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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Trainz" data-source="post: 2180100" data-attributes="member: 2122">Thanks Pbartender. Your diatribe was quite interesting and fun to read.Actually, it sums up pretty much how I feel about Sci-Fi shows. Most of it is possible, *IF* we don't look at it with our 21st century knowledge.For example, let's say a dude in the 30's did a sci-fi movie in which one of the characters uses a round cristalline disc to store data, which is afterwards read by a laser beam. Some random dude watching that movie in the 30's could say "that's preposterous... how can a beam of light *read* something ? It can only illuminate or burn..." because in the 30's, the proprieties of light were not well known by the general populace. In fact, we barely know light's proprieties TODAY.On misused words; language evolves, changes. A parsec is a unit measuring distance *for us*, but who's to say that in 500 years the word will not loose it's original meaning to signify a unit of time ?Frankly, about anything is plausible in sci-fi simply because it happens in the future. Things will be different in the future: physics, language, everything.What *does* get on my nerves in sci-fi shows is when I see a common item from my time (now, in real life, on earth) used:Clothing: we know for a fact that fashion varies greatly. Some would smirk at someone wearing the clothes from *15* years ago. I just can't strike it up to coincidence when I see someone in a futuristic sci-fi show that wears clothing too similar to what is in fashion today. It destroys my disbelief (Battlestar Galactica).Items: On Battlestar Galactica, their inner communication system uses phones that look exactly like those used by our military a few years back. Ditto their control panels. Hell, some dude was drawing a line on a map with a ruler and pen to calculate some navigational procedure on the bridge. When I see those, I instantly stop being immersed in the futuristic universe the show pretends to portray.Vocabulary: I can understand that the characters speak english because most wouldn't enjoy some alien language subtitled (I would though, it would increase my immersion in the alienness of the show), but I hate it when the use an earth-specific noun in a universe that has no ties to earth. Example, Millenium Falcon. I don't believe they have falcons in the Star Wars universe, in fact, AFAIK, not a single earth animal has been used in the movies OR the books, but, hey, Millenium Falcon. Explosions in space ? Sure, I have NO idea what properties the engines of futuristic spaceships will have.</blockquote>

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