Things you've always wondered about in sci-fi movies

My beef is that they randomly stumble onto so many earth-like planets in science fiction.
There are a lot of them out there and, let's be honest, the purpose of science fiction is the entertain. Mostly, it would be boredom. Nothing would happen. That's not entertaining. That's why it only shows the exciting parts and not the hours of just staring at a screen.
 
As someone said, they A) specifically seek out those kind of planets, so it isn't random, and B) they surely come across a lot of boring planets but those missions are not made into episodes.
 
In "Back To The Future", Doc talks about the "space-time continuum", actually he talks more about "time" continuum.

Think about it, Earth is travelling through space, our solar system, the Sun, the Milky Way, yet somehow Doc Brown can calculate the exact position relative to "Hill Valley" in "any-time continuum".

One minute into the future, 30 years into the past and so on, doesn't matter, we love the movies, that's what counts.
 
In "Back To The Future", Doc talks about the "space-time continuum", actually he talks more about "time" continuum.

Think about it, Earth is travelling through space, our solar system, the Sun, the Milky Way, yet somehow Doc Brown can calculate the exact position relative to "Hill Valley" in "any-time continuum".

One minute into the future, 30 years into the past and so on, doesn't matter, we love the movies, that's what counts.

Well, it is all about reference points.

There is a constant that isn't really a constant, called the Hubble Constant, that everything in the universe is accelerating away from (or towards the edges), expanding. If your reference point for space ( Up, Down, Left, Right, Front and Back) is a fixed point on the Earth, then BTTF time travel makes perfect sense. If you use a reference point based on where the Earth was in relation to the center of the universe or our galaxy, they'd end up not on Earth.

Time is a dimension, but not in space.

The reason we hear about Dark Matter, for instance, is because certain physicist and astrophysicist screwed up their prediction of the Hubble constant and the mass of the universe by 95% !!!

Imagine being off by 95% in your math/science class, I don't think deGrasse Tyson would settle for you throwing up your hands proclaiming "dark matter!"

Think of the person who concludes you should be able to jump out of a crashing plane at the last instant without injury. Afterall, they didnt *feel* like they were moving at the plane's crash speed; not understanding the plane is headed towards the ground with you in it; you adopted the plane's speed as well.

Friends and I have joked about a Star Trek like scenario where away missions are boooorriinnng. Like episodes of 30 Something boring --away team asking to beam down a fifth cup o coffee, boring. Every now and then an alpha predator threatens the crew or a manipulative, lower -science culture tries to sucker Star Fleet into giving away tech.
 
Why is the future "grey"?

Sci-fi movies in general are always "grey", that familiarity with the "military", NASA is not the military. "Battleship Grey" for spaceships, fine, unless green like Starbug, but if you are on a spaceship for months, or years at a time, then add some "home-style" decor, even Enterprise D had carpets on the floor and some plants, if really depressed, there is the "holodeck".
 
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My beef is that they randomly stumble onto so many earth-like planets in science fiction.
My beef is more how many planets out there within the habitable zone seem to have only singular biomes. All desert, all ice, all forest, all water. Earth is an incredibly geologically diverse planet. There needs to be more diversity in the design of alien planets.
 
My beef is more how many planets out there within the habitable zone seem to have only singular biomes. All desert, all ice, all forest, all water. Earth is an incredibly geologically diverse planet. There needs to be more diversity in the design of alien planets.

That's really only a problem in Star Wars, and in some cases it does make sense. All Ice is very plausible, all water is definitely possible as well, So is all city for that matter. All desert and all volcano is physically possible, but I'm not sure how breathable the atmosphere would be.

All forest or all jungle, or all mountain is not really plausible, but how many spots on the surface do we really see of any given planet? Do we actually know they are all one biome type?
 
That's really only a problem in Star Wars, and in some cases it does make sense. All Ice is very plausible, all water is definitely possible as well, So is all city for that matter. All desert and all volcano is physically possible, but I'm not sure how breathable the atmosphere would be.

