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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
 Posted - 04/19/2007 : 12:22:49 AM
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Well, you might be weightless until you hit the edge of the centrifuge, but at that point I'd think that the simulated gravity would kick in full force, plus there's the rotation and you'd get knocked around a bit. That thing goes 5 MPH or something. And you don't go head first because as you move to the edge the g-force increases and you find yourself literally moving down a ladder head-first.
The 2001 goof that bugs me is the whole layout of Discovery's main module- given the size of the bridge and the pod bay the centrifuge just doesn't fit in there. With Kubrick as anal as he was you'd have thought the exterior dimensions would match the interior ones.
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo |
Edited by - Sardu on 04/19/2007 12:23:52 AM |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2007 : 06:32:36 AM
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Actually, Sardu, I wasn't talking about the ladder in the centrifuge. That one's fine. I was talking about the ladder leading (I think) from the bridge to the pod bay. Sorry, I was a little vague.
You're right about the main module layout. That's one of those things that people usually don't notice for a long time... but when they do, it's like a bug bite that just keeps itchin', no matter how much you scratch. |
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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2007 : 07:07:25 AM
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Oh, right. I see what you mean.
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo |
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John Nowak
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1017 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2007 : 07:46:33 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by BradH812
It's also telling that after Dallas is et, Ash is the only one who doesn't offer any suggestions — even a bad one — on what to do next. Considering what had gone on before, Ripley may be getting a little frazzled, and some paranoia may have set in. Turns out, her paranoia was right.
That's a good point. The fact that the scenes designed to make Ash more suspicious were taken out makes Ripley's suspicion seem odd, until now it turns into a sort of paranoid hunch which happens to be right.
I can't help but think, though, that it's a failure on the part of the script, based on the assumption that any scientist in Ash's position would instantly whip up an Oxygen Destroyer or something.
On a slightly different note, if the Aliens are vulnerable to flamethrowers (per Aliens) why did Ash build flamethrowers? All I can think of there is that the jury-rigged flamethrowers in Alien didn't run hot enough to kill the beast, while the military grade equipment in Aliens did.
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We've always been united in stupidity. That's why there is no hope. But, then again, when has that ever stopped us?
-- hbrennan |
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John Nowak
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1017 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2007 : 07:54:00 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Sardu
The 2001 goof that bugs me is the whole layout of Discovery's main module- given the size of the bridge and the pod bay the centrifuge just doesn't fit in there. With Kubrick as anal as he was you'd have thought the exterior dimensions would match the interior ones.
I've got a book titled Spaceship Handbook which includes a sketch showing how the different sets fit into the command module of Discovery. The book was written by an engineer; in another chapter, he calculated the thickness of the fins on Tintin's rocket to the moon. So while I didn't confirm the diagram personally, I think everything can fit, although the layout is odd. The command deck, for example, is rotated so the "floor" faces the end of the ship.
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We've always been united in stupidity. That's why there is no hope. But, then again, when has that ever stopped us?
-- hbrennan |
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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2007 : 09:33:22 AM
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I've seen drawings that place the centrifuge at the back of the sphere in kind of a weird 45 degree angle slicing behind where the pod bay is but I still don't buy it. From the outside it seems clear that the bay eats up almost the entire bottom hemisphere of the module. To make matters worse, that utility corridor leads out of the bay at an angle, not directly behind to the spine of the ship and it's about, what, 15' long or more? And then there's an airlock, and the whole HAL brainroom... they should have made that sphere about 80' in diameter.
I'd like to see that diagram though- wonder if it's on the web anywhere??
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo |
Edited by - Sardu on 04/19/2007 09:34:39 AM |
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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2007 : 09:38:11 AM
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Hey, didn't find that but here's a great picture of how it would work if it were made out of Legos...
http://www.truedimensions.com/lego/customs/2001/int.jpg
He has the centrifuge in the collar to the rear of the module, which is pretty smart but I think it's way smaller than 40' (at scale).
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo |
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Mark Hawley
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
Canada
48 Posts |
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RossM
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
427 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2007 : 12:03:42 PM
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Dr. Who got rid of the whole problem by not worrying about it at all. They made the inside as big as it needed to be and the outside as small as it needed to be and then made this scifi relative demensionalism the central joke of the show.
rossM |
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Altair IV
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
Japan
110 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2007 : 1:43:05 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by John Nowak
(Re: Tremors)
Yeah, I caught that too -- but to give the character every possible excuse (which I would not do if I disliked the film, I guess), this is part of a monologue where she basically spits out a lot of different theories, and can't come up with one she likes.
