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The Expanse #2: Caliban's Thread - [spoilers for book only up to latest tv show episode]


SpaceChampion

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Simply marvelous.  I continue to be blown away by how good this show is.  The attention to detail is everything.  On different shows, those small character moments where we see a bit of drama injected would be eye rolling.  This shit is good.  That scene between Amos and Alex was so well done. Avasarala showing her might was amazing.  I mean, really, the lines were great but it was filmed so perfectly.  The camera angles were such that you could see her grow and Erinwright practically shrink and it was so subtle yet powerful.  Everything on Ganymede was just...everything.  Total bummer we missed the fight, it was clear so much budget was used last episode, but I'm guessing we'll see some of it on video record.  Inserting the Epstein story in this space was just perfect.  At first I thought it was a random and stupid insert, but it was done at the right time.

I haven't checked the ratings for this show, but it's really top notch.  I hope the ratings are enough to keep it going and with the budget it needs to remain so quality.  

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It felt it odd they chose to include Epstein's story in this latest episode. I can only imagine it being a bit confusing for viewers who have never read the novels. It may have made more sense to introduce Epstein early last season, as exposition showing the importance of the Epstein Drive in being able to colonize space.

I enjoyed the politics coming into play between the crew members of the Rocinante in this larger planetary conflict. Also enjoyed the scene where Naomi and Holden tell Amos and Alex about their relationship, and Amos' line to Holden about Naomi :)

The Ganymede fight with the protomolecule was slightly disappointing. I was hoping to see more of Bobbie Draper. The ship engagement off the surface of Ganymede was entertaining, though.

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Oh shit, I can't believe they cut the fight on Ganymede... What a let down. I was really looking forward to it, and... nothing.

Maybe, we'll get bits of it through flashbacks next episode when Bobbie is questioned?

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7 hours ago, Astromech said:

It felt it odd they chose to include Epstein's story in this latest episode. I can only imagine it being a bit confusing for viewers who have never read the novels. It may have made more sense to introduce Epstein early last season, as exposition showing the importance of the Epstein Drive in being able to colonize space.

Nah..... if a dope like me kept up with the Epstein insert and what it means to the overall story, then I expect most people could...

 

.... I still don't understand how Chrisjen knows that JP Mao is responsible for Eros

...from a character development standpoint.... Bobby is ready to erupt

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The story being told of the Epstein drive is pulled from this the short story they put up before the first season started airing - Drive - and is available on the syfy site. http://www.syfy.com/theexpanse/drive/

Epstein thoroughly documented everything he was testing, so as said above his wife was able to figure it out and sell it.

I thought throwing back to Epstein was a bit random as well at first, but thematically it was perfect. Look at the position in the episode of the climax of that story. We've had it made clear that the protomolecule is believed destroyed on Venus. Holden thinks they just shot the remaining sample into the sun. It appears that the genie has been jammed back into the bottle, Avasarala is going to pull down Mao, it's a wrap folks. Except even when the creator disappears with his invention (the Epstein drive) once technological progress has been made, has been seen...it can't be shoved back down and this is basically said by Epsteins voice over and then bam, we get the conflict erupting on Ganymede and the shot of the monster.

I don't know if the music has changed much from the first season, but I'm noticing it being perfect more than I did. Its just hitting every note perfectly. That opening shot of Mars was breathtaking. And the solar collector shattering and falling under the fire.

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13 hours ago, Martini Sigil said:

Nah..... if a dope like me kept up with the Epstein insert and what it means to the overall story, then I expect most people could...

 

.... I still don't understand how Chrisjen knows that JP Mao is responsible for Eros

...from a character development standpoint.... Bobby is ready to erupt

It's possible that Fred Johnson did what he promised Naomi he would do, and released the info on Miller and Julie in the background of everything else happening in this episode. And I don't recall how much info Holden gave Avasarala so far.

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22 hours ago, Martini Sigil said:

.... I still don't understand how Chrisjen knows that JP Mao is responsible for Eros

She's convinced that JP Mao is in charge of the stealth ships because the stealth ship she was given by Fred was crewed by people from Protogen, and Protogen was linked to Mao-Kwikowski. Don't know how she made the connection stealth ships -> Eros though. Protogen was linked to Phoebe and maybe she made the connection to bio-experiment on Eros?

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4 hours ago, Steinman said:

She's convinced that JP Mao is in charge of the stealth ships because the stealth ship she was given by Fred was crewed by people from Protogen, and Protogen was linked to Mao-Kwikowski. Don't know how she made the connection stealth ships -> Eros though. Protogen was linked to Phoebe and maybe she made the connection to bio-experiment on Eros?

