That matte painting they're walking across at the beginning of the clip is a retouched version of the one seen in the Space: 1999 episode Mission of the Darians, staring Joan Collins.
Space 1999!!!
- Thread starter LaxScrutiny
- Start date
That matte painting they're walking across at the beginning of the clip is a retouched version of the one seen in the Space: 1999 episode Mission of the Darians, staring Joan Collins.
I had heard about it for this reason: on the Italian Blu-Ray of Space:1999 there was an interview with Johnny Byrne (one of the screenwriters of the series). In the interview he also spoke about "Into Infinity" which was born as an educational project. And he spoke fascinatedly about how thanks to this project he had discovered things like that you cannot exceed the speed of light or time dilation when approaching relativistic speeds.
I remember listening to this interview dumbfounded, because it seemed something so basic that anyone who had a high school knowledge of science knew, or who had read at least 2-3 science fiction novels in his life.
From this I understood that everyone who had worked on Space:1999
a) had NO basic scientific training and were not even interested in filling these gaps.
b) worse, they had NO sci-fi background whatsoever, but not even basic ones.
And the Andersons were angry because people looked much more at the scientific errors in Space: 1999 than in Star Trek. Maybe because in the latter the authors AT LEAST knew the difference between a galaxy and a solar system??? (which they kept confusing in Space:1999)
No, because in the Space 1999 universe "scientific plausibility" didn't exists. Impossible things happened only because the authors said so
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I had heard about it for this reason: on the Italian Blu-Ray of Space:1999 there was an interview with Johnny Byrne (one of the screenwriters of the series). In the interview he also spoke about "Into Infinity" which was born as an educational project. And he spoke fascinatedly about how thanks to this project he had discovered things like that you cannot exceed the speed of light or time dilation when approaching relativistic speeds.
I remember listening to this interview dumbfounded, because it seemed something so basic that anyone who had a high school knowledge of science knew, or who had read at least 2-3 science fiction novels in his life.
From this I understood that everyone who had worked on Space:1999
a) had NO basic scientific training and were not even interested in filling these gaps.
b) worse, they had NO sci-fi background whatsoever, but not even basic ones.
And the Andersons were angry because people looked much more at the scientific errors in Space: 1999 than in Star Trek. Maybe because in the latter the authors AT LEAST knew the difference between a galaxy and a solar system??? (which they kept confusing in Space:1999)
No, because in the Space 1999 universe "scientific plausibility" didn't exists. Impossible things happened only because the authors said so
In the episode "Journey to Where" it was stated that decades had passed on Earth as the Earthers who contacted Alpha said that the current year on Earth was 2120.
As for "galaxy" and "solar system", as someone who reads old sci-fi, that interchanging of words didn't bother me as much. It's jarring, but I've read sci-fi from way back when when "solar systems" were referred to as "universes" in some cases "island universes". This was from the time period when the term "making love" didn't mean sex. So I just figured it was some British terminology thing. I mean several years later, we have Superman the movie claiming that Supe's rocket traveled through something like 28 galaxies (instead of the more believable "solar systems"). That movie came out when I was 12, and I thought the 28 (or whatever the number was) galaxies was stupid as hell. Galaxies contain billions of stars and the nearest galaxy is crazy far away. 28 galaxies away is incomprehensibly far away. And Jor-El could somehow find Earth from that far away, among quintillions and quintillions of stars? Yeah, get the fuck out of here. It was as ridiculous as being able to see a single grain of sand on an Earthly beach from the other side of the galaxy.
On average, people just weren't in tune with that sort of knowledge back then. Most people probably didn't know about relativistic speeds until Sagan's "Cosmos" came out, assuming that they watched it. Most sci-fi shows got cancelled within a season, if they lasted that long. People forget that TNG was the first sci-fi show here to end on it's own terms. People weren't really interested in the "science", they wanted "cool futuristic stuff" but not so much that a show didn't get quickly cancelled.
In an episode Koenig says "This is Triton's galaxy. This is Triton's star system. This is Triton's universe. This is Triton's sun." One has to wonder if the writers paid a little bit of attention at school when they explained the difference between an universe, a galaxy and a star. It was the 70s. Not the 19th century. TOS managed to make clear the difference years before. It was information available to anyone who could reach out for an encyclopedia, or rather, a dictionary.
