Defying Gravity cancelled
POSTED BY: Mangolo
UPDATED: Saturday, November 14, 2009 17:31
VIEWED: 8313
PAGE 4 of 4
You're aware that the first part of your first sentence completely defeats your argument, right?
EDIT: What I find funny (in a bad way), is that both the wife and I (PhD Theoretical Physics and BSc Mathematics respectively) have zero issues with anything in DG. But, the pop novel readers who over analyze everything to death do. What's the difference? Pop novel people can't see the forest for the trees.
At any rate, I'm done with this thread. You guys want to conjecture that this stuff isn't possible, go ahead. I'll just keep saying that it is possible, and more importantly, IT'S A FUCKING TV SHOW.
----
I am on The Original List (twice). We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Mangolo:
I watched Voyage to the Planets (VttP) on which Defying Gravity was loosely based. I say loosely because VttP was really a science show with a window dressing of drama. Defying Gravity decided to drop the science part altogether and make the drama melodramatic.
This whole no communications time lag thing on Defying Gravity bugs the crap out of me- color me with geek, but that's the way I see it.
Well, they covered the time lag in Voyage to the Planets, but it seems they placed more emphasis on it with the outer planets than they did with Venus.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I have to agree with Sig on this; Who cares if there are slight errors in the science? It is not a Documentary. It's entertainment. For me personally it was extremely entertaining and intriguing. That's no small feat, and I will miss this show. I feel saddened that they never even got close to completing the concept.
(BA in Anthropology, btw)
"Might have been the losing side, still not convinced it was the wrong one." -Mal
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by TDBrown:
I have to agree with Sig on this; Who cares if there are slight errors in the science? It is not a Documentary. It's entertainment. For me personally it was extremely entertaining and intriguing. That's no small feat, and I will miss this show. I feel saddened that they never even got close to completing the concept.
(BA in Anthropology, btw)
"Might have been the losing side, still not convinced it was the wrong one." -Mal
Absolutely. And I have to give kudos to the actors, especially Ron Livingston & Andrew Airlie, for being able to take such space-science procedural material and make it seem lived-in.
I know Ron Livingston is a big fan of my favorite spaceflight simulator, Orbiter < http://www.orbitersim.com>, and it showed, particularly during the scenes in the Venus lander.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
You guys want to conjecture that this stuff isn't possible, go ahead. I'll just keep saying that it is possible, and more importantly, IT'S A FUCKING TV SHOW.
I think the problem is, a near-future SF show, apparently based on a science documentary* rather raised the hope of SF fans that they'd get some Hard SF on TV for once - instead of the usual Fantasy Space Operas (even good ones, like Firefly).
Even if it is possible that instantaneous communication is discovered in the next decade or so, it would represent a major technological leap (and cleaning up the resultant mess would make lots of work for theoretical physicists - so you're all right, Jack!)
It would have huge implications for spaceflight (even if all that brand new physics didn't also result in the invention of warp drive).
For instance, there's already a major debate as to the value of expensive human exploration vs. robotic probes. Time-lag is a major obstacle for robotic probes - if it takes minutes or hours for a message to get from the earth then they are reliant on their on-board programming and can't react to unexpected dangers or opportunities: it would be much more effective to have a human "on the ground". But what if you didn't have a time lag? That means you could operate robots from earth in real-time. Could you justify the expense of sending humans on long-haul tours of the planets when you could put on a VR suit and take part in a methane snowball fight via your robot avatar on Titan?
In Hard Science Fiction, exploring those sorts of implications is part of the fun - as is picking holes when they get it wrong or miss something!
In Hard SF, ignoring some huge plausibility gap in the science without at least "hanging a lampshade on it" ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging) is as unconvincing as Agatha Christie having Miss Marple suddenly turn into Dirty Harry and pop a couple of caps into the perp (which is possible, just not plausible) - or suddenly turn into a giant alien wasp (oh, hang on, that one's been done!)
* Edit: Except "Voyage to the Planets" was a SF show, except rather than try and work the exposition into the plot, they had documentary spots from actual scientists. Maybe thats the way to do hard SF on screen.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME