Bad Astronomy review of "Superman Returns"

"Bill Steele" wrote in message
...

[re the first Reeve movie]

... I don't believe it was ever specified that Krypton was
outside our own [galaxy]...

Phantom Stranger has since posted some more direct
evidence of Krypton being in another galaxy (Jor-El
dialogue), and I'm still very vaguely remembering a
reference by Superman to Lois, perhaps in the rooftop
interview scene with them. At the beginning of Smallville
season 5, Clark also tells Chloe Sullivan that Krypton is
in another galaxy, though he has no personal knowledge
of that. With the series ongoing it could be retconned
that he didn't know the exact story (see a possibility later).
In any case the first Reeve movie does seems to have
started the intergalactic ball rolling in Superman, and not
in a good way IMO.

Adding to your point about our ability to detect planets,
I also recall reading that NASA has plans for a large
space telescope to be placed further out in our solar
system, which would have the ability to visually detect
Earth-size planets circling close enough stars. In any
event that's why I wrote "the idea that astronomers
would detect much of anything in terms of planetary
debris becomes *even_more* ludicrous". "Even more"
in the sense that, as you noted, the existing ability in
this area is limited even for close systems in our own
galaxy, without taking it to another. It's at least plausible
though, in a near-future context, to detect major debris
from a rocky planet breakup around a closer star.

*My* nitpick is that if Krypton posesses the knowledge
of many galaxies it means interstellar travel is common-
place to them...

There are nitpicks like that, but they don't get so much
to the science as the technology part of it. Perhaps
Krypton was just xenophobic for example, and very
tightly controlled technology and space travel before
the end came. Then Jor-El was the only one who could
get his son out in time.

There was another poster who responded on ramcf to
your post, saying the many-Kryptonian-space-travelers
premise in your nitpick was part of Smallville. To expand
on that for those not familiar with the series (and I'll bring
it back to the astronomy theme as well), there are no
organic Kryptonian survivors except for Clark. There
have been technology-based "transferences" of sorts
where people have been possessed or embodied, and
artificial intelligence avatars, and the Phantom Zone has
also been introduced. There are also legends and some
evidence of Kryptonian visits to Earth prior to Krypton's
demise.

Slowly getting back to the astronomy angle, and in light of
the intergalactic element that's unnecessary, I'm not at all
opposed to different incarnations of the story doing their
own versions of this. One way of looking at the premise of
Smallville -- and I think it's an element that helps give it a
potential for greatness -- is that everything is condensed
("Small" -- get it?). Lex Luthor is there from day 1, and
Metropolis is just over yonder from Smallville, and the
various threats and future threats that Clark faces, in terms
of his Kryptonian heritage and other villains, show up
before he reaches his teens. (The three main younger
characters, Clark, Lana and Chloe all only turn 20 in this
upcoming season 6). There's also the twist of Chloe
Sullivan having been there from episode 1 and now
being the Daily Planet reporter character. She's already
had a front page byline at the age of 19, and used her
cousin Lois Lane as a pen name for a Planet story she
handed in in season 3, while her cousin played by Erica
Durance (who showed up in season 4) has yet to show
an interest in journalism.

How to continue the "everything condensed" theme?
During that "Krypton is a comet" discussion, it occurred
to me that all the things the show has hinted at could be
explained by Krypton literally being local. This can be
made plausible if it were a large rocky planet with an
atmosphere between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter,
where the asteroid belt is now. Yes, it would have been
cold but there's the Ice Planet nature of Krypton that's
already been established in the Reeve series (and has
also had a Chloe quip about that in episode 5 "Cool").

Advanced technology could have provided a power
source from the planet's core. Things go awry, planet
breaks up, and this could be written to have happened
far enough back to address the "Chinese astronomers
should have detected or recorded it" nitpick. Then add
the already-established-in-the-Superman-mythos long
trajectory and suspended animation to explain why Clark
didn't arrive until later, along with a meteor shower that
is tougher to make work on an intergalactic scale (you
have to have the meteors caught in the ship's warp
field and taken along for the ride).

It would explain why Earth was always of interest to
Kryptonians, including archaeological evidence around
the world that is part of Smallville canon. I'll also assert
(until someone proves me wrong!) that it's impenetrable
in terms of nitpicks as I've described it. I think it'd be
an interesting and very suitable twist on the story that
perfectly fits the "Small"-ville premise.

