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Buzzkill of Science is at it again. Neil deGrasse Tyson VS The Force Awaken(SPOILER?)

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Has he commented on he absurdity of the political situation?
How does the first order build a planet sized superweapon within spitting distance of the New Republic's capital world?
 
This is him just having fun. You're crazy if you don't think he enjoys the movies he does this to.

If he really wanted to nofunallowed.jpg he would talk about the abuse of traveling at light speed.
 
If you complete a marathon run in 12 miles, that means you took a shortcut. Han saying that he took a shortcut means that he's an excellent navigator who was able to find a better route than everyone else.

So it's like saying "I found a shortcut and did it in one mile instead of three"?

Of course, but in the original movie, it really sounded like whoever wrote that script had no idea what a parsec was. Still, the reference made me chuckle in this one.

I have no doubt that somewhere there's a terrible EU story to explain it at length.
 
To be fair, the parsec thing always annoys me a bit. It's as nonsensical as "I completed it in 12 miles".

Actually it is totally intended. In the making of Star Wars Lucas explains that the millennium falcon is fast cause it is smart. It has the best computer that can find the fastest route through hyperspace, thus making it faster than other ships. It's not about velocity, it's about how smart the ship is to map a course.
 

Guy.brush

Member
Bigger holes in physics seem to be that people on
Takodana
can witness the
Hosnian system's destruction
in real-time.
Or that starkiller base can somehow be "inside" a system and still destroy it unharmed.
(Cause if it would be outside the system it targets, its beam would take hours, days or even weeks to arrive)

I don't get that defense of "it is fantasy, sound in space duh".
There are certain freedoms you can take with your world building, even stuff that violates fundamentals of physics. But those freedoms better not rip open holes in your carefully woven world fabric that relies on the same rules to be in effect for other climactic drama or chase scenes.
e.g. if starkiller base is somehow super fast, why wasn't the Death Star the same and needed a long time to orbit Yavin IV?
If you can see a world's destruction in real-time, what does that cause for travel times in the other movies?
If you can now hyperspace out of a garage without some serious calculations to prevent running into a star or asteroid, why wasn't this done before?

It seems to be the same old JJ disregard for continuity in world building in favor of the latest greatest action or hype scene.
 
Of course he's just messing around. The problem is that nitpicking the science in a movie that's literally about space wizards isn't clever, or funny, or insightful. It just makes you seem like you love the sound of your own tweets, and like to marinate in your own celebrity prestige.
 
L

Lord Virgin

Unconfirmed Member
Of course he's just messing around. The problem is that nitpicking the science in a movie that's literally about space wizards isn't clever, or funny, or insightful. It just makes you seem like you love the sound of your own tweets, and like to marinate in your own celebrity prestige.

....

I can only laugh at this.
 

daveo42

Banned
Well, we all know the majority of physics is thrown out the window in Star Wars, at least as it compares to our own galaxy. A complete lack of time dilation due to gravity wells and FTL travel is a better example if you wanted to rag on the series.

In the words of a great scientist on science fiction, "It's just a show, I should really just relax."
 

Cipherr

Member
Of course he's just messing around. The problem is that nitpicking the science in a movie that's literally about space wizards isn't clever, or funny, or insightful. It just makes you seem like you love the sound of your own tweets, and like to marinate in your own celebrity prestige.

Thats your opinion. I loved the one he did for Gravity and Interstellar too, and found them fun.
 

RibMan

Member
In @StarWars #TheForceAwakens, BB-8 is waaaaay cuter than R2D2

F-a-c-t-s. R2 is cool, but BB-8 is on a whole other level. A friend tried to argue that the BB-8 is just Wall-E in a new suit. Some people just have no taste.
 
I got into an argument last week with somebody who swore that "jiggawatts" is a real, larger-than-gigawatts, measure of electrical power.
 

DarkKyo

Member
F-a-c-t-s. R2 is cool, but BB-8 is on a whole other level. A friend tried to argue that the BB-8 is just Wall-E in a new suit. Some people just have no taste.

Well he is definitely more Wall-E than R2 could ever be lol, that's for sure

Actually I'm okay with that comparison. BB-8 seems a little naive, very curious, and much more emotive than R2, partly because his motions seem a lot faster. He's definitely Wall-E-ish.
 