Oh, I know. But my point was that no self-respecting scientist would ever leap to a conclusion like that. Not until all other possibilities had been discounted at least. But she just jumped straight to that one before even considering more realistic scenarios. The instant leap to the fantastic was just too much of a stretch for me to overlook completely. I personally put it down to the screenwriters trying to jazz up the dialog with a little sciency-sounding stuff in an attempt to establish her as a real "scientist".
As for 2001, The Discovery wasn't always in zero-g. According to the backstory it spent the first month or two after launch under strong acceleration, until it reached "cruising speed" and the engines could be shut down. I think you'd be glad to have a ladder then. It's also the reason the bridge is oriented the way it is; during acceleration, "down" would be towards the aft of the ship.
As mentioned, however, what doesn't make sense is for the crew to actually be climbing on them when weightless; not when they can just float up or down gently, though they might use the rungs to guide and pull themselves along while doing so.
That pod bay sure was inefficient though, what with having to evacuate the entire room of both people and air whenever you wanted to launch a pod. Much better would've been to simply attach the pods to the front of the ship with individual airlocks and used the extra room in the bay for other purposes.
Moving on to the Matrix, a while back I came up with my own better (IMHO) alternative to the "human battery" theory. Since the human brain can be likened to a complex computer, I would have explained the cocooned humans as comprising essentially a huge distributed computer/memory farm, with the machines actually using excess human brain power for computer processing; they having long ago discovered that people could be turned into powerful and efficient organic computing platforms. You could even pull out the still-wrong, but more palatable [url="http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percnt.htm"]10% myth[/url], to help support the concept.
And the virtual reality world? It's there to distract and placate the individual ego consciousnesses so that they don't start interfering with the real computing tasks, since a human mind with nothing to do tends to cause bad things to happen to their computer-brains. But they can't just turn everyone into comatose vegetables either, since for some as-yet-unclear reason a brain needs to have a conscious personality to be useful for the machines.
Whaddayathink? Wouldn't that have been a much more logical, and even creepier and colder, purpose than that lame ol' battery idiocy?
Also, though this is not exactly a science question, I've been wondering just what was up with Cypher's rationale for betraying the others. I mean, if he was sick of gruel and wanted a good, thick steak or something, why didn't he just plug himself into the Nebuchadnezzar's own virtual reality system and go to town? All the enjoyment without any of the risks. Was he really so far gone that he couldn't wait until his off time to enjoy a snack? |
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John Nowak
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1017 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2007 : 5:55:49 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Mark Hawley
I found this, just scroll down a bit:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3p.html
Also, Kubrick often used wide angle lenses which stretch things out and makes distances seem larger.
Yeah -- that has what seems to be the same diagram that I refered to -- the sphere is about 58-60 feet in diameter, and the floor of the pod bay is about 20 feet from the middle door in front to the spacesuit rack in back. The centrifuge is about 30 feet in diameter.
Anyone have the measurements of the actual set?
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We've always been united in stupidity. That's why there is no hope. But, then again, when has that ever stopped us?
-- hbrennan |
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John Nowak
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1017 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2007 : 6:06:47 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by BradH812
Actually, Sardu, I wasn't talking about the ladder in the centrifuge. That one's fine. I was talking about the ladder leading (I think) from the bridge to the pod bay.
...And come to think of it, the ladder from the bridge to the pod bay is at right angles to the vector of thrust -- so at no time during the mission could the astronauts use it to "climb down." When the engines are firing, it's on the floor!
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We've always been united in stupidity. That's why there is no hope. But, then again, when has that ever stopped us?
-- hbrennan |
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John Nowak
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1017 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2007 : 6:23:26 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Altair IV
That pod bay sure was inefficient though, what with having to evacuate the entire room of both people and air whenever you wanted to launch a pod. Much better would've been to simply attach the pods to the front of the ship with individual airlocks and used the extra room in the bay for other purposes.
Ooo -- sweet catch, that one. Yes, indeed. Sadly, it would have made the "Hal, rotate the pod, please" scene impossible.
Curiously, and I wish this were an original observation, 2001 follows the spacesuit color convention from Destination Moon: red for mission commander, yellow for first officer. To get really weird, NASA added red stripes to the commander's suit in the later Apollo missions. If they ever add yellow stripes to the first officer's, then I think we've got another case of reality following film, along with the "countdown" introduced in Frau im Mond.
quote:
Originally posted by Altair IV
Whaddayathink? Wouldn't that have been a much more logical, and even creepier and colder, purpose than that lame ol' battery idiocy?
