Personally the only thing that took ME out of the movie was the willful ignorance of orbital mechanics and the fact that Enterprise and Narada twice appear to be "in orbit" but still stationary with respect to the ground.
That's what a geosynchronous orbit is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosychronous_orbit (different than geostationary, though a geostationary orbit is geosynchronous of a specific point).
Geosynchronus orbits do not remain STATIONARY around a single point and still have orbits of tens of thousands of kilometers.
No, I'm saying it's a meme that populates TrekBBS in particular, that a remarkably large number of people here have internalized, and today continue to repeat only because it is fashionable to do so.
First of all, yes, you
are calling us liars
Basically, yes. And this being the internet... why not?
1) the few people you have personally talked to are unrepresentative of the general population;
Aint
that the truth! My whole point is that what the general population notices and what the denizens of TrekBBS notice--or claim to notice, or claim to KNOW--are two completely different things. Part of it has to do with the fact that many of us are armchair scientists who insist on having an "informed opinion" about just about everything. More importantly...
this is the internet.
2) the number of people on TBBS who actually voice their opinions on the matter are a small percentage of the TBBS readership.
Indeed... and yet there are so few variations on that singular opinion it can be readily identified as a meme, and not a genuine recollection as such.
It happens all the time with urban legends, internet chain letters, rumors, gossip, organized religions, even political rhetoric (which is why "wellfare queen" anecdotes always involve someone driving a Cadillac using foodstamps at the grocery store). When you tell the same story frequently enough as if it were true, sooner or later you start to forget that it
isn't.
I give you my word as well: When I first went into the movie I had no behind-the-scenes knowledge, but if you had asked me what I thought as I came out of the theater I would have said the same thing.
I patently don't believe you. I fully believe you saw the engineering set and thought it didn't fit, thought it reminded you something "20th century industrial" like a dairy farm or a chemical factory or something of that nature.
But "that looks like a brewery"? Come on.
Geostationary orbits have altitudes around 35,000 kilometers and ONLY over the equator. San Francisco isn't on the equator, and Narada's drill platform sure as hell isn't 35,000 kilometers long.
Geostationary orbits are directly above the equator: True. I thought you were only talking about Vulcan, not Earth. They were at Vulcan's equator for all we know. Then again, the Enterprise may have been at Earth's equator as well. Just because it can be seen from San Francisco doesn't mean it's directly above it.
I thought about this for Vulcan, but I couldn't get it to work unless the gravity is very low and rotational velocity is very high. At least for Vulcan I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt... but orbiting above the equator and dropping the drill over San Francisco in order to get at the core... that just defies logic and physics on too many levels. It's a scientific gaffe by the Abrams team, the kind that they assumed (correctly) most people wouldn't notice.
Geostationary orbits have altitudes of 35,000 kilometers: False. That's not part of the definition of "geostationary orbit"
Yes it is, because the suffice "geo" by definition is an orbit around EARTH. Similar to the terms "perigee" or "apogee" imply the lowest or highest points of an orbit around Earth. Stationary orbit around Mars, for example, is called "Areostationary Orbit," and the lowest and highest points of a lunar orbit are "perilune" and "apolune" and so on (stationary orbits are not possible around all planets, like Venus and the moon for example).
Anyway, I
was talking about Earth.
And, what's your point anyway? Was "San Francisco isn't at the equator and they're not 35,000 kilometers high" actually going through your mind as you watched the movie?
Honestly, the only thing that went through my head was "Opening scene... Revenge of the Sith... SHIT!" and then I shook it off, ignored it and went along for the ride. I didn't give any thought to it until the third time I saw it.