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Irrational Science Fiction & Fantasy Clichés

WTF is 3 seashells? Sounds a bit, er, 'abrasive' for your clag-ons.
It's a ref from 'Demolition Man'.
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I love those old Chinese kung fu films.
Ha! I used to watch them when I was younger. And I still love a spaghetti westerns. But I prefer subtitles. Oddly, when I was typing that post, I was thinking of those weird moments you get sometimes watching something online when the sound is ever so slightly offset from the image. I haven't seen it recently, but Netflix seemed to do this every so often.
 
Nobody ever goes to the toilet unless it's necessary for the plot. You don't even see a 'gents' sign on any doors of any spaceships. I mean what's happened in the future - have we evolved a way to 'bake it' all day or something?
I imagine Star Trek TNG would be a bit different if Picard said to Riker "You have the chair, Number One, while I go for a number two....."

If you want to watch films where people visit the toilet, I'm sure there are "specialist" videos available for you.
 
The most wonderful scene from Babylon 5 came as all the human and alien ships left the Station for the final battle - back of shot were two 1950's style Flying Saucers - never revealed what race they belonged to.
Those were Vree ships. The Vree weren't in many episodes, in part because one of their gimmicks was inability to communicate with most humanoids except via pictograms... that look like crop circles. It's funny, but true... Vree actually had pretty advanced tech for a "younger race". https://babylon5.fandom.com/wiki/Vree

I may have helped work on a space strategy game mod that was themed on Babylon 5. :D
 
Interspecies communication has popped up a couple of times in this thread. I said earlier that I was willing to let that go for its narrative convenience.

Planet of the Apes (the Chuck Heston original, in this instance) is quite silly in this regard. Only at the end does our hero realise that he's on Earth, yet he has been speaking English with the apes for the last 2 hours!

It's still a great film, of course, and as you say, narrative convenience is important to keep the story moving along. Nobody wants to see hours and hours of characters learning to speak a new language.
 
Concerning a five-year mission on Star Trek; the Franklin Expedition to the North West Passage was supposed to be prepared for a five-year mission. They had a lot of tinned stuff, but I think they expected to do a lot of hunting. In the event, they were all dead five years later. Hunting was not as easy as they expected.
A five year mission should be doable in the 23rd century, especially with replicators.
 
They recycle their pee and poo. Same as on the ISS.
 
Planet of the Apes (the Chuck Heston original, in this instance) is quite silly in this regard. Only at the end does our hero realise that he's on Earth, yet he has been speaking English with the apes for the last 2 hours!

It's still a great film, of course, and as you say, narrative convenience is important to keep the story moving along. Nobody wants to see hours and hours of characters learning to speak a new language.
Stargate sometimes addressed this by having the team do some sort of recon to figure out what language the locals spoke, but that also included general recon of the culture etc too.
Concerning a five-year mission on Star Trek; the Franklin Expedition to the North West Passage was supposed to be prepared for a five-year mission. They had a lot of tinned stuff, but I think they expected to do a lot of hunting. In the event, they were all dead five years later. Hunting was not as easy as they expected.
A five year mission should be doable in the 23rd century, especially with replicators.
IIRC in TOS they could and did return to Starbases for repair/resupply if needed, it's just that they spent most of their time exploring.
 
Stargate sometimes addressed this by having the team do some sort of recon to figure out what language the locals spoke, but that also included general recon of the culture etc too.
IIRC in TOS they could and did return to Starbases for repair/resupply if needed, it's just that they spent most of their time exploring.
I remember a toilet scene in sg1 where carter stopped o'Neil in the corridor to waffle some science babble at him. He replied with something like 'that's great, do it, I've really got to go'. And promptly goes through at door marked, toilet.
 
Imagine having to read through that lot if you've spent the previous night knocking back Romulan Ale and then a Klingon curry.

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WRT the whole 'telepathy' thing.

I can just about wave through the possibility of telepathy, but I have trouble with the 'guidedness' of it. The 'reader' can always tell what the person whose thoughts they 'need' to read is thinking, rather than the person standing behind them, or someone who isn't even there. Or the dog. I suppose it's not that good as a tense scene when the psi op puts their fingertips to their forehead, their eyes turn black and they say 'fuck Chappie, it's Kennomeat or nothing.'
 
Kubrick and Clarke evidently expected the Loo-going public of the future to be;

a). Smart.

b). Patient.

c). Both.
 
WRT the whole 'telepathy' thing.

I can just about wave through the possibility of telepathy, but I have trouble with the 'guidedness' of it. The 'reader' can always tell what the person whose thoughts they 'need' to read is thinking, rather than the person standing behind them, or someone who isn't even there. Or the dog. I suppose it's not that good as a tense scene when the psi op puts their fingertips to their forehead, their eyes turn black and they say 'fuck Chappie, it's Kennomeat or nothing.'
Haha! Yeah, in sci-fi it's always more powerful and directed than we see from those claiming some kind of gift in real life. The sinister psychic is never sent to telepathically interrogate someone, and turns up with two A4 pads and says, 'Right, now draw a picture, don't let me see it, and I'll draw what I can see in my mind, and we'll put them in envelopes and get two audience members to open them.'

But I wouldn't have a problem if these overblown psychic talents appeared in one or two franchises. It's just that it appears all the time, as though it's a foregone conclusion that we'll have powerful psychics in the future. When the reality, from what I've seen, is that we'll still have nothing more than occasional anecdotes and potentially flawed experiments.
 
How dare you! l’ve never either drunk a pint of John Smith’s, or eaten mushy peas, in my life!

maximus otter

Nowt wrong with mushy peas max - they're just peas. I'm with you on John Smith's though.
 
People in the distant future of 2001 would never be;
a) Drunk
b) Desperate

I doubt you would be required to read the instructions every time before you relieved yourself. And has anyone ever been drunk in space? Apart from Captain Haddock.
 
Haha! Yeah, in sci-fi it's always more powerful and directed than we see from those claiming some kind of gift in real life. The sinister psychic is never sent to telepathically interrogate someone, and turns up with two A4 pads and says, 'Right, now draw a picture, don't let me see it, and I'll draw what I can see in my mind, and we'll put them in envelopes and get two audience members to open them.'

But I wouldn't have a problem if these overblown psychic talents appeared in one or two franchises. It's just that it appears all the time, as though it's a foregone conclusion that we'll have powerful psychics in the future. When the reality, from what I've seen, is that we'll still have nothing more than occasional anecdotes and potentially flawed experiments.
One of the better things in Babylon 5 is that there are multiple grades of psionic talent. Sure there are guys like Alfred Bester who can read your mind like a book, but Bester is one of the best of the best. Apparently the majority of the people with psi talents struggle with making out individual words in the minds of other people.
 
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