[Carl]

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/alienplanet/alienplanet.html

[Bobboau]

oh, yeah, I wanted to see that... I just hope the think things through a bit better than the "life on earth 40 million years from now" show. and I hope they don't pull that "and all experts agree that giant land squid will rule the conifer forests" crap from the same show either.

honestly I think they could have been more creative in the animal designes, well it's on tomarrownight, I'll watch it if something more important doesn't come up, wich is likely the case.

[Ace]

Yeah, I have a book called "After Man" with much more creative species about 16 million years after humans leave Earth/become extinct.

Its species are a lot more logical. Such as penguins replacing the endangered whale species, rabbits filling in the deer/cow niches, etc. Pretty much species which have been domesticated or threatened by man being replaced by "little guys," as usually happens during mass extinctions.

[Mongoose]

I once read an astronomy book that had some intriguing, albeit far-out, ideas about what sort of life could have evolved on other planets.  The few I remember were some sort of gas-filled creatures floating in Jupiter's outer layers and some sort of intelligent crystalline structures on Pluto.  Kind of silly, but the illustrations were pretty cool.

[Carl]

yeah. big toad things eating the landers on venus, and blimp things flying around in jupiter's atmosphere being popped by bird things. oh, and the thingys with ice skates on jupiter's moon. i had that book.

[Flipside]

Sounds like Cosmos by Carl Sagan to me, he certainly mentioned the 'Floaters' and 'Hunters' hypothesis in Jupiters atmosphere. Considering that book was written in the early 70's, and knowledge was far more limited then,  it was almost like a 'A Brief History of Time' for my generation

That series got me interested both in Space and Composing (Vangelis did the music for the TV series based on the book).

[Rictor]

I dunno. When Discovery has to resort to inventing cool looking CG aliens just to get audiences, something gone wrong. Aren't they supposed to be a science channel? I'm not too keen on dumbing it down and sexying it up just to make it appeal to the masses.

I don't remember who did it, I think the History channel, but there was a series of shows in prehistoric animals, done in a similar style, and I thought that was a tasteful treatment (well, they had beter CG).

Eh, don't listen to me, I'm too judgemental.

[karajorma]

That was BBC's Walking With Dinosaurs program (which was pretty well done).

Hopefully this will just be something similar with an emphasis on the science needed to extrapolate what life on other planets could be like. Do that and I'll be happy with it even if the creatures involved are fantasies.

Hell if it just manages to pursuade 1/10 of the audience that extra-terrestial life couldn't possibly be little green men then I'll be happy.

[Mongoose]

Originally posted by Rictor
I dunno. When Discovery has to resort to inventing cool looking CG aliens just to get audiences, something gone wrong. Aren't they supposed to be a science channel? I'm not too keen on dumbing it down and sexying it up just to make it appeal to the masses.

That was once true, but now Discovery Channel has transformed into the motorcycle/house-building channel. They've shifted all of their science-related shows to digital channels like the Science Channel or Discovery Wings that require paying an arm and a leg to get access to.

[Carl]

Originally posted by karajorma
That was BBC's Walking With Dinosaurs program (which was pretty well done).

It was a joint venture between the discovery channel and the BBC. In the states it was on the Discovery channel. Gee whiz, i hope the BBC didn't take full credit for it in England. The Discovery channel put both them and the beeb's names on it when they aired it here.

They spent more money on walking with dinosaurs and it was a bigger deal (it won an emmy for visual effects) so the CGI was better. now they just keep trying to capitalize on it by making all of these future in wild and alien planet thingys with less spectacular visuals, not realizing that that is what got them the emmy in the first place.

[Ghostavo]

wow...

[Bobboau]

it's starting

[KappaWing]

Originally posted by Mongoose
I once read an astronomy book that had some intriguing, albeit far-out, ideas about what sort of life could have evolved on other planets.  The few I remember were some sort of gas-filled creatures floating in Jupiter's outer layers and some sort of intelligent crystalline structures on Pluto.  Kind of silly, but the illustrations were pretty cool.

I have that book!

It's called 'Our Universe' by National Geographic. Awesome book indeed!

My favorite are the Europa Brinker-Roos. They seem like they live a fun life. Plus, being an animal with photosynth capabilities would be awesome.

[MicroPsycho]

^ I remember that book, it had very interesting, colourful pictures.

Ya, I saw ads for this when I was in Florida a week ago, and I was going to watch it, but alas, Discovery Channel Canada is stupid...

[Carl]

*Carl is watching it now*

Hmmm, apparently Darwin IV has bullsquids.

[Bobboau]

looks like there doing the same thing tey did with the last thing like this.

"experts agree..."


sence when? especaly on massive speculation.

like the two leged thingy, they say it's something that we'd never expect, but then provide no explaination for why something like that would come about. they just basicly try to make the most imposable things posable.

and the way they talk about this stuff like it's fact


hmm... that daggerwrist is kind of neat

[Carl]

Originally posted by KappaWing


I have that book!

It's called 'Our Universe' by National Geographic. Awesome book indeed!

My favorite are the Europa Brinker-Roos. They seem like they live a fun life. Plus, being an animal with photosynth capabilities would be awesome.

one of the coolest parts is the trying to figure out what the looks of animals based on their skeletons, like the poodle.

[NGTM-1R]

For some reason, they appear remarkably Halflife-ish...not good.

[Carl]

that's what i meant by the bullsquid remark.

http://halflife.pl/img/blueshift/bullsquid_old.jpg

very similar.

[mikhael]

Just finished watching it a bit ago.

Pretty damned good, I thought. I don't care about the creatures as much as I did about the probes (Leo, Ike and Balboa). The design on those is just awesome, especially the stowaway equipment modules on the arms.

As for that book everyone is mentioning, I had that as a kid, but it also had a RECORD with it (vinyl thing, like a big compact disk, but black and used a needle, not a laser).