We don't need no steenkin' physics... but we'll gripe about it anyway. :)
io9 brought out something a lot of us have seen before: A short critique of physics in sci-fi movies. The article makes a fair point: Few want a treatise on orbital mechanics and flight plans in their novels, let alone their movies, but there are several things movies often do that just wouldn't work. A few of them struck a chord:
- Sound in space: Most audiences would think something was up with the speakers if there weren't kabooms and engine roar. Babylon 5 often split the difference, as in this battle sequence from 'Shattered Dreams.' When the camera is in space, you hear all the sound effects as if you were in an atmosphere, but when in Ivonova's cockpit, all you hear is the music and whatever lines she's delivering. I can't recall where I read it, but one theory was that the explosions and all that were a kind of "haptic feedback" provided by a ship's computer for the bridge crew so they'd be more aware of the battle around them. I'm guessing such a system would have been provided by Dolby?
- Slow motion in zero gravity: I thought people moved slowly because quick, jerky motions were generally a bad idea in Zero-G?
- Exposure to vacuum: I have to say I haven't seen any explosive decompressions in a while where people popped like balloons. The recent "Battlestar Galactica" had several people finding themselves sans atmosphere (and spaceship), making the silence and vastness of space its own horror instead of relying on a gory demise.
But they left out a few of my own, though these also bleed into fantastical territory:
- Telekinesis not being used as an insta-dead: J. Michael Straczynski has used this idea twice that I know of (once in Babylon 5 and once in his comic, "Rising Stars"). In short, if you can move something as small as a coin, you can cause incredible cerebral damage to a target. Forget about throwing a TIE fighter at them, just make a tear in an artery or other soft tissue.
- Respirators or whole space suits available in emergencies: I dunno about you, but I'd want at least two able crewmembers in every key ship location to suit up the second we went into battle in case something breached the hull.
- Forgetting about support craft: This is generally a Star Trek one, but it applies to just about any show with a big ol' capital ship. When things get bad on the vessel, people start dying from, say, a lack of oxygen or heat while forgetting they have a bunch of self-supporting self-contained vessels attached to or on board their damaged hulk.
- If we've started shooting, there's no reason to stop until somebody explodes: Occasionally done here and there, but it seems that firing weapons is done for dramatic effect unless things get desperate. The captain calls shots and all that rubbish when there's nothing between his giant spaceship and another. Any second spent philosophizing about your enemy is a second that phasers could be turning your enemy into cold cuts.
- New planets would smell bad: This is a detail from Isaac Asimov that's always had the ring of truth to it, though it is speculation. He had a detail in (I think) "Robots and Foundation," or one of the Foundation prequels, where a character explains that since each planet would have a different mix of organic compounds, decomposing bacteria, industries, etc. that a newcomer would find the air unpleasantly scented. A small thing, but as far as I know, he's the only one who made a point of it.
Okay, I need to reign it in; I could go on for days. I guess the hard part is deciding where dramatic effect overruns suspension of disbelief. For most of the moviegoing public, that's not a problem. Besides, it's not like 'real life' movies get everything right, either. :)
DJ Earworm has come out with his United State of Pop mashup for 2010, which is my yearly reminder of how far behind I am in most things regarding what's on the Top 40 [insert genre here] charts. But recently, I heard this piece on NPR about how a pop song is made, and I came out of it feeling conflicted about the whole thing. On the plus side, each person contributing to the song is a professional and knows what they're doing. They have a passion for their part of the end result, and they appear to put forth their best effort. However, it also has an assembly line feel to it, as if someone was presenting a paint-by-numbers picture as art. Of course, this is kind of what defines pop music: It's a sound, not necessarily an art form, designed to sell copies, not change the world. It's kind of like finding out that a race is fixed, or that a pro athlete is taking steroids; you miss the artist that can come up from nothing with a song that just speaks to you, and it was written for a reason other than to move money. I also miss the days of the "concept album," where bands/artists could give their work a theme instead of trying to create a bunch of stand-alone potential hits. I think I'll quit now before the phrase "get off of my lawn" creeps in on me. :)
Okay, so back to ps238 for me. The next issue should be out mid-January (barring snowmageddon) and the next issue will follow soon after, probably early February. I'm having "fun" tying together two universes, a spaceship, a trans-dimensional gateway, a sentient space station, the parents of a major character, a big ol' fight, the city of Omaha, and someone living out a Captain Kirk fantasy, all at the same time. Needless to say, the droplets of blood on my keyboard are becoming distracting (grin). Assuming I don't tear a synapse or two, I think it'll all come together in a Charles Dickens "I had it planned from the beginning" sort of way, but with more giant robots and super-weapons.
The last linkdump of 2010, and it's chock full of video clips, starting with:
- If you watch the first four minutes of this clip from Q.I., you'll get a taste of the futile rage over the misuse of the apostrophe (immortalized in this poster, which I keep on my wall).
- Recently, a Civil War secret message was decoded for the first time. Here are eight troves of text that defy translation so far. Perhaps if they tried using LOLcat linguistics as a go-by...
- I think we've had Doctor Who nesting dolls on here before, but not one as current as this.
- While this Metapen has appeal, I doubt the blackguards at the TSA will allow it to accompany your valise onto the zeppelin.
- Worried that your New Year's party will be dull? How about a rousing old-fashioned game of Spike the Potato? It sounds a lot more fun than it actually is.
- If you're part of a cosplaying group and everyone else called in sick, this halftime show might have some valuable ideas for you.
- If it's too cold to remove your gloves to dial your touchscreen phone, you can now us an app called Nosedial. No refunds if you have a cold or catch something nasty from all the gunk living on your screen.
- Bring some chromatics into your bleak winter landscape with Color World. Launch the correct colored cannonball and paint every target the proper color to advance.
- I can't remember the last 7up ad I ever saw, but this time-traveling ad from China for the un-cola is quite amusing.
- The U.S. Post Office is going to offer Pixar stamps. As I understand it, anyone can try to rally support for something on a stamp, so if you have a rabble to rouse, I wouldn't mind seeing some "Sandman" stamps or something...
- 3-D in 3-D. It's the future, right?
- Last entry, we talked about Smurfs. This next clip is what it would look like if you were a Smurf hanging onto some barbarian's sword during his 'Abs of Crom' workout.
- Shellshock Live should please fans of the old "Scorched Earth" tank-shooter game. Play against other people (as a guest, if you want) and blow them to smithereens.
- For those who prefer to play solo, here's Insidia, a side-scrolling platformer where you gain power ups in your quest to repair your broken spaceship.