just because it talks about magic in a very technical way doesnt make it more real.
Well, I wouldn't really call all of it "magic." Since magic is something which is both inexplicable by science and physically impossible in that it defies the laws of physics...
You need to stop reading dumbed-down science articles written by people who think they need to mention Star Trek in order to engage the reader's interest.
The History Channel has programs about how ancient aliens might have built the pyramids. I guess that means Stargate is also within the realm of hard science fiction.
The program I watched had people in real science fields, it wasn't average Joe's... they are people who work in various scientific fields for a living... people like Neil deGrasse Tyson... I believe they also had Lawrence Krauss on it as well...
I see Star Trek as a very science and technology oriented show, something JJ's movies lack... it may not be 100% real nor does all the technology presented within actually exist as of yet, but I don't consider it anywhere near some cheesy scifi franchise that is all fantasy and none of it will or has come to pass... because intellectually, I know otherwise and with that said, I'm done with the conversation.
I see Star Trek as a very science and technology oriented show, something JJ's movies lack... it may not 100% real nor does all the technology presented within actually exist as of yet, but I don't consider it anywhere near some cheesy scifi franchise that is all fantasy and none of it will or has come to pass... because intellectually, I know otherwise and with that said, I'm done with the conversation.
Star Trek is and always has been about the characters and social/moral issues. Technobabble would generally provide scenarios and problems to overcome in order to serve that primary purpose, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's only after Star Trek jumped the shark that the technobabble started driving everything.
The 2009 reboot was one film, it reintroduced the characters and it did so well. It was a good film. If it had been like Voyager where you were bombarded with technobabble and watched the sad decline of one of TV's most sinister villains (the Borg), it would have been rubbish.
In any case, Star Trek is still not hard science fiction, and don't let bad science journalism fool you into thinking it is.
Apparently questioning Star Trek's scientific credibility must mean that I don't like Star Trek.
Here I was thinking I did like it.
I know said I was done with this conversation, but what they heck... I wouldn't say it means you dislike Star Trek... but having seen a great many programs that discuss Star Trek... of which I've seen mostly praise at Star Trek's attempts at scientific concepts... especially from organizations like NASA (which would be more than enough for me)... and for example, the episode "Parallels" has been said numerous times to be the first depiction of the idea of multiple realities correctly... where there are subtle differences between each reality...
I mean, according to Wikipedia "science fiction is a genre of fiction with imaginative but more or less plausible content such as settings in the future, futuristic science and technology, space travel, parallel universes, aliens, and paranormal abilities." I've seen so much technology come into existence, some of it mainstream others are just starting out... that parallels the, at the time, fake technology in Star Trek... I see Star Trek as more than just a science fiction franchise, it's inspired a great many real world ideas, etc. some of which we now have...
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Apparently questioning Star Trek's scientific credibility must mean that I don't like Star Trek.
Here I was thinking I did like it.
I just think us questioning the scientific validity of technology in the 23rd centurary, would be like Shakesphere doubting there would ever be jet fighters, rockets, mobile phones and flat screen tvs.
There is just something a bit snobbish with the idea that anything set in the future has to be based on the technology of today to have any validity to it.
There is just something a bit snobbish with the idea that anything set in the future has to be based on the technology of today to have any validity to it.
I'm aware that the future may develop and produce technology and wonders the likes of which we have never dreamed of, and I'm aware that history is full of examples of people who have scoffed at new developments in technology. My personal favorite is this one:
"You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I have no time for such nonsense." -- Napoleon, commenting on Robert Fulton's steam ship
There's a difference between saying something isn't hard science fiction and that something isn't valid. I do think that Star Trek is valid in ways, but not in the way it portrays science and technology.
You can have your Warp drive, Impulse drive, and subspace communication, all of which use something called 'subspace' where the rules of physics are conveniently different and which has no basis in reality.
You can use the word 'plasma' to describe some kind of exotic energy rather than its real meaning which is just superheated gas, and you can use it to power your control consoles instead of regular electricity, so that they'll explode in your face during a battle.
You can use the word 'quantum' to describe anything to do with time travel or alternate realities rather than its real meaning which is just to describe the behavior of subatomic particles.
You can have inertial dampeners which allow your crew to survive massive acceleration without being reduced to pools of organic sludge on the floor and walls, and you can have deck plating to provide artificial gravity in space along one axis... even though neither even have even a theoretical basis in real science.
You can make up different types of particles and radiation which don't fit into the Standard Model of particle physics, but which have very specific effects on specific things in order to progress the plot.
