Things that BUG YOU in sci-fi flicks?

[godisawesome]

Here's a real-world element for "hard" sci-fi - just because you handle the science better doesn't mean your characters and plot can suck. There's been exceptions, but generally, there's a direct correlation between "This writer knows how FTL combat would work!" and "This writer has no idea how to write likable characters..."

[ChrisIII]

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.

Think Lucas kind of based a lot of his space battle stuff on World War II battles, even using footage of such as temp footage in rough cuts. Although that's mainly the dogfighting stuff

We don't seem to get that much engagement with the big capital ships though apart from TLJ where they were being bombarded and brief moments in the Endor and Coruscant fights.

One appears to be a Medical Frigate vs the Super Star Destroyer but the scale seems to be all over the place (such as the tiny corvette), although it's possible it's a regular SD but it has the very 'blue' look of Vader's.

[j9ac9k]

Star Wars is pure fantasy (an inconsistent one at that) - anyone looking for reasonable science in that franchise is definitely going to be frustrated.

[Huntsman Spider]

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.

Maybe something more along the lines or in the vein of cyberpunk, at least as a subgenre of sci-fi?

Here's a real-world element for "hard" sci-fi - just because you handle the science better doesn't mean your characters and plot can suck. There's been exceptions, but generally, there's a direct correlation between "This writer knows how FTL combat would work!" and "This writer has no idea how to write likable characters..."

Some writers, alas, get so caught up in the technical aspects of a sci-fi story that they forget the human element, for lack of a better word.

[Jokerz79]

This is a Star Trek specific one and it's more aimed at TNG which I love but on TNG the Enterprise-D is a Galaxy Class starship designed to be a small city floating in space with families on it so that the crew can go into the furthest reaches of space. Yet she always seems to be a few days at high warp away from Earth if needed realistically they should be months if not years away from Earth or what's the damn point of building this "Galaxy Class" vessel if you're only traveling as far as other Starships in the fleet could reach.

[ChrisIII]

Kind of funny that TOS the show only visited Earth a few times in the past using time travel (and then only to the 60's)-although there were plenty of episodes where they visited "parrarel Earths" (Worlds with nearly identical histories/geography, or planets molded into that way by rogue Starfleet) but most of the movies at least start there.

[DrNewGod]

This is a Star Trek specific one and it's more aimed at TNG which I love but on TNG the Enterprise-D is a Galaxy Class starship designed to be a small city floating in space with families on it so that the crew can go into the furthest reaches of space. Yet she always seems to be a few days at high warp away from Earth if needed realistically they should be months if not years away from Earth or what's the damn point of building this "Galaxy Class" vessel if you're only traveling as far as other Starships in the fleet could reach.

Yeah, one of the things that somewhat dimmed my taste for TNG was abandoning Roddenberry's view of what the Galaxy class were for. They still told good stories, and I still like the series, but they could be pretty inconsistent about how a ship with civilians and children aboard would fit in a given plot (e.g. in S1, it was absolute insanity not to saucer separate before sending Enterprise to go poking about at the Romulan Neutral Zone).

[ChrisIII]

Even if they took just the stardrive part in the Zone kind of wonder where they'd leave the saucer where generally all the quarters/civilian facilities are. The closest starbase?

[Zero Hunter]

Yeah, one of the things that somewhat dimmed my taste for TNG was abandoning Roddenberry's view of what the Galaxy class were for. They still told good stories, and I still like the series, but they could be pretty inconsistent about how a ship with civilians and children aboard would fit in a given plot (e.g. in S1, it was absolute insanity not to saucer separate before sending Enterprise to go poking about at the Romulan Neutral Zone).

I think that has more to do with them kinda realizing the whole "separating the saucer section" was pretty dumb after the first few season and so they stopped using it that much. It just looked goofy.

[DrNewGod]

Even if they took just the stardrive part in the Zone kind of wonder where they'd leave the saucer where generally all the quarters/civilian facilities are. The closest starbase?

I'd imagine that, ideally, they'd drop it at a Starbase or secure colony before heading toward a high risk assignment. In a pinch, drop it in a nice quiet star system and signal the nearest Starbase to send a warp-capable vessel to tow it to safe harbor. As for quarters, the some of the diagrams display highly spartan redundant facilities in the star drive.

