# I guess it's hard to find a good sci-fi story on the screen **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 30, 2018, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-its-hard-to-find-a-good-sci-fi-story-on-the-screen/818796 "2018-07-30T07:02:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2018, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-its-hard-to-find-a-good-sci-fi-story-on-the-screen/818796/41 "2018-08-02T18:38:39Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > (Aside: I’m not saying anything about the quality of _Interstellar_ as a story. I’ven’t seen it myself, and I’m no better judge of story quality than anyone else, anyway. But they did yeoman’s work on the science.) I was very impressed by Interstellar overall. It’s mind-bending and trippy, but overall that is because it accurately portrays (as far as current science knows) the vast distances of space and the weirdness of black holes and wormholes. The ending was not so great scientifically but it was still about as close to hard sci-fi as we’ll probably get from Hollywood. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2018, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-its-hard-to-find-a-good-sci-fi-story-on-the-screen/818796/42 "2018-08-02T18:47:50Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > Does **Mad Max:Fury Road** count as sci-fi? We watched it (and the original MM) at the sci-fi film marathon I go to. It was excellent! I’d say so… and interestingly enough, mostly practical effects and stunts, as in all those crazy vehicles existed, and they really did wreck them like that. And there were guys on poles, etc… ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2018, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-its-hard-to-find-a-good-sci-fi-story-on-the-screen/818796/43 "2018-08-02T19:22:46Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > Not even on the computer screens. Those were all back-projections. I suspect that even in modern films computer screens may be simulated to avoid scanning sync issues with the cameras. ---
**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:** [August 3, 2018, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-its-hard-to-find-a-good-sci-fi-story-on-the-screen/818796/44 "2018-08-03T07:26:59Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > Not even on the computer screens. Those were all back-projections. Yeah, but if those _were_ computers, I wouldn’t class them as FX, because they’d be computers creating the effect of … being computers. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-its-hard-to-find-a-good-sci-fi-story-on-the-screen/818796/45 "2018-08-03T21:54:05Z")
No computers involved, apparently. > [@](#): > > Of course, to animate HAL 9000, Kubrick’s team had to create the graphics. But Doug Trumbull, who did airbrush paintings for films, hit a speedbump: Computer-generated graphics didn’t exist in any real way yet. MIT, where Kubrick had met with AI and robotics professor Marvin Minsky, was developing them, but they had a resolution of just 512 pixels across. That was advanced for the 1960s, but Kubrick knew it would be too crude for the year 2001. So his team faked it by mounting high-contrast film negatives onto mobile glass panels. Trumbull played with colored filters, photographed different graphics slides, and then projected them onto the set. > **[The Amazingly Accurate Futurism of 2001: A Space Odyssey](https://www.wired.com/2015/08/amazingly-accurate-futurism-2001-space-odyssey/)** > > In a race against NASA, Stanley Kubrick had to imagine the future---quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-its-hard-to-find-a-good-sci-fi-story-on-the-screen/818796/46 "2018-08-03T22:02:46Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I think I can safely say there was not a scrap of CGI in _2001_. Not even in the trippy bits. Just short hand. Not even the computer screen displays in 2001 were computer generated - they were all done by traditional animation. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-its-hard-to-find-a-good-sci-fi-story-on-the-screen/818796/47 "2018-08-03T22:05:04Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > Not even on the computer screens. Those were all back-projections. Didn’t see this when I responded. There is a big section in the recent 2001 book about how they did this. Synchronizing all those back projections, each of which had its own projector, was not trivial. And the screens themselves were animated, not done with computers. Some were ripped out of various books, which is why some of the charts seem so odd. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-guess-its-hard-to-find-a-good-sci-fi-story-on-the-screen/818796.md?page=2)