The Martian

[De Selby]

The book was awesome.  Liked he movie too, but not better than interstellar.

[RevDisk]

Ah, yes, Interstellar.

"Gravity changes time! We'll age ten microseconds while the outside world ages fifty gazillion parsecs. Our warp core breach will destroy the glowing cube thingie from the Avengers movie that Hydra wants to steal caused by some virus that somehow kills every crop known to man but not grass or trees! Let's use dust to send a message through the time space continuum "

Uhm. If you're experiencing enough gravity to warp time to that degree, you've been dead for quite some time and it's not a concern. And the rest, no, just ye gods, no.

We can nitpick the Martian, but it overall was very good. Interstellar is essentially on par with anime when it came to realism of plot.   

It wasn't a terrible movie, but I was constantly saying "WTF? That's not how this works, at all!?

[K Frame]

A parsec is a measure of distance, Han Solo...


There was a free HBO preview this past weekend. I snagged a couple of movies, The Martian being one of them.

[RevDisk]

A parsec is a measure of distance, Han Solo...


There was a free HBO preview this past weekend. I snagged a couple of movies, The Martian being one of them.

[K Frame]

Yeah, I know it's the joke.

You've never heard anyone come back with that rejoinder when talking about Star Wars, and they get something very obviously wrong?

Limited life meme, maybe.

[Perd Hapley]

So do we not like the theory that Solo was using it as a measure of distance, which might make sense in a comparison of interdimensional travel?

[K Frame]

The only way it works is if Solo found a shortcut for the route. Some nerds on the web say that's what he's actually talking about...

"No! He's not talking about speed! He found a short cut!"

(get back into your parent's basement, nerdling...)

The inference in that whole dialog is one of the MF being a heap of junk, and Solo defends it with a comment that can only be interpreted as a brag about the ship's speed, NOT some shortcut that he, the pilot, found. Contextually, it makes no sense.

All it was was a dumbass script writer (Lucas? Someone else?) not knowing jack.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to retreat to my basement fortress of solitude....

[KD5NRH]

The inference in that whole dialog is one of the MF being a heap of junk, and Solo defends it with a comment that can only be interpreted as a brag about the ship's speed, NOT some shortcut that he, the pilot, found. Contextually, it makes no sense.

No, it was a reference to the engines being powerful enough to let him take a shortcut closer to the black holes while still getting out in one piece.  Also likely the ability to make sublight maneuvers and get back into hyperspace while deeper in the gravity wells than other ships could escape from.

[Perd Hapley]

Something closer to what KD5NRH said, but I suspect the line probably was written by someone that just didn't know what a parsec is.

If your "speed" comes from the fact that you're traveling in some extra dimension, it might make sense to say that you had a faster "run," by reducing the distance you have to cover. By taking longer "jumps" or whatever.

So the script writer probably goofed, but it may turn out to accidently make sense.

[K Frame]

BBBZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Wrong answer.

All that crap was added later, after the movie came out, in books that tried to explain away the obvious error.

There was no context for what is later claimed, and Lucas supposedly later admitted he made an error, not knowing what a parsec is.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[AJ Dual]

BBBZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Wrong answer.

All that crap was added later, after the movie came out, in books that tried to explain away the obvious error.

There was no context for what is later claimed, and Lucas supposedly later admitted he made an error, not knowing what a parsec is.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

Yep. "Parsecs" sounds "spacey" being an astronomy term so Lucas or the writers used it. Maybe thinking that the "seconds" was time, and not related to arc-seconds as a measure of radial separation.

Never read them, but my understanding of the exorbitant amount of ret-con to "fix that" was the "Kessel Run" went near "The Maw", a cluster of black holes all orbiting each other, and depending on how brave/stupid/careful you were, you could cut your time/distance by going closer, but the plucky maverick Han Solo with his custom navicomputer figured out how to fly right through the middle and survive.

[Perd Hapley]

Even as someone that's just an indifferent fan of Star Wars, I don't see why it bothers anyone that people ret-con the mistake into something that makes sense within the story. Especially when it's such an easy fix. You don't really have to invent any black holes to make it work.

[makattak]

BBBZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Wrong answer.

All that crap was added later, after the movie came out, in books that tried to explain away the obvious error.

There was no context for what is later claimed, and Lucas supposedly later admitted he made an error, not knowing what a parsec is.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

I was about to come and post something similar.

However, the mistake did lead to an interesting idea as to how interstellar travel works. (I believe some later "Expanded Galaxy" that are now non-canon, gave Luke the power to avoid interstellar objects using the force, thereby making whatever ship he was piloting the fastest in the galaxy.)

[KD5NRH]

However, the mistake did lead to an interesting idea as to how interstellar travel works.

