I've seen this comment a lot, and I still don't get where people got the idea that the characters were so much older in the book. Miller's age is given as 49 years old in Leviathan Wakes, and Thomas Jane just turned 48. Holden's age is never specified exactly, but we know he joined the UN Navy and left Earth as soon as he could, was in the UN Navy for 7 years and then had been on the Canterbury for 5 years, so we can deduce that he is 30ish, and Steven Strait will turn 31 in March.
The Expanse season 2
- Thread starter RAMA
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Just caught up on the this week's episode. Beautiful visuals. I have not read the novels yet, but I am continually impressed with how vast and intricate this story is and I can't wait to see where they take it. I just hope there is a large enough SyFy fan base out there to see it through.
Again, don't know the novels or backstories other than what is on the show, but I wonder when they will explore some flashback episodes to give more of the history of the conflicts, characters, etc.
Really enjoying reading all of the discussions here on realistic science / physics / etc. since I have ZERO knowledge of most of these things and just get to ignorantly enjoy the SF creativity.
Again, don't know the novels or backstories other than what is on the show, but I wonder when they will explore some flashback episodes to give more of the history of the conflicts, characters, etc.
Really enjoying reading all of the discussions here on realistic science / physics / etc. since I have ZERO knowledge of most of these things and just get to ignorantly enjoy the SF creativity.
I'll admit Miller and Avasarala are relatively close in the show to the ages of the characters in the novels. As for the others:
I know the novels have never given a definite age for Holden, but someone in their early thirties just feels too young to me.
At 42, Chad Coleman is much younger than Fred Johnson in the novels. He was a Colonel when he left the military, and most typical officers aren't even promoted to Colonel before they're 45, and I doubt he was freshly promoted when he was sent to Anderson Station. Add on to that his years establishing himself in the Belt and working his way up to leadership in the OPA.
Also, in the most recent novel, his advanced age is a plot point.
The only information about Dominique Tipper's age is that she was born in 1985, so she's roughly 31-32, depending on when her birthday is. Again, no definite age is given for Naomi in the novels, but a certain revelation in Book 5 certain suggests to me she's a bit older, though admittedly not by very much.
Those are the main offenders. I did take issue with Amos and Alex being younger too when the show started, but then I found out those actors actually are in the vicinity of 40, they're just very youthful looking.
Though, keep in mind, several years have passed between the beginning of Leviathan Wakes and the events of Nemesis Games, in universe. My take on that revelation you mentioned is that very much fits the age cast in the show at this point.
I'm just really surprised by how old the actor playing Amos actually is. Dude looks really young. Wish I'd aged that gracefully!
Hmm, good point. I forgot to take that into account.
Well, it should also be considered that a combination of orbital mechanics and the normal passage of time means that almost six years pass between the first book and the fifth:
"Wakes" to "War" is a little over 1 year, 6 months duration for the story
"War" to "Gate" is about 6 to 8 months, 3 to 6 months duration for the story
"Gate" to "Burn" at least a year, 6 to 10 months duration for the story,
"Burn" to "Games" is a year and a half, 3 to 4 months duration for the story
"Games" to "Ashes" is a short interval, a few months maybe, but almost 5 months duration for the story
So at at the very least, Naomi is about six years older in "Babylon's Ashes" than she was when she first stepped onto the Rocinante. At the rate they're filming the TV series, this could just as easily be true of Tipper by the time they catch up to that point of the story.
Significantly, this means Filip Inaros is about 9 years old during Leviathan Wakes; by the time we get to "Babylon's Ashes" she'd have been on the Rocinante longer than she'd been on the Canterbury
I took issue with Amos' SIZE. The novels describe him as a big burly guy with a lot of guns, so for some reason I always pictured Adam Baldwin. But that's probably from watching too much Firefly.
With 8 novels scheduled and each novel taking 1.5 seasons to show, it seems EXTREMELY unlikely (impossible actually) for us to see all the novels filmed. I'd be surprised with season 3 being green lit at this point, let alone having this show go 12-13 seasons.
The last episode (which was probably the easiest episode to sell to the general public, and the one that blew it's load with the high stakes) only got 0.6 million viewers :-(
The last episode (which was probably the easiest episode to sell to the general public, and the one that blew it's load with the high stakes) only got 0.6 million viewers :-(
You're not the only one. Adam Baldwin was a popular choice for Amos in fantasy casting of the novels back before the show. Of course, some even went as far as saying Nathan Fillion for Holden, Gina Torres for Naomi and even Alan Tudyk for Alex (despite being the wrong ethnicity).The novels describe him as a big burly guy with a lot of guns, so for some reason I always pictured Adam Baldwin. But that's probably from watching too much Firefly.
It depends on how much SyFy likes having their first prestige show since Battlestar Galactica. There was a lot of crap between Galactica and The Expanse which really did a number on their image.
