Movies that got it right

[Gary]

I was reading the Mill Falcon links and was wondering, in your opinions, which craft did movies get "it" right? I am thinking about things like the compromises that movie makers must make. The classic example I think of is how crappy the shuttles in the TV series Star Trek, the Next Generation. Not an ounce of reality to accommodate the machinery for warp drive, fuel for sub-light drive etc etc. They were flipping boxx that never ever looked right.
Shuttlecraft - Memory Beta, non-canon Star Trek Wiki


Conversely, that terrible movie Stealth, I thought they got the manned fighters to look right. Albeit I did find them smallish, but not terribly so. I could believe the fighters when I saw them.





***fixed html link so it goes straight to the url instead of through the Google search window that you had it linked to.  You now have an image instead of the html link :^)***

[Mossie]

Aliens got it right with the dropship & APC.  I was never too keen on the Colonial Marines themselves though, thought they just looked like warmed over GI's.  The Power Lifter pretty much looked like an industrial machine & fed off exoskeleton designs from the seventies & eighties that never came to fruition.  The Sulaco wasn't bad I thought the fact that it looked like the Pulse Rifles was a bit of a cop out, although it's been copied ever since, especially by Babylon 5's Earth Force Ships.

Talking of Babylon 5, they largely got their designs right too, the Star Fury was good & the Thunderbolt better.  I liked the Minbari ships along with the White Star.   Earth ships weren't my favourite, there was always the inference that we were one of the more dominant species but our technology appeared well behind some of the species that were more incidental in the series.  Babylon 5 itself always seemed a little skinny to me, I preferred Babylon 4 but I 'm splitting hairs.  The Shadow ships had a very sinister, otherworldly feel, which is exactly what I think the makers were trying to get across.

Gerry Anderson did it well, Thunderbirds especially.  He drew on cutting edge designs of the time & drew on the future as it was seen in the sixties.  It's like a snaphot in time that's dated, but doesn't look bad because many of the concepts still remain elusive now.  Thunderbird 2 is the pinnacle, IMHO.

[Weaver]

Talking of Babylon 5, they largely got their designs right too, the Star Fury was good & the Thunderbolt better.  I liked the Minbari ships along with the White Star.   Earth ships weren't my favourite, there was always the inference that we were one of the more dominant species but our technology appeared well behind some of the species that were more incidental in the series. 

Now you see I didn't take that inference from it: my impression was that we were technologically level with most, significantly behind the Mimbari (who'd whupped our asses not long before, remember), and only on the up due to attitude and ambition.

Not exactly ship design, but I LOVED the battle at B5 where the loyalist and rebel Earth fleets came to blows. The last ditch attempts at mediation and the reluctance of some officers to open fire rang very true: it reminded me of a quote from the English Civil War where someone (I forget who) looked aghast at the first battle and made some comment about "Englishman killing Englishman: oh, the pity of it".

The other thing I liked about that battle was the realistic dynamics of it: when one Earth ship rams another, it's outer shell crushes at first, but then as the structural cores touch, it "picks up" the other and pushed it sideways. Starfuries straff big ships and then turn around and fly backwards, still shooting as they escape (i.e. they behave like proper spaceships in a vacuum). At the end, a loyalist Earth ship drifts away with small fires kicking off and sputtering out all over it: instead of having it explode (cliche), all it's lights go out, it's comms cease, and it begins to roll in the same direction as it's spin habitat as it loses attitude control and the friction in the bearings begins to bite.

Somebody put a lot of serious thought into that....... 

[sotoolslinger]

My personal favorite has always been the lunar interceptors from UFO

[Weaver]

My personal favorite has always been the lunar interceptors from UFO

The one-shot-what-if-they-send-four-ufos-at-once-wonders, you mean? 

[sotoolslinger]

Hey they had machine guns too. :blink:Those work in space right against advanced alien technology

[rallymodeller]

Although I  Aliens, from a realism standpoint there are a couple of issues:

1. The M577 APC is much, MUCH too small outside for what was supposedly inside. I have a 1/35 kit of it, and there is no way the interior as depicted would fit. Unless it's a TARDIS.

2. The UD-4L Dropship, while much better, suffers from the usual SF problem in that it doesn't have enough tankage for the fuel it would need for an orbital insertion. I have a kit of this one as well, in 1/72. Just gotta finish the cockpit. I'm also doing a companion ship described (but not pictured) in The Colonial Marines Technical Manual called the AD-19 Bearcat Strikeship. I really should post in-progress pics.

No matter how realistic the SF craft, designers never leave anywhere for fuel. Even the Star Furies and Thunderbolts from B5 (dead sexy though they may be) -- where is all the reactant mass for the engines? Fuel tankage just ain't sexy.

For my money the most realistic are:


-->the "Gunstar" from The Last Starfighter. Similar in design to the Starfury -- and no wonder. The Gunstar's designer is Ron Cobb, who used to employ Ron Thornton (who designed most of the spacecraft for B5).

