Andre Lieven wrote:
The aliens in2001, we got nothing. I wonder if that non depiction in
2001inspiredCarlSagan,bothinhisCosmossensawundaand in
not showing the aliens in Contact - we only saw one human form
manifestation of them.

Andre Lieven wrote:
I've heard that Chloris Leachman said similar things about some of her
best work on Blazing Saddles.

I kind of hate to tell you this, but that was Madeline Kahn in Blazing
Saddles....Cloris Leachman was in Young Frankenstein, and did do a
slam-dunk job in that part, although just about everyone else was out
shown by Gene Hackman's cameo as the blind man.
How he ended up in that movie is that he and Gene Wilder used to play
tennis together, and Hackman said he wanted to play some small part in
the movie. Wilder was amazed that he wanted anything to do with
something like that.
I love how they leave the Espresso scene to the viewer's imagination...
if he can wreak that much havoc with soup, just imagine him with live
steam. :-D



This isn't exactly helped by the fact that the people on the Moon in the
movie walk and move as if they are at full Earth gravity, rather than
1/6 G, so you might think they are on the surface of some other planet
that has near Earth strength gravity.

There were, after all, limits to 1968 SPFX technology. Plus, don't
forget,
as of 1968, no member of the public had yet seen humans walking on
the Moon, so there was nothing immediate to visually compare to.

Except other science fiction movies, and a lot of times they had people
jumping around in the low lunar gravity as a staple.
I think the Disney "Man In Space" series of programs made most people
realize that the gravity on the Moon was far lower, and you could leap
around.
Considering all the trouble Kubrick went to to simulate weightlessness,
leaving the low Gs out of the few lunar scenes was a little odd.

Pat

Also one of the most pornographic. I've been long amazed that Lolita was
nearly sexless, but just the opening credits of Strangelove is arguably
the most explicit sexual scene of any major motion picture, ever. The
long cylindrical forms of the airframes, the flying probe and drogue.
And, at the moment of completion, that little visible spurt of the
fluids from the one on top with the probe to the one underneath who was
accepting the fluids of life...

(Yes, even more more explicit than the famous orgy sequence of Eyes Wide
Shut.)

Considering how even any kind of sensible scientific facts were
totally left out of most science fiction films before and after
2001 ... I consider criticisms such as this nits.

Considering how even any kind of sensible scientific facts were
totally left out of most science fiction films before and after
2001 ... I consider criticisms such as this nits.

Al <aa...@flash.net> wrote:
Considering how even any kind of sensible scientific facts were
totally left out of most science fiction films before and after
2001 ... I consider criticisms such as this nits.

Considering the shaky scientific ground on which "2001" stood... your
point is?

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

"Al" <aa...@flash.net> wrote in message

news:3ccef1d2-fa30-42ea-8e9f-f1c998950878@u36g2000prf.googlegroups.com...

Considering how even any kind of sensible scientific facts were
totally left out of most science fiction films before and after
2001 ... I consider criticisms such as this nits.

there are no facts in science. There are observations, hypotheses and
theories.

Today's "facts" are tomorrow's overgeneralized approximations made by people
who didn't have access to the latest methods and theories.

--
Terrell Miller
mille...@bellsouth.net

"If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee - that
will do them in."
- Bradley's Bromide

"Gene DiGennaro" <genedigenn...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:64aaffce-ab55-435c-af7c-300f6092e592@k13g2000hse.googlegroups.com...

Obviously, there was great cinematic effect in having the Pan Am
clipper rotate in sync with the center hangar, but I always thought it
would be much more practical, though less dramatic to dock with the
wheel on its outermost point. Dock on the tangent.

Docking at the outermost point would create a lot of force on the docking
mechanism.  Ignoring that issue, you've still got the problem of the mass of
the shuttle throwing the rotating station out of balance.

The (better) sci-fi I've read that describes docking off the rotation axis
describes active movement of weights (or water in tanks) on the station to
keep it balanced.  In practice, I'd imagine that this would be quite
cumbersome unless the mass of the shuttle is very small compared to the mass
of the station.

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein

On Apr 10, 2:24 am, fairwa...@gmail.com (Derek Lyons) wrote:
Al <aa...@flash.net> wrote:
Considering how even any kind of sensible scientific facts were
totally left out of most science fiction films before and after
2001 ... I consider criticisms such as this nits.

Considering the shaky scientific ground on which "2001" stood... your
point is?

What was shaky?

The back ground technology was worked out in exacting
detail by engineers Fred Ordway, Harry Lange and Aerospace consultants
in both the USA and England.

Practically everything about the Discovery for starters. (Note the
lack of cooling fins, the lack of fuel tanks, lack of room for
supplies, etc...)

Derek Lyons wrote:

Practically everything about the Discovery for starters. (Note the
lack of cooling fins, the lack of fuel tanks, lack of room for
supplies, etc...)


I think all the box-like things along the length of it is where the fuel
was supposed to be...some form of solidified hydrogen isotopes IIRC,
although Wikipedia says ammonia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_One Originally, the design did
have cooling fins on it in its earliest conceptions, but Kubrick wanted
it to look like a cross between a sperm cell and a spinal column to get
across the connection to the ape throwing the bone into the air and the
creation of the Starchild.

Although it doesn't rotate, the design is perfect for the creation of
artificial gravity by rotating the whole works, so that the front of the
crew sphere would be "down" as it's counterbalanced by the engine
module, with the antenna array at the center of rotation.
This would have made a lot more sense than the centrifuge in the crew
sphere...it's so small in diameter that the crew will be sick in no time
as they move around in it.

Obviously, there was great cinematic effect in having the Pan Am
clipper rotate in sync with the center hangar, but I always thought it
would be much more practical, though less dramatic to dock with the
wheel on its outermost point. Dock on the tangent.

Obviously, there was great cinematic effect in having the Pan Am
clipper rotate in sync with the center hangar, but I always thought it
would be much more practical, though less dramatic to dock with the
wheel on its outermost point. Dock on the tangent.

Practically everything about the Discovery for starters. (Note the
lack of cooling fins, the lack of fuel tanks, lack of room for
supplies, etc...)