5 ms·

It's also extremely useful to recall that most of the tropes of SciFi TV, cinema and books are there for visual, narrative, budgetary, and literary necessity.

It's also extremely useful to recall that most of the tropes of SciFi TV, cinema and books are there for visual, narrative, budgetary, and literary necessity. Star Trek utilises transporters and warp speed not because they're technically probably or scientifically valid ... but because spending days or millennia going from ship to surface or between stars in a galaxy is utterly nonviable for a television or film production Sets and locations are similarly frequently recycled or drawn from nearby opportunities (which is why The Entire Universe is now in British Columbia). Star Wars's light sabers and blasters are visually appealing but nonsensical physically. Even "realistic" films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey remove such elements as the absolutely gigantic heat radiators the Discovery would have needed if it were depicted in a technically-accurate manner. Similar depictions occur in fiction, most of which are fairly shallowly-disguised Western, Journey, or Empire sagas relocated in space, though without any actual foundations on physics. Hard science fiction can sometimes make a few nods to reality, and often exists as a sort of "what if", exploring the potential consequences of some scientific or technological capability being realised, but again has very little basis in any known physics. And I write this as someone who was caught hook, line, and sinker by the von Braun vision of spaceships to the planets, Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, and others. As I've gotten older it's the psychological and social explorations which are more interesting: Le Guin, Stephenson (who tends to remain in near-Earth orbits), Bradbury, Butler, KSR, and the like. Not that the fantasy isn't still attractive at times, and with the capabilities for visualising potential space-scapes and starscapes, the visual imagery really is stunning, as in 1RPM here. (I'd watched before reading the description, and pretty much all the points Wernquist highlighted were ones I'd noted in the video itself.)

kd5bjo 3y ago
> Star Trek utilises transporters ... because spending days or millennia going from ship to surface or between stars in a galaxy is utterly nonviable for ... television Transporters specifically were "invented" due to budget constraints on the original series. The original plan was for the crew to use a shuttlecraft whenever they visited a planet, but that proved too costly-- In the absence of CGI, that would have to be done with practical effects, i.e. a model shuttle filmed landing on model terrain. The transporter shots, on the other hand, were really just a fancy cross-fade.
- Moru 3y ago
  And you can now have new horrible transporter accidents without any cost at all. Just say "What we got back on this side wasn't alive for very long, commander".
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    A lot of Trek episodes happen because Starfleet engineering is criminally bad. After all, who’d design a fuel tank that explodes when it loses power and “antimatter containment” fails.
- rbanffy 3y ago
  IIRC it was logistics as well - the shuttle prop was taking a lot longer than expected.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  Right, and that's part of what I was getting at. Though you might also consider that landing from the ISS, in low-Earth orbit, takes at least hours presently. This Dragon X capsule landing initiated at 11:05 GMT on 3 September 2023, and was scheduled to splash down at 04:17 GMT on the 4th, over 17 hours later. <https://www.space.com/spacex-crew-6-astronauts-depart-iss-webcast https://www.space.com/spacex-crew-6-astronauts-depart-iss-we...> Descent phase for the Soyuz is at least three hours. Launch-to-dock takes 6 hours to 3 days: <https://starlust.org/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-to-the-iss-from-earth/ https://starlust.org/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-to-the-iss...> With transporters, script writers can bounce characters between locations in seconds. Regarding the FX challenges: It's common to re-use stock or standard footage for such segments, which already occurs with many spaceflight sequences in Star Trek and related series. With the ability to swap in different backgrounds (using mattes or rear projection in the pre-CGI era) this gains more flexibility. Establishing shots are the equivalent for contemporary or historical terrestrially-based plots, programmes, series, etc. Viewing television productions with an eye to scene, set, and location cost helps one realise why so many scenes are shot in low-rent locations: car parks, warehouses, docks, drainage canals, desert, etc. (Also typically proximate to major film studio locations as with Hollywood or elsewhere.)

kd5bjo 3y ago

> Star Trek utilises transporters ... because spending days or millennia going from ship to surface or between stars in a galaxy is utterly nonviable for ... television Transporters specifically were "invented" due to budget constraints on the original series. The original plan was for the crew to use a shuttlecraft whenever they visited a planet, but that proved too costly-- In the absence of CGI, that would have to be done with practical effects, i.e. a model shuttle filmed landing on model terrain. The transporter shots, on the other hand, were really just a fancy cross-fade.

Moru 3y ago
And you can now have new horrible transporter accidents without any cost at all. Just say "What we got back on this side wasn't alive for very long, commander".
- rbanffy 3y ago
  A lot of Trek episodes happen because Starfleet engineering is criminally bad. After all, who’d design a fuel tank that explodes when it loses power and “antimatter containment” fails.
rbanffy 3y ago
IIRC it was logistics as well - the shuttle prop was taking a lot longer than expected.
dredmorbius 3y ago
Right, and that's part of what I was getting at. Though you might also consider that landing from the ISS, in low-Earth orbit, takes at least hours presently. This Dragon X capsule landing initiated at 11:05 GMT on 3 September 2023, and was scheduled to splash down at 04:17 GMT on the 4th, over 17 hours later. <https://www.space.com/spacex-crew-6-astronauts-depart-iss-webcast https://www.space.com/spacex-crew-6-astronauts-depart-iss-we...> Descent phase for the Soyuz is at least three hours. Launch-to-dock takes 6 hours to 3 days: <https://starlust.org/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-to-the-iss-from-earth/ https://starlust.org/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-to-the-iss...> With transporters, script writers can bounce characters between locations in seconds. Regarding the FX challenges: It's common to re-use stock or standard footage for such segments, which already occurs with many spaceflight sequences in Star Trek and related series. With the ability to swap in different backgrounds (using mattes or rear projection in the pre-CGI era) this gains more flexibility. Establishing shots are the equivalent for contemporary or historical terrestrially-based plots, programmes, series, etc. Viewing television productions with an eye to scene, set, and location cost helps one realise why so many scenes are shot in low-rent locations: car parks, warehouses, docks, drainage canals, desert, etc. (Also typically proximate to major film studio locations as with Hollywood or elsewhere.)