I don't understand all the uproar about red matter. We are talking about a fictional universe where people readily accept dilithium crystals and Heisenberg compensators.

Geez, John, I wish I could link to my own blog post. But then again, I'm not a critically-acclaimed novelist, either.

Damn you.

Sybarite: I don't understand all the uproar about red matter. We are talking about a fictional universe where people readily accept dilithium crystals and Heisenberg compensators.

Because people have forgotten the definition of "Plot Device".

Because people have forgotten the definition of "Plot Device".

suspending disbelief to enjoy a movie is one thing.

having to suspend it so massively that you feel 10 IQ points dumber for doing it is another

brigid_fitch: Because people have forgotten the definition of "Plot Device".

On the lines of the "Unobtainium" and "Applied Phlebotinum" tropes, really.

Compared with interstellar space travel, gravity on spaceships, countless planets with Earth-like atmospheres, and every being in the galaxy speaking English, "red matter" is really not much of a concern.

abb3w: brigid_fitch: Because people have forgotten the definition of "Plot Device".

On the lines of the "Unobtainium" and "Applied Phlebotinum" tropes, really.

In James Cameron's upcoming AVATAR, the quasi-magical substance everyone is
fighting over is unabashedly called 'unobtanium'.

That either shows an amazing amount of wit or, more likely, a stunning amount
of not giving any excrement.

DjangoStonereaver: That either shows an amazing amount of wit or, more likely, a stunning amount of not giving any excrement

because the geek 5 percent of the audience will get it and smile wryly, the remaining 95 won't give it a second though

If you had to accurately explain every scientific aspect of a science fiction story, you wouldn't have time to tell the story. If it's science fiction then it usually involves technology that hasn't been invented yet so not everything is going to be explained correctly. Now if Luke opened the sun roof on in X-Wing while in deep space, that's another matter. But most sci fi movies or shows don't make those kinds of mistakes.

Sybarite: I don't understand all the uproar about red matter. We are talking about a fictional universe where people readily accept dilithium crystals and Heisenberg compensators.

Don't forget the litany of unusual particles that have plagued the Enterprise over the years.

It's called science FICTION. Read some of the old sci fi from the 50's and 60's. They made stuff up all the time or attributed incredible abilities to existing technologies that they didn't understand at all.

And I still want a Mr. Fusion and flux capacitor.

Is there AIR?!? You don't know!!

Shostie: It's called science FICTION. Read some of the old sci fi from the 50's and 60's. They made stuff up all the time or attributed incredible abilities to existing technologies that they didn't understand at all.

Maybe my memory is selective, but it seems to me that science fiction was once fairly grounded in science. Star Wars and Star Trek changed the genre dramatically, making it what it is today: i.e., either space opera or fantasy.

Sybarite: I don't understand all the uproar about red matter. We are talking about a fictional universe where people readily accept dilithium crystals and Heisenberg compensators.

Glad to see this was already wrapped up. Honestly, I think the outrage over "red matter" -- in a land of transporters, universal translators, humanoid-everything, FTL travel, mind melds, intelligent androids, and inverse tachyon pulses to cure everything -- stems from old-school Next Generation fans who refuse to accept that they are no longer the "new" crew.

ne2d: Shostie: It's called science FICTION. Read some of the old sci fi from the 50's and 60's. They made stuff up all the time or attributed incredible abilities to existing technologies that they didn't understand at all.

Maybe my memory is selective, but it seems to me that science fiction was once fairly grounded in science. Star Wars and Star Trek changed the genre dramatically, making it what it is today: i.e., either space opera or fantasy.

Depends on the writer. People like Heinlein and Hubbard would either create devices out of thin air or would, as I said above, attribute unusual properties to existing energies, similar to comic book writers.

Some, like Clarke, would actually, you know, do some research before they wrote. But a lot of the pulp sci fi from back in the day was more fiction than science.

