How Star Wars Trumped Star Trek For Scientific Accuracy 495
An anonymous reader writes "When George Lucas added the 'ring around the Death Star' effect to his 1997 re-release of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, the revision was almost as hated as Greedo shooting first, and to boot was seen as a knock-off of the seminal 'Praxis effect' in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). But a debunking astronomer claims that the Federation got it wrong and the fan-boys should thank Lucas for adding some scientific accuracy to his fictional universe."
The worst VFX trope of all time. (Score:1, Informative)
I work in the visual FX business, and "Praxis rings" have been mocked as cliche [cgsociety.org] for well over a decade now.
Praxis? The Klingon moon? (Score:3, Informative)
Praxis is their key energy production facility...
Re:Praxis effect entrenched in our memories. (Score:1, Informative)
Unless, of course, Praxis had a trench round its circumference too (visible or not). Strip-mining is a viable extraction method.
Unfortunately, the movie itself refutes that possibility.
After the Excelsior has recovered from the shock wave, they pull up a shot of Praxis after the explosion. That shot shows a big quarter-circle chunk blown out of it, instead of the stereotypical "apple-core" hourglass shape that would have explained a ring.
Re:And So Offered Another Inaccuracy (Score:5, Informative)
Magic carpets and wizard spells don't fall into the realm of science fiction. That would be fantasy.
Re:WTF? Star Wars is totally nonsensical (Score:5, Informative)
Star Wars uses laser weapons. Any advanced space-race would never use laser weapons as they are readily re-mediated by the use of reflective materials.
Try reflecting a megawatt or even kilowatt laser from a vehicle coating sometime and let us know how it works out. The material needs to be able to survive re-entry and be easily repaired between flights.
- An entire planet existing as a city? This makes no sense from a material logistics point of view, at all. There is nothing like this in Star Trek.
It's been explored repeatedly in Science Fiction, most notably by Isaac Asimov in the Foundation series.
Need I mention the force? Microscopic life forms (midichlorians) giving magical powers to people? It is an interesting plot device, but rooted in any kind of science? No.
Midichlorians were the attempt to root it into some kind of science. I could invent all kinds of bullshit QM explanations for them but I'm not that much of a fanboy. I don't think we need to go into the whole mind-melding thing as a counterexample. Can't we just accept that both are fantasy, and move on?
Re:Star Wars v. Star Trek (Score:3, Informative)
One of the things that Star Wars had over Star Trek is the fact that the science, or lack of it, was never a critical point of the story. Nothing wrong with bad science with your fantasy, but Star Trek tried making the bad science part of the plotline which was idiotic. Making up a particle that causes some problem, then making up another particle that fixes the problem caused by the first fake particle is beyond stupid. You don't gain anything from it.
Yeah. 'Cuz Star Wars never had a plot that depended on a fictional technology (force fields and, erm, force fields) with blatant plot holes (the most important control panel on the huge-freaking ship is in the most obscure, out-of-the-way, unguarded spot on the ship or the force field generator is on a populated moon that doesn't seem to orbit anything {and has the solar-cycle of a planet} which is guarded by a small force of second-rate troops with no heavy weapons*).
*No AT-STs are not heavy weapons. Looking at what we've seen of the Empire's technology, they're equivalent to, maybe, an M-60. Squad weapons. In fact the Empire should have really looked into developing planetary fighters. Would have made a lot of their exploits easier. Searching Tatooine, Hoth, Endor,... And maybe invent frickin' IR scopes to put in those stupid helmets.
Blasters aren't lasers. (Score:4, Informative)
Star wars blasters are actually (I can't believe I said that) bolts of superheated plasma, not lasers. The plasma is what does the damage, not the laser. That's why they call them "blasters" and not "lasers", as well as why they have visible flight time instead of being nigh-instantaneous. (It doesn't explain why one side's ships have orange bolts and the other side has green, though. That never made sense to me.) More details at [ http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Blaster [wikia.com] ].
Similarly, a lightsaber is described as a blade of plasma, held in place by a projected energy field. It's not a laser either. ( per [ http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lightsaber [wikia.com] ] )
Re:SF: only one impossibility per story (Score:3, Informative)
I can think of good, hard SF where the story ends up being about something that might happen, and by the end, we might want it to happen:
Here's a short list for potential converts:
The Novel length version of Greg Bear's Blood Music, (but not the short story, that's definitely a 'would NOT want it to happen')
Arthur C. Clarke - Childhood's End, The City and the Stars, 2001 (if you ignore the sequels, as Clarke himself recommended)
John Brunner - The Stone that Never Came Down
Brainstorm (the Christopher Walken/Natalie Wood film, not the Jeff Hunter film)
Re:SF: only one impossibility per story (Score:3, Informative)
Yup, it was him. I remember him saying that or something very similar on TV once.
Re:Need to Mod Articles (Score:5, Informative)
Star Wars is adolescent nonsense, ... Star Trek can turn your brains to puree of bat guano, and the greatest science fiction series of all time is Doctor Who! And I'll take you all on, one-by-one or all in a bunch to back it up!
- Harlan Ellison
But of course I agree.
Re:Star Wars is WAY better than Star Trek (Score:3, Informative)
Who decided that Klingons should be Black people, huh?
Your charges of racism have no validity. The Klingons were played by white actors during the original series. They switched to mostly black players for the later series, but the Klingons were good guys (for the most part) by then.
You don't see ANY kind of racist shit like that in Star Wars.
Mesa called Jar-Jar Binks. Mesa your humble servant.
If you asked any reasonable people who have actually looked at physics, or just observed thr world around them, Star Trek SUCKS compared to Star Wars.
Spare me. Neither one is realistic. That's why it's called Science Fiction.