Back from LA with Honorverse move news

One of the best live shots would be the going into and coming out of hyper shots im betting, if done right, and a shot of the ships sailing serenely through hyper....

rmsgrey wrote:Sound in space: Yeah, there's no sound in space, but sound is the best way humans have for picking up directional cues from outside field of view, so any competent space navy will include simulated battle noise piped into anywhere tactical decisions are being made simply to provide better situational awareness. The tricky part is explaining that to the audience without dropping out of character, or taking up too much screen-time - if it were a TV series rather than a movie, it'd be easier to find time for, say, a scene where a new captain changes the bridge sound effects - though, thinking about it, it's more likely to be standardised across a given navy so that transferred crew don't need to learn a new set of meanings...

Scale of space battles: That's a problem already faced in-universe by the tactical displays - the answer is to mostly use the tactical displays, and only use "live" footage on special occasions (and be prepared with swooping zooms like BSG used on occasion...

rmsgrey wrote:Sound in space: Yeah, there's no sound in space, but sound is the best way humans have for picking up directional cues from outside field of view, so any competent space navy will include simulated battle noise piped into anywhere tactical decisions are being made simply to provide better situational awareness.

Noise, yes, but not simulated battle noise. Simulated battle noise would not carry enough information - instead they would be using tones and tone patterns to indicate information.

Werrf wrote:Noise, yes, but not simulated battle noise. Simulated battle noise would not carry enough information - instead they would be using tones and tone patterns to indicate information.

I'm reminded of that idiotic movie "Iron Eagle". Where the young moron was flying using headphones to a music player. Which means that all the indicators from the early warning receivers and missile detection system can't be heard, since they are all audible tones.

kzt wrote:

Werrf wrote:Noise, yes, but not simulated battle noise. Simulated battle noise would not carry enough information - instead they would be using tones and tone patterns to indicate information.

I'm reminded of that idiotic movie "Iron Eagle". Where the young moron was flying using headphones to a music player. Which means that all the indicators from the early warning receivers and missile detection system can't be heard, since they are all audible tones.

It was still a fun movie in a mindless way.

One point I'd like to make to the "hard science purists" in this thread. Remember there are going to be trade-offs between all the cool (and for me as I'm more into the astro-politics in the Honorverse eye-glazing at times) descriptions of how missiles work in space and the tactics in the Honorverse space battles and the fact that this movie has to attract new viewers.

Now Gravity seems to have been a paradigm change on what sci-fi looks and feels, but the Honorverse is grander and I'm hoping that that gets reflected on screen. Just to point out the fact that Grayson orbit would probably look cluttered with the space farms and fortresses despite their crude technology relative to the Star Kingdom of Manticore. I'm expecting the ships to be closer than the thousands of kilometers wedge clearance described in the books to make it feasible on screen.

Sound, as much as many will hate to argue in this forum, will probably still be part of the deal in the visual medium. Now, if they go for lining up and firing at porthole ranges like the old sailships (which I seriously doubt Weber will allow if he has anything to say about it), then I'll be joining the pitchforks and torches crowd too.

Gravity is a great example. They took huge liberties with the physics in a few places to make the plot work, but nobody cares because it all looks and feel right.

For example, the shuttle, ISS and the Chinese space station are on totally different orbital planes, and the physics say that you just can't get there from here using any existing space vehicle, much less a MMU.

Another obvious one is that they are in zero g, so the two astronauts can simply pull themselves back to ISS using just two fingers. That was unnecessary, there were better ways to do that.

Wow, long thread….

There is one thing that I didn’t see anyone bring up. That is the need to have a real “ship” feel when onboard a warship. Not getting the little details and feel is one of the things that has always just instantly evaporated my suspension of belief. In the books DW is one of the best, if not the best writer for describing scifi ship-to-ship combat. One of the reasons is because he doesn’t just describe what the ships are doing and what the command crew is doing, he also zooms in on the rest of the ship such as damage control. I REALLY hope they take the time to visit a real modern warship and get to observe a real world GQ, complete with casualty sim. In a book you have the advantage that the readers mind will fill in details, but in a movie the details need to be painted on the screen.

