# Any good live-action space-opera type movies/TV shows without artificial gravity? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 27, 2009, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524 "2009-04-27T17:26:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/21 "2009-04-28T16:19:39Z")
There are brief zero-G combat scenes in both _Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country_ (aboard a Klingon warship) and _Star Trek: First Contact_ (on the exterior of the _Enterprise_’s hull). The Klingons prove to be such total wusses in zero-G combat in TUC that even now I can only go :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/22 "2009-04-28T19:18:31Z")
> [@Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](#): > > The ship in _Red planet_ had two habitats spinning in opposite directions to stop the rest of the ship from rotating. An engine failure as depicted in the film would result in weightlessness. One has to assume the gimbals are designed to be as close to frictionless as possible so you don’t waste a ridiculous amount of energy keeping the things spinning during the years-long trip to Mars and back. Unless there was some kind of mechanical seizure, in which case the ship would rip itself apart, I’d expect the spinning and the gravity to gradually lessen. ---
**Author:** ![Waenara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@Waenara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waenara)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/23 "2009-04-29T09:25:49Z")
IIRC, the pilot episode of _Firefly_ (“_Serenity_”) used a little bit of zero G. At the beginning when the ship goes to “black out” so they aren’t detected by the Alliance cruiser, all the systems are turned off, including gravity. They restart the gravity when they start everything up again so they can flee the area. They don’t really show much of people in zero G in the scene - it’s mostly implied (probably too expensive to film). ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/24 "2009-04-29T12:05:57Z")
> [@Waenara](#): > > IIRC, the pilot episode of _Firefly_ (“_Serenity_”) used a little bit of zero G. At the beginning when the ship goes to “black out” so they aren’t detected by the Alliance cruiser, all the systems are turned off, including gravity. They restart the gravity when they start everything up again so they can flee the area. They don’t really show much of people in zero G in the scene - it’s mostly implied (probably too expensive to film). I don’t remember anything that is obviously zero-G on board ship. The one bit that sticks out, actually, is Kaylee climbing onto something to hit the shutoff and then complaining, in the dark, ‘and now I can’t get back down’, which might seem to imply that gravity was still a factor, but that’s picking nits. The EVA sequence with Mal, Zoe, and Jayne doing the salvaging did seem to convey a sense of free-fall, but that’s a bit of a different thing. ---
**Author:** ![Waenara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@Waenara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waenara)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/25 "2009-04-29T12:35:50Z")
> [@chrisk](#): > > I don’t remember anything that is obviously zero-G on board ship. The one bit that sticks out, actually, is Kaylee climbing onto something to hit the shutoff and then complaining, in the dark, ‘and now I can’t get back down’, which might seem to imply that gravity was still a factor, but that’s picking nits. > > The EVA sequence with Mal, Zoe, and Jayne doing the salvaging did seem to convey a sense of free-fall, but that’s a bit of a different thing. I might have read too much into it - I guess I always assumed that Kaylee saying she couldn’t get down was due to lack of gravity and not due to the lights being out, since she probably knows the engine room so well I think she could climb down in the dark (and it wasn’t really pitch black). Also, when Mal, Jayne, and Zoe climb back into the airlock their crates float around at first until they engage the gravity within the airlock by flipping a switch. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/26 "2009-04-29T13:35:55Z")
> [@chrisk](#): > > I don’t remember anything that is obviously zero-G on board ship. The one bit that sticks out, actually, is Kaylee climbing onto something to hit the shutoff and then complaining, in the dark, ‘and now I can’t get back down’, which might seem to imply that gravity was still a factor, but that’s picking nits. > > The EVA sequence with Mal, Zoe, and Jayne doing the salvaging did seem to convey a sense of free-fall, but that’s a bit of a different thing. And didn’t the bounty-hunter episode have an EVA bit showing zero-G? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/27 "2009-04-29T14:18:44Z")
[Space Island One](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Island_One) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/28 "2009-04-29T19:02:19Z")
