Sorta-OT: Movies and Electronic Design

[Syd Rumpo]

The ones where they fly through the core of a planet spring to mind...

Or flying through an "asteroid belt" with the asteroids bouncing off the
spaceship.

Seem to recall a thunderbirds episode where they landed on the sun. Was
a bit hot I expect.

Thunderbirds often flew at very high speeds, yet the exhaust smoke
curled upwards quite soon after it left the engine. Almost as if there
was some bloke blowing cigarette smoke down a tube.

Cheers

 

[ehsjr]

What if they are all red wires?

-

In one movie the thing was underwater. The surface expert tells
the diver not to cut the red one. The diver looks at the wires,
and the sea water & lighting conditions make them all look greenish-gray.

Ever notice that they never defuse the thing with say an hour and
forty-seven minutes left on the count down timer? It's always
done with something like 3 seconds (or less) left.

Ed

 

[[email protected]]

Yeah, I always design so that the red one is the exploding wire.

Why else would it be red?

 

[Mr Stonebeach]

Best at the time they were done were the shuttle flight and docking
sequence in 2001 a space odyssey which was perfect in almost every
detail. These days it looks very dated. Although the flat screen TVs in
the astronauts quarters were astonishingly prescient. CCTV eyes were
rather larger than we already have and HAL is still to be built.

The 2001 was enjoyable indeed, for the accuracy of details although
the story was imagined. Another charming one is "Porco Rosso",
love, death, nostalgia - and accurate technical details.

An example of disturbing details are helicopters in some
action movies: many times there are obviously piston-engined
choppers (like Rotorways) with turbine sounds. Sometimes turbine
choppers have piston engine sounds, but it's more common the
other way around.

Regards,
Mikko

 

[josephkk]

That's because the script writers have no imagination.

They have plenty of imagination, just zero stomach for reality in the
scripts. Not even in "cine verite" "reality" shows.

?-)

 

[josephkk]

The 2001 was enjoyable indeed, for the accuracy of details although
the story was imagined. Another charming one is "Porco Rosso",
love, death, nostalgia - and accurate technical details.

Odd, i have watched my copy of "Porco Rosso" many times and i find way too
many problems with the technical details, still beautiful animation
though.

 

[Blarp]

All airplanes in a steep dive make a "Stuka divebomber" howling noise,
even large airliners.

 

[Fred Abse]

All airplanes in a steep dive make a "Stuka divebomber" howling noise,
even large airliners.

That pisses me off, too. An overspeeded prop sounds completely different.

Probably a library sound, used by lazy Foley artists.

 

[Charlie E.]

-

In one movie the thing was underwater. The surface expert tells
the diver not to cut the red one. The diver looks at the wires,
and the sea water & lighting conditions make them all look greenish-gray.

Ever notice that they never defuse the thing with say an hour and
forty-seven minutes left on the count down timer? It's always
done with something like 3 seconds (or less) left.

Ed

I loved in Galaxy Quest where they disarmed the self destruct, but it
still finished the countdown to 1 second before turning off... ;-)

 

[Nobody]

Ever notice that they never defuse the thing with say an hour and
forty-seven minutes left on the count down timer? It's always done with
something like 3 seconds (or less) left.

In The Andromeda Strain, the countdown is stopped with 8 seconds to go;
someone comments on it not being all that close.

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

In The Andromeda Strain, the countdown is stopped with 8 seconds to go;
someone comments on it not being all that close.

As a potential bad guy, I'd definitely make the bomb explode at t-10
seconds.

 

[[email protected]]

As a potential bad guy, I'd definitely make the bomb explode at t-10
seconds.

That would be lying!

 

[Martin Brown]

Landrover tracks visible in the background of medieval battle scenes is
pretty annoying.

I loved in Galaxy Quest where they disarmed the self destruct, but it
still finished the countdown to 1 second before turning off... ;-)

At the risk of being a spoiler "Dark Star" is one exception to the rule.

It includes the immortal lines "Time for Sgt Pinback to feed the alien".

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069945/

 

[Martin Brown]

As a potential bad guy, I'd definitely make the bomb explode at t-10
seconds.

The woman bomb technician in the Fourth Protocol was told to set the
delay timing to be zero but look like (I forget value) but since she
liked her co-conspirator the bomb was set with a delay fuse timing.

They both come to a sticky end and the plot would have succeeded if she
had followed her instructions exactly.

 

[Uwe Hercksen]

That is a bit like the ISS.
Such a con, 'training for living in zero gravity'.
Anybody with a functioning brain or part there of would rotate that spacecraft to get
rid of that annoying zero gravity at least in some places of the spacecraft.
NASA does acrobatics as media show and cashes in in that via taxes.

Hello,

they want to do also experiments in zero gravity, therefore rotation is
not possible.

Bye

 

[Jeroen Belleman]

Hello,

they want to do also experiments in zero gravity, therefore rotation is
not possible.

Not to mention that a craft designed to rotate fast enough
to produce reasonable 'gravity' would need to be a good
deal sturdier --and therefore heavier and more expensive--
than the ISS.

You spin the ISS, bits would fly off in all directions.

And you don't want people in a zero-gravity setup. They just
never stop wriggling, messing up the zero-gravity environment.

Jeroen Belleman

 

[Uwe Hercksen]

Similar results (collection of lunar rocks), could have been obtained
with automatic probes.

Hello,

it is true today, but back in 1969, the available microprocessors were
not suitable for that task.

Bye

 

[Uwe Hercksen]

The various space shows will also need to modify their hardware to
accomodate a rotating spacecraft. For example, the Star Trek shuttle
would need to de-spin before landing, or it would drill itself a hole
in the ground upon landing. The propellent consumption would not be
huge, but since movie spacecraft run on high specific impulse rockets
that operate on ejecting mass, more modern ion drive and low specific
impulse drives would need some kind of rocket powered de-spin
mechanism. Trying to de-spin with an ion drive would take years.

Hello,

no, the spinning speed is not that large. It may take days, but not years.

Bye

 

[Uwe Hercksen]

All airplanes in a steep dive make a "Stuka divebomber" howling noise,
even large airliners.

Hello,

the howling noise of the Stukas was generated with an extra siren.

Bye

 

[Uwe Hercksen]

YES there are good experiments that could be dome at the ISS, but zero gravity is not even one of those.

Hello,

some years ago, material scientists of our university here had an
experiment about crystal growth in zero gravity. It is too expensive to
produce semiconductor crystals in zero gravity, but these experiments
resulted in a better understanding of crystal growth applicable on earth
too.

Bye