Read Chapter 31 of Basilisk starting at paragraph 6 (5?) with “Not here-here!” Dominica Santos snapped”. The Damage control teams need to be DOING SOMETHING. So many of the movie’s that try to show a ship in battle always have people aimlessly running about and DC parties running around like chickens with their heads chopped off.

And sick bay. Go back and read the first few paragraphs of Chapter 31 of Basilisk. Really bring that simple image to the screen will make the sense of urgency and danger pop.

IMO they need to pay close attention to the side details and use the cut-shots to make the action pop.

And it may be sacrilegious to say so, But Boatswain MacBride will be one of the most important characters to get right. That character is instrumental to setting the scene.

And the look of the ships. Working ships and warships do not look like a penthouse or a new apartment complex. Of all the scifi shows I ever watched the new Battlestar Galactica was closest to that gritty feel a real warship has. Not spot on, definitely not spot on. But so much better that shows like Star Trek or Star Wars.

All just an opinion, of course.

I think it is important for this film's success that it separate itself somehow from other films of its genre (I doubt it will have the budget and talent of the other major studios). There are creative ways around that however. So, I don't know about others but I feel DW's strengths are NOT his characterizations. The interplay between characters comes off as stilted and not warm. But that can be a strength.
One idea to get around that is to embrace a cool dispassionate, alternative way of telling the story and present it like one of those classic second world war documentary series, where there is, first, a narrator describing the essence and state of affairs over on-going battle clips, then second, expert talking heads and finally some first hand accounts by "old timer vets" from the battles. It is a great way to overcome budget obstacles and be selective where in a movie money has to be spent. It also presents many opportunities, as well as hurdles, for a director to create something unique and buzz worthy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAsXB73TXSc

Saw trailers today for 300: Rise of an Empire and Jupiter Ascending. Both seem to feature strong female roles. Along with Catching Fire and perhaps other such movies which may come out over the next couple of years, perhaps the time is right for the mass audience to buy into Honor Harrington.

Concerning 'stilted':

I have thought about the characterization issue in DWs books - compared to for instance George RR Martin - a couple of times because the differences are highly insteresting. The more so because both of them are among my fav authors.

Martin's characters are more colorful, Weber's more 'straightforward' IMO.

However I have come to the conclusion that at least a part of the difference results from their different ways of storytelling. DWs stories are plot-driven and his characters act (mostly) logically within the framework of the plot and background set of rules. That is an advantage in a certain way because we as readers don't feel cheated out of a logical plot progression because of some random foolishness of someone.

Martin's story seems to be more character-driven which gives him more room to explore the depths of the human psyche (and actually demands it).
That is cool also though in a totally different way. It does lead to things like the Red Wedding. Suddenly the story gets turned upside down - and in big part because some hero is too young and hormone-laden to behave prudently. I guess we would hate that in the Honorverse, haha.

One can like both ways of storytelling but they are very different.

npadln wrote:I think it is important for this film's success that it separate itself somehow from other films of its genre (I doubt it will have the budget and talent of the other major studios). There are creative ways around that however. So, I don't know about others but I feel DW's strengths are NOT his characterizations. The interplay between characters comes off as stilted and not warm. But that can be a strength.
One idea to get around that is to embrace a cool dispassionate, alternative way of telling the story and present it like one of those classic second world war documentary series, where there is, first, a narrator describing the essence and state of affairs over on-going battle clips, then second, expert talking heads and finally some first hand accounts by "old timer vets" from the battles. It is a great way to overcome budget obstacles and be selective where in a movie money has to be spent. It also presents many opportunities, as well as hurdles, for a director to create something unique and buzz worthy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAsXB73TXSc