agn@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Andreas Nowatzyk) (12/17/84)
Just to clarify my position: I liked 2010, saw it twice and think that it is the best SF movie in a long time - but it has too much F and too little S for my taste. I think that 2010 should have spend their DP-time on the aero-braking scene rather on the Jupiter simulation: The Jupiter background could be done with a couple of pictures (not moving) that are based on the voyager material. You see the Jupiter only for a few minutes continuously, and viewing in real time would reveal no noticeable motion. On the other hand, the aero-braking scene was underpowered: a burning marshmallow in front of a fan. Anything short of a super sonic wind tunnel would be insufficient. DP on the other hand could model the flare of ionized hydrogen quite precisely and it would have had the ability to continuously zoom out to full Jupiter scale. The flare would become invisibly small and a feel for the dimensions involved could be transmitted to the audience. As it is done, the proportions are of by several orders of magnitudes. I don't see a reason for using ballutes for the aero-brake: They have a disastrous failure mode, a tricky geometry (which could make it more difficult to stabilize the craft) and a need for the inflation procedure. What are the advantages over a solid heat-shield? The Leonov was assembled in space, so it doesn't matter if the shield is already in place during the flight. The displays, switches and controlls in 2010 were ridiculous. Floyd looking at a display with scrolling single digit integers and giving statements about the chemical composition is like Spock at his tube in the Enterprise. Any decent mass spectrometer these days have more fancy and comprehensible displays. A large amount of human-computer interface studies went into the displays on the space shuttle, the 767 or the A310: they are far more advanced than those low-res apple displays. There is no reason why a line of sight video-link (the probe to the Leonov) should produce anything less than a 1024X1024 high definition color display with today's technology. An other bogosity are the CRT's on the discovery: 2001 used flat panels. I really would like to see a SSSf movie without obvious flaws. "Rendezvous with Rama" by A.C.Clarke would be about the right stuff to show that science can be exciting and beautiful. Andreas.Nowatzyk@CMU-CS-K.ARPA