I saw THE CORE! [not completely OT]

[Umbran]

Okay, I am a physicist by trade, and I'm willing to put up with a lot. However, I'm a little put off by something alluded to in a review I've read...

"Unobtanium"?

 

[jonrog1]

The only suspension of disbelief issues I had were (a) the non-rigid "space" suit scenes (pretty sure that's instant crushy), and (b) the radio signals somehow reaching the surface (and vice versa). I felt everything else was nicely explained, even for a geek like me.

Well done!

The suits weren't supposed to be pressure suits. The only reason they can go outside in the geode was that the gas pressure within was much, MUCH lower than the standard pressure at that depth. That pressure differential was not only why Zimsky was amazed that the geode had survived, but why the geode collapsed. One of those little dialogue edits they do in the editing room that I think they may have shaved too thin.

And they weren't using radio waves -- it goes by pretty quick, but Josh does say "Electron Spin Burst transmitter" when he activates it. It's pretty hard sci-fi, but we used the phenomena of separated aspects of an electron keeping the same spin as the basis for the communications suite.

Glad most who saw it liked it. Going to be a tough weekend, but I think we'll do all right in the long run.

 

[Silver Moon]

Let's just say the last thing you want to hear in a development meeting are the words "I mean, nobody knows what's down there, right? Anything could be down there!"
Uh-oh.

I got a big kick out of reading that. I used to work with a woman whose son wrote "In the Line of Fire". She spoke of the development meeting where the movie execs were willing to greenlight the screenplay but wanted it "reworked as a film for Tom Cruise". The writer explained how the fact that the Secret Service agent had been present during the Kennedy Assassination was too critical to the plot to be re-written. It took him another year of pushing the script before Clint Eastwood took an interest in the project.

BTW, I wasn't planning to see this film (or to at least wait until it came out on video), but this thread has changed my mind. I'll also check out those Story Hour threads.

 

[Umbran]

Getting that joke's kind of the bellweather of the audience actually. They get that, and they dig the movie. It's kind of amusing how many humorless small-town reviewers cite that as yet more evidence of why they hate the big dumb sci-fi movie.

*shrug* And we now reach the point where I, not having seen the movie, can't really comment. Don't have the context.

 

[Xeriar]

It's a joke. Based on something the JPL guys toss around (we even used it back when I was thrashing around for my degree). Whenever they need a theoretical but currently unobtainable by standard technology material for some hypothesis to work, they nickname the material "unobtanium" as a placeholder.

It's used all over the place. Given an impossible task, regardless of engineering feild, when asked by their managers why they aren't making progress 'we're waiting for the next shipment of unobtainium'.

And they weren't using radio waves -- it goes by pretty quick, but Josh does say "Electron Spin Burst transmitter" when he activates it. It's pretty hard sci-fi, but we used the phenomena of separated aspects of an electron keeping the same spin as the basis for the communications suite.

They have the same initial spin, I hadn't heard they could manage to seperate the electrons and have them actually be worth communicating with...

 

[Umbran]

It's used all over the place.

Not as widely spread as you might think. As I said, I'm in physics myself, and have never heard the joke.

Jokes based on specific jargon will tend to fall flat, for this very reason - not enough people will get it. Perhaps it becomes time to unbrand those "humorless" reviewers?

 

[WizarDru]

Not as widely spread as you might think. As I said, I'm in physics myself, and have never heard the joke.

Jokes based on specific jargon will tend to fall flat, for this very reason - not enough people will get it. Perhaps it becomes time to unbrand those "humorless" reviewers?

Or it might be more wide-spread than you think. I'm not even in a science field, and I've heard it used a couple of times before from my friends who are biochemists or engineers.

 

[Paul_Klein]

I hate to sidetrack this thread a bit, but Mark said something that has me wondering.

Jonrog1, are you working on the screenplay for the Foundation trilogy of books, or is he talking about a different Foundation?

 

[CmdrSam]

No offense, my man, but a bunch of us students at Caltech saw the trailer and we just couldn't stop laughing. Maybe the movie just isn't aimed at us, because I'm pretty sure there's no way we could take it seriously.

Anyways, if you're writing a screenplay for Asimov's Foundation, that's certainly something I'd like to see! Good luck on your future projects.

--Sam L-L

 

[Mark]

That's what I believe I had read elsewhere and, if I am not mistaken, read a response that mentioned there would be a fair amount of supplemental material added since much of what Asimov does is start a scene with talking heads explaining what happen in the previous scene that wasn't included where there was action. I may be off base here but I'm sure we'll get it from the horses mouth soon enough.

RE: Unobtainium - In an early eighties improv that a buddy of mine and I used to work on, we used that element as being the one that had been used to fashion an object being sought by two hapless adventurers; an object that they, from the audience's perspective, never had a chance in hell of finding. We never had a single person not roar with laughter when they heard the two dreamers describe the object as being made from that substance. I don't think it requires much in the way of scientific knowledge to get that joke.