Not going looking but thought there was conversation between  Chrisjen and her 'operative' in episode 3 or 4? alluding to all this. Also , even tho it is indirect, she seems to be getting hints and clues about all this going back to season 1.

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Liked the episode overall, though Ganymede was a disappointment, IMO.  Not only did they skip the actual fight...but the set they were walking around on looked like something out Star Trek TOS.  Little disappointing considering how top notch the rest of the sets and special effects have been.

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6 hours ago, HokieStone said:

Liked the episode overall, though Ganymede was a disappointment, IMO.  Not only did they skip the actual fight...but the set they were walking around on looked like something out Star Trek TOS.  Little disappointing considering how top notch the rest of the sets and special effects have been.

You are right, that's really the first 'budget limited' VFX sequence I have seen on the show , parts of it looked bad. Hope the budget was not blown on Ep 4 and 5.

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I'm torn on the fight at the end. on the plus side the Martian Marines are dead and therefore can't talk anymore so that's a godsend. But it was a bit of a letdown after the great showing that was the fight with the stealth ship they seem to have gone back to the Star Trek "consoles and random bits of the ship explode while the place shakes" technique 

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1 hour ago, Talleyrand said:

I'm torn on the fight at the end. on the plus side the Martian Marines are dead and therefore can't talk anymore so that's a godsend. But it was a bit of a letdown after the great showing that was the fight with the stealth ship they seem to have gone back to the Star Trek "consoles and random bits of the ship explode while the place shakes" technique 

It looked like Bobbie rolled over of her own accord at the end so there may be at least one Martian Marine that can relay the story.  

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Hm…

I’ve finally managed to watch S2E1 and I remain very concerned with the fact that the TV show gets exactly the stuff wrong that the books gets right with respect to space travel, orbital mechanics, speed, distance, etc.

In s2e1 we see several instances of ships flying towards their destination near the end of their journey, and these destinations (Saturn) can be seen with the naked eye. Also, ship is extreme, sight-range vicinity of each other. And a space map where Saturn looks as if it were the size of several times Sol. This feels exactly like watching Trek or Star Wars.

Grumble-grumble.

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s2e2:

4:52. The Rocinante just slagged Tycho station by pointing its Epstein directly at it. (At least it was breaking towards the goal, so 1/10 brownie points for that.)

8:10. Zoom into Tycho’s spin gravity. Perfect. That’s what we want to see. Clearly somebody in the production company gets it, and understands what makes good hard SF.

10:18. This shot of the Roci docked at Tycho is difficult to interpret. In the next scene, we see Holden and Naomi work in gravity on the Roci (with the floor being down), so it must be docked with its nose pointing towards the spin center of Tycho. But I think that’s not what this scene is showing. (Arguable.)

15:38-45. Simulated Roci battle. This heavy CGI scene is just an insult to intelligence. Everything is wrong here. Distance, sizes, speed, tactics, … And it really gets me down—when reading the books I was looking forward to seeing exactly this stuff done right on screen. The books get this right, and we love them for that. For TV, it would be cheaper CGI to get this right (because you never, ever would see three objects in the same frame). The book version is better drama (because it’s much more tense), and would be be consistent with branding this show as something more serious, more intelligent, more realistic. And all of that is thrown out just because somebody thinks we want to see Star Trek-like space battles with huge ships slowly cruising past each other while firing bullets. As if spaceships still behaved like pirate ships at sea. It’s The Expanse: Master and Commander

23:24: The Roci has hard coffee cups (instead of bulbs). The UN-trained captain Holden uses such a cup before battle. He lets it go in zero G. Again, this is just an insult to the viewer, and an insult to the characters, and an insult to the fictional MCNR engineers who designed the ship. The problems with coffee drinking in space are interesting and could be handled well, with just as much humour or drama. Terrible.

(Not to mention the conditions on the Belter ship. If any culture should obsess about proper behaviour in space, it’s the Belters. Book Belters are completely paranoid about safety, extremely serious, extremely competent. TV Belters are irresponsible punks. They probably design TV show sets in the free time.)

26: The Guy Molinary and Roci are in visual range of Toth station. Puh-lease. At this point, clearly nobody cares about distance at all.

30: (Attack on Toth). OK, I give up. This is like Star Trek. Not the Expanse.

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On 3/3/2017 at 1:22 AM, Martini Sigil said:

Nah..... if a dope like me kept up with the Epstein insert and what it means to the overall story, then I expect most people could...

