View Full Version : Terra Nova-most senseless idea for a series ever?
michealdark
07-31-2011, 07:29 PM
The whole idea makes no sense to me. If you have time travel technology, doesn't it make sense that you would also have interstellar travel? Just pack everyone up and move to space if the Earth is in that bad of shape! Don't go back in time to a period when giant carnivorous lizards are trying to eat you!
Andrew j
07-31-2011, 07:31 PM
The whole idea makes no sense to me. If you have time travel technology, doesn't it make sense that you would also have interstellar travel? Just pack everyone up and move to space if the Earth is in that bad of shape! Don't go back in time to a period when giant carnivorous lizards are trying to eat you!
My guess is that all the other planets had even bigger lizards.
MayorMitch100
07-31-2011, 07:31 PM
But the time travel machine runs off Velociraptor blood.
michealdark
07-31-2011, 07:34 PM
My guess is that all the other planets had even bigger lizards.
The build a Titan AE style device
CapnChaos
07-31-2011, 07:35 PM
Maybe there aren't any inhabitable planets. Maybe the Earth really is that unique in the universe.
Magnum V.I.
07-31-2011, 07:50 PM
The whole idea makes no sense to me. If you have time travel technology, doesn't it make sense that you would also have interstellar travel? Just pack everyone up and move to space if the Earth is in that bad of shape! Don't go back in time to a period when giant carnivorous lizards are trying to eat you!
Having one does not presuppose the other!!
Also, they might have interstellar travel, but no way to preserve human life in flight therefor, it would be generations before shit happened.
I prefer the time travel angle.
The Zevad
07-31-2011, 07:53 PM
I just hate the paradox shit. By putting themselves in the past they are changing it. Hell maybe humanity came from a paradox and our descendents devolved into that various homo what's its. Also don't they realize that they still have a death sentence when the comet or ecological disaster or hell maybe they nuke the world and cause the extinction of the dinosaurs.
michealdark
07-31-2011, 07:55 PM
That's a good point too! Why would you go back to a time when you know death is imminent, not just from the giant man-eating lizards but the asteroid that will wipe out like 75-80% of all life on the planet!
Ryan F
07-31-2011, 07:56 PM
My vote would be for My Mother the Car.
michealdark
07-31-2011, 07:58 PM
Having one does not presuppose the other!!
I'm presupposing because we already have space travel NOW, and have for decades, and so does it not make sense that by the time we're technologically advanced enough to have time travel, space travel will already have advanced to a state far beyond anything we can conceive of now?
Roger
07-31-2011, 08:00 PM
i think the series looks cool as shit.
i plan on watching it
Jef UK
07-31-2011, 08:08 PM
That's a good point too! Why would you go back to a time when you know death is imminent, not just from the giant man-eating lizards but the asteroid that will wipe out like 75-80% of all life on the planet!
Dinos thrived for eons before the mass extinctions.
The Zevad
07-31-2011, 08:08 PM
One might argue Black Jack Savage was a bit senseless.
But it was fun!
Jef UK
07-31-2011, 08:10 PM
I'm presupposing because we already have space travel NOW, and have for decades, and so does it not make sense that by the time we're technologically advanced enough to have time travel, space travel will already have advanced to a state far beyond anything we can conceive of now?
No. Not in this story's universe anyway.
michealdark
07-31-2011, 08:10 PM
Dinos thrived for eons before the mass extinctions.
But the show has T-Rex. T-Rex didn't develop until the late Cretaceous, right? Closer to the asteroid hit.
The Zevad
07-31-2011, 08:12 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJfNdb7d-cs&playnext=1&list=PL4FAFD8F7C32E403C
CapnChaos
07-31-2011, 08:19 PM
Dinos thrived for eons before the mass extinctions.
And even survived at least one prior mass extinction.
Dave S.
07-31-2011, 08:20 PM
Is the idea that they go so far back because they don't want to interfere with human history? Otherwise, I would just go back to America in the 1200's or so.
