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posted by Fnord666 on Monday June 19 2017, @03:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the brighter-future dept.

I think we can use some positive emotions in our lives and this 3:50-minute SF movie created by Erik Wernquist certainly delivers a positive view of our future in this solar system that seems to rather lack in stories coming out of Hollywood recently. Made my day again, same as movie shot by Juno probe at Jupiter. This really is a masterpiece and it must have taken tremendous amount of CGI work. Narration is by Carl Sagan reading the first chapter ("The Wanderers") from his 1994 book "The Pale Blue Dot." I wanted to describe the locations displayed in the movie, but it was too spoilery and you can easily guess most of them anyway.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH3c1QZzRK4

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/108650530

Erik has a website with more films at http://www.erikwernquist.com/


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:07PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:07PM (#527971)

    ... for me, it doesn't really capture the awesomeness of spreading out into the final frontier.

    Base jumping from some rocky crag on a low-gravity moon isn't what I find fascinating; rather, what tickles me is the thought of the Big Engineering, and the well-ordered processes, necessary to make the voyage smooth; what tickles me is the setting up of a billion ducks in a row.

  • (Score: 2) by rob_on_earth on Monday June 19 2017, @04:08PM

    by rob_on_earth (5485) on Monday June 19 2017, @04:08PM (#527974) Homepage

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Frog [wikipedia.org]
    "Crazy Frog, originally known as The Annoying Thing, is a computer-animated character created in 2003 by Swedish actor and playwright Erik Wernquist."

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:15PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:15PM (#527977)

    All Locations Depicted In This Short Film
    Are Recreations Of Actual Places In Our Solar System

    Only the Solar System?

    Right after Vir Cotto died?

    When locations depicted in Babylon 5 were recreations of actual places in our Galaxy, according to deep space imagery of the day?

    So. Lame.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 19 2017, @05:54PM (1 child)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 19 2017, @05:54PM (#528050) Journal

      Let me understand your complaint. Because works of fiction have been written that take place out in the big, wide galaxy, a video or story that explains how we might expand out into the solar system first is "lame".

      I don't think the public agrees with you. People trekked to the theaters to pay good money to watch 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. Sailing ships are ancient history, and they don't rank anywhere near rocketry, let alone warp drives and such. Yet, the story sells.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @09:01PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @09:01PM (#528148)

        No, knumbskull, the complaint is about "Recreations Of Actual Places" in someplace small when MUCH BIGGER recreations have been done decades ago.

        Why doesn't every live action movie filmed on location carry a notice declaring "FILMED ON PLANET EARTH!!!" ?

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Monday June 19 2017, @04:15PM (19 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday June 19 2017, @04:15PM (#527978)

    I appreciate this guy's optimism, but it's sadly very naive. Humanity is not going to expand into or past this solar system; we're simply going to go extinct one way or another without really leaving this planet. Not that colonizing the solar system or traveling to Alpha Centauri is impossible; it's certainly not, but just not by us. We're too short-sighted and self-destructive. I say we have about 100 years max left. If there's any of us still alive then, life for them will look something like a Mad Max movie.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:22PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:22PM (#527983)

      Indeed. We've been to the moon and there weren't any moonwomen to rape. Space exploration is done.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:29PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:29PM (#527989)
        • Eventually, a colony will be set up on the Moon, and so eventually there will be "Moon Women" to rape.

        • The survivors of the onslaught will escape to Mars, especially as they'll have a pretty good idea about how to set up a colony on a foreign planetary body; that means there will be "Mars Women" to rape.

        • The survivors will escape to various asteroids (making for "Asteroid Women"), and then on to the Jovian moons (making for "Jupiter Women"), etc.

        • "My God! It's full of rape and pillaging!"

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:35PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:35PM (#527991)

          Real women aren't stupid enough to play along with your rape fantasy.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:43PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:43PM (#527997)

            Caitlyn Jenner is a sign of the times to come.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:54PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:54PM (#528005)

              The future belongs to trans. Venus Plus X [wikipedia.org]

      • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday June 19 2017, @08:06PM

        by bob_super (1357) on Monday June 19 2017, @08:06PM (#528112)

        > We've been to the moon and there weren't any moonwomen to rape. Space exploration is done.

        That's because you silly Americans kniggits just do not understand Good Cheese. Now, go to Mars, before I taunt you a second time!

    • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday June 19 2017, @04:26PM (9 children)

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 19 2017, @04:26PM (#527985) Journal

      Life like mad max is totally impossible. They'd fucking run out of water so fast, no one would live.

      There will either be fresh water sources, and small civilizations will survive and grow around it, or there won't and everyone will be dead.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:30PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:30PM (#527990)

        Everyone will be dead and nothing of value will be lost. At last the insects will have their chance to evolve into something better.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Monday June 19 2017, @06:02PM (3 children)

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday June 19 2017, @06:02PM (#528058)

          Everyone will be dead and nothing of value will be lost. At last the insects will have their chance to evolve into something better.

          Personally, I'm rooting for the birds. They kinda blew it before by not building a good space program before the K-T asteroid, but I think they should get a second chance.

          The reptiles are pretty cool too.

          Best of all would be if cats survived the cataclysm and evolved into intelligent space-faring beings.

          • (Score: 2) by tibman on Monday June 19 2017, @08:10PM (1 child)

            by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 19 2017, @08:10PM (#528117)

            If you think people are lazy, destructive, and easily distracted then i don't think you should have much hope for cats. I'm thinking something like Kzinti only instead of war-like they are west-coast surfer dudes.

            --
            SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
            • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday June 19 2017, @08:22PM

              by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday June 19 2017, @08:22PM (#528123)

              Laziness isn't necessarily incompatible with developing advanced technology. After all, isn't one of the primary aims of technology to replace labor with automation, and make life easier? With enough intelligence, cats should be great at developing automation technologies.

          • (Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Tuesday June 20 2017, @08:46PM

            by pvanhoof (4638) on Tuesday June 20 2017, @08:46PM (#528708) Homepage

            The birds? No, no. The tardigrades are probably already more intelligent than huuumans. For sure they are already much more adapted to any kind of cosmic catastrophy. Plus they have an interesting level of horizontal gene transfer going on. Their DNA is borrowing survival know-how from many other species' attempts. Now that's clever. We huuumans with our memes will probably kill ourselves over differences of opinion long before we'll get the opportunity to watch any spectacle of any cosmic catastrophy. And the birds? Hmm. Well some of them will survive..

      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday June 19 2017, @06:00PM (3 children)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday June 19 2017, @06:00PM (#528054)

        Life like mad max is totally impossible. They'd fucking run out of water so fast, no one would live.

        Well, I did say "something like a Mad Max movie", not something exactly like it.

        Also, did you not see the first Mad Max movie? There were trees and greenery in it; it wasn't until The Road Warrior that everything had turned into a big desert.

        Anyway, even in a post-apocalyptic scenario, it's hard to imagine there being no water at all. Even with massive desertification, there's going to be water somewhere: 70% of this planet's surface is covered with water after all. Even with fairly primitive technology (a solar still) it's not hard to distill freshwater from seawater, just not in large quantities needed to support civilization. But as long as there's oceans, there's going to be rain. Some small bands of survivors can probably hang on for a while.

        • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday June 19 2017, @07:05PM (2 children)

          by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 19 2017, @07:05PM (#528088) Journal

          I'm just saying civilization and agriculture goes with water sources, and a lack of them means total death. Your post-apocalypse is going to be defined by some kind of substantial social structure, almost certainly including a government, if human beings survive at all.

          Virtually everything post-apocalyptic is virtually obsessed with the notion of anarchy, and the reason for that is more to provide a vehicle for power fantasies than a realistic assessment of what a collapse of the current social order would like even 2 or 3 years out, much less 20.

          If there is an apocalypse, and we both survive, come track me down, I'll put a wager of a week's water rations on it.

          • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday June 19 2017, @07:22PM

            by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday June 19 2017, @07:22PM (#528099)

            Why is anarchy unrealistic after a really big collapse? With a sufficiently large collapse of the human population, there simply wouldn't be enough people left to form an actual "civilization", there's just be survivors wandering around in the ruins trying to survive or figure out what to do next.

            Just as an example, suppose there's a collapse caused by some horrible viral plague. Even really deadly and virulent pathogens always leave some small part of the population alive, due to natural immunity caused by genetic variations and mutations in that population. This was seen with DDT: it killed most of the mosquitoes, but left a very small number, which then continued to breed until the populations were restored, but now were all DDT-resistant. So with a human plague, if it kills of 99% of the population, that's going to completely eliminate any form of society or governance, unless you're counting the small warlords that'll inevitably rise up afterwards (post-apocalyptic fiction usually includes this BTW). (Also, humans aren't like mosquitoes; they take far longer to reproduce so they're not going to repopulate the way insects do after a collapse. They also tend to limit their population even more in the absence of society and government due to murder and tribal warfare, something that insects and most other animals don't do.)