(Interesting anecdote that I ran across within the past
week or two, from an interview that was done with the
Superman Returns actor Brandon Routh. It was done
at the time they'd started shooting but presumably part
of the deal was not to publish many of those interviews
until the movie's release. Anyway, he may have been
told not mention it after that because the presence of
Smallville has always been a bit of a minefield for the
movie and vice versa. It turns out Routh auditioned for
the Clark Kent role in Smallville and received a callback,
before it ultimately went to Welling. I think it worked out
for the best and Smallville at least retains a shot at Best
Incarnation Ever at this point, including perhaps its own
movie series after the TV run).

On Mon, 3 Jul 2006 14:23:56 -0400, "KalElFan"
wrote:

Phantom Stranger has since posted some more direct
evidence of Krypton being in another galaxy (Jor-El
dialogue), and I'm still very vaguely remembering a
reference by Superman to Lois, perhaps in the rooftop
interview scene with them. At the beginning of Smallville
season 5, Clark also tells Chloe Sullivan that Krypton is
in another galaxy, though he has no personal knowledge
of that. With the series ongoing it could be retconned
that he didn't know the exact story (see a possibility later).
In any case the first Reeve movie does seems to have
started the intergalactic ball rolling in Superman, and not
in a good way IMO.

I don't think so, and never did. Few in the audience of SR could tell you
what a galaxy is, which is the nearest to us, which one we live in, etc.
Often, when someone says galaxy he *means* solar system, and someone here
includes all the actors and characters in all the Superman movies. It could
be claimed quite rightly that if a character says galaxy it's reasonable to
assume he means galaxy. But, believing he really means solar system creates
few problems with continuity and solves many.

George Peatty wrote:
On Mon, 3 Jul 2006 14:23:56 -0400, "KalElFan"
wrote:

Phantom Stranger has since posted some more direct
evidence of Krypton being in another galaxy (Jor-El
dialogue), and I'm still very vaguely remembering a
reference by Superman to Lois, perhaps in the rooftop
interview scene with them. At the beginning of Smallville
season 5, Clark also tells Chloe Sullivan that Krypton is
in another galaxy, though he has no personal knowledge
of that. With the series ongoing it could be retconned
that he didn't know the exact story (see a possibility later).
In any case the first Reeve movie does seems to have
started the intergalactic ball rolling in Superman, and not
in a good way IMO.

I don't think so, and never did. Few in the audience of SR could tell you
what a galaxy is, which is the nearest to us, which one we live in, etc.
Often, when someone says galaxy he *means* solar system, and someone here
includes all the actors and characters in all the Superman movies. It could
be claimed quite rightly that if a character says galaxy it's reasonable to
assume he means galaxy. But, believing he really means solar system creates
few problems with continuity and solves many.

I'm going to pretend that you didn't say that, just for my own sanity.

I mean, seriously, are we really going to let major lapses go because
we know that somewhere out there some idiot doesn't know his ass from
his elbow? Just because there are morons who cheerfully go on
Jaywalking to display their ignorance doesn't mean we should allow
filmmakers to get away with putting retarded **** in their movies.

Doug

In article ,
"KalElFan" wrote:

Phantom Stranger has since posted some more direct
evidence of Krypton being in another galaxy (Jor-El
dialogue), and I'm still very vaguely remembering a
reference by Superman to Lois, perhaps in the rooftop
interview scene with them. At the beginning of Smallville
season 5, Clark also tells Chloe Sullivan that Krypton is
in another galaxy, though he has no personal knowledge
of that. With the series ongoing it could be retconned
that he didn't know the exact story (see a possibility later).

In Clark's meeting with Swann there is some looking at star maps,
pointing out where Krypton was and now isn't. That places Krypton in
our galaxy and outside our solar system. at least in the Smallverse.

"Bill Steele" wrote in message
...

[re the Swann episode "Rosetta"]

That places Krypton in our galaxy and outside our solar
system. at least in the Smallverse.

Nope, not based on that scene, which I just checked. (For
anyone aware of my vow not to buy the DVDs before the
series had played out, a later post on r.a.sf.s will explain
why I have access to them right now and the project I've
been working on with them. :-)) It MAY be as you say, but
it could equally be in another galaxy or work as the Krypton-
is-local twist on it. In fact I think it supports the latter as
much as anything.

First thing about that scene is that the messages that he
received were on the day of the original meteor shower.
If our objective here is to make that work (I concede that
the show did not think it through like this), one has to ask
why a normal signal traveling at light speed would
arrive from another solar system within our own galaxy,
or from another galaxy, at the same time as a ship from
the same source. Try it, but for now I'll assert that there
is no explanation for that that is nitpick-proof, in fact it
crumbles as science or reasonable pseudo-science.
If it were a repeating signal for thousands or millions
of years (depending whether Krypton is intra or extra-
galactic), it'd be a massive coincidence that Swann just
happened to discover the signal for the first time on
the same day as the ship arrives.

