# Terra Nova premiere 9/26 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 26, 2011, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666 "2011-09-26T16:34:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/201 "2011-10-13T21:31:21Z")
At first review, I voted - not terrible. However, this thread has helped point out all the parts that annoyed me and confused me and left me thinking “why did they have to go that way?” I’ll probably give it a few episodes, but if the teen angst stays high and the sense stays low, I’ll probably move on. I found it implausible that they are limited in portal time and have few windows, yet they have lots of high-tech fancy housing and buildings. Um, do they have special house fabricators they sent through or something using replicator technology? I liked that the fences seemed to use at least some local materials (logs are pretty easily replaced from local stores), but had issues with the fence design. First, dinosaurs came in all sizes, including things small enough to crawl through those gaps. Anybody remember the hissing spitting thing from Jurassic Park? So I’d kinda want the lower 10 feet or so to be solid, maybe even concrete. Second, I’d want that wall 2 times taller than the biggest predator out there, to preclude it jumping or climbing over. I really wouldn’t care much to have Brachiosaurs able to reach over the wall to feed, especially if they are opportunistic carnivores and the colony includes, oh I don’t know, 5 year old girls. I’m less concerned that the houses were big and they have lots of space. You’re building a colony from scratch with 10 years + in. They’ve had time to build a perimeter wall and have functioning fields for agriculture. Space is the one thing they have at a premium. Build your fence much bigger than you actually need, with the intent to grow. Build the perimeter wall increments, expanding the outer wall for every settler wave. Yeah, space is easy to come by. If they have some kind of mateiral fabricators then make the houses huge so people escaping a future of overcrowding get one immense luxury out of their relocation to a world of hard work and harsh dangers. I first thought, hey we’ve come a long way if the leader of the good guys is an old white male and the leader of the bad guys\* is a black woman. Then I realized they seem to be setting up the main colony leader to be shadier than he seems at first glance, and that the offshoot colonists may have a legitimate beef. So I predict we’ll see the tables turn where the main colony guy is the bad guy and the offshoots are the poor rebels with cause. Meh. > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > -the idea that in fact it is NOT a different timeline but people have been lied to (I’m skeptical that that’s actually going anywhere interesting, but it’s at least something new and thought-provoking) What gives you that idea? > [@](#): > > -the stupid scene after the sixers drive into the compound and everyone has guns on everyone. Not quite as ridiculous as the idiotic standoff in Mexico during season 4 of Big Love, but close. Oh, and that guy who just moments ago attempted to shoot our chief in the head with a gun? Sure, you can have him back just because. Yeah, if the Sixers are such trouble for the main colony, why do you let them in your barricades when they bring dinosaurs down on you? Quite apart from the gun confrontation, that part was odd to me. They ran off stealing your supplies and materials, and keep stealing things from you. Why help them? Let the dinos finish them off. > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I don’t think it actually does, I think that’s all a lie. That’s certainly strongly implied by the sixers at the end What, the part about “Control the Past, control the Future?” I don’t take it that way. I see no indication that manipulating the past ensures the future will be different. Another interpretation of that remark is, “Control this new colony where all the people are coming to, control the future world they’re coming from”. > [@Red\_Barchetta](#): > > Aww, I really enjoyed I Robot ☹ It was a fun “robots on the rampage movie”, but it was a travesty for Asimov’s philosophy and intent. His point in his robot books was that when robots seemed to be doing evil things, they were really having malfunctions or odd circumstances and were actually not bad. Overall they were useful, and in the end he hands control of society over to the benevolent machines. I, Robot movie said benevolent machines will inevitably not be benevolent, and the only good robot is a robot with a human soul. > [@tanstaafl](#): > > I saw an interview the other day (I thought it was on io9 but can’t find it there now) where they said that Spielberg had specifically told the writers to _not_ have the humans killing dinosaurs. Apparently they’re going the “all life is sacred and must be preserved” route. Oh crap. That explains the ineffective tranq dart guns. WTF? You are racing into a swarm of carnivorous predators trying to eat your teenagers, and you want to save them by attempting to tranq the dinosaurs if you hit them in the right spot, if you hit them in the wrong spot the dinos may just eat you. Come on! Preposterous. > [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > The probe cannot communicate to the right timeline but the camp can? The probe was being looked for in the future to get the results. It wasn’t found. The camp communicates through the portal when it is open. Also, the camp found the man within moments of his arrival. They had radios. It is plausible that they ID’d him, and sent a request through for more info while the link was still open. How long does it stay open, anyway? They started the caravan to the compound, but how many people were there? They were moving more as a continuous line than a cluster. Perhaps the window was open longer than just the bit we saw. Especially if they’re trying to ship through materials, too. > [@JSexton](#): > > I guess that’s possible. Still, the idea that they can ask the future for things blows the alternate timeline theory out of the water. How? They communicate through the portal, not external to it. It would be just the same as communicating a million light years through space. The instantaneous communication goes through the gateway, when the gateway is closed there is no communication. > [@Labtrash](#): > > When the kids went through the fence on their little adventure, the jungle was right up against the perimeter fence. > > I know they said the vegetation/vines grew quickly (dad was hacking them), but wouldn’t a couple hundred feet of “no man’s land” between the jungle and the compound fence be appropriate? I certainly would want a “no man’s land”. And a moat. And flamethrowers. And concrete walls. > [@TBG](#): > > Pro wrestlers routinely fall from higher than he was up on that fence. Watching the scene all I could think was “oh, he knows how to fall and took that bump well, he’ll be fine” 😃 Pro wrestlers land on a platform with giant springs and shocks under it specifically to help absorb the impact safely. But yes, big falls aren’t necessarily fatal. Though that was still pushing it a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/202 "2011-10-13T21:49:45Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > It was a fun “robots on the rampage movie”, but it was a travesty for Asimov’s philosophy and intent. His point in his robot books was that when robots seemed to be doing evil things, they were really having malfunctions or odd circumstances and were actually not bad. Overall they were useful, and in the end he hands control of society over to the benevolent machines. I, Robot movie said benevolent machines will inevitably not be benevolent, and the only good robot is a robot with a human soul. I haven’t read the book (which may explain why I quite liked the movie), but I don’t think that was quite the case. The only “bad” robot was the leader, who had all the others under her control. And she was only “bad” because of the circumstances, which led her to determine that humans were a danger to themselves, hence the oppressive measures taken. And the movie even ended on a similar aspirational note with Sonny becoming a new leader of the other, presumably non-evil, robots. Err, right, dinosaurs. Yes, that fence is silly. I actually think the show would be far more interesting were we to be following the first pilgrimage, and their rebuilding of society from scratch. Or if the portal’s drop-off location changed, forcing each pilgrimage to build a new base. Almost anything, really. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/203 "2011-10-14T15:13:26Z")
I don’t wish to hijack the thread to discuss I, Robot, so suffice it to say the philosophy of the robot in charge becoming oppressive is so counter to Asimov that if you hooked a turbine to his corpse, you could power a small company from his spinning in his grave. That, and the good robot had to have a soul to be good. I did see the second episode, and will discuss in the proper thread, but now understand the comments about communication better. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/204 "2011-10-18T22:37:15Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > Pro wrestlers land on a platform with giant springs and shocks under it specifically to help absorb the impact safely. But yes, big falls aren’t necessarily fatal. Though that was still pushing it a bit. They also fall on concrete floors and steel structures and pretty much anything else you might find in an arena. Youtube ladder match and just picking one at random I bet you’ll see people taking much worse falls than cop dad took, and not just onto the platform with giant springs (though there will be plenty of those too). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666.md?page=10)