          • (Score: 2) by unauthorized on Monday June 19 2017, @09:28PM

            by unauthorized (3776) on Monday June 19 2017, @09:28PM (#528162)

            You can grow food with seawater or closed loop hydrophobic farms. Not enough for billions, but certainly enough to have a functional society after the majority dies off.

            Virtually everything post-apocalyptic is virtually obsessed with the notion of anarchy, and the reason for that is more to provide a vehicle for power fantasies than a realistic assessment of what a collapse of the current social order would like even 2 or 3 years out, much less 20.

            That's not true, one of the more common post-apocalyptic theme is the emergence of a dystopian society after the collapse. In my very biased personal view, I find such settings to be far more common than Mad Max knockoffs.

    • (Score: 2) by r1348 on Monday June 19 2017, @10:34PM

      by r1348 (5988) on Monday June 19 2017, @10:34PM (#528186)

      Every generation has its own apocalyptic cults, you're just a member of the last one in order. Not so much time ago, a sizable part of the Christian world was sure we were done with the year 1000. Some wackos even though that the whole 2012 mayan whatever bullcrap was worth believing in.
      My point is: there has never been so much humanity in history, it has never been so prosperous and long living and, in relation to its size, never been so peaceful. Whoever is spelling doom is just fooled by a media bubble that feeds on outrage, not grasping the true greatness of the times we're living in.
      Does that mean we have no serious challenges facing us? Absolutely not. We shouldn't rest on laurels, so to speak. But we should also bear in mind that we made it in much direr times than this, when our extinction was a realistic prospect, and we probably weren't even aware of it.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 20 2017, @10:08AM (1 child)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday June 20 2017, @10:08AM (#528398) Journal

      Grishnakh shits on short film, but nowhere to be found on Elon Musk Publishes Mars Colonization Plan [soylentnews.org] article that ought to be a prime target for his fate of humanity pessimism.

      Your argument is pretty Sad! You acknowledge the feasibility of space colonization, but predict a doomsday for the human race. We've lived with atomic weapons for nearly 72 years. Nobody bats an eye at them anymore. Even if a few were launched or stolen and detonated, it would not put a lasting dent in the global population. Pandemic threats are manageable. Economic collapse can be mitigated by universal basic income.

      Lunar and Mars colonization attempts will take place in the coming decades, long before your hundred year deadline is up.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday June 20 2017, @06:42PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday June 20 2017, @06:42PM (#528638)

        We've just been lucky so far, and our leaders haven't been nearly as incompetent. Our luck is running out. And we're not getting UBI; it's a great idea, but the largest economies will never implement it.

        Look at the history of human civilization: civilizations *never* fix their problems. They always collapse instead, and are replaced by another. But in the past, big collapses didn't have the potential to ruin the planet like they do now.

        As for Lunar and Mars colonization, have you forgotten about how badly human biology interacts with zero-g gravity? We don't know yet the effect of 1/3g or 1/6g gravity, but it's probably not good. And thanks to all the radiation (and lack of a protective magnetosphere), colonists on those worlds would be condemned to live underground for most of the time, which doesn't exactly sound like fun or a way to attract many colonists unless the Earth has really turned to shit (which of course is looking pretty likely, but it'd have be really really awful to be worse than living in an underground colony on a world with low gravity giving you massive health problems). So likely the colonization efforts won't go far enough before a big collapse event happens here. If we really wanted to do offworld colonies the right way, we'd build huge, rotating space stations at Lagrangian points, but that takes too much competence and effort for us so it'll never happen.

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday June 19 2017, @04:22PM (11 children)

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 19 2017, @04:22PM (#527982) Journal

    It's just all vision-less super-hero or action/adventure tripe that can be narratively engineered by committee into a "movie experience" than anything that asks a real question. Can you imagine if pop-culture crap dared to challenge something about society in addition to being fun jaunts.

    Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed the latest Star Wars, and Guardians of the Galaxy, but sci-fi has been failing at it's greatest strength as a genre, the power to ask "What if something was different?"

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Weasley on Monday June 19 2017, @04:48PM (9 children)

      by Weasley (6421) on Monday June 19 2017, @04:48PM (#527999)

      Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed the latest Star Wars, and Guardians of the Galaxy, but sci-fi has been failing at it's greatest strength as a genre, the power to ask "What if something was different?"