Much more likely, the messages were rigged by the
advanced technology behind them, to arrive at the
same time. Could be a signal beacon left along the
way and timed to activate as the meteor shower and
the ship arrived, or perhaps even left on the outskirts
of our solar system after it dropped out of warp (or
not, if Krypton was local and no warp speed is involved).

In effect, Swann's star charts were displaying the area
of the sky the signals came from, but he has no idea
how far away those were. In fact he says he tried to
follow the signals "billions and billions of miles" into
space and found nothing, and the star chart marks the
"W-5" area the signals came from, with a large galaxy
depicted to its right and a nebula below, two objects
that are very different (one outside our galaxy, one
within it). Moreover, "billions" of miles is actually a
scale WITHIN our solar system. It's over 23 TRILLION
miles to the nearest star.

Swann was a mysterious character and may not have
been telling all he knows (Reeve played the role in one
more episode the following season, before he passed
away). Krypton could be in our galaxy or in another
galaxy based on what he said, but a much better fit for
it is that the signal, at least, came from within our solar
system, which is what he apparently confined his search
to.

Another perspective is the Kawatche legends from 500
years ago that Smallville has had a few episodes on, and
that resulted in the cave drawings. The earliest peoples
in the Americas are said to have crossed over from Asia
10,000+ years ago, so the fictional Kawatche in what's
now middle America could have had legends passed
down from the required era, before the recording of any
astronomical observations. There are also other aspects
of the legend that could be explained in other ways, but
the key thing is that they spoke of a star in a specific area
of the heavens that was there and then GONE, which
supports a local planet only. A planet wouldn't appear
as a star if it were in another solar system, only the star
would. It could be a supernova WITHIN our galaxy, but
the nitpick there being it would not just disappear. It would
brighten enormously and fry the Earth with radiation if it
were close enough, and it would leave detectable remnants
including a nebula with a pulsar (neutron star) within that.

Yes, let's concede again they never thought it through like
this. I'm just sayin'. :-) In the Smallville version of the story,
Krypton was local. There's a certain elegance to that, it
explains many other things in the story, and it's nitpick-proof
as I've described it. A few lines of dialogue in a few episodes
could reflect the "What??? That's incredible!" doubting of it,
Then the basics of what, where, when and why it happened
are revealed, in the local context, and all the archaeological
evidence and interest in Earth and so on make perfect sense.

Just for the Smallverse though, a special part of the Superman
Multiverse. :-)

"trike" wrote in message
oups.com...

[responding to George Peatty's post]

I mean, seriously, are we really going to let major lapses
go because we know that somewhere out there some
idiot doesn't know his ass from his elbow? ...

Well, George was right that not many catch it. As for
his "assume they mean solar system" point, we can
assume that either way. Even in the other galaxy, one
interprets it that Krypton orbited a star, i.e. it was in a
solar system in that other galaxy.

But saying we should assume "galaxy" means another
word isn't really a solution, it's just acknowledging the
nitpick is valid. "Galaxy" takes it to a scale they don't
need and it makes the concept of seeing planetary
debris completely ridiculous. If you know what a galaxy
is and understand the scale involved, it can wrench you
out of the movie a bit and have you thinking about the
mistake. Yeah, it's maybe only a percent or two of the
people watching who notice this kind of thing, if that,
but they tend to be the more science literate and worth
a change of word or two to get it right.

Just a few separate typo corrections from my earlier
posts. In the last one it should have read that the various
threats and so on show up in the Smallville series before
Clark LEAVES his teens. Clark, Lana and Chloe are
15 and in first year of high school as the series starts,
and in college and turning 20 this upcoming season.

In an earlier post I also said the writers had hundreds
of millions of stars to play with in our Milky Way galaxy
(hence why taking the story intergalactic is unnecessary
in addition to causing other problems). In fact the
estimate of numbers of stars in our galaxy seems
to have bounced around over the past few decades
and gets pegged differently depending when and
where you run across it. One source I looked at
(Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia, mid-90s, which
Microsoft bought out and used to base Encarta on)
had it as high as "one million million", which is to say
a trillion stars. The World Almanac 2006 has it at
less than half that, specifically 400 billion stars.