All forest or all jungle, or all mountain is not really plausible, but how many spots on the surface do we really see of any given planet? Do we actually know they are all one biome type?
While plausible, it doesn't seem all that realistic. Earth was once an all-volcanic planet, but that was during the Archeon, when the planet was only about 1.5 billion years old (less than half of its current age) and vertebrate life wouldn't evolve for another 2 billion years, let alone intelligent life. Most ice and desert planets we know about are outside of their system's habitable zone. The only desert planet in our own solar system within the habitable zone is Mars, which used to run with rivers of water. The only reason it doesn't anymore is because it was too small to form a powerful enough magnetic field, and eventually the water (and any life that may have evolved in it) was blasted away by solar bursts.

I think the biggest problem with the model of planets in Star Wars (as well as other planets like LV-426, Arrakis, Planet P, etc) is that there's no polar ice caps shown, even when the planet is temperate like Endor, Naboo, or Coruscant. And Naboo and Alderaan seem to show the most variety in the planets we see in Star Wars. Lothal seems to present the closet we see to ice caps with frozen tundra shown at the poles. But for the most part, there's no ice caps in Star Wars. Star Trek generally seems to get around this by presenting the planet as nothing more than a colorful ball in space.
 
"Building Better World's"

In "Aliens", on LV-426, the planet is now breathable, compared to the previous movie, so are Atmosphere Processors realistic? They showed a glimpse of one in the "Serenity" movie too. With climate change issues on Earth, would something similar help to filter our atmosphere too?

We have obviously trees and plants, plus Earth is a "Goldilocks" planet, not too hot, not too cold, but with climate change out of a "natural balance", losing the Amazon rainforest more and more each day, can we build an Atmosphere Processor to put back the "natural balance"? Planting more trees is the obvious answer, but land is valuable, and our natural resources are being depleted, so can an Atmosphere Processor be a realistic alternative? Not just one, but multiple across the planet for maximum effect.
 
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Earth was once an all-volcanic planet, but that was during the Archeon, when the planet was only about 1.5 billion years old (less than half of its current age) and vertebrate life wouldn't evolve for another 2 billion years, let alone intelligent life. Most ice and desert planets we know about are outside of their system's habitable zone.

Shouldn't we just assume Mustafar is in it's Archeon phase? It doesn't have native life. Setting up a breathable atmosphere around the buildings doesn't seem too hard for Star Wars tech.

Don't forget Earth went through a couple extreme ice ages half a billion years ago, dubbed "Snowball Earth", wouldn't have looked all that different from Hoth.
 
Shouldn't we just assume Mustafar is in it's Archeon phase? It doesn't have native life. Setting up a breathable atmosphere around the buildings doesn't seem too hard for Star Wars tech.

Don't forget Earth went through a couple extreme ice ages half a billion years ago, dubbed "Snowball Earth", wouldn't have looked all that different from Hoth.
The glacial ice sheets did not cover the whole planet. The equatorial zone was still ice free, though it was colder than today.

And there are native Mustafarians. We see them in Ep. 3: Mustafarian

Also, I recall the Star Wars Locations books stating that Mustafar's volcanism is caused by the magnetic tug of war between it's neighboring gas giant planets. Though, I'm not sure if that's canon anymore.
 
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While plausible, it doesn't seem all that realistic. Earth was once an all-volcanic planet, but that was during the Archeon, when the planet was only about 1.5 billion years old (less than half of its current age) and vertebrate life wouldn't evolve for another 2 billion years, let alone intelligent life. Most ice and desert planets we know about are outside of their system's habitable zone. The only desert planet in our own solar system within the habitable zone is Mars, which used to run with rivers of water. The only reason it doesn't anymore is because it was too small to form a powerful enough magnetic field, and eventually the water (and any life that may have evolved in it) was blasted away by solar bursts.

I think the biggest problem with the model of planets in Star Wars (as well as other planets like LV-426, Arrakis, Planet P, etc) is that there's no polar ice caps shown, even when the planet is temperate like Endor, Naboo, or Coruscant. And Naboo and Alderaan seem to show the most variety in the planets we see in Star Wars. Lothal seems to present the closet we see to ice caps with frozen tundra shown at the poles. But for the most part, there's no ice caps in Star Wars. Star Trek generally seems to get around this by presenting the planet as nothing more than a colorful ball in space.
Agreed with everything but polar ice caps. Polar ice caps are not necessarily a feature of all Earth like planets because for most of its history Earth had no free standing ice. During the Mesozoic Antarctica was inhabited by dinosaurs of various kinds and was completely free of ice. The only reason why we have polar ice caps today is that we're still technically in an ice age, if it weren't for that both poles would be completely ice free.
 
