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Post by Peter on Dec 31, 2009 19:20:26 GMT -5
I watched the new Star Trek film yesterday.
It was a reasonable film, but not without its problems.
- OK, first off, phasers. Every time the script uses 'phasers', it's a mistake. Phasers weren't around in 2250, and I'm not sure why the alternate timeline would change that.
- The warp drive was a little bizarre, although the visual effect for that changes every five minutes. It isn't really a problem.
- The 'black hole'. Not a real black hole, as Adam pointed out. Assuming that it was meant to be a gravitationally completely collapsed object, it was also mislabelled. Those are called 'black stars' in the Trek universe, so they managed to fail twice there (better still, the thing they were trying to depict is called a wormhole in Trekspeak).
- Supernovas might be energetic, but they are nothing by comparison to a quasar (one of which exists at the centre of the galaxy already, although admittedly not in the Trekverse).
- Also, if the effect of a black hole is to transport the affected objects to a different time, then someone at the Vulcan Science Academy seriously needs to be shot.
- Nero sucked.
- The logic was decidedly illogical, although that apparently isn't new.
On the plus side, the reduced technology level was depicted fairly well, I thought - the turrets on the Kelvin were an excellent touch.
It was also nice to see an update of the Star Trek Shake, and I thought introducing bloom and distortion to all footage was an interesting idea.
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Post by Adam on Jan 1, 2010 8:24:40 GMT -5
I watched the new Star Trek film yesterday. It was a reasonable film, but not without its problems. That was pretty much my opinion on it. Any suspension of disbelief I might have held was pretty much thrown away when I saw Nero's ship sticking out of two sides of a black hole. Black holes have sides? I mean, apart from the physics (and that bit where Kirk gets dumped in a random place on a random planet and it happens to be within a quick, random-direction run from the future version of Spock... wtf) it was a decent film. But the holes are so big you need a shovel in order to pick them. It was also nice to see an update of the Star Trek Shake, and I thought introducing bloom and distortion to all footage was an interesting idea. Someone in Hollywood has clearly been playing UT3.  |
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Post by dragonlord on Jan 1, 2010 15:43:02 GMT -5
The majority of sci-fi films have problems if you pick them apart in too much detail. I do agree that the Star Trek film did have a few rather glaring ones, but like Peter I thought that on the whole it wasn't too bad.
I can't say I remember the bit with Nero's ship sticking out of both sides of a black hole, I did find the whole Red Matter thing rather wtf though. Kirk being rather conveniently in reach of the future Spock was a bit too convenient, though their both being on that planet wasn't that unreasonable, it was the closest one to Vulcan so it made sense they would both end up there.
I should also point out that there is not a quasar at the centre of the galaxy, a quasar is, we believe, formed by an active supermassive black hole, while it is believed that there is a supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy it is not currently active (it is also not as massive as the black holes believed to lie at the hearts of the most powerful quasars.
A supernova is the most powerful event we are likely to encounter in our galaxy and would indeed be quite disastrous for any inhabited planets in the surrounding region. I forget what the exact numbers are but I'm pretty certain that a supernova occuring within 10 light years of Earth would result in the planet becoming an irradiated, lifeless, wasteland. You must remember that a supernova is generally more luminous than the entire host galaxy (which generally contains billions of stars).
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Post by Peter on Jan 3, 2010 12:46:54 GMT -5
Whoops...
I'm pretty sure it wouldn't threaten the entire galaxy, although you're right - it would be pretty nasty for most planets nearby.
Probably the worst movie I've seen recently was Knowing. I'm pretty sure the ozone layer being destroyed wouldn't create a rolling tide of fire that consumed almost everything on the planet.
It would just mean that anyone standing in the open air on an overcast day for more than thirty seconds would end up with melanoma.
I think, at least.
Of course, everyone on the planet dying of melanoma isn't an especially exciting apocalypse, but still...
As for the Kirk meeting future Spock thing, I actually wasn't too badly disturbed by it, although that must have been quite some transwarp beaming equation. 14 kilometres is about three hours on foot.