And honestly hearing "But scientific coherence strangles creativity!" it bored me. The Expanse managed to be scientifically plausible while still making exciting stories. The authors simply want to justify their ignorance under the guise of "artistic license." Because I would like someone to explain to me as if I were 5 years old why correctly using the terms "galaxy", "Solar System", "Sun" etc destroys any possibility of creating interesting stories.
But Asimov probably said these things better than me:
(after he pointed numerous scientific absurdities in Space 1999)
When it was also stated that the Boston Red Sox actually won a World Series my brother fell to the floor laughing.*
(*Mainly due to the team only winning before and after my father's 70-year-old lifetime.)
I hear you and I get it. There's a lot about this show that's pretty crazy, doesn't hurt my enjoyment of it. I watched it as a kid, so there's a lot of nostalgia value for me.
Nobody said anything about "scientific coherence" strangling anything. At least I didn't. I said I didn't find their use as jarring because I've read plenty of older sci-fi (yes, from the 20th century) where they used "universe" to describe solar systems.
By the way, relativistic time dilation was mentioned in relation to the Moon's travel past planetary systems in season 1, "Matter of Life and Death" [https://catacombs.space1999.net/main/tscript/z02molad.html]:
DAVID:
"Commander. You know those feasibility programs we've been running on Main Computer?"
KOENIG:
"Yes, what about them?"
DAVID:
"Well, it seems our present trajectory will take us past something like ten million planets. Well, it means we should pass near to three thousand, six hundred Earth type planets, statistically. Now, that means about ten Earth type planets for every one on Alpha."
VICTOR:
"And how much older will you be by the time we reach the first of these Earth-type planets?"
DAVID:
"Not very much, Professor. Relatively speaking, that is."
KOENIG:
"More to the point, Kano, have you computed how much older you'll be when we reach the last of those planets."
DAVID:
"Two thousand, five hundred and forty-three years old to be exact, sir."
((Victor smiles))
"Just thought you might like to know."
KOENIG:
"Thank you, Kano."
"Commander. You know those feasibility programs we've been running on Main Computer?"
KOENIG:
"Yes, what about them?"
DAVID:
"Well, it seems our present trajectory will take us past something like ten million planets. Well, it means we should pass near to three thousand, six hundred Earth type planets, statistically. Now, that means about ten Earth type planets for every one on Alpha."
VICTOR:
"And how much older will you be by the time we reach the first of these Earth-type planets?"
DAVID:
"Not very much, Professor. Relatively speaking, that is."
KOENIG:
"More to the point, Kano, have you computed how much older you'll be when we reach the last of those planets."
DAVID:
"Two thousand, five hundred and forty-three years old to be exact, sir."
((Victor smiles))
"Just thought you might like to know."
KOENIG:
"Thank you, Kano."
I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. It was something that Anderson themselves said, because they thought people were too harsh toward Space 1999 and its scientific inaccuracies.
This is from the Gerry Anderson himself:
Regarding scientific accuracy and a critical review of Space: 1999 by Isaac Asimov, Gerry Anderson commented: ‘I think that a show that is absolutely scientifically correct can be as dull as ditch-water. But I think the point he was making was that, if you are going deep into the universe, then you can say whatever you like and that’s fine; but if you’re dealing with subjects that we have up-to-date knowledge on, like the Moon, then you ought to be correct. I think that was a reasonable criticism. But I think the problem with scientific advisors is that if you had a scientific advisor in 1820 he would have told you that it was impossible to fly and to travel beyond the speed of sound. And today they’re telling us that it’s impossible to travel beyond the speed of light. I think, therefore, they are inhibiting to a production, and since the heading is science fiction – underline the word fiction – I don’t really think there’s any place for them.’
(By the way, I don't think that a scientific advisor in 1820 would have said that it is impossible to surpass the speed of sound. I mean, bullets did that.)
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There are certain scientific things that almost all science fiction series set in space fudge a bit to keep things moving. But getting the difference between a solar system, a galaxy, and a universe right is not a constraint on a show's ability to tell stories. Most TV shows manage not to mess up concepts like town or city, county, state or province, country, and continent. I mean, hell, I could have explained the difference between a solar system and a galaxy before I was ten years old. It's not rocket science.