Mike Jittlov (of **The Wizard of Speed and Time** fame) made a brief movie in the _Vomit Comet_, or one of its cousins. I’ve seen it – they start with the pretense of Jittlov and a female assistant going into a “zero G” chamber. They really did film in a “weightless” situation (parabolic arc trajectory). Jittlov said the stuff they _didn’t_ use was more interesting. With that in mind, I understand that a brief clip on one of those **Girls Gone Wild** videos was done in the same circumstances. I wish I knew which one – that would be worth seeing. The movie **It! The Terror from Beyond Space** seems to be set o a spaceship trabvelling at 1 G, since there is apparent gravity, although in the long shots of the ship it doesn’t seem to be. Nevertheless, when they walk on the outside of the ship with magnetic boots they seem to be in a weightless environment. That also seems to be the case in **The Phantom Planet** , and other cheap 50’s space flicks – it acts like artificial gravity inside, but zero G outside. Probably because of that “cost” argument (It costs to make sturdy, “live” sets that you can rotate and put wires through panels of, but it’s cheap to put wires on the _outside_ of a ship. In fact, it always bothers me when I see the interior of such a ship – it always seems to be filled with loose objects that would make tremendous missiles if the ship suddenly accelerated in any direction. Things are better stowed on a 15-foot sailboat than on your typical 1950s spaceship. **Forbidden Planet** is a notable exception. Lots of cheap old flicks have moments of weightlessness, but they soon forget about it. One example is the unbelievably awful **From the Earth to the Moon**. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/29 "2009-04-29T19:14:20Z")
Of course, it should be much easier to simulate zero-g with today’s special-effects technology and CGI technology. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/30 "2009-04-29T19:35:39Z")
Here’s an obscure one, although I violates two of the OP’s requirements, being neither space opera, nor good, but… The 1985 movie _Moving Violations_, starring Bill Murray’s spectacularly less talented brother, John, and created by the visionaries responsible for _Police Academy_, featured a scene where John Murray bangs the class hottie (played by Jennifer Tilly, apparently) into a “zero-g chamber” at a NASA testing facility that he somehow has access to. Unsurprisingly, the scene is so lame that it carries a genuine risk of physical harm to the viewer. ---
**Author:** ![dirkmorocco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@dirkmorocco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dirkmorocco)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/31 "2009-04-29T19:41:33Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > With that in mind, I understand that a brief clip on one of those **Girls Gone Wild** videos was done in the same circumstances. I wish I knew which one – that would be worth seeing. Girls Gone Wild Ultimate Rush - they took Joe Francis’s jet (yes, he had is own damn jet!) and flew some parabolas with some nakie Girls Going Wild. Could only get about 5 seconds per parabola though. Maybe 30 seconds floating total. I…I… I read about this somewhere. Yeah, that’s the ticket. A similar thing several years ago from an outfit called Key West Mile High Club. They gutted their plane and put in a bed, and people would charter them to have sex and join the mile high club. They had a video of a naked woman masturbating while the pilot was flying some parabolas. But one day somebody tried to hijack the plane to Cuba and it crashed in the ocean. I read about that too. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/32 "2009-04-29T19:44:38Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > a scene where John Murray bangs the class hottie (played by Jennifer Tilly, apparently) into a “zero-g chamber” at a NASA testing facility that he somehow has access to. It’s b/c Jennifer Tilly’s character was a rocket scientist. “It’s not like she’s a rocket scientist…so, what do you do?” “I’m a rocket scientist.” ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/33 "2009-04-29T20:20:39Z")
> [@tschild](#): > > The thing that works most against my suspension of disbelief in space opera movies is that gravity is the one thing that never fails. I’m a nitpicker, but that doesn’t bother me. I can easily imagine that the systems are set up so that the gravity is the absolute last thing that’s going go to fail. Especially since the inertial dampeners (rarely referred to, but clearly implied) are probably part of the same system. If the G-IE system goes out during manuevers at the speeds the space opera ships must be travelling (even sublight), the crew will be dead before they notice. I also imagine that the hyperdrives are set up so that they won’t even begin to engage if there’s a gravity problem. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/34 "2009-04-30T01:06:13Z")
A lot of not-so-cheap spaceflight movies undoubtedly don’t have artificial gravity, but they don’t seem to dwell on it. I’m thinking of: \*\*Marooned Countdown Riders to the Stars The Right Stuff \*\* and the Disney TV special from the 1950s and early 1960s on spaceflight. And there were plenty of old cheap SF flicks that depicted astronauts, usually in crowded capsules: **The Quatermass Xperiment** (aka **The Creeping Unknown** \*\*The First Man Into Space The Crawling Hand The Incredible Melting Man Monster a Go-Go\*\* And all those old **Twilight Zone** and **Outer Limit** episodes featuring astronauts. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/35 "2009-04-30T03:11:18Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I can easily imagine that the systems are set up so that the gravity is the absolute last thing that’s going go to fail. Especially since the inertial dampeners (rarely referred to, but clearly implied) are probably part of the same system. If the G-IE system goes out during manuevers at the speeds the space opera ships must be travelling (even sublight), the crew will be dead before they notice. Absolutely. And in examples that show the craft cruising at well-sub-light, it is important for the crew to operate in an approximately-1-G environment so they don’t turn to jellyfish in normal gravity. ---