This reminds of something that Carl Sagan wrote one time biatching about the X-Files. He was upset at the popularity of a show where paranormal and pseudoscientific phenemenon were investigated and found to be real, and suggested that a better show would be one where Mulder and Scully traveled the country debunking every MOW or alien encounter they found.

Now, I'm a huge fan of Carl Sagan, and I appreciate his attempts to popularize rational thought, I really do. But I think that a television drama about everything always being in some hillbilly's head and countless "IT'S A STREETLIGHT" moments would be pretty stupid. Likewise, movies that focused entirely on getting the scientific details right sound like they'd be pretty lame.

albo: DjangoStonereaver: That either shows an amazing amount of wit or, more likely, a stunning amount of not giving any excrement

because the geek 5 percent of the audience will get it and smile wryly, the remaining 95 won't give it a second though

That happens.

Best Easter Egg I ever found in a movie was in Peter Jackson's remake of "King Kong". Right about where the movie starts to drag, you see a shot of the radio shack on the ship with the operator taking down a message in Morse code, a message that ostensibly says to arrest Carl Denham and return to Singapore, but when you listen to the Morse, it says "SHOW ME THE MONKEY".

Probably 99% of people out there wouldn't have gotten it: It's sent at around 20-ish WPM, so unless you are or were a serious CW op, you'd miss it. When I heard it, I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.

Cagey B: w, I'm a huge fan of Carl Sagan, and I appreciate his attempts to popularize rational thought, I really do. But I think that a television drama about everything always being in some hillbilly's head and countless "IT'S A STREETLIGHT" moments would be pretty stupid. Likewise, movies that focused entirely on getting the scientific details right sound like they'd be pretty lame.


And it would tank. Most of us know that all that shiat isn't real. We don't need a TV show confirming that for us week after week. And unrealistic sci-fi did not start with Star Trek and Star Wars. Go all the way back to Metropolis (1927) if you have to. The science in science fiction usually isn't the point. It's a means of telling a story.

Cagey B: This reminds of something that Carl Sagan wrote one time biatching about the X-Files.

Carl Sagan: unabashed genius, genuine pioneer of scientific reasoning, AND guy who would go to see a magic show, then stand up and yell "IT'S A TRICK!" after the guy saws a lady in half.

Unfortunately, the sort of people who have a pretty good grasp on the mysteries of the universe also have a rather irritating tendency to have very little in the way of a sense of wonder/humor.

Cagey B:
Now, I'm a huge fan of Carl Sagan, and I appreciate his attempts to popularize rational thought, I really do. But I think that a television drama about everything always being in some hillbilly's head and countless "IT'S A STREETLIGHT" moments would be pretty stupid. Likewise, movies that focused entirely on getting the scientific details right sound like they'd be pretty lame.

Worked OK the last 40 years for Scooby-Doo (with some exceptions).

Sci Fi has given us a lot of imagination for building things that never were.

Watch the show. How William Shatner Changed the world.

Shostie: Some, like Clarke, would actually, you know, do some research before they wrote. But a lot of the pulp sci fi from back in the day was more fiction than science.

yeah, which is why they called it space opera. problem is, 99 percent of the SF films are also space opera. nobody goes the hard science way, which is a shame.

actually, some of the "new space opera" in literature could offer you the space opera that films require with some actual hard science--guys such as alastair reynolds, peter f. hamilton, and charles stross.

It's not just the technology that makes for great sci-fi, it's the skill of the writers using the tech to tell a great story. The new Trek movie fails as good sci-fi because it's poorly written and uses tech to shortcut the plot, not build a good story. Had Red Matter taken us into a richly conceived and skillfully written universe, it could have been forgiven its flimsy pretext. All it took us to was a universe with expensive CGI, mostly bad acting and highly improbable coincidences.

GurneyHalleck: All it took us to was a universe with expensive CGI, mostly bad acting and highly improbable coincidences.

And how is this new to Star Trek?

Shostie: GurneyHalleck: All it took us to was a universe with expensive CGI, mostly bad acting and highly improbable coincidences.

