Why is ship speed only a problem for fans with ST and STiD?

[Rahul]

Ok... I'll give you TMP. Of course, that would also mean Epsilon 9 was traveling at warp too

But, the others I can't agree with. Starting at the end of The Wrath of Khan, every time a ship is at warp, you see the "blur with trails of light" effect. The only time we see this in effect in IV, V, and VI is when...

IV: The Bird of Prey starts its time warp, when the Bof P leaves Earth's atmosphere, and when the Enterprise-A leaves Spacedock

V: When Chekov orders warp to escape the Klingon torpedo

VI: When the Enterprise and Excelsior are on their way to the Khitomer Conference

Any other time, they are at impulse. Hell, even at the beginning of VI, Sulu says they're heading home under full impulse from the Beta Quadrant.

Yeah, no.

The "blur with trails of light effect" was a special effect. Special effects are quite expensive. Star Trek movies (untill the JJ Abrams ones) have always been on a tight budget. That's why most space battles consist of people sitting in chairs and talking about the action.

When they say "we travel to the klingon border". And then there's a cut. And on the way back you see them going to warp. Then they also were going with warp when they were going there in the first place. They simply hadn't the budget to show another special-effect, and talking about how they are going to warp is pretty much useless exposition. They simply implied it. Because ALL long space distances in Star Trek are covered by warp travel. That's enough.

If you look back at "The undiscovered country" you will also notice the first 20 minutes of the movie take place over several months(!!!). It's easy to miss, but from the time Praxis explodes, to the time where Kirk get's the job the escort chancellor Gowron to earth, Spock refers to "in the last three months after the destruction of Praxis..." If they can cut several months of negotiations they are absolutely allowed to cut some special effects, if none of them are plot-relevant.

EDIT:

Also, the concept of blood based therapies is something used now. So, Khan's "magic blood" (ridiculous term but fine) is more realistic than warp drive or transporters.

Yeah, I have no problem with blood therapy. I have a problem with LITERALLY REVIVING THE DEAD. That's a lot less realistic than FTL-travel. Kirk was DEAD before he was infused with Khan's blood. Not comatoese. Not sick. DEAD. For several minutes. With radiation sickness nonetheless, something he would realistically die of right again after he was revived, because his body is still radioactive. Hell, the tribble was dead for DAYS, and probably died of something completely unrelated to radioactivity, and he was resurected by Khans blood as well.

That's not science fiction. That's the plot of a zombie apocalypse movie. That a tribble, an alien animal, apparently also has a human blood circulation and was cured by the same superblood is just the icing on the cake. But that's a bit off-topic...

Otherwise you are right. There are several fast-cuts and edits that imply instant travel, but can also be interpreted as "time-jumps". But it's very muddy, JJ Abrams simply didn't cared about that (TFA is arguibly worse in this regard than his Trek movies). But Trek before (and Star Wars before) handeled that a lot better.

 

[fireproof78]

Oh, George Lucas abso-fuckin-lutely get's how big space is! The only gross scientific mistakes he made was in Episode II, where they flew in the asteroid field of Geonosis. Real life asteroid field aren't that dense, the asteroids are much further apart, otherwise their gravitational pull would pull them straight up together again.

Really, George Lucas never cared much about showing the specifics of space travel. But he absolutely knows them! His prequels have plenty of narrative problems. But regarding all the technical stuff they are pretty spot on.

To be perfectly fair to GL (and we all know he needs it) the Geonisis fight was in the planetary rings of the planet, not an asteroid field.

Yeah, no.

The "blur with trails of light effect" was a special effect. Special effects are quite expensive. Star Trek movies (untill the JJ Abrams ones) have always been on a tight budget. That's why most space battles consist of people sitting in chairs and talking about the action.

When they say "we travel to the klingon border". And then there's a cut. And on the way back you see them going to warp. Then they also were going with warp when they were going there in the first place. They simply hadn't the budget to show another special-effect, and talking about how they are going to warp is pretty much useless exposition. They simply implied it. Because ALL long space distances in Star Trek are covered by warp travel. That's enough.

If you look back at "The undiscovered country" you will also notice the first 20 minutes of the movie take place over several months(!!!). It's easy to miss, but from the time Praxis explodes, to the time where Kirk get's the job the escort chancellor Gowron to earth, Spock refers to "in the last three months after the destruction of Praxis..." If they can cut several months of negotiations they are absolutely allowed to cut some special effects, if none of them are plot-relevant.

EDIT:


Yeah, I have no problem with blood therapy. I have a problem with LITERALLY REVIVING THE DEAD. That's a lot less realistic than FTL-travel. Kirk was DEAD before he was infused with Khan's blood. Not comatoese. Not sick. DEAD. For several minutes. With radiation sickness nonetheless, something he would realistically die of right again after he was revived, because his body is still radioactive. Hell, the tribble was dead for DAYS, and probably died of something completely unrelated to radioactivity, and he was resurected by Khans blood as well.

That's not science fiction. That's the plot of a zombie apocalypse movie. That a tribble, an alien animal, apparently also has a human blood circulation and was cured by the same superblood is just the icing on the cake. But that's a bit off-topic...

Otherwise you are right. There are several fast-cuts and edits that imply instant travel, but can also be interpreted as "time-jumps". But it's very muddy, JJ Abrams simply didn't cared about that (TFA is arguibly worse in this regard than his Trek movies). But Trek before (and Star Wars before) handeled that a lot better.

Sorry, I'll disagree on the blood therapy part. But, you're right, that is off topic

Also, I think it is a matter of pacing as you are right-Abrams doesn't care about the travel-he wants to tell the human story within. Obviously, mileage will vary as far as enjoyment of the time for exposition or character development in that travel time. I've struggled with that in my own writing, trying to avoid to fast rate of travel through space, but not bore the reader. It's a delicate balance.

 

[Mudd]

The notion that Lucas displays any interest or understanding of physics, astronomy, engineering, stellar distances etc in Star Wars is just hysterically mistaken.

On the other hand, the treatment of these things in nuTrek is as consistent as in oldTrek.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Which is to say not at all consistently.

 

[ancient]

I have won the lottery 0 times so far. That's consistency in a nutshell.

 

[Greg Cox]

The real issue is that movies don't have commercial breaks. On TV, you can have 16.5 hours pass in transit during the commercials: "Captain's Log, we have finally arrived at Delta Vega Omega III. I only pray we are not too late."

That's hard to make work, structurally, in a feature film where you're trying to maintain momentum and a sense of urgency.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Not that it really matters. There are plenty of "nerd" ways to explain away both the long distance beaming. and the quick return to Earth.

I mean, heck, assume the Vengeance had transwarp and it "pushed" (for lack of a better term) the Enterprise along.

 

[eyeresist]

The problem isn't the speed per se, it's the feeling that no time has passed between being at location A and location B. The older movies did the pacing better.

 

[CorporalClegg]

By showing people fumble through Klingon dictionaries.

 

[Mjolnir2000]

The problem isn't the speed per se, it's the feeling that no time has passed between being at location A and location B. The older movies did the pacing better.

Yep, this. It's a pacing problem. A JJ Abrams film never stops to take a breath. They only go at one speed, and that speed is fast, and that's just boring. You can see it in The Force Awakens - anywhere they need to go is 30 seconds away via hyperdrive. In the original trilogy, things took time. The trip to Alderaan is long enough that Chewie and R2 can enjoy a game of space chess while Luke gets his first lesson in Jedi-ing. And that's important. You can't have tension if everything has to happen right now! And sure, you can fit in plenty of action, but action gets really boring really fast if you don't have the slow bits in between to allow both the audience and the characters to absorb what's happened before, and anticipate what's going to happen next. People say The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country are action films, and maybe they did have a fair amount compared to an original series episode, but compared to a modern blockbuster, they hardly have any action at all. And they're better films as a result.

 

[somebuddyX]

I was really only bothered by how short a length of time the Vengeance chasing the Enterprise was, but also because we ended up back at Earth yet again. It just made everything feel really small, the same way I felt in the prequels when we kept on ending up on Coruscant or Tatooine.

 

[somebuddyX]

I always felt this was more of a telepathic vision (similar to how he felt the death of Intrepid in "The Immunity Syndrome"), not that he could actually see Vulcan destroyed visually.

I thought this too until I saw The Force Awakens where everyone sees the laser beams from the Starkiller place shoot by them at the castle planet. But I like the imagery of it so it doesn't bother me.

