Not too late for more Shuttle flights

Pat Flannery writes:

Ever seen these things BTW? They also served as beds on the spacecraft:

No I hadn't, thanks for the links...

Wouldn't you like to spend a year floating around in that second one? As
pointed out in Miller's "Dream Machines", they look way too much like
coffins.


Project Constellation based upon what Congress is actually willing to budget
for it?

Dave

Alain Fournier wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:

I think that the story comes first, and the special effects are there
to support the story, not the other way around.

You still don't get it. I think you still think of it as a science fiction
film. It isn't. It is in a genre all by itself. If one has to put a genre
on it, it is usually put in the science fiction category just because there
was a space ship in it, but it is in a genre all by itself. If you really
want to compare it to something else, it should not be to Star Wars it should
probably be to Thriller by Michel Jackson. Nobody says that Thriller was
a flop because the Zombies didn't look real and the story line was poor.
It isn't about a story line. Think of 2001 as a the result of breading
Thriller with a Picaso. Forget the story line, just listen to the music
and watch the colors.

It's true that most people watched 2001: A Space Odyssey for the special
effects and the music. Few have any idea at all what the story line is
about. It's part of why I think the movie Gattaca, almost completely
lacking special effects, is a better science fiction story.

On 3/17/2010 8:38 AM, Doug Freyburger wrote:


It's true that most people watched 2001: A Space Odyssey for the special
effects and the music. Few have any idea at all what the story line is
about. It's part of why I think the movie Gattaca, almost completely
lacking special effects, is a better science fiction story.

That one bored the hell out of me; I can't even remember anything about
it except it had Gore Vidal and Uma Thurman in it.
Since this seems to be about "The thinking man's science fiction film"
that's a pretty rarefied category. Certainly "Blade Runner" was thought
provoking, as were "The Matrix" and "Fahrenheit 451". The new movie
"Moon" is also good in this regard, although I have yet to be able to
sit through all of either version of "Solaris", or even the first third
of "Alphaville".

Pat