You can seed the galaxy with aliens that are all basically human with bits of rubber on their face and some odd behavior.
You can't call something with all of those things hard science fiction. I've just finished watching the entirety of The Next Generation, I do like Star Trek, but it's simply not hard science fiction, that's what the discussion was about. You can't escape the definition of what makes hard science fiction by saying that an arbitrary number of years have passed between now and the fictional universe's setting.
This is hard science fiction. So is this. Star Trek is not.
I think the way one needs to think about attempts to portray our future in space, like Star Trek. Is not to find ways to pick at it, and say "oh that's wrong" or "that can never happen." That's the wrong attitude. The attitude you have to have is, how have they done in their attempt to portray things?
In that Voyager bonus feature.
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I think the fact that, even in star trek's own technicalities, the Enterprise would have to be traveling at warp 9.99 ALL the time to get anywhere in the galaxy (and even then you're looking at months to get anywhere) firmly places star trek in soft core category right there. :O
Then most of the episodes they're cruising around at impulse/warp 4 or something so they'd pretty much get NO WHERE over the entire 7 years of the entire series.
If you really get down to it, star wars is far more realistic/scientific than star trek. No transporters, no time travel, just light speed drives and phaser type guns that no one really questions, they just use them because in their lives and universe that's just what you do, it's common practice.
Anyways, it's all in fun and I myself always yearned for the technobabble scenes; it's what makes us engineers smile. Troy would show up on screen and start jibber jabbering about her feelings or something and made me want to turn off the TV.
I enjoyed the 2009 film, but the effects - the lens flares, shaky cameras etc threw me off. And i didnt feel that the 2009 film was really true to star trek, or any sort of reality. I might be surprised - there may be an intelligent plot after all. I see no reason to have hours of dialog or technobabble, but that wasnt what made star trek popular.
I enjoyed the 2009 film, but the effects - the lens flares, shaky cameras etc threw me off. And i didnt feel that the 2009 film was really true to star trek, or any sort of reality. I might be surprised - there may be an intelligent plot after all. I see no reason to have hours of dialog or technobabble, but that wasnt what made star trek popular.
BTW, seeing the Hobbit on sunday!
I hated the lens flare. They do the shaky cam thing a lot now since BSG. I don't mind it if its not overdone. I can't wait to see it. The last movie I saw in a theatre was the 2009 film. I hate going to theaters so ill wait to see this on blu ray.
Parlour tricks. I think many times people, let's call them directors will add stuff because it hadn't been done before without first asking the question why hadn't it been done before? Sprinkling things in there like pepper on sandwich hoping the results will just make it better. This sometimes is an over compensation to what they should concentrate on? Like a magician trying to distract us 'the viewer' from what they either can't do or forget to do. Story telling is the key. All the other stuff is just smoke and mirrors. If you want to have the camera as your eyes (narrator) then give it a reason to be. If it's a 'God' view then it wouldn't shake. If it's a human with a tricorder then let's see them. As you are telling the story with the camera there has to be something/someone operating it. Take away the question of who/what and you remove the mystery (distraction) and we can get back to story. Connect the viewer to the story through the camera or the viewer will be 'disconnected' Camera rant over... Back the movie.
I for one hope Gary Mitchell shows up in this one. He would make the perfect antagonist. There is quite a bit of back story that could be told about him and his relationship with Kirk. Unlike the OS movie series where the story continued with Khan, Gary is the perfect back story character. The one unfortunate thing though is that movies don't give you the chance to revisit such a character more then once? So you really only get one shot it. Get it right and it's pure gold. Get it wrong and it's like bitter wine, it just can't be remade better. Of all the characters in Kirk's - rebooted universe let's say he would be my choice for a movie. So I'm hoping he's in there and that J.J. makes it golden. He could perhaps cut down on the smoke and mirrors too, having made his point with that in the first movie.
I take issue with this incarnation of Trek because despite what NDG said, Trek has always been more or less a bastion of suspension of disbelief in the sci fi world. That being said there certainly have been some plot lines and moments from a movie or two and several episodes that were a little out there. But in these new movies it seems any semblance of reasonable believability has been tossed aside for the sake of flashy SFX and mindless action. Not to mention inexcusably "lazy" set locations, i.e. the flying brewery. When I see Trek I personally prefer and want to see intellectual scifi vs. "The Expendables" in space. These new movies suck...period, theough I'm sure the second one will be as financially successful at the first piece of crap. Sad that film making no longer seems to be about actually making a good movie vs. making a big profit. Nothing new in that regard of course.
