The expanse books vs show3/31/2023 ![]() You see realistic objects changing orientation with thrusters. You don't see control surfaces and aerodynamic flight, because they're all moving in a vacuum. You see conservation of momentum, conservation of angular momentum: all of the things that would actually occur in space. Q: What about the physics of your spaceships?Ī: They fly with realistic physics. In the very next episode, people on Earth are realizing that that has happened, like, 25 minutes ago. At the end of one episode, a bunch of missiles are heading off to basically hit Mars. When I got the script for the The Expanse, the pilot, I was, like, "Wow, this is a very different kind of a show." Because they embraced all of the things that most science fiction shows run away from: the fact that you don't have weight unless your ship is accelerating, the fact that communication in space is not instantaneous. Does that fire up the physicist in you?Ī: It does, and it's actually one of the things that attracted me to the project. Q: The Expanse tries to incorporate real-world science. Investigating, the idea of the logical path to do a criminal investigation, evaluating evidence: All of that sort of really did play to the training. I did a lot of science fiction in the early stage of my career, and then I did a lot of cop shows and crime shows. Naren Shankar, showrunner for The Expanse Amazon Prime Video Everybody sits down and reads it and then you take it apart. That is really the process of the writing, when you're writing a script. You write a paper, sit down with your colleagues, and then you pare it down. Q: What did your science education bring to your television work?Ī: One of the most valuable things I took away from school is peer review. They said, "Hey, come out, be a screenwriter." And I thought, great. I had a couple of friends out in Los Angeles that I had just done creative writing with when I was in school. The field rewards incredible specialization, and I saw myself becoming more and more of an expert over a smaller and smaller corner of the universe. And somewhere along the line I just kind of decided I didn't want to be an engineer anymore. Usually, people transfer out of the college of engineering! I stayed all the way through to get my Ph.D. In my second year, I transferred into the college of engineering. ![]() Q: How did you end up making sci-fi shows?Ī: I actually started at Cornell as an arts student. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Shankar chatted with Science about why he feels it's important to have a realistic sci-fi show, and how television work is like the scientific peer-review process. The veteran writer and producer for programs such as Star Trek: The Next Generation, Farscape, and the police procedural CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, has a doctorate in applied physics and electrical engineering. Showrunner Naren Shankar is part of the reason the science checks out. On 13 December, Amazon Prime will air the fourth season of The Expanse, a hardboiled space drama renowned for its working-class characters and real-world space physics.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |