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

[fireproof78]

A fun story, but doesn't really stand up. If the Death Star was in orbit around Endor then it was obviously a lot smaller than Endor. Plus, being a space station, it was hollow, not a solid body. Plus most of the exploded material that headed toward Endor (less than 50% of the total mass of the Death Star) would burn up on entry. I would accept a nuclear winter type scenario, but the "rain of death" idea doesn't work.

I still don't think the Ewoks survive in that scenario either, but I don't exactly like any circumstance that involves mass death on them.

And, all the information about the Death Stars do not seem to indicate that they are completely hollow, but I digress.

 

[JeffinOakland]

How about turning a planet into a big ray gun that sucks off energy from the sun? We could talk all day about how there are hundreds of First Order personal living on a big ray gun.

 

[B.J.]

A fun story, but doesn't really stand up. If the Death Star was in orbit around Endor then it was obviously a lot smaller than Endor. Plus, being a space station, it was hollow, not a solid body. Plus most of the exploded material that headed toward Endor (less than 50% of the total mass of the Death Star) would burn up on entry. I would accept a nuclear winter type scenario, but the "rain of death" idea doesn't work.

It wasn't hollow. Okay, the density is a lot lower than a similar diameter moon/planetoid due to interior spaces, but it still has significant mass. And no, it wouldn't just burn up on entry. Not even Skylab burnt up completely. Actually, most things of a significant size will make it to the ground, with only part of it burnt away. But let's say for argument's sake that all that mass did burn up, it would release a massive amount of heat energy into the atmosphere, pretty much cooking the Ewoks.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Yeah, you could tell by what you could see of the exposed interior that it wasn't hollow. If it was hollow, why did the fighters have to stay in an access tube all the way in to the main reactor?

 

[Richard Baker]

If you read the linked article it addresses most of the issues about the Death Star II and how it's destruction would have devastated the forest moon. It is pretty well thought out.

Travel times have always been distorted in films and TV- nobody can watch them in real time since it would take longer than the production just to go anywhere. The real trick is to imply a realistic passage of time instead of seemingly just jumping from point to point. IMO the newer Trek films do not do this well since they are more rush-of-excitement style films.

Trivia note- in the older days of Radio dramas Jack Benny was a stickler for real time travel- he worked out how many steps it would take to walk to the mailbox out front, how many stairs there were and how far each room was in relation to each other. He would make sure in his radio show they would have the proper number of footsteps heard or amount of time it would take to go somewhere correct.

 

[fireproof78]

How about turning a planet into a big ray gun that sucks off energy from the sun? We could talk all day about how there are hundreds of First Order personal living on a big ray gun.

How else are they supposed to tan through their armor?

 

[JeffinOakland]

How else are they supposed to tan through their armor?

I hate this place. It's hot then it's cold then it's hot then it's cold. I never know how to dress.

 

[MacLeod]

Now for the new movies:


Into Darkness
was where they completely dropped the ball. Instant travelling to Kronos and back. Then they were in moon orbit(!), had an engine failure, and fell on Earth(!!!) in minutes - in real life traveling between Earth and the moon takes days! Even with engines. Just ask the Apollo crews.

The only real issue in STID is warp speed.

The Moon is only 384 400km from Earth, the speed of light is 299 792km/sec which places the moon at ~1.3 light seconds from Earth. If they where at any fraction of Impulse speeds they could be anywhere from 5 seconds to a minute from Earth. Even with thrusters they might only be a couple of minutes from Earth. The Apollo spacecraft only had a top speed of around 11km/s (39897km/h).

 

[eyeresist]

STID was on TV last night and I watched most of the end. When the Vengeance blows up, the moon is very close in the background, and Enterprise is also in shot. Yet a couple of minutes later Enterprise is plummeting to Earth as though it had been in low orbit. Makes no sense.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

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.

Pretty much that, it was all in his mind's eye. But people didn't get that because they were too caught up in minutiae like Rahul.

STID was on TV last night and I watched most of the end. When the Vengeance blows up, the moon is very close in the background, and Enterprise is also in shot. Yet a couple of minutes later Enterprise is plummeting to Earth as though it had been in low orbit. Makes no sense.

Ah, but you forgot what MacLeod said above you:

The Moon is only 384 400km from Earth, the speed of light is 299 792km/sec which places the moon at ~1.3 light seconds from Earth. If they where at any fraction of Impulse speeds they could be anywhere from 5 seconds to a minute from Earth. Even with thrusters they might only be a couple of minutes from Earth. The Apollo spacecraft only had a top speed of around 11km/s (39897km/h).

 

[eyeresist]

It still makes no sense for a starship near the moon to be suddenly plummeting into Earth's atmosphere.

 

[Rahul]

The only real issue in STID is warp speed.

The Moon is only 384 400km from Earth, the speed of light is 299 792km/sec which places the moon at ~1.3 light seconds from Earth. If they where at any fraction of Impulse speeds they could be anywhere from 5 seconds to a minute from Earth. Even with thrusters they might only be a couple of minutes from Earth. The Apollo spacecraft only had a top speed of around 11km/s (39897km/h).

That's still not how orbit mechanics works. If the ship would be SO fast, there's no chance it would hit earth, the gravitaional well would tow it around it and throw it back into space. If by some tiny chance it would have the right trajectory to hit earth, it would be SO FAST it would immediatly smash from the outer atmosphere to the ground in mere miliseconds, not even enough time to completely burn in the atmosphere - not fall majestic through the clouds.

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.

Pretty much that, it was all in his mind's eye. But people didn't get that because they were too caught up in minutiae like Rahul.

Yes, and Chris Pine watching the Enterprise being constructed in Iowa was also only his mental image, and the ship was really built in space the whole time

It is a good non-canon fan theory to explain the event. But as was seen with Starkiller Base in Force Awakens, everything was really intended how we saw it, and JJ.Abrams really only does not now how far apart stars are from each other/how fast light travels.



DISCLAIMER:
This is really only about the science of the movie. It has nothing to do with perceived quality of those movies. I really love movies with a lot worse depiction of science than in those. For the record: I personally liked Trek09, really don't like Into Darkness, but like both enough that I'm planning to watch Beyond soon in cinemas.
It's just fun to dissect and make fun of things that are wrong in movies. Most James Bond movies have glaring plot holes. I love finding and pointing them out. I still love those movies.
Also, a lot about astronomical science falls into the category of "aluminium christmas trees", where reality and real occurences often behave very counter-intuitive. As such a lot of "realistic" depictions seem totally off and bonkers, and even look like plot contrievances as far as the gut feeling of general audiences goes, whereas complete intuitive things (re: JJ Abrams) are totally wrong, but often only noticable for people with some specialization in the field.
I always love correct scientific portrayals in movies, because I think that's the best way to bring knowledge to a broader range of poeple that normally wouldn't keep themselves busy with that. I still adore the Stargate episode with the wormhole. And thereby every step back or major fuck-up in the science department of a movie get's slammed by me. It's still only a small part of the overall experience.