Fixed link. That one may well be gone soon as well, so you can just catch it on Apple Trailers or HD-trailers.net or search for it on youtube yourself. You want the 1.58 minute long one.
I don't like JJ work other than his own ideas (cloverfield, super 8) that i enjoyed very much.
The art direction on the 2009 movie and what i've seen on the trailer feel like it's overdone. Like what use to said my art direction professor and my architect teacher "don't forget that it has to be of use and not just for show" and in the second case at least assume that!
The new enterprise is way wrong in that instance: wrong proportions, a bridge that is a headacke if your looking for any kind of useful information (conter intuitive for such a critical place on a ship) and what about the engeeniering spaces!!! have they at least visit the machine spaces of a ship in there lives. And where is the sens of the thing actually propelling the ship. You had more of that with the old STMP warp core.
I'm ok with a bit more action, or at least realism in combat, after all what ever a gun shoot you expect the characters to aim, cover and get smashed up by flying debris and near misses. But keep telling a good story.
For what i've seen of the trailer (with the pitch: action thriller in space written on the description), i don't think JJ is gonna correct his errors, on the contrary.
On the others matters i've read on this forum.
Star trek maybe not as hard scifi as Arthur C Clarke 2001 or Robinson MARS trilogy of books, but it was not either a joke like the old battlestar or buck rogers of the 70's. It was something in the middle.
Like star wars it used to look for "realism", not to confuse with "reality". Meaning: establish a set of rules to serve the story as such that the wiewiers won't ask in the middle of a scene if what they are looking at is true or wrong (ex the sound of laser in space or the lack of inertia in ships maneouvers), then allow for a little tolerance so as to bent those rules to serve the plot in a reasonnable way.
Star trek with technologies that became common today and some others scientific (technnobable) considerations used to close the gap between the two.
On the subject of science et technology:
Plasma is two things: a part of evry one blood. a state of matter that is the more efficient to convey energy. As such it is what the scientific community tried to harvest in the toroidal nuclear reactors since the 60's (aka tokamak). Of course it is very unstable!
Ok using it to power bridge consoles is dumb!
Ion engine: nowhere near what you expect. It is a ray gun like engine of sort where you use the polarity of ions made of molecules of hydrogen to aplly electromagnectic thrust. Since space is not empty but made mostly of hydrogen (in very low concentration) you can harvest the fuel (bussard ramp scoops) at he same time and the same rate you use it. And since you don't need a lot of it to get a high impulse (again because of the low concentration of gas in the universe) it is very efficient (but still sublight). Bonus, like a fuel cell in toay space capsules, what's left of your fuel make for your electricity.
Warp drive and super luminal travel: Two ideas as of today. The wormhole for one. But we'll need a technology not to different to a stargate to use it (just as said in the documentary linked by someone to stabilise the bridge). The Alcuierre drive. Ok a long shot on this one. My understanding of it is hat it work just like the shape of a boat is made to go through water. It bends the space time continum in witch we live in two way. At the front it compress it (time is faster, space is smaller) and at the back it does the opposite (time is slower, space is bigger) and inside this "bubble" it does the exact opposite to the ship. Such a drive, if one day someone actually built it would have the benefits of being as much an inertial dampener as it is a drive engine. And since it bends the space continum in two opposite ways, no time relativity problems beetween someone inside the ship ans someone on a planet.
Shields (that one is conjectural) since you can deflect the photon ray of your old TV with low power electromagnets and it don't go through the screen, if lasers were to become a weapons like you see in star trek it would be quite easy a technology implement (i wonder if the us army has not already such a device to protect against laser rangefinding ????)
Others ST technologies like transporters and food replicators are at the first stage of scientific discovery but way too early to be like what we see on the movies (and maybe in no way the same usefulness, remenber what lasers had became for warfare)
In conclusion: scifi is to tell us what we can expect of the future of evolution of mankind an technology using simple but universals stories.
So saying the next JJ star trek is an action thriller in space is more true than to keep saying it's old fashion Star trak scifi.
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Well, I wouldn't really call all of it "magic." Since magic is something which is both inexplicable by science and physically impossible in that it defies the laws of physics...
This is the article I read:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57523867-1/star-trek-fusion-impulse-engine-in-the-works/
The program I watched had people in real science fields, it wasn't average Joe's... they are people who work in various scientific fields for a living... people like Neil deGrasse Tyson... I believe they also had Lawrence Krauss on it as well...
