3 ms·

"Well, if you're going to build a time machine, why not do it with some style? Besides, the stainless steel construction made the flux dispersal.....watch out!"

"Well, if you're going to build a time machine, why not do it with some style? Besides, the stainless steel construction made the flux dispersal.....watch out!" I always wanted the rest of that line. As though the writers had thought up some way to make 'stainless steel' a necessary part of the the time machine construction.

mikepurvis 7y ago
Brilliant writing, though— hint that the reason is there without actually filling up the script with made-up gobbledygook. Author Sid Fleishman said that if you had a plot hole in your story, all you had to do was point to it and it would disappear: ---- For example, in McBroom’s Zoo I wanted to use the Hidebehind, a fabled frontier creature. No one knows what the Hidebehind looks like because every time you look, the animal hides behind you. I saw the hole at once. All McBroom needed to do was to hold up a mirror and he’d see the Hidebehind’s mug. I plugged the hole by pointing to it. Works like magic. “I even tried walking around with a hand mirror.” McBroom declares. “But the Hidebehind was too eternal clever for tricks like that.”
- interestica 7y ago
  Kinda like the lampshade trope. It's interesting to compare to writing/acting in terms of a product like this. The launch is basically a written and choreographed performance - all done live. And in this case, something went seriously wrong (the so-called armor glass shattered during the live test). What does the performer do to hold a mirror to it (or lampshade on it) to make it go away? It's actually crazy that it would fail so distinctly in the demo that was supposed to show its strength. Was it the first time they used the metal ball? Had all testing just been done with hammers and crowbars? Maybe they should really highlight how and why it failed.

3 ms·

"Well, if you're going to build a time machine, why not do it with some style? Besides, the stainless steel construction made the flux dispersal.....watch out!"

by interestica 7y ago

mikepurvis 7y ago
Brilliant writing, though— hint that the reason is there without actually filling up the script with made-up gobbledygook. Author Sid Fleishman said that if you had a plot hole in your story, all you had to do was point to it and it would disappear: ---- For example, in McBroom’s Zoo I wanted to use the Hidebehind, a fabled frontier creature. No one knows what the Hidebehind looks like because every time you look, the animal hides behind you. I saw the hole at once. All McBroom needed to do was to hold up a mirror and he’d see the Hidebehind’s mug. I plugged the hole by pointing to it. Works like magic. “I even tried walking around with a hand mirror.” McBroom declares. “But the Hidebehind was too eternal clever for tricks like that.”
- interestica 7y ago
  Kinda like the lampshade trope. It's interesting to compare to writing/acting in terms of a product like this. The launch is basically a written and choreographed performance - all done live. And in this case, something went seriously wrong (the so-called armor glass shattered during the live test). What does the performer do to hold a mirror to it (or lampshade on it) to make it go away? It's actually crazy that it would fail so distinctly in the demo that was supposed to show its strength. Was it the first time they used the metal ball? Had all testing just been done with hammers and crowbars? Maybe they should really highlight how and why it failed.