Back to my super hero analysis…and I am sober this time:

Recently, in the new Spider-Man, No Way Home, Andrew Garfield’s Spidey proves to MJ that he is spiderman by jumping up to the ceiling and suspending himself by 4 fingers.

Let’s be honest, anyone who has gone into their crawl space, (no pun intended) and missed stepping onto a rafter, knows that your foot goes right though the plasterboard. It is not meant to carry weight.

I also believe that even if he used his Peter Tingle to attach at the rafter, he still would have pulled the plaster from the ceiling (even if attached with screws)
 
While plausible, it doesn't seem all that realistic. Earth was once an all-volcanic planet, but that was during the Archeon, when the planet was only about 1.5 billion years old (less than half of its current age) and vertebrate life wouldn't evolve for another 2 billion years, let alone intelligent life. Most ice and desert planets we know about are outside of their system's habitable zone. The only desert planet in our own solar system within the habitable zone is Mars, which used to run with rivers of water. The only reason it doesn't anymore is because it was too small to form a powerful enough magnetic field, and eventually the water (and any life that may have evolved in it) was blasted away by solar bursts.

Except at *Best* Archean is an axiom.

Miller was caught cheating to make a point. Used the wrong gases and cold traps to preserve findings.

Later he even admitted to it.

Doesnt stop folks from still believing in it.

Then we were told meteors brought preformed organic material, to avoid addressing, "where did the meteors get the organic material?" B...but you need an atmosphere to create the environment so the meteor had to carry organic material inside, and magically release it to the correct batch o soup at the right time.

I feel like the primordial soup findings are an episode of Power Rangers, where Rita shrieks, " this weeks discovery will prove it for sure!" Bada has even gone to such lengths as to follow a recipe! He gets caught. Silently has to agree, then starts over.

My computer is less complicated than any living cell in my body, and I hope we can agree it had to be built. Otherwise it would be a block of oxidized sludge...this has been proven. Past being an axiom.

Mustafar is a volcanic planet for the sake of a story. I also seem to remember reading about Chewie dying on an exploding moon. Shields worked until they didnt.

If midichloreans had kaons, atleast *then* we could claim to have reproduced their interactions on some level.
 
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Just sifted through this thread, had a some thoughts about a couple of the questions posited.
I'm sure how Superman shaves and cuts his hair has been addressed in the comics, maybe more than once. I seem to remember a silver age comic answering it, though I don't recall for sure (I could probably google search to find for sure, but where's the fun in that?). I think he used his heat vision and a mirror to reflect it back at his face to shave. But the Will Smith movie "Hancock" had an interesting way - his character had Superman-like powers and showed him shaving using his own fingernails to scrape away his stubble.

The Star Trek transporters are problematic. In TNG they had "biofilters" which eliminated foreign elements from their bodies on transport, and the transporter buffers stored essentially every atom of anything transported, which kind of creates a plot hole. Since they used them to fix illnesses and other genetic related problems, why not do it for all illnesses? Or to prevent themselves from aging? Picard, Ensign Ro, Keiko O'Brien, and Guinan once de-aged to children due to a transporter accident (while maintaining their adult minds and memories) and were restored using their transporter patterns that are kept on file for all the crew. I'm not sure how the ship has enough memory to keep even one pattern of a human being on file, much less the entire crew. Also, Riker actually had a duplicate of himself created due to another transporter accident. Scotty survived until the 24th century with his pattern stored in the buffers. The question of realism in engineering and the concept of human souls seems to be irrelevant every time someone is reduced to a computer file (don't get me started on what's happened on Star Trek: Picard). But we suspend our disbelief in favor of hopefully compelling stories that explore our own humanity.
 
Just sifted through this thread, had a some thoughts about a couple of the questions posited.
I'm sure how Superman shaves and cuts his hair has been addressed in the comics, maybe more than once. I seem to remember a silver age comic answering it, though I don't recall for sure (I could probably google search to find for sure, but where's the fun in that?). I think he used his heat vision and a mirror to reflect it back at his face to shave.
Yep, he uses his heat vision to burn the stubble off:
 

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