Space Battle Scenes

Keep in mind that filmmaking - especially action/adventure films, which includes sci-fi - has nothing to do with reality. After all, for the most part, reality is boring.

escher said:
Did you know that if you detonate a large nuclear bomb in space, the explosion won't really hurt the ship (no atmosphere to carry the pressure wave), but the blast of x-rays will cause massive kinetic waves in the hull of the ship that will go all the way around, smash into each other, and rip the hull apart?
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It's called an EMP - electro-magnetic pulse. In addition to X-rays and gamma radiation a huge amount of electrical energy is released. In a microsecond more electrical energy is released than all of the electrical power used by the entire planet in a decade. During a nuclear war atomic weapons would be fused for high altitude detonation in an effort to literally short-circuit the electrical capabilities of the enemy; it would take out electrical systems of all types, including phones, electrical power and everything associated with them, such as computers. This would be the purpose if used in space, to cripple the enemy vessels by overloading the electrical circuitry. (BTW, this is what a huge solar flare would do to us.) To damage a ship as Escher describes the explosion would have to be relatively close. The radiation poisoning of the crew would be a much greater possibility.


Star Wars, Star Trek and all of the others use "scientific principles" that do not actually exist, such as "warp drives," "photon torpedoes," etc. or are at best based upon unproven scientific theories. At our current level of technology space battles would actually be fairly slow, more like submarine warfare than anything else.

You're creating entertainment, not reality, so you can go as far as your imagination takes you when it comes to space battles.
 
But I love "pew pew kaboom pew pew pew". Interesting post escher.

Space and atmosphere battle in the Battlestar Galactica episode Gun on Ice Planet Zero.
 
Almost every space battle in major films are simply based on traditional World War 2 aerial dog fights. Most people involved in the development and creation of these space battle scenes freely admit where they got their ideas. So take a look at some dog fight footage and start there... Perhaps you can go back to those roots and toss some ball bearings into the machine... ( love that ideas of ball bearings...gotta find a scene to write that in somewhere.)

cheers
geo
 
GeorgiaHilton said:
Almost every space battle in major films are simply based on traditional World War 2 aerial dog fights. Most people involved in the development and creation of these space battle scenes freely admit where they got their ideas. So take a look at some dog fight footage and start there... Perhaps you can go back to those roots and toss some ball bearings into the machine... ( love that ideas of ball bearings...gotta find a scene to write that in somewhere.)

cheers
geo
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no, it's mostly just star wars. Star Trek battles are like submarine/naval warfare, as is Firefly a little
 
Complete silence in space? I don't know. I've always supposed that it could be done, if done smartly and effectively somehow. Maybe silence outside the spaceships, but noisy inside the ships as they get hit etc, supposing the interiors have artificial atmospheres etc.

The thing is, whatever any filmmaker does, it needs to be dramatic and entertaining. If sticking to the real science doesn't fit that bill, then best to forget it and do the fakey space battle stuff.

I liked the space battles in Battlestar Galactica too. And there's much to like about the opening battle sequence in Revenge of the Sith. The Return of the Jedi battle sequence at the end was pretty awesome too. That might be the grandest of them all, so far?

Also like the Serenity battle, short as it is. The thrill though, really, in that scene is the surprise appearance of Serenity and the swarm of reapers out of the cloud, which is quickly come and gone.

The opening in First Contact is also one of the best, but also quite short.

Gee, trying to think of space battles, have there actually been that many?
 
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richy said:
Complete silence in space? I don't know. I've always supposed that it could be done, if done smartly and effectively somehow. Maybe silence outside the spaceships, but noisy inside the ships as they get hit etc, supposing the interiors have artificial atmospheres etc.
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"2001" was "silent" during the space sequences, however, you heard what Bowman heard - his own breathing in the space suit, etc.

And yes, you will hear sounds inside a space craft when kinetic energy impacts are transformed into sound waves.
 
Sounds in Space:

Just as feedback can be visual, so to can feedback be in sound.

The computer system can take the direction and velocity of spacecrafts around you and "DISPLAY" them audibly to you. So that although there is no sound in space, there can still be sounds of spacecrafts flying past you! (The computer system generates a sound appropriate that lets you know by sound where spacecrafts are without even looking). The computer system could alter the sound based on size of threat, type of threat (bomb, bullet), speed, direction, enemy engine type/capacity/fame.

Additionally, A space craft could have lasers that focus onto enemy ships, where the sound inside the enemy ships can be detected by the laser being bounced off and picked up and used to produce sounds. So your computer OR droid could listen into the enemy fighter pilots chatting and if need tell you the information that they are talking about on encrypted channels, but which is being "leaked" out by the skin of the spaceship.

Other sounds: Radiation alert (continuous pitch perhaps and lets you know the dosage/time), radio transmissions, planets locations, asteroids, meteoroids, etc. Your own momentum information (speed can be deceptive in middle of space, can only judge based on comparison to other objects).
 
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