Line #24 Main/SpaceIsSlowMotion


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7	->''"Walk slow and stupid -- we're on the Moon!"''
8	-->-- ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', "[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S05E24TwelveToTheMoon Twelve to the Moon]]"
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10	Stuff happening in zero gravity requires a whole new outlook on the laws of physics as we're aware of them, but most writers ignore that and just make things move slower and floatier.
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12	Never mind that in many circumstances, objects move faster in zero gravity since, obviously, there's no gravity to slow them down. If you kick off from a wall, you'll travel as fast your legs propel you. This trope presumably originates from footage of astronauts deliberately moving very slowly, because they know it's easy to let momentum get the better of you and hurt yourself bashing into something. It may also be a weird side-effect of SpaceFriction, or of writers' only personal experience of "weightlessness" being a dip in the [[SpaceIsAnOcean swimming pool]].
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14	!!Examples
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16	[[foldercontrol]]
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18	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
19	* Averted by ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}''. Many of the series characters are born and raised in Space Colonies and are very comfortable in zero-gravity, and will jump and bounce off of walls/ceilings/floors with practiced ease to move around -- and, of course, the zero-g space battles are generally fought at very high speeds. The only time slow-motion is going on is during docking operations, when precision is of the utmost concern.
20	* Averted in ''Manga/{{Planetes}}'' when the crew barely manage to move a piece of debris out of the way of an oncoming spacecraft in time -- said spacecraft flashes by ''very fast''.
21	[[/folder]]
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23	[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]
24	* This trope [[TropeCodifier gets its origins]] in popular media from ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey''. Sure, everything is beautiful, but everything also moved at a ''crawl.''
25	** Justified with the workpods Frank and Dave use. They move very slowly, but you don't want to hurry when slinging a multi-ton pod around delicate exterior equipment. But when [[spoiler: Frank is murdered by HAL]] he flails around wildly as he suffocates, and Dave bounces all over the airlock when he makes his famous Spacewalk Sans Helmet.
26	** Also justified with the shuttle docking sequences (see the video below). When docking with the ISS in Real Life, it takes a couple of hours to cover the last hundred metres. There's a lot of very expensive equipment here doing a lot of very important things. Don't break anything.
27	* ''Film/{{Alien}}'' averts this trope when Kane's body gets a BurialInSpace. Rather than a stately drift into space, the body is shot rapidly from the airlock.
28	* A bizarre version is shown in ''Film/DiamondsAreForever'' when men in spacesuits are training to use a Moon Rover on a stage set outside Las Vegas. They move slowly according to this trope, which might be justified if they were making a publicity film, but when James Bond comes racing past pursued by guards, the astronauts ''slowly'' try to block his path, while Bond nimbly dodges their inept efforts.
29	* ''Film/MoonZeroTwo'': This is the effect of turning off the moonbase's artificial gravity, leading to a rather underwhelming BarBrawl for a SpaceWestern.
30	* Played straight during the spacewalk sequence in ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact''.
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33	[[folder:Literature]]
34	* Subverted at length (and with obvious relish from author Creator/AnthonyHorowitz) in the space-set sequence that concludes the ''Literature/AlexRider'' novel ''Ark Angel''. The first thing Alex does in space is bang his head after getting up too quickly. At one point, he gets stranded in the middle of a room and has to [[ImprovisedMicrogravityManeuvering throw his shoes to propel himself in the other direction]] (equal/opposite reaction, etc.). Later, he throws a hammer at an enemy, expecting it to drift slowly -- instead, it zooms across the room and hits the guy very painfully on the shoulder.
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37	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
38	* In the ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' pilot episode "[[Recap/FireflyE01Serenity Serenity]]", there is a scene in which ''Serenity'' is passing a Reaver ship in open space. They are both in transit between planets or moons, moving in opposite directions, but pass each other at roughly jogging speed. At that rate, it would take them (hold on, let's do the math, let's see, nuthin', and nuthin', [[CarryTheOne carry the nuthin']]) roughly ''forever'' to get there.
39	* ''Series/TheFlash2014'': Apparently, space is such slow motion that the Reverse-Flash is powerless in zero-gravity. They don't provide the plausible explanation of careful movement; they act like he's truly powerless.
40	* Quite definitely disproved in ''Series/MythBusters'': flailing around and then slowing down the clip looks a ''lot'' different than actual zero-gravity movement.
41	* Played so straight in ''Series/Space1999'' that they filmed moonwalking scenes ''in slow motion''.
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44	[[folder:Music]]
45	* Music/BrianEno's album ''Music/ApolloAtmospheresAndSoundtracks'' was originally composed for a documentary about the moon landings. Many of the tracks have a slow, dreamy sound quality to them. One track is even named "Weightless".
46	* This is what gave Music/MichaelJackson's dance move [[MoonwalkDance the moonwalk]] its name. By moving backwards and forwards at the same time, it provides the illusion that the dancer is on the moon.
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49	[[folder:Video Games]]
50	* In the "Horizon Lunar Colony" map in ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'', there's an airlock you can use to leave the colony and explore the surface. [[BatmanCanBreatheInSpace Doing so doesn't cause any actual damage]], but it does gradually slow your movement speed to a crawl.
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53	[[folder:Western Animation]]
54	* ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'': Jackie and Hak Foo end up fighting in space during the Moon Demon episode, and Hak Foo is forced to rethink his [[CallingYourAttacks attack names]]. "Tiger prowls... through pudding? Turtle... fist! Sloth... kick!"
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57	[[folder:Real Life]]
58	* Partial TruthInTelevision: Anyone who watches live feeds of space shuttles in orbit gets the impression that everything moves slower because when they rotate the position of the shuttle, they do it at a snail's pace to make sure they don't overshoot. Never mind that just to ''be'' in orbit, said shuttle is travelling around the earth at tremendous velocity...
59	** It is often necessary to move carefully in space, thus slower. Explained in many Science Fiction novels as 'You may be weightless, but you still have mass'. While it may feel and even look like you're floating serenely through space like a feather, in reality you just launched yourself at an aluminum bulkhead, head first, at several miles per hour.
60	** This is enforced by the fact that the maneuvering thrusters on the shuttle are really weak -- emphasizing precision over speed. From a standing start, it would take the shuttle over five minutes to do a complete roll.
61	[[/folder]]

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