Foolish Mortal
07-31-2011, 08:25 PM
From what I've read about the show, they don't actually invent a time machine, rather a particle-accelerator rips open a hole in the time/space continuum by accident, and it opened in that prehistoric era, it's not a controlled incident. So the scientists take advantage of the opportunity to try to save humanity.
Also, I hear there is a twist...
The prehistoric Earth the hole goes to is not our Earth, but a parallel Earth, because there are creatures that exist there that didn't exist on our prehistoric Earth.
I don't know if the twist is true or not though.
michealdark
07-31-2011, 08:31 PM
What's wrong that humanity needs saving anyways?
dougmac
07-31-2011, 08:31 PM
i think the series looks cool as shit.
i plan on watching it
seconded. even if it fails it should do so in a spectacular fashion
The Zevad
07-31-2011, 08:38 PM
From what I've read about the show, they don't actually invent a time machine, rather a particle-accelerator rips open a hole in the time/space continuum by accident, and it opened in that prehistoric era, it's not a controlled incident. So the scientists take advantage of the opportunity to try to save humanity.
Also, I hear there is a twist...
The prehistoric Earth the hole goes to is not our Earth, but a parallel Earth, because there are creatures that exist there that didn't exist on our prehistoric Earth.
I don't know if the twist is true or not though.
Parallel you say? That would be less headache inducing. I'll check it out. Hell it's got that guy from the short lived ABC version of Life From Mars. He's always entertaining.
LordKinbote
07-31-2011, 08:40 PM
The whole idea makes no sense to me. If you have time travel technology, doesn't it make sense that you would also have interstellar travel? Just pack everyone up and move to space if the Earth is in that bad of shape! Don't go back in time to a period when giant carnivorous lizards are trying to eat you!
I think all this shows is that you know very little about the show.
mbstoner
07-31-2011, 08:47 PM
That's a good point too! Why would you go back to a time when you know death is imminent, not just from the giant man-eating lizards but the asteroid that will wipe out like 75-80% of all life on the planet!
Maybe it's like Julian May's Saga of Pliocene Exile (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saga_of_Pliocene_Exile) and whatever mechanism they use for time travel only opens to that point in history.
Jason California
07-31-2011, 08:50 PM
Thanks for letting me know about this show michaeldark. I checked it out a bit and think I will be catching it for sure.
Jason California
07-31-2011, 08:54 PM
http://air.fox.com/terranova/widget/
Pre series content.
CapnChaos
07-31-2011, 09:04 PM
From what I've read about the show, they don't actually invent a time machine, rather a particle-accelerator rips open a hole in the time/space continuum by accident, and it opened in that prehistoric era, it's not a controlled incident. So the scientists take advantage of the opportunity to try to save humanity.
Also, I hear there is a twist...
The prehistoric Earth the hole goes to is not our Earth, but a parallel Earth, because there are creatures that exist there that didn't exist on our prehistoric Earth.
I don't know if the twist is true or not though.
Kind of doesn't prove anything, considering we only know of a fraction of the dinosaur species that lived on the planet during those time periods.
Phantom Eagle
07-31-2011, 09:29 PM
What's wrong that humanity needs saving anyways?
from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Nova_%28TV_series%29)
The show begins in the year 2149, a time when all life on planet Earth is threatened with extinction (suggested in trailers to be due to dwindling worldwide air quality). In an effort to save the human race, scientists develop a time machine allowing people to travel 85 million years back in time to prehistoric Earth. The Shannon family (father Jim, his wife Elisabeth, and their three children Josh, Maddy and Zoe) join the tenth pilgrimage of settlers to Terra Nova, the first human colony on the other side of the temporal doorway. However, they are unaware that the colony is in the middle of a group of carnivorous dinosaurs.
In June 2011, Terra Nova was one of eight honorees in the Most Exciting New Series category at the Critics' Choice Television Awards, voted by journalists who had seen the pilots.
Also, getting people off the planetary surface en masse requires huge amounts of propellants, to escape the gravity well, before you can even begin to utilize any form of interplanetary, let alone interstellar, space travel technology, provided you even had a suitable exoplanet to travel to, capable of supporting human life.
Time travel and space travel present two widely different engineering problems.