In any case my "few hundred million" should have
read "few hundred billion". It gives you an idea of
the enormous scales here even within our galaxy,
and why intergalactic stories are somewhat overkill.
They ARE NOT "WRONG" though. It's very easy
to postulate that an advanced enough civilization
could have intergalactic warp capability if they can
have interstellar warp capability. Add in another very
plausible premise, which is that intelligent life and
advanced technological worlds that don't destroy
themselves are exceedingly rare in the universe.
So Krypton over in Galaxy 9, sufficiently advanced,
actually is aware of Earth as one of those rare places,
in one of the "28 known galaxies" with intelligent life.

The problem only becomes a really tough-to-crack
nitpick when you start talking about Earth astronomers
peering through their telescopes and seeing Kryptonian
debris over in Galaxy 9. One irony here is that, while
the nitpick is irrelevant in the sense hardly anyone will
notice, it relates to the very premise of the movie that
causes it so much trouble from the get-go because
of Superman buzzing off to check out debris for 5
years. If the nitpick had been raised and the enormous
scales understood, maybe someone might have thought
"you know, maybe Superman wouldn't just buzz off and
leave for another galaxy to check out debris... I mean
doesn't that work against his hero status and ability to
relate to him, including for the viewership, and doesn't
it kinda torpedo the whole romance element? ..."

So I'll echo what trike said that we should press for
better knowing-your-scientific-ass-from-your-elbow
standards in movies. :-) Maybe it'll help one thing lead
to another and it'll catch other correctible screwups as
well, ones that have a much bigger effect.

"KalElFan" wrote in message
...
"Bill Steele" wrote in message
...

[re the Swann episode "Rosetta"]

That places Krypton in our galaxy and outside our solar
system. at least in the Smallverse.

Nope, not based on that scene, which I just checked. (For
anyone aware of my vow not to buy the DVDs before the
series had played out, a later post on r.a.sf.s will explain
why I have access to them right now and the project I've
been working on with them. :-)) It MAY be as you say, but
it could equally be in another galaxy or work as the Krypton-
is-local twist on it. In fact I think it supports the latter as
much as anything.

Although in "Arrival," Clark explicitly tells Chloe:

"I wasn't born anywhere near Smallville. In fact I wasn't born anywhere near
this galaxy."

Agreed that putting Krypton outside the Milky Way is obviously bad science,
but there it is.

redhawk wrote:
"KalElFan" wrote in message
...
"Bill Steele" wrote in message
...

[re the Swann episode "Rosetta"]

That places Krypton in our galaxy and outside our solar
system. at least in the Smallverse.

Nope, not based on that scene, which I just checked. (For
anyone aware of my vow not to buy the DVDs before the
series had played out, a later post on r.a.sf.s will explain
why I have access to them right now and the project I've
been working on with them. :-)) It MAY be as you say, but
it could equally be in another galaxy or work as the Krypton-
is-local twist on it. In fact I think it supports the latter as
much as anything.

Although in "Arrival," Clark explicitly tells Chloe:

"I wasn't born anywhere near Smallville. In fact I wasn't born anywhere near
this galaxy."

Agreed that putting Krypton outside the Milky Way is obviously bad science,
but there it is.

Postscript: looking back through the thread, I see that you already did
address this in a previous post. True that Clark was not speaking from
personal knowledge, just wish they hadn't gone there in the first place
so there would be no need to fix it.

In article P01rg.26931$543.7765@trnddc04, redhawk
wrote:

"KalElFan" wrote in message
...
"Bill Steele" wrote in message
...

[re the Swann episode "Rosetta"]

That places Krypton in our galaxy and outside our solar
system. at least in the Smallverse.

Nope, not based on that scene, which I just checked. (For
anyone aware of my vow not to buy the DVDs before the
series had played out, a later post on r.a.sf.s will explain
why I have access to them right now and the project I've
been working on with them. :-)) It MAY be as you say, but
it could equally be in another galaxy or work as the Krypton-
is-local twist on it. In fact I think it supports the latter as
much as anything.

Although in "Arrival," Clark explicitly tells Chloe:

"I wasn't born anywhere near Smallville. In fact I wasn't born anywhere near
this galaxy."

Agreed that putting Krypton outside the Milky Way is obviously bad science,
but there it is.


The thing is, even granting the notion that you have a star drive that
permits travel over vast distances in a very short time, then the
problem isn't whether someone comes from one of the other local
galaxies, but why somebody in that other galaxy decided to shoot his
kid to Earth -- or how he even found Earth in the first place -- among
perhaps trillions of candidate planets.

I came across something the other day that said the movie version of
Krypton was supposed to be thirty million lightyears from Earth.