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In Praise of the Sci-fi Corridor
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."
Don't you mean a syfy corridor?
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
A friend of mine who films his own movies has a corriodor in his basement. He says that corridor is one of his primary sets.
The same was true with Trek. If they weren't on the bridge, they were in some damn corridor. One of the things I liked about DS9 and Babylon 5 was that they had lots of "open" sets, and tried to avoid corridors as much as possible.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Cause in the future we don't have cable management or flimsy plastic plates to cover up sensitive equipment and sharp corners.
You mad
...for the space toilet special. An interview with George Lucas will explore the challenges of sci fi pooping, creating believable multi-species lavatories that account for physical as well as cultural differences, whether Jedi excrement has any force abilities, and the problems traditionally associated with merchandising this under-developed aspect of cinema.
Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
>>>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..
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
You can't really fault Trek for having so many corridors when most of the shots occur on the ship. If the space ships of Star Trek are anything like U.S. naval vessels, then they are mostly corridors connecting rooms. The rooms will be cargo, berthing, galleys, a few work shops, engineering, and the bridge. If the ship supports fly ops, it will have a hanger and flight deck.
The important thing is that there will be no "open" decks. Everything will be enclosed, much like a modern submarine. Space will be at a premium due to life support considerations, so rooms will be small and packed together. Plus, depending on how long it takes to get around, there is the matter of food and water storage, recycling systems.
In ST:TOS, the Enterprise would often be "three weeks out" from the starbase of the week. It had a crew of about 1,000. So, the ship had to have enough food, water, and air for 1,000 people for three weeks. Even with the "replicators", there would need to be source matter to create the food from. Let us not forget waste handling. Ejecting it from the ship means loss of material, water, and air. Storing requires voids. Recycling it requires space for the recycling equipment.
Also, a ship moves through space so it must have engines and fuel. The bigger the rooms, the bigger the ship, the more mass the ship has, the bigger the engines and the more fuel it needs.
Most people forget many of the details required for life because those details are taken for granted on a planet.
Corridors are the natural result of building large space ships with large crew compliments. Even a large cargo vessel will be some huge empty spaces for the cargo and a large space for engineering both connected to a small crew section which will be mostly small rooms off of corridors.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
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.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
[...] Even with the "replicators", there would need to be source matter to create the food from. Let us not forget waste handling. [...]
You just solved both problems with the same solution.
DON'T PANIC.
The best corridors were from the movie 2001. In it we have:
- The long corridor connecting the crew module from the propulsion system on the Discovery. Note it was octagonal in section and had no up or down as it was only to be accessed in zero-g.
- The short corridor/connector in the shuttle to the moon where the mod space stewardess walks in and, thanks to the tricks of a rotating set and fixed camera, travels up the wall onto the "ceiling" and exits. (She is supposedly held on by her velcro shoes).
- The short connector on the Discovery which is where the non-rotating main part of the space-craft meets the rotating part of the crew module. The astronauts must float down it and then clamber down a spinning opening to the part of the spacecraft that has artificial gravity. This is also another great "corridor", here Stanley Kubrik built basically an enclosed ferris wheel and in some memorable shots, had his astronauts jogging all around the "wheel".
Amazing what you can do with a script that isn't pseudo science and a director who cares (and has a good budget!).