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Comment Re:Dear Lord, what has happened to Slashdot?! (Score 2) 41

The fact that you recognised both sci-fi references is also of note.

I find that the more we learn about Saturn's rings (and is thus applicable to all planets with rings and shepherd moons) the greater the fascination that such structures aren't just a bunch of small rocks orbiting a planet but have behaviour that is of interest to chaos and complexity mathematicians that can only lead to greater understanding of the dynamics of such systems.

(Is this the kind of comment you were hoping for?)

Comment Re:The Lonely Assassins (Score 1) 48

Maybe something wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey about insects not living very long in the first place so there's no point using all that energy sending them back in time to live to death. Or it's a sentience thing.

Either way, I most certainly can kill a stone. I can smash it to bits with a hammer. Maybe even a *rock* hammer. I don't see anything coming back to life after it has been shattered into tiny pieces apart from a T1000 / Crichton and Aeryn.

Comment Re: And so it begins... (Score 3, Informative) 252

The CGI was groundbreaking and a great deal more than just "backdrops". Every ship, planet, piece of debris, weapons fire as well as the interior of various parts of the station was made on *Amigas* with zero model shots. When they had enough money for a small render farm they could create large space battles in real time.

They kept the details secret even though big names like ILM and Paramount wanted to know how the hell they did it with so little equipment and a shoestring budget (we didn't see the battle of Wolf 359, only the aftermath and even that was a few years later because it was too expensive to make). They released old methods to the big studios on a seasonal basis: Mars Attacks used Season 2 quality, ST:Voyager used Season 4.

Yes, the effects look dated. Because they are. But no one else could do what they did 20 years ago.

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