And how is this new to Star Trek?

The CGI

Shostie: GurneyHalleck: All it took us to was a universe with expensive CGI, mostly bad acting and highly improbable coincidences.

And how is this new to Star Trek?

Expensive CGI. It used to be cheap rubber suits and spirit-gum beards.

impaler: Shostie: GurneyHalleck: All it took us to was a universe with expensive CGI, mostly bad acting and highly improbable coincidences.

And how is this new to Star Trek?

The CGI

BKITU: Shostie: GurneyHalleck: All it took us to was a universe with expensive CGI, mostly bad acting and highly improbable coincidences.

And how is this new to Star Trek?

Expensive CGI. It used to be cheap rubber suits and spirit-gum beards.

Didn't they stop using the giant models for Generations?

yogaFLAME: Is there AIR?!? You don't know!!

Let's get out of here before one of those things kills Guy!

abb3w: brigid_fitch: Because people have forgotten the definition of "Plot Device".

On the lines of the "Unobtainium" and "Applied Phlebotinum" tropes, really.

Duh. People accept bad physics out of guns because of the Rule of Cool.

The real problem is people are too stupid to distinguish fact from fiction.

ne2d: Maybe my memory is selective, but it seems to me that science fiction was once fairly grounded in science. Star Wars and Star Trek changed the genre dramatically, making it what it is today: i.e., either space opera or fantasy.

Right... Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers were squarely rooted in physics. You're comparing space opera to hard science fiction. These are two separate sub-genres which have always coexisted. Enjoying one does not imply the death of the other.

Shostie: yogaFLAME: Is there AIR?!? You don't know!!

Let's get out of here before one of those things kills Guy!

WHOEVER WROTE THIS EPISODE SHOULD DIE!!

Parsecs were never intended to literally be portrayed as a unit of time in Star Wars. Read the script. Han is trying to BS them, and Ben is having none of it.


HAN: Han Solo. I'm captain of the Millennium Falcon.
Chewie here tells me you're looking for passage to
the Alderaan system.

BEN: Yes, indeed. If it's a fast ship.

HAN: Fast ship? You've never heard of the Millennium
Falcon?

BEN: Should I have?

HAN: It's the ship that made the Kessel run in less
than twelve
parsecs!

Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress
them with obvious misinformation.

Aeonite: Parsecs were never intended to literally be portrayed as a unit of time in Star Wars. Read the script. Han is trying to BS them, and Ben is having none of it.


HAN: Han Solo. I'm captain of the Millennium Falcon.
Chewie here tells me you're looking for passage to
the Alderaan system.

BEN: Yes, indeed. If it's a fast ship.

HAN: Fast ship? You've never heard of the Millennium
Falcon?

BEN: Should I have?

HAN: It's the ship that made the Kessel run in less
than twelve
parsecs!

Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress
them with obvious misinformation.

The only thing stupider than caring about this simple mistake is trying to claim it wasn't a simple mistake.

Parsecs, is a measure of distance. Right.

The length of the Kessel Run would depend on where things are in relation to each other, where the obstacles are. Let's say there's a big nasty cloud of tachyons or whositrons, most pilots go around it making the trip longer (in time and distance). But not Han, he shot first and flew right through that farker... because he's that good.

He also knocked up Leia with a wink and a smile, but that's another story.

So either the writers were super clever or just wanted to use a cool spacy sounding word. Not sure which. Need some kind of axiom to cut to the truth of the matter.

Shostie: Sybarite: I don't understand all the uproar about red matter. We are talking about a fictional universe where people readily accept dilithium crystals and Heisenberg compensators.

Don't forget the litany of unusual particles that have plagued the Enterprise over the years.

It's called science FICTION. Read some of the old sci fi from the 50's and 60's. They made stuff up all the time or attributed incredible abilities to existing technologies that they didn't understand at all.

And I still want a Mr. Fusion and flux capacitor.

