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The Expanse |S2| You guys look like shit - Wednesdays on Syfy

C

CopperPuppy

Member
Cornballer said:
BhN9Z5g.gif
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Amos the MVP.
 
W

wildfire

Banned
I find the way the proto molecule being used to be quite offputing. On one hand one research team lost complete control twice and another research team more or less got the exact results they wanted? I hope there isn't technobabble to explain this.
 
DevilDog

DevilDog

Member
The words "Created it in our image" the scientists used is just a bunch of red flags. On the one hand you have hard sci fi and on the other you have the protomolecule that feels like the gateway for the writers to pour in their spirituality and anime fantasies. (episode 5).

Hence the ridiculous scene in the last episode where they have the fight science vs belief.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
Morts said:
And the Roci zooming past like four moons in seconds seemed a little cartoony. I dunno, maybe they are that close together.
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They acknowledged this:
Cornballer said:
- Losing Science in Drama (and Finding Drama in Science) (Naren Shankar on tonight's episode)
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In Episode 11 of Season 2 (which airs this Wednesday at 10pm ET on Syfy), one of our characters (Alex, the pilot) has tucked his ship behind one of the smaller moons of Jupiter to keep it hidden from Martian patrol ships that have blockaded a base on the inner moon Ganymede, while his crewmates carry out a mission on Ganymede Station. When his crewmates become trapped, Alex has to come up with a risky rescue plan:

He plots a complex, gravity-assist (“slingshot”) trajectory to return to Ganymede without using the ship’s main fusion drive (which would expose him to detection by the patrols). Later, while he’s performing a maneuver, he barely avoids straying into the path of an unexpected ship.

The sequences are quite beautiful, well-acted and nicely directed, and the visual effects are gorgeous (particularly the immersive, holographic orbital trajectories of the Jovian moons, which are all scientifically accurate… at least I hope they are). And it’s a lot of fun to watch.

It’s also utterly preposterous.

But if we already knew that, then why did it end up on screen? Here’s what happened:

When we were working out this particular story line in our writers room, we needed a pick a moon to hide the ship behind, so off we went to Wikipedia, and we settled on moon #54 (Jupiter XLVIII), “Cyllene”.

Why Cyllene? Well… mainly because it was a girl’s name and it sounded pretty, which suited the scene and Alex’s character. It wasn’t until the picture had been locked and we were well into post-production that I realized we had a problem, due to one, simple fact that we hadn’t fully thought through:

Cyllene is really, really far away from Ganymede.

And that has big ramifications. The gravity-assist trajectory Alex (i.e., we) had devised would’ve in reality taken months to complete, but the sequence we’d created showed Alex slingshotting around several moons and getting back to Ganymede in a ludicrously short period of time.* (In a moment of derangement, I briefly considered fixing the problem by using VFX to make Alex’s beard appear longer each time we cut back to him, with empty beer cans and food bar wrappers accumulating around him to imply that a lot of time was passing in each cut. I’m only half kidding.)

By the time I was able to really focus on this sequence and understood the problems, it was too late. We were married to what we had physically shot on stage and the (extremely expensive) VFX already being built in our pipeline.** So I decided to let it go and wrote it off to dramatic license.

And that’s what bugs me more than anything else.

It’s far too easy in TV/film science fiction to ditch reality for (what you perceive to be or rationalize is) the sake of drama. In a fantasy space opera, this is forgivable, but for a show like The Expanse that prides itself on a realistic portrayal of space, it is not.

I did finally come up with an alternative sequence, one that would’ve better reflected reality and been far more exciting to boot… but by that time it was too late to change what we had. For the record, what I should have done was this:

1) Change the moon we picked to another one (with a pretty, girl’s name, of course) that was much closer to Ganymede (this would’ve required changing a few words of Alex’s dialogue, but that wouldn’t have been difficult to do);

2) Build the flight sequence around a single event: a complex trajectory adjustment around one moon, perhaps involving a dangerously close pass over the surface, with a limited window for Alex to complete the maneuver, which gets further complicated by the appearance of an unexpected patrol ship. Remember that terrific sequence in Apollo 13 in which James Lovell (Tom Hanks) has to hit a tiny re-entry window on manual control? This could’ve been as riveting like that.

