Was Peter Hyams aware of this error when he filmed the pod bay scenes?
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What are some older special effects that you liked a lot?
- Thread starter Argus Skyhawk
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Was Peter Hyams aware of this error when he filmed the pod bay scenes?
Hyams must have been aware of gravity to a certain extent, as there's one scene aboard the Leonov (which actually has a rotating section, so it's *expected* to have gravity) where we see a pen floating around as if zero-g.
the scene was meant to be a homage to the original film's shuttle scene where the stewardess grbs the floating pen. the centrifuge on the Russian ship is not moving fast enough anyway so I enjoy that film on the same level I enjoy a Trek episode, it's not scientifically sound, nor does it try to hard to stick to those rules, but the characters, ideas, and drama are what the film is about. the film has the most beautiful shots of Jupiter I have ever seen... I love it when we first see the dark spot.
I love those Roy Scheider one-liners...
Kirbuk: We are going to send a probe down.
Floyd (heavy sarcasm): Gooooooooood!!
Kirbuk: We are going to send a probe down.
Floyd (heavy sarcasm): Gooooooooood!!
yeah, that's my favorite performance of his.
He sells scenes that would be difficult to sell, like how he convinced Kubik to even consider launching early.
He sells scenes that would be difficult to sell, like how he convinced Kubik to even consider launching early.
One thing I recently noticed in 2010 is that everyone wears some sort of grip-shoes in the movie, which is how they're supposed to be able to walk when their should be zero-G. It's a bit of a cheat, of course, since the actors behave like they are walking in gravity.
The scene in question was in the Leonov's bridge, which was not in the rotating portion and thus was in free fall.
Everything's relative. Yes, 2010 takes a few small liberties for poetic license, but it's one of the most scientifically sound movies Hollywood has ever made. Take it from someone who's long been frustrated by the scientific illiteracy of Hollywood -- 2010 is joyously refreshing in the care it took with its scientific research, in the sheer scientific literacy it brings. The attention to detail in things like ship design, aerobraking, the planetary science of the Jupiter system, all of it is remarkable. I have a book, The Odyssey File, detailing the behind-the-scenes production process, the e-mail conversations between Clarke and Hyams (which was still an innovative way of communicating back then), and it's truly admirable how dedicated Hyams was in researching the science and technology, striving to get it right. IIRC, the aerobraking scene in the movie is actually more realistic than what Clarke wrote in the book, because the engineers they consulted with helped them improve on the details. You'd be hard pressed to find another SF movie that's on the same level of credibility and scientific literacy -- Contact is the only one I can think of. I may gripe about 2010's small mistakes, but that's only because it sets such a high standard for itself. It's infinitely better than most of the ignorant, lazy nonsense that passes for science in the movies.
I don't care for the conceit of grip shoes or magnetic boots or whatever. They don't make any sense as something that real space-dwellers would need. People on the Space Shuttle or the ISS don't need to have their shoes stuck to a surface; they manage just fine without it. You can maneuver much faster in freefall by pulling yourself along with handgrips and just coasting forward on momentum than you could by having to stick and unstick your feet over and over again.
Maybe you could make a tenuous case for magnetic boots in something like Star Trek: First Contact where you're outside a ship and need to keep from drifting away into space; but there too, it makes far more sense to use a tether or maneuvering jets.
I actuyally completely agree with everything you said here, and it one of my favorite sci fi films and among my top 5 favorite "hard" sci fi films, but I was pointinng out that, compared with the previous film, anyway, it played fast and loose with the science at least when it came to the people aboard the ship. That still puts it light years ahead of other films made in Hollywood
2001: A Space Odyssey doesn't come to mind?
Oh, that old thing...
I remember reading about that at the time. It was called Introvision, and it was basically a front-projection process, although from the description here, it sounds like it also used mattes to create the illusion of portions of the projected image going in front of the actors on the stage as well as behind them, like a real-time equivalent of Ray Harryhausen's Dynamation process.
