MovieChat Forums > The Orville (2017) Discussion > Space looks dull

Space looks dull

posted 6 years ago by [deleted]
14 replies | jump to latest

I can forgive the original Star Trek for showing us just stars and planets, and forgetting galaxies, nebulae, clusters, and other magnificent space visuals that we now know exists.

For some reason, even TNG looks a bit on the dull side, just plain stars for the most part.

But if you put to image search any of the following search terms:

hubble cluster
ngc nebula
star cluster
spiral galaxy
hubble deep space

.. well, you get the idea. Look at the magnificence of ACTUAL space, and then compare it to what The Orville shows us.

Isn't a TV show supposed to be better than reality, at least visually? Isn't a TV show supposed to be escapism, so we can imagine better worlds than what we can see from photos?

Star Treks and other space sci-fi shows fail miserably at showing even 10% of the magnificence you can see from those simple search words.

Even the Superman movie intro tries to be so epic, and also fails completely. A sparkler and a couple of oddly filmed chemical reactions? Come on, look at actual nebula photos and realize how much beauty there is in ACTUAL space.

A Sci-fi show should SURPASS the beauty of actual reality, not DULLIFY it, for crying out loud.

I honestly expected this heavily praised show to FINALLY show us the glory of stars and nebulae, galaxies and what's actually out there, but no. Just barely visible white dots moving lazily about, and some dull other visuals sometimes...

What's the point of making an 'enticing' intro for TNG (even back in the 1980s), when the show itself never shows us more than some white dots or white lines (well, there were some other colors as well, but still) moving in a boring way? Would one nebulae that's not dim and blue be asking for too much?

[–] maximmm (3412) 6 years ago

The thing is, we are in the milky way - which looks pretty stunning - I mean, look here - https://www.popsci.com/sites/popsci.com/files/styles/1000_1x_/public/import/2014/BlackHole_0.jpg?itok=AGqZ-Yy7

So, while we are inside this thing - things don't look quite that glamorous, do they? Even from the space station, things don't look a whole lot better without the light pollution. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=30&v=qE2pUb6Cx5c

Basically, things look pretty remarkable when zoomed in from the distance, but without the zooming in effect - once you are close to something which should look amazing - you'll find that everything is spaced out by a big margin to a point where the supposed beauty is completely lost - and the space surrounding you looks absolutely dull. There are, of course, a few exceptions to the rule -

[–] Jehosaphet (1063) 6 years ago

That's interesting as hell...makes perfect sense.

[–] MAGolding (1240) 6 years ago

Also, many astronomical objects look really great in photographs which are made in long exposures, but look totally different when seen with the human eye looking at them through telescopes. The exposures in some astronomical photographs might be literally tens of thousands of times longer than than the time it takes for the human eye to see things, so naturally astronomical objects look tens of thousands of times as bright in those long exposure photographs.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

The saying of they couldn't see the forest for the trees comes to mind.

[–] brux (14840) 6 years ago

OK, so let's just say in the future the windows in a star ship are computer "processed" do that Federation, or Union lifeforms can see what is out there ... like we wear infra-red goggles to see in the dark. Does that work?

[–] Jes' Sayin' (6545) 6 years ago

Have you seen all the episodes? At least some of the following have appeared: supernova, binary star, nebula....

[–] beavis (3249) 6 years ago

Why don't the ships freeze up? like in apollo13

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

" Would one nebulae that's not dim and blue be asking for too much?"

You dont see all that stuff unless you are looking from a long ways away with huge magnification.
Space to the naked eye , does indeed , look "dull" as you put it.

If they put all that fancy multi coloured nebula as a backdrop to the ship it would look rediculous,
it would make the ship look like it was a million miles long.
The star trek nerds would be up in arms!

[–] brux (14840) 6 years ago

> The star trek nerds would be up in arms!

That's OK, their "arms" are fake phasers and they don't do anything.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

yeah but the last thing you want is a load of yellow shirted fake phaser toting nerds explaining why space is black all night in the pub

[–] McQualude (4231) 6 years ago

Many of those beautiful photos are false color.

[–] brux (14840) 6 years ago

Space doesn't look anything like the special effects of these shows. It is not the ocean. There are not storms either, or space fish.

[–] TandyMan (11356) 6 years ago

Space is mostly black and empty. All those beautiful photos are digitally colored radiation.

[–] liscarkat (19427) 6 years ago

In the mid-1960s "Lost in Space" used actual astrophotos from the Palomar and Mount Wilson observatories as backgrounds. As cheesy as that show was, that particular decision was a good idea. I haven't seen it done since then.