What tropes in science fiction annoy you?

[Samurai8472]

Quick fix technobabble

"The engine core is going to explode in 5 minutes!

"I could construct a tachyon inverse polarity field!

"Do it!"

 

[Tim Walker]

I just wrapped up a rewatch of The Six Million Dollar Man and its sister series The Bionic Woman and oh boy that brought back memories. Still fun to watch for the most part.

A couple of things though that really bug me.

Both of them can run really fast, like really fast like 60 mph for a mere human that's fast without super powers. Anyway sure if the bionic legs can do that what about the hip joints, those were not designed by nature to work at those speeds so would their bones be reinforced with some metal or such? The TV show never made it clear if the legs are bionic from the hip joint down or such but they did little computer graphics in the show intro that suggests they start below the hips and that bugs me just a little. I have never read the novel that both shows were originally based on so have no background information either way.

Also the things they do with their bionic arm you'd have to think they did something to the upper part of their skeletons too to reinforce that or much pain would happen. Again I don't think they go into that in much detail in the TV shows, not to mention Steve's eye is a long thing that goes from the his eye socket right to the back of his head.

I recall an analysis I came across some years ago. You're right, it won't work. These feats would create intolerable stresses. Realistically, the biological parts of a cyborg's body are much too frail.

 

[Tim Walker]

Advanced Alien cultures who go extinct and leave their tech behind, which humanity magically manages to reverse engineer.

As was mentioned in the Babylon 5 thread, the difficulty of reverse engineering is magnified if the technology uses unknown principles.

There may have been too many technological revolutions between your tech and theirs for you to duplicate it within any reasonable time.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

As was mentioned in the Babylon 5 thread, the difficulty of reverse engineering is magnified if the technology uses unknown principles.

There may have been too many technological revolutions between your tech and theirs for you to duplicate it within any reasonable time.

No shit, that is why i find the trope annoying.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

How about the one where the movie is moving along ok, and then 'oh, ok, I guess this is a random horror movie now...'

See people will flame me for saying this but this is how I felt about Sunshine.

It started off good but in the middle it feels like it changed to a different movie.

 

[Scout101]

Why do you think you’ll get crap for that, it’s one of the examples I had in mind. Event horizon was geared more that way, but still went over the top. Could list plenty more. Life is a recent one that kinda went the same way. Can list plenty more, but Sunshine is a perfect example

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Why do you think you’ll get crap for that, it’s one of the examples I had in mind. Event horizon was geared more that way, but still went over the top. Could list plenty more. Life is a recent one that kinda went the same way. Can list plenty more, but Sunshine is a perfect example

Because people seem to love that movie and on other boards when I have pointed that out they go nuts so I'm now cautious to criticize movies like that.

Personally I LOVED Life and I think it was the silly humans that made their own demise.

 

[Sgt_G]

To expand on something said up-topic: Military=eeeeeeeevil.

1) The idea that anyone and everyone in uniform wants war and will do anything to start a war just so they can get their glory. Sorry, but nobody in their right mind wants to go to war, and we don't keep people in service who aren't in their right mind.

2) High-ranking generals and admirals whose default advice to the President is "Nuke them into the Stone Age."

 

[JD]

See people will flame me for saying this but this is how I felt about Sunshine.

It started off good but in the middle it feels like it changed to a different movie.

We had no idea about that whole aspect of Sunshine when my mom and I went see it, and we were both rather confused when it suddenly turned into a slasher flick. Especially since she doesn't do slasher flick, and I hadn't gotten into them yet at that point. Maybe I missed it, but I don't remember seeing any of that in the trailers or promotion.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

We had no idea about that whole aspect of Sunshine when my mom and I went see it, and we were both rather confused when it suddenly turned into a slasher flick. Especially since she doesn't do slasher flick, and I hadn't gotten into them yet at that point. Maybe I missed it, but I don't remember seeing any of that in the trailers or promotion.

IKR

It's like the director had some kind of mental fit halfway through the film and thought "ah what the hell" let's do a slasher movie instead then at the end they remembered it was a scifi about restarting the Sun. Yeah OK.

At least it wasn't Supernova now that was a scifi movie with lots of on and off set troubles.

 

[Mysterion]

YES! That would be a nice fight to see mind you Andromeda is several 100s of years in the future or something even the ships are way overpowered.

I was talking more about attitudes and culture than tech. Here's what Andromeda series creator Robert Hewitt Wolfe had to say on the subject:

"... while the Klingon's ideal day would be to kiss his wife good-bye, find his mortal enemy, and die in glorious combat, killing his enemy with his dying breath."

"The Nietzschean's ideal day would be a little different: have sex with his wife (the Nietzcheans are dedicated to procreation), go to his enemy's house, get invited in (because the enemy has no clue that he is in fact an enemy), slip the enemy an untraceable but lethal neurotoxin, go home, have sex with his other wives, and live a long, full life, fathering as many children as possible and carrying the secret of his enemy's murder to his grave."

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I like the way Mr Wolfe thinks... Now to see Nietzscheans do that to the Klingons would be fun.

 

[Tim Walker]

Found a Trek BBS thread-How Difficult Is It To Reverse Engineer Technology?

 

[Scout101]

Another good one: A bad guy not being able to feel pain. Which means when you shoot him, stab, whatever, he doesn’t slow down.

Not feeling it is fine, but you bleed out of break an arm all the same. Not feeling pain just means you can’t react to damage.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Another good one: A bad guy not being able to feel pain. Which means when you shoot him, stab, whatever, he doesn’t slow down.

Not feeling it is fine, but you bleed out of break an arm all the same. Not feeling pain just means you can’t react to damage.

They did that in one of the Bond movies with Pierce Brosnan. One of the bad guys was immune to pain so took a lot of beating. I think it was "Tomorrow Never Dies"

 

[Pauln6]

I hate the trope of the selfish hero (most often American) who will kill, maim, and abandon anyone who isn't in their inner circle (family, love interest, member of their unit). It grates even more when anyone who does perform an altruistic act is almost immediately punished, bitten, shot, or betrayed for being stupid enough to be kind. It says a lot about the psyche of the American viewers but as a Brit I find myself hoping the hero gets killed sooner rather than later.

 

[Scout101]

They did that in one of the Bond movies with Pierce Brosnan. One of the bad guys was immune to pain so took a lot of beating. I think it was "Tomorrow Never Dies"

It gets used a lot. Deadpool had the same thing. Not feeling pain is great, but when you're run through the chest with a sword, or fall 100+ feet off of a carrier, you still die. Cool that you didn't feel anything, just as dead.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

It gets used a lot. Deadpool had the same thing. Not feeling pain is great, but when you're run through the chest with a sword, or fall 100+ feet off of a carrier, you still die. Cool that you didn't feel anything, just as dead.

Deadpool. I must be the odd person out again because I just can't get into that character. And some of the most recent Marvel movies I haven't liked.

 

[Scout101]

Boo! I think Deadpool was great, and it's just such a perfect casting. Ryan Reynolds was born for that role, he's been essentially playing him for like 20 years of acting. Plus it let him vent about Green Lantern

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Boo! I think Deadpool was great, and it's just such a perfect casting. Ryan Reynolds was born for that role, he's been essentially playing him for like 20 years of acting. Plus it let him vent about Green Lantern

And I'm at polar opposites here I liked the Green Lantern movie