-->the "Archangel Michael" from Deep Impact. Considering it's all made of bits of real spacecraft, that pegs the realism right there:

Someday I shall build a model of this.

-->Just about anything from the anime series Planetes. The DS-12 Toy Box is particularly realistic as an orbital tug.

[sotoolslinger]

I thought Aliens tech was all based on fusion power

[Mossie]

Unless it's a TARDIS.

Now there's a design.  They probably realised early on that they would have a job reconciling the internal & external sets, so they didn't bother, in fact they wrote the script around it & it's stood the test of time.

I'd forgotten about the Gunstar, that's a blast from the past!

Opposite to the problem with fuel, you often find that the internal space is often huge, whereas on ships & aircraft it's at a premium.  This seems to be a problem for anything larger than fighters & ground vehicles.  The one that really comes to mind is the Enterprise D, it's internal space is vast & it's corridors are more like those of a cruise liner than a military vessel.  Star Trek is often praised for it's 'realism' & scientific principles but I think it takes itself a little to seriously at times.

I'm going from deep, (deep!) memory here, but the only one I can think of that seems to have tight internal space & possibly even consideration for fuel is the X-Bomber from Star Fleet.  I like the ships in this, the X-Bomber seems (reasonably) well considered.  The alliance ships are fantastical, but I like that.
http://www.fab1.net/s-fleet/sf-ships.htm

A favourite mine is Red Dwarf, the original short dumpy one rather than the longer version in the later 'remastered' releases.  Even though it's very firmly tongue in cheek, they seem to have considered the design pretty well.  Even Starbug looks the part, if deliberately odd!

Now you see I didn't take that inference from it: my impression was that we were technologically level with most, significantly behind the Mimbari (who'd whupped our asses not long before, remember), and only on the up due to attitude and ambition.

I guess it's mainly the capital ships with the revolving crew sections, most other races seem to have found a way around this.  Apart from that I'd say the humans were pretty much on the level.  I loved the battle scenes in B5 as well, as well as some of the darker story lines.  B5 took a little while to get going, but once they decided they were taking the story line in a direction rather than the 'a day in the life' style I got into it in a big way.

[Spey_Phantom]

weel if i compare the angel/falcon interceptors from Gerry Anderson's old and New captain scarlet, the new one doesnt seem that bad, but for some strange reason, the word Eurofighter Typhoon/F-19 pops to mind 

Angel Interceptor


and its replacement, the Falcon Interceptor

[sotoolslinger]

PANTS DANCING

[Weaver]

Unless it's a TARDIS.

Now there's a design.  They probably realised early on that they would have a job reconciling the internal & external sets, so they didn't bother, in fact they wrote the script around it & it's stood the test of time.

Uh-huh - we were just saying that at work: "what sort of device is it, Mister?" "It's a story-telling device, sonny...."....

Opposite to the problem with fuel, you often find that the internal space is often huge, whereas on ships & aircraft it's at a premium.  This seems to be a problem for anything larger than fighters & ground vehicles.  The one that really comes to mind is the Enterprise D, it's internal space is vast & it's corridors are more like those of a cruise liner than a military vessel. 

They kind of acknowledged that in DS9 when the Federation went onto a war footing and introduced the Defiant: engines, guns, bunks and no bloody councilor........

B5 took a little while to get going, but once they decided they were taking the story line in a direction rather than the 'a day in the life' style I got into it in a big way.

B5's five-year "story arc" was plotted out right from the start. Unfortunately, the networks screwed it: first, they bounced it around the schedule roughly twice per series, so folk who couldn't just watch what they want when they want (i.e. most of us) lost track of it, then they used the resultant disappointing viewing figures as an excuse to cancel Season Five, forcing JMS to slightly awkwardly wrap it up at the end of Season Four, then they changed their minds and funded Season Five after all, thus leading to the awkward "what happened after" bits.....  Strakzinski (sp?) had a real vision for it, but to the TV execs, it was just 60 hours of "product"......

[Weaver]

What the hell happened to all the Airfix Angel Interceptor kits anyway? They were ten-a-peeny when I was a kid, in fact I've still got a couple of little "bitza" craft that used part from them: they were that disposable. Now they seem to be in bank vaults.......

[Tojo633]

Hi

sorry to be a nerd but I am sure the Angel Interceptors are actually called Viper!! Seem to have had the name in my head for a few years now, but I do not think it came from this site, sure I have seen a cutaway somewhere else?

"The Angel Interceptors are single seat hypersonic strike aircraft. Built to special Spectrum specifications, they are derived from the International Engineering Viper jet in service with the World Air Force."

Quote from
http://www.tvcentury21.com/marc/models-of-cs-spectrum.html
Cheers
Sandy

[Mossie]

Weave, kind of feared that might have been the case.  There's the allusions to the greater plot in the first series, just it never seemed to go anywhere.  And the network pretty much screwed the pooch when it came to spin offs, the 'specials' where just bloody awful.

Angel Interceptors, it's one of those you'd hope they release again, if only to annoy the collectors!   I guess it's all to do with licensing & whatnot.