**Author:** ![Abe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f1d935/32.png) [@Abe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abe)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/36 "2009-04-30T06:35:55Z")
In Private’s porn flick _Mission to Uranus 1_ (nominated for a Nebula award!) Sylvia Saint and a male actor actually have sex in free fall. The premise is that they are astronauts on a space station or a space ship. The effect was created on board of a Russian counterpart to the Vomit Comet. The minute I heard about this film I of course rushed to buy the DVD. It is … interesting. Sylvia Saint is always lovely to watch, but I think the crew needed some more practice filming in free fall, and I don’t think preparation and set-up for the scene were quite up to scratch. Nonetheless it was definitely educational and well worth the money. The ejaculation scene looks positively weird but it’s a shame they didn’t use an actor who could produce a high volume of ejaculate - in the interest of science, of course! ---
**Author:** ![dirkmorocco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@dirkmorocco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dirkmorocco)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/37 "2009-04-30T14:28:57Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Mike Jittlov (of **The Wizard of Speed and Time** fame) made a brief movie in the _Vomit Comet_, or one of its cousins. I’ve seen it – they start with the pretense of Jittlov and a female assistant going into a “zero G” chamber. They really did film in a “weightless” situation (parabolic arc trajectory). Jittlov said the stuff they _didn’t_ use was more interesting. Cal- I searched for this and could only find mention of something on TV from 1982, which was long before the general public was allowed on any parabolic flights. Is this what you are talking about? Any links you can give? They are going to make a movie based on the Stardance novel, which was about dance in zero-g. They have explored filming on parabolic flights but sounds like they are going to use computer effects instead. But don’t hold your breath - this has been in the works for a few years now and they are having one problem after another. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/38 "2009-04-30T16:30:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Cal- I searched for this and could only find mention of something on TV from 1982, which was long before the general public was allowed on any parabolic flights. Is this what you are talking about? Any links you can give? I attended a lecture Jittlov gave a small SF con back around 1981, at which he showed a LOT of short films he made that haven’t been generallt released. Of course, I haven’t seen them since. It almost certainly wasn’t on TV in 182. That’s about the time they released his made-for-Disney film **Mouse Mania** , which might be what you’re thinking of: ![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/dbcXB43gauI/maxresdefault.jpg)https://www.youtube.com/embed/dbcXB43gauI?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque ---
**Author:** ![tanstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/39 "2009-04-30T18:36:51Z")
While most of it takes place on the ground the majority of the space sequences in _Odyssey 5_ take place in zero-g. (They’re in space shuttles most of the time. One scene takes place in an alien spacecraft which does has (unexplained) gravity.) The commentary on the DVD spends a bit of time talking about how they faked the zero-g effects. ---
**Author:** ![dirkmorocco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@dirkmorocco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dirkmorocco)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524/40 "2009-04-30T19:11:50Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I attended a lecture Jittlov gave a small SF con back around 1981, at which he showed a LOT of short films he made that haven’t been generallt released. Of course, I haven’t seen them since. It almost certainly wasn’t on TV in 182. That’s about the time they released his made-for-Disney film **Mouse Mania** , which might be what you’re thinking of: > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbcXB43gauI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbcXB43gauI) The only thing I could find that sounded like what you are talking about was a TV program called The Future: What’s Next, which had a segment called Weightless Love. Anyway, what you were talking about sounded really interesting, just wondered if was possible to see it. Sounds like no. Oh well… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-live-action-space-opera-type-movies-tv-shows-without-artificial-gravity/494524.md?page=1)