Well, that was the reason they renewed it for Season 2. But how long can we expect that reason to be used when the show almost certainly loses money with every episode?
Well, I guess that depends on how much SyFy is paying in this joint venture. If the bulk of the production cost is being picked up by the Canadian broadcaster and SyFy is just paying a licensing fee, they might be able to keep it going due to it being a lower cost from their end of it. It really depends on who's paying the brunt of the costs. Just my 2 credits....
Q2
There's the hope that SyFy can tell production to increase the storytelling pace. In other words, tell them to plan to wrap it up in a certain number of seasons, maybe 4 or 5. Because, otherwise, I agree, SyFy won't want to drag out a show with low ratings. Of course, they might just bail too.
I can't imagine them being able to stretch Abaddon's Gate out to more than a season - and there doesn't seem like a natural break point in Caliban's War like there was in Leviathan's Wake with the events on Eros. We've got eight episodes left this season, so I wonder if that will be the rest of Caliban's War, with Abaddon's Gate and Cibola Burn being the third season (with AG being five episodes, and CB taking up the bulk of the season as it's the story that can be decompressed more).
All the praise about scientific accuracy... and no comments about the incredible inaccuracy of the transmissions?
Real time transmissions in the last 2 episodes from Earth to Eros to the Belter HQ. Real time accessing the guidance of the nuclear missiles. Nuclear missiles launched from Earth and able to reach Eros in minutes.
But they couldn't real time paint the target due to transmission lag so they had to have the Rosi paint the target for them?
Ships are always under gravity even when they aren't thrusting. And it looks to me that the interior decks are not perpendicular to the main engines as you'd expect with thrust based gravity. Plus, thrust based gravity only works in the direction of the thrust. Ships will have to spin 180 degrees to decelerate and still maintain gravity.
Besides the awesome effect in episode 1, liquids pour like normal on Earth. Bottles are not even designed for zero G.
And I'll need to see pictures of Eros before I'm convinced there was a catwalk ring around the asteroid they were walking on that was supposed to be under centripetal gravity.
But it's a good show and those nits are hard to conquer under budget constraints. We're on Earth. It's not easy to film realistic space gravity.
And the transmission lag between Earth and any other body in the solar system would make for a boring show.
Real time transmissions in the last 2 episodes from Earth to Eros to the Belter HQ. Real time accessing the guidance of the nuclear missiles. Nuclear missiles launched from Earth and able to reach Eros in minutes.
But they couldn't real time paint the target due to transmission lag so they had to have the Rosi paint the target for them?
Ships are always under gravity even when they aren't thrusting. And it looks to me that the interior decks are not perpendicular to the main engines as you'd expect with thrust based gravity. Plus, thrust based gravity only works in the direction of the thrust. Ships will have to spin 180 degrees to decelerate and still maintain gravity.
Besides the awesome effect in episode 1, liquids pour like normal on Earth. Bottles are not even designed for zero G.
And I'll need to see pictures of Eros before I'm convinced there was a catwalk ring around the asteroid they were walking on that was supposed to be under centripetal gravity.
But it's a good show and those nits are hard to conquer under budget constraints. We're on Earth. It's not easy to film realistic space gravity.
And the transmission lag between Earth and any other body in the solar system would make for a boring show.
Nope not real time.
A) the time delay is mentioned (at one point it's mentioned the time delay is 13mins).
B) the messages are one way. Message is received and a reply sent. There's no direct interaction.
C) nothing says the missiles reached in minutes though not ftl the drive systems in use are much quicker than what we have today.
D) events were compressed for the sake of tv.
You missed a lot. The time delays were clearly mentioned -- not only did it come up once in dialogue, but the screen images of Holden's broadcast on the Earth council room's screen had captions saying "Time delay 15 minutes" or the like -- and of course they were one-way messages, no actual back-and-forth dialogue as real time would allow. The missiles clearly took hours to cover the distance, what with all the intervening time delays in communication. The editing just tightened it up to fit in 42 minutes.
By now, the magnetic-boot conceit has been well enough established that they don't need to make a point of it. Characters with magnetic boots are shown to move roughly the same way they do under gravity, which is an unrealistic conceit but a necessary compromise for filming on Earth's surface. But there is always a sound effect of the magnets engaging when characters walk.
And we saw that a couple of episodes ago. When the Roci and the other ship were nearing Eros, an exterior shot showed that their engines were thrusting toward it to slow them for velocity matching. They didn't show the actual turnover because that was established earlier in the series and they expect the audience to remember, and also because it wasn't plot-relevant here.
Yes, that is a recurring problem.
Netflix are showing The Expanse in the UK as no TV network chose to pick it up. It makes me wonder if Netflix could partly or wholly finance the series if there is enough proven demand outside the US and Canada. Grasping at straws time again...
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