I think that has more to do with them kinda realizing the whole "separating the saucer section" was pretty dumb after the first few season and so they stopped using it that much. It just looked goofy.

Tastes differ. I read somewhere that they didn't have time duplicate all the various model shots of just the star drive during S1 production, and then were reluctant to spend the $ on it.

[ChrisIII]

Think it was something they wanted to do with the original Enterprise but didn't have the effects to do it or something-reportedly it'd be used for the TMP finale, where for some reason V'ger would bring the Klingon ships back to life and Enterprise would do it for that, although I'm not sure it'd be well armed-the Enterprise refit has the torpedoe bay on the secondary hull while the original was part of the saucer 'bulb' on the bottom (including in SNW which gives a close up!).



Later on, The Enterprise E doesn't really have a neck so it kind of looks like how the original did it photons wise although there was some concept art showing it could also do a saucer seperation if needed.

[Donald]

Mirror Universes always have every member of the crew in the same positions on the ship. In the evil universes, murder is a acceptable way to get a promotion, but none of the main characters evil counterparts have been murdered or killed on an evil away mission to do evil things? And their evil parents still hooked up?

[ChrisIII]

Think DS9 in a few ways changed that-Worf, for example, never entered Starfleet. And Vic Fontaine is a flesh and blood human!


It's a bit weird in the Kelvinverse though that everybody wound up in the same place though. What's worse, the Kelvin IDW comic at first had them go on many of the same adventures but with a twist, although eventually it became more original, or at least the new story deviated enough from the original (Their take on "Amok time" for example, had Spock go completely feral due to Vulcan no longer existing during his pon farr).

[godisawesome]

Yeah, one of the things that somewhat dimmed my taste for TNG was abandoning Roddenberry's view of what the Galaxy class were for. They still told good stories, and I still like the series, but they could be pretty inconsistent about how a ship with civilians and children aboard would fit in a given plot (e.g. in S1, it was absolute insanity not to saucer separate before sending Enterprise to go poking about at the Romulan Neutral Zone).

I think the irony with the Galaxy class is that the idea fits better with a storytelling format closer to what DS9 had, but most of Star Trek still does better going for something more like “Age of Sail Stories In Space!”; the inclusion of such a vast number of support personnel beneath the main crew is largely useless or even a liability if they’re stories aren’t going to be an integral part of the narrative.

As much as Roddenberry liked the idea of Starfleet not being a military institution, his best writing with them, most of his successors’ best writing with them, and everyone’s most instinctual ideas all gravitated towards the general idea of “a military crew needs to resolve a problem that they can’t just shoot their way out of because of x reasons.” DS9 May have broken much of the inventions, but arguably the biggest was making civilian life matter throughout its runtime.

Which was great, and remains the formula even hard sci-fi writers tend to go to, but also creates the sort of irony about both Star Trek and Star Wars being such “soft” sci-fi/fantasy-in-sci-fi clothing: both those franchises can and often have done a better job of speculating about the civilian jobs and lifestyle aspects of a futuristic setting compared to stuff like Dune (itself fairly fantasy-like), Halo, Battlesatr Galactica, etc.

Bartenders becoming more like ad-hoc holistic entertainment providers, farmers focusing on stuff like just pure moisture, comparatively uneducated characters just working 9-to-5 jobs, all that stuff arguably fleshes out sci-fi concepts more than FTL combat.

[Gray Lensman]

I'd imagine that, ideally, they'd drop it at a Starbase or secure colony before heading toward a high risk assignment. In a pinch, drop it in a nice quiet star system and signal the nearest Starbase to send a warp-capable vessel to tow it to safe harbor. As for quarters, the some of the diagrams display highly spartan redundant facilities in the star drive.

Tastes differ. I read somewhere that they didn't have time duplicate all the various model shots of just the star drive during S1 production, and then were reluctant to spend the $ on it.

I think I remember reading that the entire contrived reason for the saucer separation in Encounter at Farpoint was because Roddenberry was convinced if the model wasn't capable of the scene right out of the gate, "budgetary concerns" would ensure that it NEVER happened.

There are a whole list of real world reasons that creep into science fiction shows - needing to ensure a certain set exists at all, not having the extensive budget for a lot of zero gravity scenes, and needing space to be able to have multiple camera angles on a lower TV budget (and timeframe!) that drive a lot of the annoyances that create less realism in what the audience sees.