And who hasn’t been reminded of the ST_TOS communication devices when they see someone talking at a cell phone (especially people that used to use those Nextel things)?

How close are we now to Picard’s touching the Star Fleet logo pinned to his shirt to communicate like we do now with Blue Tooth?

Another (older) film who got it right is the Czech production IKARIE XB1 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122111/). The American edited version turned this one obviously into some kind of travesty (check out the rather idiotic reviews on the imdb), BUT this one is a real gem in the original Czech version!

Glen Erickson (aka “DVD-Savant”) reviewed this one over here: http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/20577/ikarie-xb-1/?___rd=1

So instead of participating in the discussion, I’m offering some weird links to a long forgotten foreign movie. How typical of me!

ZAR.

Vic

It reminded me of an interesting piece of hardware: The 305 RAMAC, the first 5 Mbyte hard drive, more or less. It was the size of 2 refrigerators and weighed ONE TON.

That would suck in my laptop.

Granted, sci-fi movies have scientific inaccuracies, but that’s just to spice things up or to make a scene more interesting.

If scientists had their way, they’d think that the discovery of the Top Quark is something movie-worthy, or that a semi-fiction novel about the race to find the Higgs Boson to be a fine piece of edge-of-the-seat writing. Yawwwnn..

Star Trek came up with “warp drives” and it influenced physicists to take such concepts seriously. Star Trek came up with the idea of the “photon maser” (i.e. PHASER, which was later renamed to Phased Energy Rectification just to make it sound closer to “hard science”) which became well-known, while Teddy Maiman could hardly make “Laser” a household word. Perhaps the phaser influenced scientists to explore the weapons potential of masers and lasers..

Is Knight Rider (the original one) considered sci-fi? If you look at the world today, many vehicular developments seem to be influenced by Knight Rider.. radar-guided self-braking cars, blindspot sensors that tell active steering systems to avoid obstacles at the sides.. GPS systems.. infra-red night vision to assist lowlight driving.. the list goes on.

But back in 1983, magazines that feature articles on Knight Rider included technical articles with interviews with scientists and engineers. Their answers were unanimous: Knight Rider is beyond the realm of technical realism. It’ll have to be as big as a truck to house the supercomputer, rely on jet engines for propulsion, have a voice syntheseizer unit the size of an electric oven, etc. etc.

They can hear your ship blow up, but not the screaming.

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/

It analyzes movie scenes from the POV of real world physics. It’s pretty fun to read.

I don’t mind SOME bending of the rules or speculation, but some stuff is so out there that it’s plain stupid. Anyone remember that Disney sci fi flick “The Black Hole” where towards the end they were walking outside the ship exposed to the vacuum of space without space suits? Awesome, dude.

Vic

By keeping that in mind, I can excuse a lot of things in science fiction, if for no other reason than that it makes things easier on me when I’m writing. All I have to do is say to myself that it’s not possible YET. As long as it’s not been proven to be impossible, I can accept a lot.

As for sound in space, I simply look at it as us hearing the sounds as they’re produced aboard the ship in question, as if the ship’s systems weren’t likely insulated for the comfort of the crew.

Stargates are also rumoured to be real. I’m sure the things at Area 51 would blow your mind.

Bending light waves. Yeah Bruce that was the premise of the Philidelphia expriment.
They were trying to make a ship dissapear from radar and the Tesla coils were so powerfull the ship phased out of our dimension. That test was done in the 40′s so imagine what they can do now. The things I’ve heard Bruce well you just wouldn’t believe it.

AC Clarke was contracted to come up with concepts for space travel for Nasa and was responsable for all the space ships and tech in 2001 a Space Oddyessy…. He also played a role in designing the space shuttle.
If I recall the Obolisk in 2001 was refered to as the Vonomin Probe. (I’m sure I mispelled his name). The probe is a theoretical acessment of how alien life might explore space.
Vonomin* stated that advanced alien races wouldn’t travel space looking for life. Instead they would send out probes. Probes that would become active when the species of life was advanced enough to find them.
The Probe / Obolisk in the film 2001 was symbolic of mankind advancing from primate barbarism to exploring the moon.
Because life constantly advances the probe led mankind to where it came from. In the film it happened to be Titan , one of the moons orbiting Jupiter.

Is it obvious that work is slow right now or what the f?

My point: scientists need to lighten up!

I agree with you that the imagination of these writers bears predictability ahead of or in parallel to science development.. it’s freaky, and it’s cool. I mean heck, there have been developments in technology like “cloaking” devices! They’ve actually created a process to bend microwaves around objects, or cloaked them from microwaves So it’s begun!

As far as AC Clarke goes, he was the rather smart guy who took his know how and put it down to paper..

Albeit, he had degrees in math and physics and had written some non-fiction books on the premise of traveling in space.. so he had the background and insight on how to create a good sci-fi story and keep it grounded for whomever might have read his tales.

But seriously its the imagination of these sci-fi films that sparks creativity in the minds of scientists.
Nasa/jpl, had a close relationship with Arthur C Clarke for years.
His sci-fi imagination led to our advancements in the space program and future technologies. .
I’m kinda making a retroactive point. But hey.

Then again, I think my dog has gotten behind the wheel on occasion but I’ve never given her the keys!