Things that BUG YOU in sci-fi flicks?

[ChrisIII]

I'm bugged by planets just having one environment - ice planet, desert planet, swamp planet, forest planet, etc. In "Thor: Ragnarok" I figured Thor just landed in a big hunk yard, but then I hear everyone calling it a "junk planet" -- was it? Or do people just assume the entire planet is like that because they've been conditioned to think so by other sci-fi movies? Why does it seem earth the only planet that has many different environments?

Funny thing is in the Ewok movies/cartoons of all places Endor (although it's a moon) is shown to have a desert and several mountains (including a sentient one).





I suppose it could be argued that Earth itself was a "water world" during the Archean and an ice one during the Cryogean (The "Ice age" itself still had plenty of biomes, just far colder than usual, we've had a few mini ones over human history); and Mars is sort of a desert planet, Io (although still a moon) is highly volcanic....


There are Ice giants in the outer solar system already they are more like a perpetual bad ice storm than anything resembling Hoth.

[useridgoeshere]

I don't know if it bugs me, but I'm usually distracted when future science is just magic without rules. For example, I like Foundation, but it's more fantasy than sci-fi. Hari is performing wild magic at this point. It takes me out of it when things are easily solved by his magical inventions that aren't based in the tech that we see in other places in the show. I mean, how was a theoretical mathematician a thousand years (at least) more technologically advanced than everyone else?

[krazijoe]

No one mentioned sound effects in space, yet.

I am not bothered by anything. If it gets to complicated we wouldn't have Star Wars, Star Trek, Dune etc...

About 3 posts above yours..."Sounds"

[DrNewGod]

I don't know if it bugs me, but I'm usually distracted when future science is just magic without rules. For example, I like Foundation, but it's more fantasy than sci-fi. Hari is performing wild magic at this point. It takes me out of it when things are easily solved by his magical inventions that aren't based in the tech that we see in other places in the show. I mean, how was a theoretical mathematician a thousand years (at least) more technologically advanced than everyone else?

That's a good one. A related issue I have is Sci-Fi that doesn't fully grapple with the consequences of its technology. A combat droid, for example, should never miss a unless jarred as it takes the shot. If you have technologies like Star Trek's teleporters, it makes little sense that we cure disease or injury through recognizable medical techniques. One of the things I liked about Herbert's Dune and the BSG reboot was they bothered to explain why some of their technology was so far below what we'd expect of civilizations that can travel the stars and build AI androids.

I acknowledge that you need the society to be recognizable, or at least relatable, and that there's only so much budget to be had but I get pulled out a bit by such inconsistencies.

[ChrisIII]

I'm not so sure it's something that bothers me although it's generally impractical and it definetly bothered Gundam's creator, Yoshiyuki Tomino:

Pretty much all the "hero" Gundams, despite many Gundam series trying to be "real robot" shows, generally are stuck with the very super robot Blue/red/yellow/white color scheme. This was kind of a compromise that had to be made to sell toys but it became a trademark of the show.




funny thing is the sequel shows actually briefly break from this, the Mark II at the beginning of Zeta starts off all back and even when given a more 'heroic' look it generally has more subdued colors.




But then the Zeta shows up and it's back to the basic colors.

It's worth noting that when Tomino wrote his novel adaptations of the show which changed up the story and didn't have to help sell toys, he replaces the RX-78-2 with the 3, or "G3" which is painted with grey and dark purple somewhat closer to what he had in mind.

Funny thing is, the G-3 is being sold as a Target exclusive toy.

[ducklord]

I can wave away a lot of bad science for dramatic effect, but when films don't even try to head-nod towards how big space is, I get really annoyed:

Example 1: The first Kelvin Star Trek movie. Old Spock and New Kirk are on a random ice planet. Vulcan, light years away, blows up. Somehow they see it in the sky, as it happens.
Example 2: Force Awakens. The Death Planet blows up several planets/stars, in an impressive show of force (get it?). In a neighboring star system, our heroes look on in horror as the sky light up with the destruction of those star systems. Again, as it happens.

Amusingly, both of those moments were directed by JJ Abrams, a man who does not seem to understand the speed of light.

[Astroman]

It bugs me that most "Sci-Fi" is actually space fantasy/space opera or licensed IP stuff. I'd love to see more thoughtful and "hard" sci-fi stuff out there.

[j9ac9k]

It always bugs me anytime it seems like the Moon is just hanging out a few miles above earth. And it really bugs me when the sun is portrayed as just a hop, skip and a jump away.