The Parsecs thing has always bugged me (didn't know that there was an explanation for it)

I noticed the relative sun/planet thing the second time I saw this, since the first time I missed that they were draining the sun completely. If that's true, I kinda wonder what happened to the Starkiller itself, floating in cold space without a sun to make it habitable. Do they have some way of having it travel though hyperspace?

Also, having the Hosnian system destruction visible everywhere was pretty lame. I get the visual appeal, but it pushed SW even further into FantasyLand.
 
Star Wars is now ruined forever. Disney should stop selling all movie tickets and merchandise right now to make a point about how this man is a monster who is spoiling the planet for decent people.
 

wenis

Registered for GAF on September 11, 2001.
The vitriol these tweets are causing are way more newsworthy than the tweets themselves. It's quite something.
 
He does this with a lot of movies, I don't see why this is suddenly him being Buzz Killington. Then again, Star Wars is serious business lol, and I say that as a big Star Wars fan.
 
To be fair, the parsec thing always annoys me a bit. It's as nonsensical as "I completed it in 12 miles".

Ok, Omega-level nerdout incoming. Hold on to your butts.

The Kessel Run involves smuggling spice along a very dangerous route of space that skirts dangerously close to a bunch of black holes called The Maw, as well as a really nasty asteroid belt. Most pilots would take a longer, safer route that went around all these hazards but would create more risk of getting caught by Imperial patrols. Han managed to cut a huge chunk of distance off the total by flying through the field and absurdly close to the Maw, way closer than is safe, thus proving his own skills and the capability of the ship.
 
Ok, Omega-level nerdout incoming. Hold on to your butts.

The Kessel Run involves smuggling spice along a very dangerous route of space that skirts dangerously close to a bunch of black holes called The Maw, as well as a really nasty asteroid belt. Most pilots would take a longer, safer route that went around all these hazards but would create more risk of getting caught by Imperial patrols. Han managed to cut a huge chunk of distance off the total by flying through the field and absurdly close to the Maw, way closer than is safe, thus proving his own skills and the capability of the ship.

This. Lol at everyone thinking they figured out some glaring error by the use of parsecs.
 

egruntz

shelaughz
He's right about BB-8 being the best droid.

But...wasn't BB-8 a legitimate prop? I thought it was actually rolling through the sand, no CGI included. Am I incorrect or was he uninformed? I'm talking about the sand tweet.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Why does he assume the Kessel Run is measured in speed? Actual speed isn't even relevant since all of the ships travel in Hyperspace. I assumed it was a test of maneuverability in which the route is trecherous so you can take lots of shortcuts the more maneuverable your ship is.
 
My friend and I made our headcanon that the Kessel Run involves skirting a black hole and therefore, getting closer to the black hole to decrease the distance traveled necessitates a correlating increase in speed.
 

VARIA

Member
I know the guys is just having fun, but he's always come across to me as this smug, know-it-all that looks down on others.

I never got that vibe from Carl Sagan.
 

Arkos

Nose how to spell and rede to
Wait do we have to tell Neil DeGrasse High that parsecs are units of distance? That's a high level troll right there

I know the guys is just having fun, but he's always come across to me as this smug, know-it-all that looks down on others.

I never got that vibe from Carl Sagan.

I agree. I always feel like he's trying to talk to me like I'm in fucking kindergarten. There's making yourself understandable to the masses, and then there's patronizing. I've always felt patronized by Drake's high school.
 
Bullshit. Worst thing he's ever said.

R2 is invariably accompanied by C3P0 now so BB-8 wins by default.

To be fair, the parsec thing always annoys me a bit. It's as nonsensical as "I completed it in 12 miles".

There is a workable rationalization for it. The boast is an accomplishment if you have a fixed start point, a fixed endpoint, but a variable route between. The Kessel Run was a loosely-defined smuggling route around Imperial blockades: the criticism would make sense if it was a defined, uncontested route between Point A and Point B but it isn't. The boast is as much about maneuverability as it is about speed.
 
Its a sci-fi movie. Why would anyone apply scientific accuracy towards Star Wars and why would these tweets ruin the hype for anyone. This is not a documentary or interstellar/gravity.
 

Mr Nash

square pies = communism
Star Wars centers around space wizards. The last thing I'm worried about in that universe is how accurate the science is. =p
 

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Next up: Neil deGrasse Tyson against Cindarella.
 
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