DVDs & the million dollar question

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-09-27 10:29pm

Another thing to consider. The ISD perspective is such that the ISD is actualy heading towards the camera somewhat. Because of this perspective it also might look like the angle is changing, but its not.

Lord of the Farce · Post by **Lord of the Farce** » 2004-09-28 01:24am

Okay, here's a simple diagram of the ISD's bridge and the asteroid's collision course:

The pink arrow is the asteroid's path and indicates impact point, the red box is the section of the bridge which would have taken the impact, the blue box is the section of the bridge that some had claimed to have been taken out by the impact (

), and the green box indicates the continued presence of the bridge's neck which is quite clearly silhouetted by the Executor's engines.

Anybody care to attempt to reconcile all of that?

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-09-28 02:23am

Well unless we're looking at the destroyer's stern, the red and blue boxes should be reversed and the asteroid should be coming from the other side.

But other than that, I have nothing to disagree with.

Lord of the Farce · Post by **Lord of the Farce** » 2004-09-28 03:35am

Rogue 9 wrote:Well unless we're looking at the destroyer's stern, the red and blue boxes should be reversed and the asteroid should be coming from the other side. But other than that, I have nothing to disagree with.

Damn, should have made it clear: The diagram is a top-down view, with the left side being the port and the right side the starboard.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-09-28 03:46am

Ah, I see. Okay.

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2004-09-28 01:14pm

Here's a question: where did it go? If it isn't there, what happened? I rather doubt it was simply vaporized, and there should at least be some biggish pieces going somewhere. Do we actually get so little viewing time after the blast that all identifiable debris would still be hidden by the cloud?

OTOH, is it possible that, givin that to some extent the neck is still there, that the entire tower was simply damaged and bent backwards?

Personally, I'm still unconvinced about the extent of the damage, though I conceed I'm bad at visualizing and understanding the angles involved here.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2004-09-28 02:27pm

Of course a Federation ship would have been in much worse shape if an asteroid of the same relative size slammed into it.

Truefully, the scene isn't long enough to confirm if the bridge was indeed destroyed. It cuts away just as one could truely tell what the damage really is. Of course the likelyhood of any one in the uper tower surviving would be very slim to none. There wer obviously secondary explosions set off by the impact. If the scene was only a few seconds longer we might be able to tell what extent the damage is.

Lord of the Farce · Post by **Lord of the Farce** » 2004-09-28 10:19pm

Alan Bolte wrote:Here's a question: where did it go? If it isn't there, what happened? I rather doubt it was simply vaporized, and there should at least be some biggish pieces going somewhere. Do we actually get so little viewing time after the blast that all identifiable debris would still be hidden by the cloud?

Since there should be no reason for the starboard side (or the ISD's right, just to make sure everybody know what I'm talking about) of the bridge to be damaged (must less disappear), the only explaination for the non-appearance of that side of the bridge is that the dust clouds left by the asteroid is quite dense even where it doesn't glow.

OTOH, is it possible that, givin that to some extent the neck is still there, that the entire tower was simply damaged and bent backwards?

The asteroid's collision course was heading "downwards" (relative to the ISD), which means that if something like that had happened, there's a good chance that the starboard should have been see-sawed forward (and into sight, depending on the strength of the bridge at different locations).

Personally, I'm still unconvinced about the extent of the damage, though I conceed I'm bad at visualizing and understanding the angles involved here.

Personally, I don't see how one can claim to know more about the extent of the damage more than the fact that there was a lot of smoke obscuring things, and that we can see that >80% of the top-edge of the ISD's bridge neck was still straight and where one might expect it to be behind the smoke in frames 13-15.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2004-09-28 10:38pm

Actually, I can finally see what everyone has been saying for years. The "neck" did indeed survive. You clearly see the silhouette moving in front of the Executor's engines, which I couldn't see as clearly before.

I'd have to agree that the "port" side of the tower has (at least) been smashed in. But with that much damage, it wouldn't make any difference if the starboard side survived. The bridge crew is dead.

I'm not going to derail the thread about my thoughts on RSA and his bullshit though.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-09-29 12:04am

Lord Poe wrote:Actually, I can finally see what everyone has been saying for years. The "neck" did indeed survive. You clearly see the silhouette moving in front of the Executor's engines, which I couldn't see as clearly before.

Actualy thats not the neck. I'll show you why.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-09-29 12:14am

http://img58.photobucket.com/albums/v17 ... =ISD-1.jpg

For reference

http://img58.photobucket.com/albums/v17 ... SD-2-1.jpg

See how misplaced the bridge is when lined up with the silhoute?

