In Praise of the Sci-fi Corridor 171
brumgrunt writes "Technically a corridor in a science-fiction movie should just be a means of getting from one big expensive set to the next, and yet Den Of Geek writes lovingly of the detailed conduits in films such as Alien, Outland, Solaris and even this year's Moon by Duncan Jones."
Star Wars Gets "More Later"? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
What's mostly wrong with the corridors in Stanley Donen's Saturn 3 (1980) is that the floor-surfaces resemble the base floor of a movie studio, something which had plagued the corridors in the medium-budget Star Wars three years earlier (more on Star Wars corridors in a moment).
The movie that has an opening fight sequence in a corridor and later corridor after corridor on the death star followed by another fight sequence in a prison block corridor only leading up to the-equivalent-of-Jesus getting lightsabered in half in a corridor adjacent to a docking bay .... and you say "more on Star Wars corridors in a moment."
And the second movie? Hoth ice corridors. IV, V & VI are so dependent on corridor shots.
Did you mean to say "The Corridors of Star Wars article will be out later today with a 58 page thesis on the strength of corridor running and combat between rebels and imperials in the Star Wars cinema"?
I'm damburger, and I'm a corridorholic (Score:3, Insightful)
Dear god, I thought I was alone.
Corridors are the unappreciated bedrock of science fiction. I guess the original reason is because they could be repeatedly used for different parts of a ship/space station/alien planet, but they've taken on a life of their own.
Re:How to do a much shorter article next time (Score:3, Insightful)
He's not saying the future shouldn't have conflict, he's saying that future doesn't need to always emphasize how horrible EVERYTHING will turn out to be.
That's why people like Star Trek movies, they have conflict, but at the same time, they point out that the future can be bright, technology can be helpful, people can be happy and life is worth living.
Back to the main topic, corridors - they are cheap for filming. That probably influenced the reason to use them more than a necessity in "Sci-Fi" films. I recommend Cube if you'd like to see the minimalist set (hint: it's a cube and not a corridor).
Non standar ones (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I've always said it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How to do a much shorter article next time (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>Would you pay to see a story about a guy who went about his day in the future and didnt have any problems
No but that doesn't mean you have to go extreme either. I thought the best Science Stories were those that took ordinary genres, but set them in the future:
- Elijah Baley - a detective solving a murder in the year ~3,000
- Tekwar - a detective solving crimes in ~2020
- The Road Must Roll - a worker strike in the year ~2050
- I Robot - a collection of short stories where a household appliance (robot) goes haywire, and the engineer's attempt to find why the problem happened.
And so on. Science stories are best when they are tied to reality. It doesn't have to be some "nightmarish reality" to quote the grandparent..
Re:Sci-Fi (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, once you invent artificial gravity, you're back to having to have dedicated floor space for walking, standing, sitting, etc. And when your habitat expands beyond just a six person capacity with everyone knowing everything, to a large community where people have specialized tasks, you will probably not want to have everything just sitting out in the open like that for people who don't know what they are doing to accidentally bump things on their way by and not know how to correct it. And when your habitat grows beyond just a few small rooms, you will have to have dedicated travel (dare I say it?) corridors, that are just that, corridors.
When your entire environment is very small and contains a very few smart, well-trained people, you can make use of every available space like they do on the ISS.
Re:I never liked Sci Fi corridors. (Score:5, Insightful)
You have never been on a submarine have you? Space ships have a lot in common with submarines.
Yes, because no one would mind people walking through their work space. Who cares if one get's jostled by someone passing through while one is performing a delicate and/or dangerous step in a procedure or experiment?
Yes, because no one would mind people walking through their living and sleeping space at all hours of the day and night. I am sure those people on night watch won't mind have their sleep disturbed ever few minutes.
Those corridors connect rooms together. They are hallways. No corridors, and you end up with one huge room which will result in no privacy, a huge waste of air, and is wonderful vulnerability because it takes just a hole or two to kill everyone on the ship.
Satellite of Love (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd have to say my favorite Sci-Fi corridor is always going to be MST3K's during the transitions between sketch and movie.
"Oh no we've got MOVIE SIIIIIIIIGN!"
Re:How to do a much shorter article next time (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think that catastrophe sci fi is anti-science, I just think it's easier - it's the 'disaster movie' equivalent.
Outstanding (Score:2, Insightful)
...the only thing I've read better than this article today have been the Slashdot responses.
Re:How to do a much shorter article next time (Score:2, Insightful)
Really? I thought 2001 was one of the best movies I had ever seen, and I watched it in 1992. Whereas far too many sci-fi films focus on explosions and space-battles that look like WWII dog fights, 2001 seemed clean and plot-driven to me.
Re:How to do a much shorter article next time (Score:3, Insightful)
...
It seems to me that a lot of science fiction has an anti-science bent.
You could just as well say that all non SciFi has the same problem... Govenrment wants to do something stupid and only the maverick politician can save the day; Spouse does something stupid and only two hours of dramatic avoiding-the-real-problem can reunite the couple; Boy wants girl but it takes 90 minutes of wacky adventures and two near-death experiences before he gets the courage to ask her out.
The "best" SciFi doesn't make science out as the villain or the hero - Instead, it shows us the (possible) realities of everyday situations in a setting that extracts those problems from the limitations of "modern" science... ie, The boy will still take 90 minutes and nearly die before he gets up the courage to ask the girl out, whether he lives today, or in a dirt hovel 300 years ago, or on a colony station orbiting Jupiter in the year 3517.
I think your real complaint applies to most forced-plot movies in general... You need some artificially-induced source of tension, followed by stalling and CGI to make the story last more than five minutes, followed by a completely predictable but somehow "unexpected" resolution to the original problem. Faux-science just happens to make for some good villians without needing to really justify their motivations. Why does the god-like AI want to enslave humanity? Because, um, er, humans look weak and inefficient (and what about dogs, trees, ants, and every other lower life form on the planet that A, humans don't see a need to enslave/exterminate, and B, we must look barely better than them to this god-like AI?).
So blame Hollywood, not SciFi in general.
Re:How to do a much shorter article next time (Score:3, Insightful)
This.
You realise that this was released before the Apollo landings ? There was nothing other than satellites and grainy B&W photos of earth. Then you associate lack of knowledge with drug use.But you treat the imagination of others like shit because they were too early ! Just you wait, grasshopper !
(Before you bang on, let me explain that when the moon landing was on, I was watching it on about a 12" B&W tv. And that was a decent screen for the proles back then. Watching 2001 on a BIG screen back then made me jump. Literally. Apparently my parents had to take me out when the airlock opened when dave gets back in to the ship. )
What many people don't get these days, is that we were already thinking in a futuristic direction, and 2001 was part of that. Then we actually made a start on the mechanics of the plot and found real life is a lot harder. That makes us look like we failed. No, we attempted to realise a dream. Fuck me if you don't appreciate it.
The past need no excuses. Prove us wrong.
[mumble}{mumble}
I should really bang on about how history is a lot closer to you than you imagine right now, but you won't listen. You pooh pooh stories about how it used to be without realising that we're talking about yesterday. Think about it.