So, I finally saw Serenity tonight.
Hrm.
I liked it, immensely, and while I see the necessity for the sake of the story of certain things to happen, I'm still kind of pissed. And emotionally drained.
But I won't dwell on that. What I will harp on is Whedon's SHITTY job at world creation. I won't even go into it except to say that he really should have thought things through a little bit more, or just talked to a physics grad student, or something. Or talked to an actual science fiction writer.
But, despite this, it's still a great story.
Hrm.
I liked it, immensely, and while I see the necessity for the sake of the story of certain things to happen, I'm still kind of pissed. And emotionally drained.
But I won't dwell on that. What I will harp on is Whedon's SHITTY job at world creation. I won't even go into it except to say that he really should have thought things through a little bit more, or just talked to a physics grad student, or something. Or talked to an actual science fiction writer.
But, despite this, it's still a great story.
posted by Peter at 10:31 PM
8 Comments:
Dude...you've got to be a bit more specific with your criticism. What was the error in the world creation? Wehn looked upon in contest of a stand-alone film...sure...not so good. Taken in context with the show Firefly it's reasonably consistent.
I wish ther had been more time to explore the rather cool sci-fi idea that didn't get revealed until very close to the end of the movie. Can't wait to talk to you about all this...
Ok, here's my gripe. I thought it was obvious, but I guess I have to spell it out for you cretins. All those habitable worlds in one solar system? It is literally unbelievable. Doesn't wash. And 'terraforming' is not a magic answer. Living worlds, biosystems, whatever, need energy. And there are a limited number of positions, green zones, if you will, around a star, even if you add in some Jovian planets that give off heat/radiation. Three I might have been able to believe, in one solar system. Four even, maybe. But umpteen numbers? Nope.
I think I know why Whedon did this. He didn't want to mess about with FTL. Unfortunately his rubber science is essentially crap, which, speaking as a lover of sci fi, really tarnishes his creation in my opinion.
Of course, this begs the question, how the hell did the colonists from Earth-That-Was get from there to here? Sublight generation ships? Not bloody likely.
Essentially, my gripe comes down to me saying "You expect me to swallow this?" It upsets my willing suspension of disbelief, which is something you NEVER want to do if you're a sci fi author.
Besides, Mike, you've got some mad GM skilz too. You know what I'm getting at, I suspect. An imagined world has to be consistent and logical.
He clearly understands characterization though, so I'll forgive a lot. It's just a gripe. Don't let me overstate it. I still enjoyed the movie.
Well, not really.
We have a fairly good idea about the temperature range of water, freezing to liquid to vapor. That's the determining factor for human-friendly life here. And for liquid water to exist energy is required. However, the caveat is that each locus of energy, a planet or planetoid, is competing with others for the ideal life sustaining position.
IF you posit extreme technological intervention, I might be willing to suspend some of my disbelief. But only so far.
Anyway, take me with a grain of salt. I thoroughly enjoyed it, it's just that the idea of a hundred or so habitable worlds all in one solar system just makes me go "Oh come ON!"
Here's a link to a thing on scifi.com about this subject. It's a little tongue in cheek at the end, but interesting.
http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue439/labnotes.html
Also, if you have the technology for space flight and stable biosystems in said ships, then you don't NEED planets. If you're presupposing that level of technology.
Well, what I'm envisioning aren't really 'ships' per se. They're much grander. Space stations with habitats etc. Like GSVs in the Culture universe, or the Deep Domain in Nick's Space Gurps. If you have the energy to terraform a planet, you certainly have the energy available to create a large sustainable ecosystem in a metal /and or stone and glass shell in space. Then you wouldn't have to worry about planetary orbits. Just put your space station wherever you wanted to live. Soak up all the solar radiation you could use. Add, rinse, repeat. Pretty soon, you've got these gigantic space habitats throughout a good portion of the galaxy.
Don't even get me started on the prospect of burnt out brown dwarfs in between the bright stars that you might be able to use to hop from star system to star system. There's a good possibility that there may be substellar objects with their own 'planetary' systems in between the bright stars. Think MegaSuperJovians, warm up close, but not bright, thus, hard to spot.
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