per second per second, or 4.2mm/s^2 using abbreviations.
How does that relate to 55mm/s?.
a = G * Me / r^2
G = 6.67384 * 10^(-11) m^3 / (kg s^2) (Newton's gravitational constant)
Me = 5.972 * 10^24 kg (mass of the Earth)
re = 6371 * 10^3 m (radius of the Earth)
r = re + 300 * 10^3 * 10^3 m
a = .004246198390 m/s^2
G = 6.67384 * 10^(-11) m^3 / (kg s^2) (Newton's gravitational constant)
Me = 5.972 * 10^24 kg (mass of the Earth)
re = 6371 * 10^3 m (radius of the Earth)
r = re + 300 * 10^3 * 10^3 m
a = .004246198390 m/s^2
Acceleration due to gravity. At sea level, it's 9.8m/s^2. At 200,000km, it's about 55mm/s^2.
Though I might have missed a decimal somewhere since I was typing this on my iPad over lunch.
So I either missed a decimal or I rounded something too low. That's what I get for doing physics equations over a ham sandwich.
Aren't we over-analysing this ? And how is this about the Enterprise's size ?
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Did they say WHY? That's the real question. Is this just another 'to look good/to look cool' type rationalization or is it 'director told us to,' like a lot of ILM's more problematic MUMMY 2 shots?
Man, GRAVITY is going to be so refreshing. No cheating on the scale, no sound effects in space, and they don't swing the sun around 90 or 180 degrees to get it in a convenient position for the next shot.
And the lens flares come from a real source, instead of being pulled out of a director's ass along with a ton of flashlights.
Then you're gonna hate EVERY Star Trek episode, movie, video game, book, anything. Period.
Because few, if any, follow the laws of physics in such a tight fashion.
That and there's no guarantee that the story and characters will be worth a damn until we see the actual movie.
For the visuals I'm interested in Gravity. For the story, that slots in the rent / borrow from friend pile. What I've read out there about the movie, none of it makes me really want to see the movie in theaters.
I'm looking forward to Gravity because I admire Cuarón's work, Clooney is a great actor, the few reviews we've had from film festival screenings have universally praised it so far, and it makes an effort to show a more realistic take on space travel/catastrophes.
That being said, I'm not looking forward to the armchair physics professors who are likely going to hold this up as an example of flawless physics and total realism when it's going to no doubt have plenty of physics flaws and questionable logic and realism, just fewer than your average science fiction film. It'll probably be like the people who call the Nolan Dark Knight trilogy "realistic" when what it actually is would be more accurately described as "more realistic than most other comic book movies."
All I've seen is the trailers (including the teaser where some goofballs editing the trailer thought we needed sound in space to make it more exciting even though it's not in the actual film), so I can't make too much out of it, but it seems to me in the trailers and clips below that there's an awful lot of pinballing around back and forth in different directions between the non-existent space shuttle and the ISS where their motion should have been arrested once they grabbed on to the station. Plus they seem to fluctuate between being in a way higher orbit than the ISS actually is to being on the verge of burning up in the atmosphere in no time despite not having any source of propulsion, and there's (very) slow moving satellite debris hitting from multiple vectors before the main explosion happens when it should all come from one direction.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4coTNta-YA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6L0sYP-1YM
Plus, Bullock seems to be playing the female astronaut who went on the cross country stalking fest in Depends given her hysterics rather than the kind of calm, cool, collected professional astronaut (male or female) one would expect given their extensive training. I get that she's a first time astronaut and this is the worst of the worst case scenarios, but they basically have her repeating the same kind of nervous jittery unsure of herself dialog she gave in Speed and every other movie she's ever done. I'm not saying she shouldn't be scared, but maybe she shouldn't be "oohing! and aahing!" so much that Clooney can barely communicate with her.
Anyway, despite all that, I'm sure it will be a great, enjoyable movie, I just hope people don't get too insufferable about it and overlook the flaws in a film trying to seek greater realism while playing up the flaws in scifi movies that are seeking to give a more fantastic portrayal of space travel, like Star Trek or Star Wars.
That being said, I'm not looking forward to the armchair physics professors who are likely going to hold this up as an example of flawless physics and total realism when it's going to no doubt have plenty of physics flaws and questionable logic and realism, just fewer than your average science fiction film. It'll probably be like the people who call the Nolan Dark Knight trilogy "realistic" when what it actually is would be more accurately described as "more realistic than most other comic book movies."
