As I recall, as we see Sinclair's ship descend, there are small rockets
fired from the top of the nose, which points the nose down, and orients it
toward atmospheric entry.

No, nothing was missing from the CGI shot that I know of.

Ivanova's line: "We don't know if we can find our way back or not," not
that it was closed off. So showing them wandering around to find another open
tunnel seemed not dramatically interesting; you have to pick what's important
and what's not, and what will work dramaticall on screen. If she had said
"there's no other way out," then you would've had to show it. She didn't.
One can also argue that the alien showed them which way to get out. Either
way...all you've got is one hour to tell your story. You can't show
everything, you have to let your audience assume some things.

Roy: there is a quantum difference between a computer game and a TV show.
It's not "lowest common denominator," which means making the story stupid; I'm
saying that if you showed the missiles at full speed, YOU WOULD NOT SEE THEM
AT ALL. And, again, there's nothing nearby with which to get a sense of how
fast they're going, no landmarks, so it's very hard to convey that. Again,
look at space footage; the shuttle is going *incredibly* fast...but as far as
we can tell it looks nearly motionless, because there are no landmarks.

Re: not explaining WHY the Starfuries can't enter the atmosphere, we did
that. Ivanova says that they're not built to function within an atmosphere.
Now, I could stop the scene for a long dissertation on the relative
aerodynamics of planes with wings vs. starfuries, but here you say only what
you have to. You show, don't tell.

It seems like in the same breath, it's accused of catering to the lowest-
common denominator, and being over the head of its viewers by requiring them
to *think* about what they're seeing.

Which means we're probably doing it right.

jms