      No it hasn't. There are plenty of books out there that ask such questions. Hollywood usually doesn't turn them into movies though.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @05:11PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @05:11PM (#528023)

        All sci-fi is Star Wars, all music is Justin Bieber, all news are Buzzfeed, and all software is Windows :)

        More seriously, I don't think that Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy can be considered as even the softest of science fiction. They are, at best, space fantasy.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @06:07PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @06:07PM (#528063)

          Hell, with offerings like Malazan Book of the Fallen, calling Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy fantasy is an insult to that genre.

          The 80s seemed like it was really good for the fantasy genre in film, but I don't see that era returning any time soon.

          I think there is a term we can apply to what passes for fantasy and sci-fi in Hollywood: potboilers [wikipedia.org].

      • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday June 19 2017, @05:12PM (6 children)

        by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 19 2017, @05:12PM (#528025) Journal

        Let's say I'm aware that books exist and I read fairly often, and I was purposefully remaining topical to movies. Can we do that?

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 19 2017, @05:48PM (1 child)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 19 2017, @05:48PM (#528048) Journal

          Ohhhh-kay. Science fiction in movies. How about TV series? Have you watched 'The Expanse'? It leaves some things lacking, but it does give a hell of a lot of realistic stuff too. http://www.the-expanse.com/ [the-expanse.com]

          This is one time when I was so impressed with the screenplay, that I went to find the books on which the shows were based. The only thing that isn't explained very well at all, is the Epstein Drive, what allows us to move about the solar system at a (small) fraction of the speed of light. It's as awesome as anything I've looked at, and the science part of it is pretty accurate. Except for that mysterious drive, of course.

          The "what if" that underscores the whole story is, "What if we aren't alone?"

          The series is as good as Firefly was.

          • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday June 19 2017, @06:59PM

            by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 19 2017, @06:59PM (#528085) Journal

            Sure, I'll acknowledge that we're in the golden age of TV, and there's some excellent serial material out there.

        • (Score: 2) by Weasley on Monday June 19 2017, @07:21PM

          by Weasley (6421) on Monday June 19 2017, @07:21PM (#528098)

          You said: "sci-fi has been failing". Can we stop being condescending and admit that you're post sounded like your definition of sci-fi didn't go beyond the silver screen?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @07:46PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @07:46PM (#528106)

          To me Moon, Oblivion and Edge of Tomorrow are sci-fi movies that ask "what if something was different". You might not count Moon as Hollywood but the other two are.

          The Planet of the Apes reboot also counts for "what if something was different". Same for District 9.

          As for Elysium, it might have been interesting if they'd made the "healing tech" cost a huge amount in energy and resources. Then as the poor overload those machines they find that the harsh reality is even if the social barriers are dropped, you still can't heal everyone or even feed everyone great food. Then many of the poor start behaving just like the "0.001%" elite and try to keep things for themselves. However it probably wouldn't have been as popular a movie that way ;).

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @08:24PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @08:24PM (#528124)

            As for Elysium, it might have been interesting if they'd made the "healing tech" cost a huge amount in energy and resources. Then as the poor overload those machines they find that the harsh reality is even if the social barriers are dropped, you still can't heal everyone or even feed everyone great food. Then many of the poor start behaving just like the "0.001%" elite and try to keep things for themselves. However it probably wouldn't have been as popular a movie that way ;).

            Yep which is why the movie can basically be summed up as "Occupy Space Station".

          • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday June 20 2017, @11:04AM

            by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday June 20 2017, @11:04AM (#528417) Homepage
            I'd have enjoyed it more! Way too much in sci-fi relies on an unbelievable "good stuff is free" assumption, typically combined with the "one group is hoarding or otherwise restricting access to the good stuff" trope, with the obvious implication that the hoarding group is a group of nasty bad people - /et voila!/ a dozen Elysia are shat out, and at least a couple of them will be tentpoles that encourage the cycle to repeat.

            However, at least they're entertaining things to munch popcorn to. Cinemas need peanut galleries.
            --
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    • (Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Tuesday June 20 2017, @09:39AM

      by Rivenaleem (3400) on Tuesday June 20 2017, @09:39AM (#528394)

      Edge of Tomorrow (Live. Die. Repeat), a great Sci-Fi, is getting a sequel.

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