I see Star Trek as a very science and technology oriented show, something JJ's movies lack... it may not be 100% real nor does all the technology presented within actually exist as of yet, but I don't consider it anywhere near some cheesy scifi franchise that is all fantasy and none of it will or has come to pass... because intellectually, I know otherwise and with that said, I'm done with the conversation.
My love for Star Trek is precisely why I'm so persistent...
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Yes, that's what I found when I googled 'Nasa impulse engine'. It's a perfect example of terrible science journalism.
Star Trek is and always has been about the characters and social/moral issues. Technobabble would generally provide scenarios and problems to overcome in order to serve that primary purpose, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's only after Star Trek jumped the shark that the technobabble started driving everything.
The 2009 reboot was one film, it reintroduced the characters and it did so well. It was a good film. If it had been like Voyager where you were bombarded with technobabble and watched the sad decline of one of TV's most sinister villains (the Borg), it would have been rubbish.
In any case, Star Trek is still not hard science fiction, and don't let bad science journalism fool you into thinking it is.
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My comments were meant to be aimed at Jafit, but I guess we were both typing replies at the same time, and yours got in first.
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Here I was thinking I did like it.
I know said I was done with this conversation, but what they heck... I wouldn't say it means you dislike Star Trek... but having seen a great many programs that discuss Star Trek... of which I've seen mostly praise at Star Trek's attempts at scientific concepts... especially from organizations like NASA (which would be more than enough for me)... and for example, the episode "Parallels" has been said numerous times to be the first depiction of the idea of multiple realities correctly... where there are subtle differences between each reality...
I mean, according to Wikipedia "science fiction is a genre of fiction with imaginative but more or less plausible content such as settings in the future, futuristic science and technology, space travel, parallel universes, aliens, and paranormal abilities." I've seen so much technology come into existence, some of it mainstream others are just starting out... that parallels the, at the time, fake technology in Star Trek... I see Star Trek as more than just a science fiction franchise, it's inspired a great many real world ideas, etc. some of which we now have...
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I just think us questioning the scientific validity of technology in the 23rd centurary, would be like Shakesphere doubting there would ever be jet fighters, rockets, mobile phones and flat screen tvs.
There is just something a bit snobbish with the idea that anything set in the future has to be based on the technology of today to have any validity to it.
I'm aware that the future may develop and produce technology and wonders the likes of which we have never dreamed of, and I'm aware that history is full of examples of people who have scoffed at new developments in technology. My personal favorite is this one:
"You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I have no time for such nonsense." -- Napoleon, commenting on Robert Fulton's steam ship
There's a difference between saying something isn't hard science fiction and that something isn't valid. I do think that Star Trek is valid in ways, but not in the way it portrays science and technology.
You can't call something with all of those things hard science fiction. I've just finished watching the entirety of The Next Generation, I do like Star Trek, but it's simply not hard science fiction, that's what the discussion was about. You can't escape the definition of what makes hard science fiction by saying that an arbitrary number of years have passed between now and the fictional universe's setting.
This is hard science fiction. So is this. Star Trek is not.
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In that Voyager bonus feature.
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Then most of the episodes they're cruising around at impulse/warp 4 or something so they'd pretty much get NO WHERE over the entire 7 years of the entire series.
If you really get down to it, star wars is far more realistic/scientific than star trek. No transporters, no time travel, just light speed drives and phaser type guns that no one really questions, they just use them because in their lives and universe that's just what you do, it's common practice.
Anyways, it's all in fun and I myself always yearned for the technobabble scenes; it's what makes us engineers smile. Troy would show up on screen and start jibber jabbering about her feelings or something and made me want to turn off the TV.
BTW, seeing the Hobbit on sunday!
I hated the lens flare. They do the shaky cam thing a lot now since BSG. I don't mind it if its not overdone. I can't wait to see it. The last movie I saw in a theatre was the 2009 film. I hate going to theaters so ill wait to see this on blu ray.
I for one hope Gary Mitchell shows up in this one. He would make the perfect antagonist. There is quite a bit of back story that could be told about him and his relationship with Kirk. Unlike the OS movie series where the story continued with Khan, Gary is the perfect back story character. The one unfortunate thing though is that movies don't give you the chance to revisit such a character more then once? So you really only get one shot it. Get it right and it's pure gold. Get it wrong and it's like bitter wine, it just can't be remade better. Of all the characters in Kirk's - rebooted universe let's say he would be my choice for a movie. So I'm hoping he's in there and that J.J. makes it golden. He could perhaps cut down on the smoke and mirrors too, having made his point with that in the first movie.
