Scenes in space without any sound

[Delta Vega]

Of course it does. It gives most scenes some extra dramatic heft, so therefore it's justified. It serves the same function as music within scenes, or Kirk's log entries having him comment on information he isn't privy to, or the uniforms ripping during fight scenes, or people dodging phaser blasts, or being sexually compatible with aliens, or matter teleportation, or reaching the other side of the galaxy in hours instead of years, or matter and anti-matter mixing to create propulsion, or...

If you're going to start picking apart scientific inaccuracies like that, you're going to completely ruin Star Trek for yourself.

I have no problem with incidental music, Captain's Logs, dodgy uniforms, interspecies Craig's Listing etc.
I do doubt the ability of mankind, at any time in the future, to invent workable transporters or break Warp Travel, but that's another debate.
I merely stated an absolute unquestionable fact, that there is no sound in a vacuum, it doesn't spoil my enjoyment of Trek or any other Sci Fi when I hear explosions in space etc, I'm really beyond worrying now.
Guess I'll just have to agree to disagree with you and some others on this subject

 

[Christopher]

I merely stated an absolute unquestionable fact, that there is no sound in a vacuum,

Which I'm sure all of us know already and didn't need explained to us.

 

[nutshell]

Yes, it is science fiction
But it's an undeniable scientific fact that sound doesn't travel in a vacuum

You’re right. That’s the made up part. Fiction.

 

[Delta Vega]

Which I'm sure all of us know already and didn't need explained to us.

I didn't attempt to explain it to anyone.

 

[fireproof78]

If you're going to start picking apart scientific inaccuracies like that, you're going to completely ruin Star Trek for yourself.

I think that ship has gone to warp.

 

[nutshell]

I think that ship has gone to warp.

No. It’s gone to ludicrous speed.

 

[Donald G]

As several of us have pointed out already, there isn't an orchestra on the Enterprise bridge either. Just because the audience hears a sound, that doesn't mean the characters would.

There is, however, a Starship Violin Corps stationed in the cabin next to Kirk's quarters that plays whenever he romances someone.

 

[Timo]

There's a rather fundamental issue here that I haven't seen addressed:

What space sounds in Star Trek should we not be hearing in terms of physics?

I mean, why would space be silent to somebody who is in space? The audience usually is supposed to associate with the characters on screen. Those characters aren't deaf. And they aren't in silent locations. They are aboard starships that have every excuse to rumble when there's an explosion nearby - after all, they shake as the result of that explosion, too. A passing spacecraft is also likely to make a noise by affecting the hero ship in some fashion, there being plenty of real and fictional media in vacuum for transmitting that effect - this noise need not be the exact same thing that would be heard in an atmosphere, but that was never a requirement in the first place.

Sometimes the camera may be outside a starship. But the characters are not. We may not be seeing what the characters are seeing at that moment, but there's nothing wrong with us hearing what they would be hearing - or what somebody in a fictional UFP Prime Time News space chopper would be hearing if filming that scene.

Asking us to instead associate with somebody skinny-dipping in the vacuum of a space battle would be the unrealistic and aphysical part!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Eyemorg]

2001 got it right. Nobody else before or since has made the effort to show the grandeur of space without the cheezy pinball machine sound effects.

 

[Christopher]

2001 got it right. Nobody else before or since has made the effort to show the grandeur of space without the cheezy pinball machine sound effects.

Haven't you seen Gravity or Interstellar?

 

[Eyemorg]

Haven't you seen Gravity or Interstellar?

Hmm. Not familiar with those. I'll take a look though, thanks for the titles.

 

[Timo]

Gravity is essentially a movie about silence in space...

Plenty of flicks do this for mood nowadays, though. Moon got mileage out of the soundscape, too. And assorted recentish Mars movies rely heavily on there being little besides the wheezing of breath inside the helmet, even if only a few agree to tone down the dramatic music, too.

But this is about space as experienced through NASA hardware. A Trek starship ought to be a different place, full of sounds, including those transmitted across the vacuum by the fantastic media of that universe - subspace vibrating, jets of propellant raining down on the hulls, warp fields grating against each other. We just have to accept that our camera and microphone aren't out there in that vacuum, but inside that ship (or then a putative "camera ship" recording the action).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Wormhole]

2001 got it right. Nobody else before or since has made the effort to show the grandeur of space without the cheezy pinball machine sound effects.

And to be fair, 2001 was boring.