KSChris
07-31-2011, 09:42 PM
IIRC, the pilot looked so bad that they had to go back to work on it, which pushed it from a spring premiere to fall...
Phantom Eagle
07-31-2011, 09:50 PM
IIRC, the pilot looked so bad that they had to go back to work on it, which pushed it from a spring premiere to fall...
Entertainment Weekly (http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/03/11/fox-pushes-back-terra-nova-to-fall/), as paraphrased in Wikipedia
Terra Nova was expected to premiere in May 2011 with a two-hour sneak preview, but due to the amount of time being spent on visual effects, its pilot was moved to fall 2011 to air together with the rest of season one.
Terra Nova: It’s so amazing, we can’t even make it!
Phantom Eagle
07-31-2011, 09:54 PM
Also, the way the impossibility of time travel was explained to me was that it would basically take all of the energy in the entire universe to recreate a past or future point in the present universe, since one would basically be (re)creating an entire universe.
KSChris
07-31-2011, 09:54 PM
So how do they expect to keep up that level of quality in the fx, which take so much time to perfect, throughout an entire season?
Phantom Eagle
07-31-2011, 10:08 PM
So how do they expect to keep up that level of quality in the fx, which take so much time to perfect, throughout an entire season?
That seemed to be the most common response to the article. One wonders.
Jason California
07-31-2011, 10:17 PM
Maybe they have a real time machine which they use to go back in time to make their deadlines, and it just was not online in time to help with the pilot.
Phantom Eagle
07-31-2011, 10:58 PM
Maybe they have a real time machine which they use to go back in time to make their deadlines, and it just was not online in time to help with the pilot.
Or their visual effects were so stunning they just stopped to look at them at forgot to get on with making more.
I've actually started a Save Terra Nova blog.
6 Seasons and a Movie!
Joe Henderson
07-31-2011, 11:16 PM
Watched the first ten minutes of the pilot--wow, they spent insano amounts of money on this. Holding off judgment until I finish it tomorrow.
The whole idea makes no sense to me. If you have time travel technology, doesn't it make sense that you would also have interstellar travel? Just pack everyone up and move to space if the Earth is in that bad of shape! Don't go back in time to a period when giant carnivorous lizards are trying to eat you!That's a silly criticism. Forget the fact that there's no reason why these two technologies would go hand-in-hand, finding a habitable planet out of the vast emptiness of space would be MUCH harder than just traveling back millions of years.
The Governor
08-01-2011, 02:49 AM
When did this air?
Kevin T Brown
08-01-2011, 03:45 AM
What's wrong that humanity needs saving anyways?They didn't get the debt ceiling increase passed in time.
Bill Nolan
08-01-2011, 03:51 AM
Yeah, I agree with the posters saying this looks awesome. The ones for this and the ones for the show I refer to in my head as "badass police chick acting badass" are the only commercials which have appealed to me so far.
Mark Mavro (kryptic6)
08-01-2011, 04:35 AM
I don't buy this argument. What do time machines have to do with interstellar travel?
Jason California
08-01-2011, 06:45 AM
That's a silly criticism. Forget the fact that there's no reason why these two technologies would go hand-in-hand, finding a habitable planet out of the vast emptiness of space would be MUCH harder than just traveling back millions of years.
Ben. Everyone knows that interstellar travel is much easier to accomplish than time travel.
Ben. Everyone knows that interstellar travel is much easier to accomplish them time travel.What was I thinking!
(I wasn't... I wasn't thinking...)
thatguyfromsyracuse
08-01-2011, 06:54 AM
I think it's senseless because it's about people traveling back in time! That's impossible and ridiculous! I only like shows that are totally realistic with no fun in them whatsoever.
I think it's senseless because it's about people traveling back in time! That's impossible and ridiculous! I only like shows that are totally realistic with no fun in them whatsoever.It probably would've made more sense if the dinosaurs traveled forward in time to the present or near future (because who knows what dinosaurs invented!) giving the humans the technology to then go back to the dinosaur time to live. A major misfire on the filmmakers' part!
capntightpants
08-01-2011, 07:48 AM
This is the most senseless thread.
