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I think the reason people can be happy with something like Trek but nitpick on more realistic attempts is that you hit a sort of uncanny valley. I know space fl

I think the reason people can be happy with something like Trek but nitpick on more realistic attempts is that you hit a sort of uncanny valley. I know space flight in Trek or Babylon 5 is utterly made up, so you accept it and what stands out is the things you are shown that work within that made up framework. But if you show me space flight that’s close to being right then the ways it isn’t are what will stand out.

jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
Yeah, I've thought the same thing and generally agree, but it still bugs me, because more often then not, it's not "uncanny valley" that's driving the distinction in category in my opinion but rather "mass popularity vs nerd cult." The reason I put Bab 5 in there and not Star Wars is exactly because it did work hard to get a lot more of the science stuff closer to right, but equally as flawed as anything in gravity or interstellar. The portrayal of B5's O'Neill cylinder is highly flawed but escapes this same sort of criticism.
- aardvark179 5y ago
  I didn’t ever really bother about how well the station actually worked in B5, it and the larger human ships rotated because the humans didn’t have artificial gravity, and that was enough. It fitted in the world they had built. Similarly I never minded that the design of DS9 is non sensical in real terms, it fits with the other things we see in trek so it feels okay. In contrast I bounced off Gravity because it was trying so hard to be accurate but had characters doing fairly long range orbital maneuvers by eye, and those two things didn’t feel like they fit.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
    Why do you say it was trying harder to be accurate?
    - aardvark179 5y ago
      Something like B5 isn’t centrally concerned with things like orbital mechanics, they aren’t the focus of its plots and the way ships behave is more a way to contrast the differing levels of tech. Gravity has a plot centered round how things orbit so when the plot cheats on that it’s jarring. Likewise when B5 had an episode centered round a character who had been Jack the Ripper, but got the area of London where the murderer had been active completely wrong that felt jarring because the nature of that character felt so central to that episode.
      - jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
        I would humbly submit that Gravity was also not centrally concerned with the parts of orbital mechanics that would make it an utterly boring movie. I continue to fail to see the big distinction here, and why only one of these is described as "cheating."

jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago

Yeah, I've thought the same thing and generally agree, but it still bugs me, because more often then not, it's not "uncanny valley" that's driving the distinction in category in my opinion but rather "mass popularity vs nerd cult." The reason I put Bab 5 in there and not Star Wars is exactly because it did work hard to get a lot more of the science stuff closer to right, but equally as flawed as anything in gravity or interstellar. The portrayal of B5's O'Neill cylinder is highly flawed but escapes this same sort of criticism.

aardvark179 5y ago
I didn’t ever really bother about how well the station actually worked in B5, it and the larger human ships rotated because the humans didn’t have artificial gravity, and that was enough. It fitted in the world they had built. Similarly I never minded that the design of DS9 is non sensical in real terms, it fits with the other things we see in trek so it feels okay. In contrast I bounced off Gravity because it was trying so hard to be accurate but had characters doing fairly long range orbital maneuvers by eye, and those two things didn’t feel like they fit.
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
  Why do you say it was trying harder to be accurate?
  - aardvark179 5y ago
    Something like B5 isn’t centrally concerned with things like orbital mechanics, they aren’t the focus of its plots and the way ships behave is more a way to contrast the differing levels of tech. Gravity has a plot centered round how things orbit so when the plot cheats on that it’s jarring. Likewise when B5 had an episode centered round a character who had been Jack the Ripper, but got the area of London where the murderer had been active completely wrong that felt jarring because the nature of that character felt so central to that episode.
    - jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
      I would humbly submit that Gravity was also not centrally concerned with the parts of orbital mechanics that would make it an utterly boring movie. I continue to fail to see the big distinction here, and why only one of these is described as "cheating."