I'll settle for some hyper-atomics

There is still a lot of good science-based science fiction out there. It can be found in these things called books. Movies and television shows need to be appealing to a large segment of the population to be profitable. That's why sci-fi in that medium is so full of drama and fantasy.

You know, one complaint that many people had about Star Trek was that there was too much technobabble. So they removed the technobabble and just called the fake sci-fi in the movie "Red Matter", which is at least an intriguing name. And then people complain about Red Matter. Sigh.

I say bring back the technobabble, whether real or not. The bit in the movie about a supernova threatening the entire galaxy made no sense until I read the more detailed explanation in the "Countdown" comic. And I also read here on Fark about the "official" explanation of Red Matter being that it's related to the effects of Omega particles, which I think is a cool Voyager tie-in.

"In space, no one can hear you PEW-PEW-PEW!"

I saw an interview (on the DVDs?) with Lucas where he said parsec was always meant to be distance. His idea was that all ships travel at the same speed so the fastest ships have the best navigating computers/pilots. So Han's ship was fastest because it could navigate the best, not because it actually traveled at a faster speed.

MonkeyAngst: Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress
them with obvious misinformation.

The only thing stupider than caring about this simple mistake is trying to claim it wasn't a simple mistake.

It wasn't a mistake. It was intentional. That direction is in the screenplay. The person who wrote the screenplay was aware that Han was spouting lies. Sometimes characters in fiction tell lies.

From the interwebs:

"...it implies that the puzzling speech of Han Solo is a "misinformation" and not truth, and it has nothing to do with the nature of the Kessel Run in any respect. Han means nothing other than impressing Obi-Wan and Luke with a pure boasting. Indeed, even in the final version of the script, the parenthesis attached to Han's line states that he is "obviously lying.""

ne2d: Shostie: It's called science FICTION. Read some of the old sci fi from the 50's and 60's. They made stuff up all the time or attributed incredible abilities to existing technologies that they didn't understand at all.

Maybe my memory is selective, but it seems to me that science fiction was once fairly grounded in science. Star Wars and Star Trek changed the genre dramatically, making it what it is today: i.e., either space opera or fantasy.

Star Wars is fantasy. It has more in common with LotR than DADoES.

Sci-Fi is not elements like robots and blasters. Sci-Fi is analyzing science/technology in a story. Frankenstein for example; mused about the potential horrors of reviving the dead.

Star Trek was Sci-Fi at times. But it was mostly social commentary (parable?). They take an issue, turn it upside down or blow it out of proportion so that the audience could get the message.

BSG was primarily drama with some very strong Sci-Fi aspects. The analysis on "what is life?" and "What happens when our tools become so smart that they resent being tools?". Then there was some social commentary in the form of the whole mono vs. polytheism as a representation of Western World vs. Islam or some such.

I just watched Moon last night and one of the biggest things that bugged me from the very get-go (among other things) was that except for one scene I recall when he was trying to move something heavy through the top hatch of his lunar rover (I won't spoil anything) everything was Earth gravity normal (especially see the scene were hes working out and using a speed bag). I guess its just because they went to such lengths to make it realistic that when it wasn't it glared through.

But before anyone knocks sci-fi anymore, just remember that they are developing transparent aluminum in real life. Give it ten years and maybe we'll have ships capable of making the Kessel Run in less than TEN parsecs.

LEELA: I didn't wanna leave them either, Fry, but what are we supposed to do?
FRY: Well, usually on the show someone would come up with a complicated plan then explain it with a simple analogy.
LEELA: Hmm. If we can re-route engine power through the primary weapons and reconfigure them to Melllvar's frequency, that should overload his electro-quantum structure.
BENDER: Like putting too much air in a balloon!
FRY: Of course! It's so simple!

Time travel is real! We're all doing it right now!!

"If you're wondering how he eats and breathes
And other science facts,
Just repeat to yourself 'It's just a show,
I should really just relax'"

\I was upset at the end of the new Star Trek

Shostie: GurneyHalleck: All it took us to was a universe with expensive CGI, mostly bad acting and highly improbable coincidences.