Jason California
08-01-2011, 07:49 AM
It probably would've made more sense if the dinosaurs traveled forward in time to the present or near future (because who knows what dinosaurs invented!) giving the humans the technology to then go back to the dinosaur time to live. A major misfire on the filmmakers' part!
How do we know they didn't? Maybe this whole thing was an elaborate trick by smart dinosaurs in the past to get a fresh supply of meat for them to eat. Plot twist!
Phantom Eagle
08-01-2011, 07:54 AM
How do we know they didn't? Maybe this whole thing was an elaborate trick by smart dinosaurs in the past to get a fresh supply of meat for them to eat. Plot twist!
Spoiler tags, Jason, spoiler tags! Now I don't even need to watch it.
Taxman
08-01-2011, 08:01 AM
In any event, there is probably too much genre stuff flooding the TV market these days.
This is the most senseless thread.It's the Terra Nova of threads!
In any event, there is probably too much genre stuff flooding the TV market these days.I think the problem is that these shows are too expensive to produce! They need to start making cheaper scifi for television, so we can actually get a few seasons out of them.
Jason California
08-01-2011, 08:03 AM
Spoiler tags, Jason, spoiler tags! Now I don't even need to watch it.
I am pretty good at figuring this stuff out. I should start sending out spec scripts to producers so that someone can hire me.
Caley Tibbittz
08-01-2011, 08:11 AM
How do we know they didn't? Maybe this whole thing was an elaborate trick by smart dinosaurs in the past to get a fresh supply of meat for them to eat. Plot twist!I actually love that idea. Can I steal it? I want to steal it so bad.
thatguyfromsyracuse
08-01-2011, 08:40 AM
It probably would've made more sense if the dinosaurs traveled forward in time to the present or near future (because who knows what dinosaurs invented!) giving the humans the technology to then go back to the dinosaur time to live. A major misfire on the filmmakers' part!
What if they make a spin-off show where all the dinosaurs travel even FURTHER back in time, because their time period is filled with too many pesky humans?!
Phantom Eagle
08-01-2011, 08:42 AM
What if they make a spin-off show where all the dinosaurs travel even FURTHER back in time, because their time period is filled with too many pesky humans?!
You and Jason need to stop coming up with better ideas than Fox or nobody is going to watch their show.
Jason California
08-01-2011, 08:43 AM
I actually love that idea. Can I steal it? I want to steal it so bad. sure. I am giving it to you.
I don't think the point of the series was to find the most logical purpose of time travel. I think the point of the series is to show modern humans living among dinosaurs.
I'll check it out, goofy concept aside. But the lousiness of Falling Skies isn't giving me a lot of hope for it.
Every TV season needs a bad sci-fi show for the sci-fi geeks to rally around as the second coming of Star Trek or The X-Files, though...
artimoff
08-01-2011, 08:55 AM
When did this air?
Sept.27, 2011.
Michaeldark time traveled back 2 months to talk about it.
Taxman
08-01-2011, 09:29 AM
I think the problem is that these shows are too expensive to produce! They need to start making cheaper scifi for television, so we can actually get a few seasons out of them.Start with good writing and you'll probably good further regardless of production costs.
Damian696
08-01-2011, 09:52 AM
How do we know they didn't? Maybe this whole thing was an elaborate trick by smart dinosaurs in the past to get a fresh supply of meat for them to eat. Plot twist!
but then their plans get smashed when the time travellers join forces with the survivors of the BSG crew. :D
I AM GROOT!
08-01-2011, 10:01 AM
Can we travel back in time and stop this thread from existing? Or is it easier just to rocket it into space? :)
Start with good writing and you'll probably good further regardless of production costs.Yep exactly. I finally finished up Caprica (fantastic series. Better science fiction than BSG) and I noticed several visual effects that looked pretty were awesome, but really didn't need to be there. The same moments could've been captured using camera tricks or cheaper special effects.
michealdark
08-01-2011, 05:14 PM
Okay, try this: in the end isn't the whole experiment just useless since humanity knows it has a time limit.
Jason California
08-01-2011, 05:15 PM
Okay, try this: in the end isn't the whole experiment just useless since humanity knows it has a time limit.