This is something that intrigued me... It felt like someone inserted it because they didn't know where to put it. I have no idea what is the Epstein story... Damn, I need to read those books :D 

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I think the Epstein story is in opening chapter of book 1, or so. It’s the fundamental technological conceit of the universe: Near-perfect energy generation works, so we can build ships that accelerate for weeks and weeks (without having to carry a fuel source of the size of Mars). On the other hand, automation does not work. It’s a universe where Elon Musk found out how to build small suns and put them into a shielded box, but lost all interest in Tesla. It makes for great SF. 

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4 hours ago, Risto said:

This is something that intrigued me... It felt like someone inserted it because they didn't know where to put it. I have no idea what is the Epstein story... Damn, I need to read those books :D 

The Epstein story is exactly what was shown - dude created the drive, took it for a test, it killed him, but the drive obviously was still mass produced and continues to be in use today.  karaddin provided a good summary for why Solomon Epstein's story fit thematically in this episode.   You don't really need to read the books to know anything about Epstein.  It was mentioned in life the first three sentences of book one, syfy put out a short story on the website that was basically exactly what we saw on screen.  

 

On 3/3/2017 at 8:56 AM, karaddin said:

The story being told of the Epstein drive is pulled from this the short story they put up before the first season started airing - Drive - and is available on the syfy site. http://www.syfy.com/theexpanse/drive/

Epstein thoroughly documented everything he was testing, so as said above his wife was able to figure it out and sell it.

I thought throwing back to Epstein was a bit random as well at first, but thematically it was perfect. Look at the position in the episode of the climax of that story. We've had it made clear that the protomolecule is believed destroyed on Venus. Holden thinks they just shot the remaining sample into the sun. It appears that the genie has been jammed back into the bottle, Avasarala is going to pull down Mao, it's a wrap folks. Except even when the creator disappears with his invention (the Epstein drive) once technological progress has been made, has been seen...it can't be shoved back down and this is basically said by Epsteins voice over and then bam, we get the conflict erupting on Ganymede and the shot of the monster.

I don't know if the music has changed much from the first season, but I'm noticing it being perfect more than I did. Its just hitting every note perfectly. That opening shot of Mars was breathtaking. And the solar collector shattering and falling under the fire.

I think the only problem I had with the insertion of Epstein's story here is the same issue I have across the show - high G doesn't look painful enough.  I hate the seats they use in the Roci, they are too flimsy and the actors move around too much in them.  Plus, no one ever looks truly pained, just mildly uncomfortable or constipated.  With everyone looking this way, it seems a directorial choice rather than poor acting, but it's annoying.  Same with the coffee cups.  It's such a stupid mistake.  Also annoyed by clear tablets.  

I'm less annoyed by the issues HE keeps bringing up.  Mostly because I'm ignorant to a lot of the hard science, but also because I want to see all of these things in the same frame so I just accept that things in frame are further than they appear.  

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25 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Mostly because I'm ignorant to a lot of the hard science, but also because I want to see all of these things in the same frame so I just accept that things in frame are further than they appear.  

But there’s nothing difficult to understand.

I just want to 

1. Get a sense of vacuum. The Expanse books get this superbly right. Space is huge, and all man-made objects are tiny tin cans strapped to small suns zooming about in a deadly environment. Make one mistake, and you’re dead. Coffee cup? You’re dead. Flimsy chair? You’re dead. Forgot to check your buddy’s straps or valves? You’re both dead. It is constant stress. This would be cheap to do and give really great atmosphere. 

2. Get a sense of distance. Space is huge. Rocks, moons, stations, planet, ships, are tiny, tiny, tiny. Almost all SF gets this wrong, with huge planets being very close to each other. (Recent Star Wars gets this wrong, so does recent Star Trek, consistently.) For TV, distance is cheap. You can make amazing camera-zooms through space to visualise the distance, or use correct, informative electronic maps (just like the crew would have to) to understand where things are. Many modern computer space trading games get this right. TV and film get it wrong. 

3. Get a sense of speed and momentum. This would make for really good, exciting, tense drama, with long periods of waiting while you adjust your vector, interrupted by super-brief encounters. Just like in the book. Use insane camera zooms or bullet time to make this visually stunning. It would be unforgettable, it would be cheap, it would be exciting, it would be correct. It’s exactly what you need to give a tv show something extra, something for the geeks to talk about, something for the I Fucking Love Science demographic to virtue signal with.

No, I’m very, very disappointed. The book attack on Toth is great. I loved that. The show attack on Toth violates everything that the Expanse universe tells us about physics. 

And I still am unconvinced about the interior ship designs. There has not been a single visual clue that down is away from accelaration. All the interiors look like (naval) ships, with long walkways. Instead, things should be stacked. Doors should lead up and down, not left and right.

And people in space battles need to stop walking around in their ships. Like you say, they should be strapped into something like padded, full-body armour, with their heads fixed. Again, cheap to do.

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