And how is this new to Star Trek?

Because more often than not, TOS came up with a story that didn't suck, thereby distracting you away from the bad acting and cheap rubber suits.

"City On The Edge of Forever" relied on some totally unfathomable, sentient time travel device to drive the plot, and Shatner's overacting is legendary on this episode, but the writing was so good that you let these things slide.

"Devil In The Dark" may have had the improbable concept of a silicone-based, rock eating creature, and Spock's silly mind-meld scene, but the episode had a story to tell, and the resolution underlined the IDEA behind the series.

"Journey To Babel" had a plot driven by the currently non-existent dilithium crystals. Because writers took the time to see the story BEHIND dilithium crystals--where do they come from, what are the politics surrounding a planet that has them as a natural resource--it made the story interesting. We even get to see how the Federation works on these issues.

Even when you take an episode like "Mirror, Mirror" with it's extremely questionable science and spirit gum beard on Spock, you see that good writing is behind its success as an episode. It's just such a big idea, and it moves so fast, you can find yourself ignoring all the impossible science and coincidences.

I've got no problem with the idea of a new Trek series. Just please make it live up to the potential that everyone has blamed TOS for not achieving.

Sybarite: I don't understand all the uproar about red matter. We are talking about a fictional universe where people readily accept dilithium crystals and Heisenberg compensators.

suspension of disbelief comes in different levels. Some things just go past the level of belief that a person is willing to suspend.

For example, we are willing to accept that superman is superpowered alien with xray vision that can shoot heat rays from his eyes, and is weakened by kryptonite.

HOWEVER

The idea that someone looking at Clark Kent can't put two and two together because Clark wears glasses is simply ludicrous.

/generally, when something goes against our established idea of how something works, without a legitimate explanation, is where the line is crossed.

/where red matter crossed the line is by not giving any sort of explanation as to how this mysterious matter causes planets and suns to collapse without collapsing the ship that it's being carried on (plus the name sucks).

Whereas "dilithium" is an actual molecule (but doesn't have the properties of the fictional dilithium. But beside that, we are told that dilithium regulates the matter/antimatter reaction in a warp reactor. A simple explanation like that is all it takes to take something out of the realm of the ludicrous and turn it into something we're willing to accept.

But the real question is, why did Old Spock have so much red matter? Were there some other things he planned to destroy after trying to save Romulus?

GurneyHalleck: Shostie: GurneyHalleck: All it took us to was a universe with expensive CGI, mostly bad acting and highly improbable coincidences.

And how is this new to Star Trek?

Because more often than not, TOS came up with a story that didn't suck, thereby distracting you away from the bad acting and cheap rubber suits.

"City On The Edge of Forever" relied on some totally unfathomable, sentient time travel device to drive the plot, and Shatner's overacting is legendary on this episode, but the writing was so good that you let these things slide.

"Devil In The Dark" may have had the improbable concept of a silicone-based, rock eating creature, and Spock's silly mind-meld scene, but the episode had a story to tell, and the resolution underlined the IDEA behind the series.

"Journey To Babel" had a plot driven by the currently non-existent dilithium crystals. Because writers took the time to see the story BEHIND dilithium crystals--where do they come from, what are the politics surrounding a planet that has them as a natural resource--it made the story interesting. We even get to see how the Federation works on these issues.

Even when you take an episode like "Mirror, Mirror" with it's extremely questionable science and spirit gum beard on Spock, you see that good writing is behind its success as an episode. It's just such a big idea, and it moves so fast, you can find yourself ignoring all the impossible science and coincidences.

I've got no problem with the idea of a new Trek series. Just please make it live up to the potential that everyone has blamed TOS for not achieving.

True. But those are old. Compare that to Star Trek: Nemesis, a film filled with CGI and bad writing and acting. My point is that such things are not new to the franchise, however awesome it's been in the past.