All I've seen is the trailers (including the teaser where some goofballs editing the trailer thought we needed sound in space to make it more exciting even though it's not in the actual film), so I can't make too much out of it, but it seems to me in the trailers and clips below that there's an awful lot of pinballing around back and forth in different directions between the non-existent space shuttle and the ISS where their motion should have been arrested once they grabbed on to the station. Plus they seem to fluctuate between being in a way higher orbit than the ISS actually is to being on the verge of burning up in the atmosphere in no time despite not having any source of propulsion, and there's (very) slow moving satellite debris hitting from multiple vectors before the main explosion happens when it should all come from one direction.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4coTNta-YA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6L0sYP-1YM
Plus, Bullock seems to be playing the female astronaut who went on the cross country stalking fest in Depends given her hysterics rather than the kind of calm, cool, collected professional astronaut (male or female) one would expect given their extensive training. I get that she's a first time astronaut and this is the worst of the worst case scenarios, but they basically have her repeating the same kind of nervous jittery unsure of herself dialog she gave in Speed and every other movie she's ever done. I'm not saying she shouldn't be scared, but maybe she shouldn't be "oohing! and aahing!" so much that Clooney can barely communicate with her.
Anyway, despite all that, I'm sure it will be a great, enjoyable movie, I just hope people don't get too insufferable about it and overlook the flaws in a film trying to seek greater realism while playing up the flaws in scifi movies that are seeking to give a more fantastic portrayal of space travel, like Star Trek or Star Wars.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Because I like something that tries to play things honestly, I should hate all of STAR TREK? Does that include TMP, where they try to keep the lighting for space realistic much of the time?
Or Duane's THE WOUNDED SKY, which informed me about 'creative physics' in a way that made me go out and study up on all the stuff I did NOT get to hear about in school?
If you want to try applying absolutes, do so about things that ARE absolutes, or close to them. Like absolute zero.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
The VFX guys ran dynamic simulations to give the animators a physics-based set of actions and movements, so the tumbling mass issues and how cables behave should be pretty damn accurate. The cinematographer got the movie's consultants to figure out the size of the Earth from the ISS altitude in order to build a bounce light source that would match accordingly.
They did their due diligence here, like 2001 did, and if they chose to deviate, they didn't do so by having the ISS built intact on Earth and lifted into orbit by Dumbo. In my book that is commendable and honorable. Add to that it's Cuaron, who is describing his style on this as trying to deliver a thriller that looks like an IMAX doc, and it may well fulfill all the expectations I once had for Fincher as The One, and I seriously doubt it is going to disappoint me on many levels.
EDIT ADDON: I can tell you that my rough cut on this article (not counting Cuaron who is a separate piece) ran to about 7000 words, even though I had to cut it by two-thirds for publication length. And I barely scratched the surface on what they did on this movie, talking to the DP, VFX super, 3D guy and asset mgr/workflow guy. It might be folks won't really even know just what all went into this till they go through the blu ray supplements (which to a certain degree was true with CHILDREN OF MEN as well ... I was utterly fooled by the baby, and for me that just doesn't ever happen anymore - so it was a pleasant shock-surprise.)
People are talking about the visuals of Gravity, but not many seem to be talking about the story of the movie. And to me, that's a red flag.
And really the old complaint about starships being built on Earth? With a culture that can control gravity, deconstruct and reconstruct living being with ease, has various forcefields to keep a ship intact and / or safe, and warps space to travel faster than light, building a ship on the surface of a planet is a bridge to far?
And really the old complaint about starships being built on Earth? With a culture that can control gravity, deconstruct and reconstruct living being with ease, has various forcefields to keep a ship intact and / or safe, and warps space to travel faster than light, building a ship on the surface of a planet is a bridge to far?
That would be a cute remark if the ISS was a heavily armed FTL starship using fantastic technology being built 250 years in the future in a fictional universe that's never been all that concerned with accurate physics. But since it's not...
Well, that's because --as you can see from the trailers-- the story is pretty straightforward and bare bones. Disaster in space leaves two astronauts stranded and trying to survive. It's basically Open Water or 127 Hours in space. And I'm fine with that. It doesn't need a complex plot, as long as there's gripping suspense and beautiful visuals, which this seems to have in abundance.
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