Lord of the Farce · Post by **Lord of the Farce** » 2004-09-29 12:52am

Alyeska wrote:http://img58.photobucket.com/albums/v17 ... =ISD-1.jpg

For reference

http://img58.photobucket.com/albums/v17 ... SD-2-1.jpg

See how misplaced the bridge is when lined up with the silhoute?

Little wonder, since you've lined up the wrong corner.

EDIT: To clarify, the point that you're supposed to line up with that silhouette is not the corner of the bridge's port side, but the neck of the bridge. The corner which should have been lined up with blue, you've lined with green:

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2004-09-29 03:24am

Lord of the Farce is correct, Alyeska. You can clearly see the neck moving after the impact. Watch it again.

nightmare · Post by **nightmare** » 2004-09-29 08:52am

Lord Poe wrote:Lord of the Farce is correct, Alyeska. You can clearly see the neck moving after the impact. Watch it again.

That's what I said over at SB, but I got ignored. Presumably for the same reason HDS was shot down, they just didn't get it. I always thought it was clear as daylight that the neck is intact.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-09-29 10:42am

nightmare wrote:
Lord Poe wrote:Lord of the Farce is correct, Alyeska. You can clearly see the neck moving after the impact. Watch it again.
That's what I said over at SB, but I got ignored. Presumably for the same reason HDS was shot down, they just didn't get it. I always thought it was clear as daylight that the neck is intact.

Check my posts on this issue in the past. I have also said that the neck likely survived. I've been able to spot its movement on video but never been able to spot it on still shots.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2004-09-29 01:26pm

Alyeska wrote:Check my posts on this issue in the past. I have also said that the neck likely survived. I've been able to spot its movement on video but never been able to spot it on still shots.

Yeah, I wasn't able to see it move until now (DVD release). At the most, the starboard side of the tower may be "intact", but I doubt habitable. The only way the bridge could have survived is if we assume the bridge deflector shields were on, but the main deflectors were off to allow the holonet communications.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2004-09-29 02:17pm

Another problem is that the asteroid vaporizes against the hull without doing any apparent damage at the impact point from what I can see (in widescreen OR fullscreen versions). A cloud of vapor does not really make a good impactor either. In addition to lack of debris.

nightmare · Post by **nightmare** » 2004-09-29 02:23pm

Alyeska wrote:Check my posts on this issue in the past. I have also said that the neck likely survived. I've been able to spot its movement on video but never been able to spot it on still shots.

No need, I believe you. I have a vague memory of you saying that over there as well. Not everyone have been so forthcoming, however.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-09-29 02:38pm

Basicaly the bridge and forward section are FUBARed. Most likely crumpled to a degree being hidden by the cloud. Tower/neck survived but is likely partialy vented to space.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2004-09-29 03:46pm

The more I look at it, the more the physics of this scene are right up there with the nebula/galaxy/whatever.

We know that face is gone. Ok. But like Connor said, the massive deformation of the asteroid makes it for a shitty impactor for collapsing it, and there is clearly no vaporization, and there is no debris (angle is wrong for it to be hidden by the cloud). This is exacly like that other scene, where we know what it is suppossed ot be and just have to overlook the fact it matches nothing.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2004-09-29 03:47pm

Except that from the visuals the asteroid is mostly pulverized/vaporized against the bridge tower, and we dont see anythign that suggests its starting to crumple. (For that matter, the path of the asteroid looks as if it would pass straight through the neck of the asteroid as well.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2004-09-29 03:49pm

Unless something occured internally that lead to such damage. I just dont think the visuals support the asteroid itself doing the actual damage.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-09-29 04:14pm

Here is something else to consider. The makeup of the asteroid. Its possible it has an outer shell that exploded into vapor on contact while it has an inner section that had greater density and it caused more significant damage. The affects of the denser part of the asteroid would be hidden from view by the vapor cloud from the exterior portion of the asteroid because of the short period of time we had to view the event.

If only we had 4 more seconds to see what happened. It would have cleared up so many questions.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2004-09-29 04:38pm

IIRC the asteroids were nickel-iron with no mention of something less dense like silicates involved (Tales of the bounty hunters, as I recall.)

However, even granting that possibility (it IS possible, even if we have no evidence to suggest it) we're still left with the fact that the neck is still obviously intact, even though its obvious from the movies it should have been hit by teh asteroid (especially if the forward section crumpled that easily - why is it the neck of the tower is vastly more durable than the bridge?)

Edit: Besides which, ,how could the asteroid have destroyed/damaged the side of the bridge opposite the impact point? That part of the tower isn't even in the path of the impact