It's not even that; imagine the once-rumored Planet X orbiting exactly opposite Earth exists, and you have a ship that can travel there in a few days.  How far you actually have to avoid Sol by is determined by your heat shielding and your ability to escape its gravity well, (specifically, how deep you can go without being sucked in by more force than your engines can counter) thus (assuming ideal heat shielding) more powerful engines would require less deviation from a straight line, shortening the overall travel distance.

The claim is that the Millennium Falcon has a high enough power to mass ratio (and a pilot with the brass balls to use it - come to think of it, does Solo ever claim to have been the pilot at that time?  His statement that "it's the ship that made the Kessel Run" seems to leave open the possibility that Calrissian or even a previous owner might have been the one in the pilot's seat at the time) to allow it to travel much closer to the black holes along the Kessel Run, thus allowing it a significantly straighter, and thus shorter route.

[Fly320s]

BBBZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Wrong answer.

All that crap was added later, after the movie came out, in books that tried to explain away the obvious error.

There was no context for what is later claimed, and Lucas supposedly later admitted he made an error, not knowing what a parsec is.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

So who is the nerdling around here?

[K Frame]

"However, the mistake did lead to an interesting idea as to how interstellar travel works."

It's what allowed Luke Skywalker to make a guest appearance on The Simpsons...

Luke Be a Jedi Tonight!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thbMBDoogek

[K Frame]

So who is the nerdling around here?

WEll DUH!

[MechAg94]

It's not even that; imagine the once-rumored Planet X orbiting exactly opposite Earth exists, and you have a ship that can travel there in a few days.  How far you actually have to avoid Sol by is determined by your heat shielding and your ability to escape its gravity well, (specifically, how deep you can go without being sucked in by more force than your engines can counter) thus (assuming ideal heat shielding) more powerful engines would require less deviation from a straight line, shortening the overall travel distance.

The claim is that the Millennium Falcon has a high enough power to mass ratio (and a pilot with the brass balls to use it - come to think of it, does Solo ever claim to have been the pilot at that time?  His statement that "it's the ship that made the Kessel Run" seems to leave open the possibility that Calrissian or even a previous owner might have been the one in the pilot's seat at the time) to allow it to travel much closer to the black holes along the Kessel Run, thus allowing it a significantly straighter, and thus shorter route.

Was that actually rumored or just a movie?

[De Selby]

Ah, yes, Interstellar.

"Gravity changes time! We'll age ten microseconds while the outside world ages fifty gazillion parsecs. Our warp core breach will destroy the glowing cube thingie from the Avengers movie that Hydra wants to steal caused by some virus that somehow kills every crop known to man but not grass or trees! Let's use dust to send a message through the time space continuum "

Uhm. If you're experiencing enough gravity to warp time to that degree, you've been dead for quite some time and it's not a concern. And the rest, no, just ye gods, no.

We can nitpick the Martian, but it overall was very good. Interstellar is essentially on par with anime when it came to realism of plot.   

It wasn't a terrible movie, but I was constantly saying "WTF? That's not how this works, at all!?

Kip Thorne wrote a book on the science.  It's pretty good in explaining the science and the fantasy.  I found it enhanced my enjoyment of the movie. 

Link to an interview about it:  http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/parsing-the-science-of-interstellar-with-physicist-kip-thorne/

[Scout26]

NERD FIGHT !!!!

[RoadKingLarry]

NERD FIGHT !!!!

Don't we need popcorn or cheetos to watch?

[roo_ster]

Don't we need popcorn or cheetos to watch?

Glen becks got the cheetos covered.

[KD5NRH]

Was that actually rumored or just a movie?

Which part?  The heavily modified YT-1300 freighter or the planet that orbits opposite Earth, always hiding behind the sun?

[MechAg94]

Which part?  The heavily modified YT-1300 freighter or the planet that orbits opposite Earth, always hiding behind the sun?

I just remember either a movie or a twilight zone episode of an astronaut who was supposed to go around the sun and back to earth.  He gets back in half the time and everything is backwards.  I don't know about the freighter.

[TommyGunn]

I just remember either a movie or a twilight zone episode of an astronaut who was supposed to go around the sun and back to earth.  He gets back in half the time and everything is backwards.  I don't know about the freighter.

That was Journey to the Far Side of the Sun.  Made in 1969 by the same people who did the old marionette shows like Thunderbirds, Fireball XL-5, and Captain Scarlet.  Roy Thinnes (from The Invaders)  starred as an astronaut who went on a mission to the opposite planet .... where everything was "opposite."  The human body was a "mirror image,"  writing and printing was "backwards."  When the people there tried to rebuild a spaceship to help Thinnes' character return to his orbiting "mothership" a question arose as to whether electrical connections were also backwards (they shoulda used AC power ), but I've forgotten what the conclusion of that conumdrum was .   It's on DVD.
Not bas special effects in the movie.