According to an interview I saw, Benedict's character is not Gary Mitchell or Khan...
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For which statement? The Enterprise part? Or the character part?
The Enterprise part, having seen the extended preview in theaters, the Enterprise is under water...
As for the character part:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xoe9vpQcPw
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The trailers down due to Copyright Claims by Paramount. At least that's what it says to me.....
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honestly get the quicktime version from apple.com, it's infinintely higher quality than youtube
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I don't like JJ work other than his own ideas (cloverfield, super 8) that i enjoyed very much.
The art direction on the 2009 movie and what i've seen on the trailer feel like it's overdone. Like what use to said my art direction professor and my architect teacher "don't forget that it has to be of use and not just for show" and in the second case at least assume that!
The new enterprise is way wrong in that instance: wrong proportions, a bridge that is a headacke if your looking for any kind of useful information (conter intuitive for such a critical place on a ship) and what about the engeeniering spaces!!! have they at least visit the machine spaces of a ship in there lives. And where is the sens of the thing actually propelling the ship. You had more of that with the old STMP warp core.
I'm ok with a bit more action, or at least realism in combat, after all what ever a gun shoot you expect the characters to aim, cover and get smashed up by flying debris and near misses. But keep telling a good story.
For what i've seen of the trailer (with the pitch: action thriller in space written on the description), i don't think JJ is gonna correct his errors, on the contrary.
On the others matters i've read on this forum.
Star trek maybe not as hard scifi as Arthur C Clarke 2001 or Robinson MARS trilogy of books, but it was not either a joke like the old battlestar or buck rogers of the 70's. It was something in the middle.
Like star wars it used to look for "realism", not to confuse with "reality". Meaning: establish a set of rules to serve the story as such that the wiewiers won't ask in the middle of a scene if what they are looking at is true or wrong (ex the sound of laser in space or the lack of inertia in ships maneouvers), then allow for a little tolerance so as to bent those rules to serve the plot in a reasonnable way.
Star trek with technologies that became common today and some others scientific (technnobable) considerations used to close the gap between the two.
On the subject of science et technology:
Plasma is two things: a part of evry one blood. a state of matter that is the more efficient to convey energy. As such it is what the scientific community tried to harvest in the toroidal nuclear reactors since the 60's (aka tokamak). Of course it is very unstable!
Ok using it to power bridge consoles is dumb!
Ion engine: nowhere near what you expect. It is a ray gun like engine of sort where you use the polarity of ions made of molecules of hydrogen to aplly electromagnectic thrust. Since space is not empty but made mostly of hydrogen (in very low concentration) you can harvest the fuel (bussard ramp scoops) at he same time and the same rate you use it. And since you don't need a lot of it to get a high impulse (again because of the low concentration of gas in the universe) it is very efficient (but still sublight). Bonus, like a fuel cell in toay space capsules, what's left of your fuel make for your electricity.
Warp drive and super luminal travel: Two ideas as of today. The wormhole for one. But we'll need a technology not to different to a stargate to use it (just as said in the documentary linked by someone to stabilise the bridge). The Alcuierre drive. Ok a long shot on this one. My understanding of it is hat it work just like the shape of a boat is made to go through water. It bends the space time continum in witch we live in two way. At the front it compress it (time is faster, space is smaller) and at the back it does the opposite (time is slower, space is bigger) and inside this "bubble" it does the exact opposite to the ship. Such a drive, if one day someone actually built it would have the benefits of being as much an inertial dampener as it is a drive engine. And since it bends the space continum in two opposite ways, no time relativity problems beetween someone inside the ship ans someone on a planet.
Shields (that one is conjectural) since you can deflect the photon ray of your old TV with low power electromagnets and it don't go through the screen, if lasers were to become a weapons like you see in star trek it would be quite easy a technology implement (i wonder if the us army has not already such a device to protect against laser rangefinding ????)
Others ST technologies like transporters and food replicators are at the first stage of scientific discovery but way too early to be like what we see on the movies (and maybe in no way the same usefulness, remenber what lasers had became for warfare)
In conclusion: scifi is to tell us what we can expect of the future of evolution of mankind an technology using simple but universals stories.
So saying the next JJ star trek is an action thriller in space is more true than to keep saying it's old fashion Star trak scifi.
After all i'll may go see the movie.