[ChrisIII]

I can wave away a lot of bad science for dramatic effect, but when films don't even try to head-nod towards how big space is, I get really annoyed:

Example 1: The first Kelvin Star Trek movie. Old Spock and New Kirk are on a random ice planet. Vulcan, light years away, blows up. Somehow they see it in the sky, as it happens.
Example 2: Force Awakens. The Death Planet blows up several planets/stars, in an impressive show of force (get it?). In a neighboring star system, our heroes look on in horror as the sky light up with the destruction of those star systems. Again, as it happens.

Amusingly, both of those moments were directed by JJ Abrams, a man who does not seem to understand the speed of light.

Think they tried to explain it as Delta Vega being in the Vulcan system, possibly one of the other planets seen in TMP's original version (Which I think technically are moons, but in TOS Spock said Vulcan has no moons so novels fixed it as extremely close planets). TOS also has a Delta Vega where they try to exile Mitchell but it's probably not the same one.

TFA books tried to explain it as Starkiller's beam going through hyperspace (It doesn't need to be in the same system like the Death Star although I guess it can move to pick up stars for it's fuel?) which is faster than light so the energy from it is visible.


Or something like that.

[Powerboy]

About Time is the only film that recognizes that if you go back in time before a kid was conceived and change history, that kid will be different, because it will be a different combination of genes. The parents are the same, but it's like how people are different from their siblings.

So that bugs me in stories where history is changed.

As a corollary to that, people travel back in time and the people back then don't catch their diseases or they the people from back in time. I do realize that for the sake of getting on with the story, they kind of have to.

Along the same lines, the traveler in time almost always finds people who speak English and modern English at that. It's not that they are really speaking another language and the audience hearing English is a convenience because, usually, the traveler has zero preparation for this, like any understanding of history or learning an archaic language.

Which brings me to another thing in lots of movies and television shows. People travel back in time and anyone they meet who is supposed to be one of the good guys has social attitudes that are completely contemporary to the time in which the movie is made because they know most of the viewing audience cannot comprehend that someone can be the good guy by the standards of his time but have social attitudes that would be really bad today.

One thing I've liked about the 12th Doctor (Peter Capaldi) was that he was so off the wall like the social attitudes of any given era are just lost on him, like he can't keep track of what's socially acceptable this year as opposed to another year centuries past or future.

[AnthonyO'Brien]

When humans and aliens make contact nobody catches any diseases?

[Frobisher]

I don't know if it bugs me, but I'm usually distracted when future science is just magic without rules. For example, I like Foundation, but it's more fantasy than sci-fi. Hari is performing wild magic at this point. It takes me out of it when things are easily solved by his magical inventions that aren't based in the tech that we see in other places in the show. I mean, how was a theoretical mathematician a thousand years (at least) more technologically advanced than everyone else?

Hari Seldon: predicts centuries of human future history using mathematics.
Also Hari Seldon: develops army of telepathic monks in secret

(Dunno if that’s what happens on the tv show)

[ChrisIII]

When humans and aliens make contact nobody catches any diseases?

In Star Trek I think it's explained that anything bad is usually dealt with by the transporter's "Biofilter" (and sometimes it's used to fix things by using the older 'saved' genetic material-When Picard got turned into an energy being, when Pulaski got old etc)

Although it doesn't always work I think.


In Enterprise the transporter was still mostly new tech they weren't entirely sure about using humans for (and given the multiple malfunctions-TMP's horrifying one for example-or just plain weird stuff like Tuvix, clones etc. seen in Trek set later, can you blame them?) so they had the 'decontamination chamber'.


Star Wars? Who knows. The EU has dealt with it a few times (Such as the Rakghoul stuff) but I don't think any diseases have been a major part of most of the live media.

The Fifth Doctor in CAVES OF ANDROZANI basically starts dying after touching a toxic chemical, and has to regenerate by the end of the story into the Sixth (and classic Doctor Who was pretty much no longer the same afterwards). Ironically, this is moments after explaining how his lapel celery functions as an early warning system and possible cure for toxins (Although gaseous ones).

[Captain Smith]

Lack of realism in Star Wars ship battles. Have to get close like the old sailing ship/pirate battles of yore. No long range missile fire with things like nukes or more advanced weapons.

Of course, no bad guy can hit the good guys with gunfire, blaster fire, etc. They just dance around the shots. Also, light sabers are stupid.

[Catlady in training]

This trope, basically: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...n/SanDimasTime