As they say, that and a buck will buy me a coke (though I would much prefer a martini).
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Also, this amused me:
**The accounting department at our studio often refers to the show as “The Expense”.
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J

jelly

Member
That was a awesome episode.

Draper scenes were my favourite but the rest of the episode was just as gripping. Love this show.
 
L

lt519

Member
Fell off the show hard with the Switch (Zelda is a black hole) and work travel taking up my time. I can't wait to binge watch the rest of the season, I left off at a great point with Bobbie on Ganymede. Sorry I abandoned the OT for so long!
 
V

Volimar

Member
wildfire said:
I find the way the proto molecule being used to be quite offputing. On one hand one research team lost complete control twice and another research team more or less got the exact results they wanted? I hope there isn't technobabble to explain this.
Click to expand...

I think the two big things that they're trying to see is what happens if they let it grow on its own and how can they mold it to their own purposes for any future extrasolar incursion. Other than Julie Mao turning Eros into her Razorback, all the other losses are collateral damage since they're still progressing on their priorities. All in all, Mao is probably pretty happy with how things are progressing aside from the UN and the Roci's interference.
 
K

Killthee

helped a brotha out on multiple separate occasions!
CSJ said:
Cool to see that response, because I was like "woah wait a second that's a little out of the realism of the show it takes place in".
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I was thinking the same but then I saw that shot of Jupiter and my mind went "fuck it, just go with it. This looks awesome even if it's dumb!"
 
K

killer rin

Member
Cornballer said:
They acknowledged this:


Also, this amused me:
Click to expand...

Props to the writers for addressing that. Even more for coming up with a more plausible solution and sharing it. Especially since it seems most writers these days are far more ready to just dismiss the criticism altogether.
 
S

suzu

Member
Maybe I'm remembering things differently, but the pizza party bit seemed more amusing in the book (was waiting for it when they gave a gun to Prax).. although that grenade scene was pretty damn funny. Also everyone's replies to Holden telling them to just wait here. lol

More general book stuff:
Some characters are kinda diverging from their book counterparts? Naomi specifically.. And Bobbie is also not a marine anymore?? They are definitely changing / speeding up a buncha things. Dunno where they're going with it, but hopefully it won't be a bad change or too far off from the plot in the books. :x
 
Ivory Samoan

Ivory Samoan

Gold Member
You think Syfy know that their science fiction credibility lies with this show, so they'll keep it going for geek cred?

Loving the show, Draper is growing on me.
 
V

Vulcano's assistant

Banned
This scientist guy (on Venus) is finally growing on me. I think it is a good addition since he seems like the perfect civilian character to have a role during the events of the third book.
 
T

Tovarisc

Member
DevilDog said:
The words "Created it in our image" the scientists used is just a bunch of red flags. On the one hand you have hard sci fi and on the other you have the protomolecule that feels like the gateway for the writers to pour in their spirituality and anime fantasies. (episode 5).

Hence the ridiculous scene in the last episode where they have the fight science vs belief.
Click to expand...

"Created it in our image" as in they were able to combine human DNA and protomolecule without latter distorting it beyond recognition. Same time concepts of religions and belief aren't leaving humans any time soon so it makes sense there to be some exploration of that.

LongMuckDong said:
You think Syfy know that their science fiction credibility lies with this show, so they'll keep it going for geek cred?

Loving the show, Draper is growing on me.
Click to expand...

What is this geek cred you are talking about?

Vulcano's assistant said:
This scientist guy (on Venus) is finally growing on me. I think it is a good addition since he seems like the perfect civilian character to have a role during the events of the third book.
Click to expand...

You may want to avoid that area. Last time I saw book talk in this thread it resulted in me and some others getting big time spoiled on upcoming events (who uses tags am I right?) and mod had to clean thread up because people just ran with it and started to blast info from books.
 