 

[Rahul]

The notion that Lucas displays any interest or understanding of physics, astronomy, engineering, stellar distances etc in Star Wars is just hysterically mistaken.

Oh, absolutely wrong! George Lucas totally knows his space stuff! He just doesn't care much about explaining it to the audience. But he absolutely knows a lot of the real science behind it, and edits accordingly. That's because he's from an older generation. When he got into science fiction, it was because of serials, but most of the time people had books. Science fiction books. The John Carter novels, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein. All those genuises whose influence on George Lucas is obvious. You don't read that much science fiction in your youth from real, scientific, intelligent people without learning a thing or two. Compare that to JJ Abrams, who has probably never read a book since highschool and got all his information about space from other movies, and you know why George Lucas' portrayel of space is vastly superiour.

To be perfectly fair to GL (and we all know he needs it) the Geonisis fight was in the planetary rings of the planet, not an asteroid field.

Indeed. But again, that's the only(!) mistake about space in the GL-Star Wars, and it's a very common one, because close asteroids look visually cool. But even in planetary rings the rocks are in real life so far away from each other, that they are only visibly from far far away. When NASA makes orbi maneuvers around Saturn, they feel free to fly completely blind(!) through Saturn's rings, simply because the probabiliy to hit anything is so low. And planetary rings are the most dense asteroid fields existing.

On the other hand, the treatment of these things in nuTrek is as consistent as in oldTrek.

No. Not at all. Old Trek always took a narrative break when travelling interplanetary distances! Like the old Star Wars, there were scenes in between. Spock and Kirk contemplating about their age. Luke learning lightsaber-stuff. It simply took time to travel interstellar distances.

Beaming range was also pretty consistent: Only very close in the cosmic range. Meaning in Orbit, or another starship in close range. You NEVER saw someone beaming between different planets (with the exception of "extremeley old/advanced/way-beyond-our-knowledge technology). Basically beaming was always only possible in visual range, aka in impulse-engine-range, as a means of faster-than-a-shuttle, but never replacing a spaceship.

Starship sizes were also pretty much more consistent before. All previous ships have a clearly size chart. Only the Defiant varies a bit in size.

The JJverse (ahem, Kelvin timeline) treats all those things willy-nilly. They aren't even consistent what their warp core does between two movies (1: ejectable, 2: ship completely dead without it).

The old Trek was also pretty consistent that there was no air in space. Shockwaves (like the one from praxis, or in Generations) were always matter. From a star, or a planet, that was explosively shot into space. In JJTrek on the other hand, a simply energy explosion (from the red matter) produces a shockwave(!) that propels(!!) the Enterprise out of the range of a black hole. Which btw is now also a wormhole through time(!), because those things are identical, right?

Many people don't notice it, because it wasn't exactly plot relevant before. But for somebody who is interested and works with real space stuff, it's absolutely heartbreaking to witness a dumbing-down in science on THIS level.

 

[Mudd]

George Lucas totally knows his space stuff!

 

[Rahul]

View attachment 1629

Yeah, that's a great answer....

So enlighten me, what do you think George Lucas got wrong about space? Because as of now, we only have your "word", without any evidence or examples.

What did he got wrong?

 

[CorporalClegg]

So enlighten me, what do you think George Lucas got wrong about space?

Everything?

 

[Rahul]

Again: give any examples, please.

We have a lot of specific examples what JJ Abrams got wrong. For George Lucas it's somehow "totally trust me he was the same as well even though I have no clue or can name any examples, but I have a gut feeling so it must be right".

 

[Myko]

I would type an answer, but I'm afraid I don't have 12 parsecs of my time to spare.

 

[Rahul]

Yeah, he got some dialogue wrong that Harrison Ford ad-libbed. Any real examples were something was shown to be scientifically wrong? And not some cowboy-type trying to impress a farmer guy with spacey words?

Somehow I expect the next answer to be "trust me, they are too numerous to count so it won't matter to show any examples", and after that the topic will be conveniently be dropped

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Let's see.

- fighters that maneuver like airplanes

- laser bolts that you can see blazing across the screen like tracer fire, moreover that are plainly visible from the side in the vacuum of space

- sound in space

- the density of the asteroid field in TESB

- the idea that there's an energy field created by all living things that surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together

- hyperdrive

How's that for starters, of Things About Space in Star Wars That Don't Match Reality?