Just got caught up in this thread...
As a child of the 1970s, I always loved Space 1999. Where I lived the second season never made it to syndication in our market, so that season was always something mysterious only glimpsed in the pages of Starlog magazine, until I caught it on PBS in the early 90s. That being said, I vastly prefer the first season, perhaps partially due to nostalgia love, but on the whole, I really like the "space is weird and trippy" versus the more straight forward sci-fi in season 2. (Probably why anymore I tend to prefer the first two seasons of TNG as well).
A couple of thoughts based on the last couple of pages. Echoing what @diankra mentioned a couple of pages ago, I think in the 70s people were much more familiar with NASA astronauts and their calm, test-pilot professionalism, which the sci-fi t of the time ended to emulate (probably also influenced by Spock), even if it wasn't particularly interesting from a dramatic perspective. Fortunately, nowadays, our spacemen are allowed to be a little more emotive.
Screwing up galaxy/system/etc.: I tend to roll with this because Star Trek was one of the very few shows that didn't screw that up, it's just one of those things from early TV sci-fi where you have to live with the inconsistency from episode to episode based on the scientific literacy of the writer. On the flip side, there's the original BSG, which got it backwards what seemed to be 100% of the time, to the point that I'm not sure if it was intentional, like having a different system of cursing and time measurements, but maybe the show's story editor was simply more doggedly determined to double down on their ignorance, lol.
As a child of the 1970s, I always loved Space 1999. Where I lived the second season never made it to syndication in our market, so that season was always something mysterious only glimpsed in the pages of Starlog magazine, until I caught it on PBS in the early 90s. That being said, I vastly prefer the first season, perhaps partially due to nostalgia love, but on the whole, I really like the "space is weird and trippy" versus the more straight forward sci-fi in season 2. (Probably why anymore I tend to prefer the first two seasons of TNG as well).
A couple of thoughts based on the last couple of pages. Echoing what @diankra mentioned a couple of pages ago, I think in the 70s people were much more familiar with NASA astronauts and their calm, test-pilot professionalism, which the sci-fi t of the time ended to emulate (probably also influenced by Spock), even if it wasn't particularly interesting from a dramatic perspective. Fortunately, nowadays, our spacemen are allowed to be a little more emotive.
Screwing up galaxy/system/etc.: I tend to roll with this because Star Trek was one of the very few shows that didn't screw that up, it's just one of those things from early TV sci-fi where you have to live with the inconsistency from episode to episode based on the scientific literacy of the writer. On the flip side, there's the original BSG, which got it backwards what seemed to be 100% of the time, to the point that I'm not sure if it was intentional, like having a different system of cursing and time measurements, but maybe the show's story editor was simply more doggedly determined to double down on their ignorance, lol.
It can if the series becomes framed by technobabble and pseudo-theoretical ideas as absolutes in the series (TNG suffered from this often). I believe one should also remember that you're watching a Gerry Anderson series, where thrills, larger-than-life concepts and fantastic art direction were the order of the day, not adhering to scientific plausibility, which--arguably--his most loyal viewers did not care much about at all. In many ways, Anderson was the Irwin Allen across the pond, as most of Allen's trips into sci-fi were about spectacle and fantastic designs, rather than making any attempt to say his concepts were plausible, and clearly, the same could be said about Anderson's series.
from the response from Nick Briggs in Vortex a little while back it seems they’ve gone as far as they want at this point (comment also applied to UFO).
however there was an earlier comment in another Vortexthat they had lost the UFO license so it’s possible the Space:1999 license was also lost.
From James Swallow's blog:
A few more details about the stories are available in the blog post: https://jswallow.com/space-2024/
A few more details about the stories are available in the blog post: https://jswallow.com/space-2024/
Not a major fan of James Swallow's writing, but will still definitely check this out.
Today marks the 25th Anniversary of the moon being blown out of Earth's orbit as well a Barbara Bain's 93rd birthday.
Hope they eventually found a new home.
Next year it will be 25 years for Second Impact (Neon Genesis)
Conclusion - September 13th is not a good day in Sci-Fi