D

DBT85

Member
LongMuckDong said:
You think Syfy know that their science fiction credibility lies with this show, so they'll keep it going for geek cred?

Loving the show, Draper is growing on me.
Click to expand...

Until it gets more expensive than they like and can it. Hopefully when (not if) they do stop funding it, others pick up the tab.
 
K

Kelsdesu

Member
HOLY SHIT! I just finished the first two episodes of season two and these motherfuckers are CRAZY!!!!!

Even my GF (who doesn't give two shits about anything scifi) was mad she had to go to work after those episodes.
 
D

DieH@rd

Banned
Kelsdesu said:
HOLY SHIT! I just finished the first two episodes of season two and these motherfuckers are CRAZY!!!!!

Even my GF (who doesn't give two shits about anything scifi) was mad she had to go to work after those episodes.
Click to expand...

Start of S2 is the ending of the 1st book, so events are running hot.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
New episode tonight:
The Monster and the Rocket

A horrible discovery in a secret lab pushes Naomi and Holden apart and sets the crew of the Roci against each other. Avasarala and Bobbie make a dangerous rendezvous with the fate of humanity in the balance, and a result that no one on either side could anticipate.
Click to expand...
 
D

DangerMouse

Member
Go time. Been waiting for this.

Edit: Well...shit.

Edit2: Amos can't believe she just did that.

Kelsdesu said:
HOLY SHIT! I just finished the first two episodes of season two and these motherfuckers are CRAZY!!!!!

Even my GF (who doesn't give two shits about anything scifi) was mad she had to go to work after those episodes.
Click to expand...

Nice. This show has been great.
 
D

DangerMouse

Member
Yeah, lol.

razgriz417 said:
those must have been some good cucumbers
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LOL yeah. Loved how she just started picking up a bunch of them after that first one, started laughing immediately, lol.

Edit: Damn, that was a nice moment.

Edit: Roci FTW!
"Oh man, here we go again." Perfect Alex LOL :D

Shiiiiit.
 
J

jerry113

Banned
Stellar fucking episode. Had everything.

Through Errwinright was a goner the minute he got that extra character develoment and storyline with his son, but glad to be wrong. Completely threw me in a loop. From the previous setup it looked like he was about to have a small change of heart and redemption, but nooo.....

I fully expected Naomi to be a goner in that scene where she opened the doors. Nine out of ten times in the real world, that action would've ended in disaster. But sometimes, the right people in the right place can make all the difference.

That was the protomolecule creature hiding aboard the ship at the end, correct?

Also, it's funny that Syfy decided to let loose all the fuck bombs in season 2.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
- Onion A|V Club review
- Promo for next week’s episode (please spoiler tag any discussion)
- Podcast for this week
Welcome to Episode 11 of The Churn, our post-show podcast about The Expanse. Each week during Season 2, The Expanse creators Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham (who you all know as James SA Corey) and Syfy Wire's resident The Expanse superfans -- Fangrrls Managing Editor Cher Martinetti and Editor-in-Chief Adam Swiderski -- take a deep dive into the latest episode.

This week, Naomi and Amos head back to the Sonambulist with nothing but good intentions, but it doesn't take long until they discover things are far worse than they imagined. Meanwhile, Holden's on a mission and his obsession nearly gets him, Alex, and Prax in over their heads. Lastly, Errinwright pulls the ultimate power play on Mao and Avasarala, and the fate of Earth hangs in the balance. Actor Terry Chen joins us on the podcast to talk about Prax and more as we break down the latest episode.
Click to expand...
 
R

Rolfgang

Member
Great episode again. Errinwright fucked everybody over, Holden give a shit anymore and that Protodude is loose.

Also, that moment with Bobbie was indeed perfect. That face when she took a bite, priceless.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
I didn't think Errwinright had it in him. Yikes.

Bobbie demolishing the first sandwich and then not giving a fuck while grabbing a handful was hilarious.
 
T

Teknopathetic

Member
I just want to be as happy as Bobbie is eating cucumbers.

How shitty are Martian marine rations that cucumber sandwiches are altering her life like that?
 
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