The maximum speed of a Starfleet Constitution-class heavy cruiser in both the standard and alternate timeline is Warp 8, or over two million kilometres per second.
Beaming onto a ship travelling at warp speed wasn't a problem. Beaming onto a ship that could have been up to 0.7 mPc away should have been (TNG transporter range was about 1 nPc, and TOS transporter range was around 0.25 nPc)
Oh, and the Kelvin's configuration was impossible. Single-nacelled craft hadn't been invented yet, and Nero didn't change that.
Interestingly, while The Physics of Star Trek notes visible phasers as being an error (space not really being dusty enough to make a laser beam visible), Memory-alpha actually describes them as being "nadion particle beams".
Engineers had already decided that a phaser was a laser using a phased array, but...
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Post by Oliver on Jan 3, 2010 13:21:54 GMT -5
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Post by dragonlord on Jan 3, 2010 13:53:35 GMT -5
You are quite right about the ozone layer ceasing to exist not causing a rolling tide of fire, it would cause almost all land dwelling creatures to die of cancer though, as you say.
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Post by Adam on Jan 3, 2010 16:23:42 GMT -5
Beaming onto a ship travelling at warp speed wasn't a problem. Beaming onto a ship that could have been up to 0.7 mPc away should have been (TNG transporter range was about 1 nPc, and TOS transporter range was around 0.25 nPc) Oh, and the Kelvin's configuration was impossible. Single-nacelled craft hadn't been invented yet, and Nero didn't change that. Interestingly, while The Physics of Star Trek notes visible phasers as being an error (space not really being dusty enough to make a laser beam visible), Memory-alpha actually describes them as being "nadion particle beams". Engineers had already decided that a phaser was a laser using a phased array, but... Trekkie spotted. ;D |
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Post by Peter on Jan 3, 2010 19:21:08 GMT -5
Beaming onto a ship travelling at warp speed wasn't a problem. Beaming onto a ship that could have been up to 0.7 mPc away should have been (TNG transporter range was about 1 nPc, and TOS transporter range was around 0.25 nPc) Oh, and the Kelvin's configuration was impossible. Single-nacelled craft hadn't been invented yet, and Nero didn't change that. Interestingly, while The Physics of Star Trek notes visible phasers as being an error (space not really being dusty enough to make a laser beam visible), Memory-alpha actually describes them as being "nadion particle beams". Engineers had already decided that a phaser was a laser using a phased array, but... Trekkie spotted. ;D Not really. I had to look up virtually everything I quoted. Although I have read The Physics of Star TrekWhile space-time is probably a little distorted by this point, Pike's order for the Enterprise to rendezvous with the fleet well over three hours' warp away from Earth made little sense. |
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Post by kerensky on Jan 12, 2010 16:34:04 GMT -5
Gosh It was great. Continuity references, sly jokes (literally a green skinned space babe for Kirk), all the characters quickly and well drawn. Its phlebomium from the future that creates a weird space time negative wedgie. By the ay was I only one who when he heard Sisko was in the Big Brother house wondered what he had been doing since DS9?
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Post by Peter on Jan 20, 2010 21:33:10 GMT -5
It's certainly great fun. I'm pretty sure I even caught sight of some vaguely tolerable physics (the EMP from the drill, anyone?), although that's actually not as uncommon for Star Trek as you might think (though Kirk and Sulu should have been fried by radiation).
I still can't believe that they actually now fit their starships with windows. I'm sure having a window in place of a main viewscreen is very nice and modern, but it's also something of a mistake.
Like the Galaxy Class, the Constitution Class Heavy Cruiser is supposed to be equipped with a secondary 'battle bridge' located deep within the hull somewhere.
Regarding supernovas, I'm told that if the closest sufficiently massive star to Earth were to go supernova, it wouldn't necessarily kill everyone, but it would still have a pretty horrible impact. You'd be able to read by its light at night time, and it would presumably wreak havoc with the climate.
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