Alien worlds

[popeye85]

Anyone seen the new Netflix documentary Alien Worlds? It's a series using CGI and science to show what sorts of creatures might live on exoplanets.

So far I've found it Very interesting, although I do find the switching between a particular planet and earth in order to back up their claims takes away something from it. I would rather the whole episode just stayed and "explored" the planet a bit more. 

Will be interesting to see how it is revieced. 

 

[theropod]

My wife and I watched two episodes last night, and while interesting the level of conjecture rises into low orbit.

[Moonshed]

1 hour ago, theropod said:

My wife and I watched two episodes last night, and while interesting the level of conjecture rises into low orbit.

Same here, although such programs can be interesting I usually don’t bother with them for long because all said and done all they doing is making guesses, and I feel they do get a bit carried away with it all at times.

[rnobleeddy]

I enjoyed episode 1 but not 100% sure I buy the split between the Earth based evidence and the fictitious planet. I presume that the Earth based segments are easier to plan and cheaper to make than the alien planet segments! 

I've also read a lot of classic sci-fi and couldn't help but feel that episode 1 was a mish-mash of ideas I'd read about before.

All in all, I'll keep going. For some reason I tend to prefer documentaries whilst I'm exercising indoors, so any new material is welcome - Netflix as a relatively small amount of high quality documentaries, and a long tail of rubbish!

[MartinHiggins]

Agree with all the comments above. The switches between the earth and planet sequences didn't all seem relevant. As soon as I saw those soaring grazers I was wondering how they'd give birth and the idea that the female would die on giving birth only once seems very improbable. The assertion that there are more exoplanets than grains of sand on the earth? I did enjoy watching though!

[popeye85]

2 minutes ago, MartinHiggins said:

 The assertion that there are more exoplanets than grains of sand on the earth? 

That one did have new scratching my head a little bit!!!!

[wulfrun]

3 minutes ago, popeye85 said:

That one did have new scratching my head a little bit!!!!

Like most such stuff, it's guesswork. I don't think anyone's counted the grains of sand on Earth and apart from "a lot" no-one really knows how many exoplanets exist. I think it's just meant as a figure of speech.

[wulfrun]

Update: I started watching the first episode last night and got about 20 minutes in before giving up. Just too much fantasy involved on the hypothetical worlds and the "science"seemed second-rate too, with some basic errors. The first "world" was said to be twice Earth's size and with twice the gravity making for a denser, more bouyant atmosphere to keep the "skygrazers" aloft. Epic fail on both scores. Twice Earth's size means 8 times the volume (and likely, mass and hence gravity) and a denser atmosphere doesn't allow you to soar indefinitely any better. Couldn't take it seriously after schoolboy errors.

I skipped to the last episode, which seemed more tolerable and made a few sentient points about our own possible futures. Still a lot of fantasy in it though. Overall, it may as well have been made as a sci-fi movie. Yes, it's (mostly) possible but it's still 100% conjecture and assumptions galore. I think they could have done better.

Edited December 5, 2020 by wulfrun
typos

[Moonshed]

On 05/12/2020 at 12:11, wulfrun said:

Update: I started watching the first episode last night and got about 20 minutes in before giving up. Just too much fantasy involved on the hypothetical worlds and the "science"seemed second-rate too, with some basic errors. The first "world" was said to be twice Earth's size and with twice the gravity making for a denser, more bouyant atmosphere to keep the "skygrazers" aloft. Epic fail on both scores. Twice Earth's size means 8 times the volume (and likely, mass and hence gravity) and a denser atmosphere doesn't allow you to soar indefinitely any better. Couldn't take it seriously after schoolboy errors.

I skipped to the last episode, which seemed more tolerable and made a few sentient points about our own possible futures. Still a lot of fantasy in it though. Overall, it may as well have been made as a sci-fi movie. Yes, it's (mostly) possible but it's still 100% conjecture and assumptions galore. I think they could have done better.

It’s no use you explaining science stuff about volume, mass and gravity when all folks want to see is happy skygrazer families floating about in the alien atmosphere having a truly wonderful time, you’re only being a spoil sport. 🚀 😂

[SStanford]

I enjoyed the series, the last episode I felt was the most interesting (although, how did they build the robots that built the cubes that housed them initially?) 

The repetition of CGI scenes in the second episode was a little grating... 

[LukeSkywatcher]

I'll never eat fungii again.