Yep, it's a huge improvement.
quote:
Originally posted by Altair IV
Also, though this is not exactly a science question, I've been wondering just what was up with Cypher's rationale for betraying the others. I mean, if he was sick of gruel and wanted a good, thick steak or something, why didn't he just plug himself into the Nebuchadnezzar's own virtual reality system and go to town? All the enjoyment without any of the risks. Was he really so far gone that he couldn't wait until his off time to enjoy a snack?
Yeah. To be honest, I never much cared for Matrix and didn't see the sequels. It just falls to pieces if you think hard about it.
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We've always been united in stupidity. That's why there is no hope. But, then again, when has that ever stopped us?
-- hbrennan |
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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2007 : 6:42:24 PM
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I've heard it said (to give the W. Bros. at least a little credit) that the distributed processing idea was actually written in the original script for the Matrix and the studio made them change it because they thought it was too esoteric a concept, whereas everyone gets the battery thing. I don't know if I buy that though, because it wouldn't tie in with the nuclear winter/lack of energy scenario. Which bugs me too- if there's no sun for solar energy how do you grow food and feed humans?? Whereas any machine race that can't get above the atmosphere is kind of pathetic. And anyway, why don't the machines go nuclear? Tons of power and they don't care about radiation. In fact, use the radiation to kill humans- bonus.
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo |
Edited by - Sardu on 04/19/2007 6:43:39 PM |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2007 : 8:33:31 PM
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The book 2001: Filming the Future by Piers Bizony has a couple of interesting drawings of Discovery's layout. I'm not sure they're official, though, and one still suspects it's too big to fit in that command module.
Again, this is nitpicking, but there's another problem in 2001. That centrifuge isn't rotating very fast. I clocked it, and it turns once about every twenty seconds. That may be enough to give the astronauts a sense of up and down, but I seriously doubt it would come anywhere near giving them normal gravity, not when the outside rim is about fifteen feet from the center. If Frank Poole went jogging, he'd take big leaping strides like the astronauts on Skylab did; he wouldn't run normally. Okay, it was still a way cool sight. Hell, it's a way cool sight today. The Bizony book has a photograph of the centrifuge set, and it's a jaw-dropper. That's why 2001 is so amazing: even when you know how every effect was done, you're still scratching your head and saying, "How the hell did they do that?!?!"
(taking a deep breath)
Now, to Alien. I'm gonna play attorney for Ripley and give her (and the writers) all the breaks. Here's how the whole thing works:
Ash does indeed give helpful information on how to kill the Alien. He may be stronger than everyone else, but it would still be four against one if they caught on to what he was doing. So his strategy was, help them now and try to find a way to sabotage their plans later (or just hope their Alien-hunting would go badly). If it didn't work, he could always keep his identity secret, and he could also tell the Company — truthfully — that there was no way he could get them a live specimin. He'd still have the location of the planet, along with lots of info on their new weapon.
Ash's description of the Alien tells us that he, or the Company, may have had a good translation of that "distress call," and he would already know some things about the Alien, such as its ability to grow from eight inches high to eight feet in a day, or its tendency to be a real heartbreaker. So, he could simply make his suggestions for killing the thing come just shy of being enough.
In other words, he was biding his time, waiting for the right moment to pounce. And he may have sabotaged those motion-detectors before Dallas went into the ventilation shaft. Remember how they kept having trouble with the thing? Remember how calm Ash looked during this sequence?
And that leads to Ripley's suspicions of Ash. Okay, we start off with her and Ash not liking each other. Ripley's internal alarm starts to go off when Ash opens the hatch to let the away team in. Dallas (who, in my opinion, was more than a little wimpy) is mad at Ripley for not letting them in, but Ash actually violates orders and safety regs. Then, Ripley doesn't buy Ash's explanation of how the motion detectors work. Then, Ash is calm and collected when Dallas is just about to get et in that vent; Ripley was with him at the time, and she could have noticed this. When Ripley tells Ash to do "just what you've been doing: nothing," she may be testing his reaction. If Ash weren't up to something, he might say, "I suggested those incinerators and made that motion detector!" He doesn't, and that may be further evidence that he's not to be trusted. (By the way, before the Alien-in-airlock scene was cut, Ripley's dialogue was more passive; she didn't make any accusations here.) So, you be the judge. Instinct, and ability to read people, and good reasoning skills, or just a lucky paranoid hunch?
Of course, the simplest explanation is probably the best: the writers fudged this. Went around the world for that one, didn't I. *g*
Oh, as for Cypher being so hot to go back into the Matrix, the explanation, unfortunately, is very simple. It's In The Script. |
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