How so? Because they are 85 million years in the past?
michealdark
08-01-2011, 05:18 PM
Because at most they have 20 million years before most of the life on the planet goes POOF!
Caley Tibbittz
08-01-2011, 05:21 PM
Because at most they have 20 million years before most of the life on the planet goes POOF!
If only 20 million years was enough time to come up with a solution to something.
Jason California
08-01-2011, 05:23 PM
Because at most they have 20 million years before most of the life on the planet goes POOF!
Well, lets look at that for a second shall we? Modern man is 50k years old now. The show takes places less than 200 years in the future. 20 Million years is a whole bunch more time that they will have needed to reach their end the first time around, so I don't really think they are doing much to ruin their chances of survival. Maybe this time they will be able to create interstellar travel for you.
Phantom Eagle
08-01-2011, 06:34 PM
Well, lets look at that for a second shall we? Modern man is 50k years old now. The show takes places less than 200 years in the future. 20 Million years is a whole bunch more time that they will have needed to reach their end the first time around, so I don't really think they are doing much to ruin their chances of survival. Maybe this time they will be able to create interstellar travel for you.
Exactly.
greg donovan
08-01-2011, 07:27 PM
Or maybe they are just culling the herd and sending people back to the past to die.
Jason California
08-01-2011, 07:30 PM
Exactly.
Not quite exactly. I worded that is a very mangled way.
TheNatureRoy
08-01-2011, 09:30 PM
But the show has T-Rex. T-Rex didn't develop until the late Cretaceous, right? Closer to the asteroid hit.The show doesn't have T-Rex (per Spielberg's orders, not because of the time frame). I think the theropod in the commercials is a Carnotaurus or something along those lines. And while Tyrannosaurus Rex didn't exist at the time, there were big Tyrannosauridae like Albertosaurus and Gorgosaurus. I'm thinking there might have been huge Allosauroidea/Carcharodontosauridae that rivaled or exceeded T-Rex in size around a similar time frame.
Black Roman
08-01-2011, 09:34 PM
I think all this shows is that you know very little about the show.
He's getting people talking about it ... if nothing else.
michealdark
08-01-2011, 09:39 PM
The show doesn't have T-Rex (per Spielberg's orders, not because of the time frame). I think the theropod in the commercials is a Carnotaurus or something along those lines. And while Tyrannosaurus Rex didn't exist at the time, there were big Tyrannosauridae like Albertosaurus and Gorgosaurus. I'm thinking there might have been huge Allosauroidea/Carcharodontosauridae that rivaled or exceeded T-Rex in size around a similar time frame.
Thank you for that. That was educational. I used to know a lot more about dinosaurs even 10 years ago when I was still really into them...*nostalgic sigh*.
It sucks being 24 years old and already thinking that you're fucking old.
Jason California
08-01-2011, 09:40 PM
No you're not.
Black Roman
08-01-2011, 09:49 PM
Wait, you're 24? I thought you were like 16.
Why did I think you were like 16 or something ... :?:
michealdark
08-01-2011, 09:50 PM
Because I'm not always the most mature person on the board probably.
Or maybe they are just culling the herd and sending people back to the past to die.I forget who wrote it, but I heard about some old scifi novel about a prison that's built in the Pre-Cambrian Era. Time travel is one-way, so the people sent back to the prison are stuck there forever. Seemed kind of cool. Wouldn't work for TV, though, because no kewl dinosaurs.
michealdark
08-02-2011, 06:52 PM
If you're dumping all your prisoners, I'd say drop them back in the primordial ocean
Phantom Eagle
08-02-2011, 07:06 PM
The show doesn't have T-Rex (per Spielberg's orders, not because of the time frame). I think the theropod in the commercials is a Carnotaurus or something along those lines. And while Tyrannosaurus Rex didn't exist at the time, there were big Tyrannosauridae like Albertosaurus and Gorgosaurus. I'm thinking there might have been huge Allosauroidea/Carcharodontosauridae that rivaled or exceeded T-Rex in size around a similar time frame.
This made me think of the Cosby Kids.
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