Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame

[DAL59]

In Ready Player One, not only would the Stacks fall over immediately, they are no less expensive hat a normal building.

 

[RealKerbal3x]

In The Martian (great book and film by the way) the storm at the beginning is like 100 times more powerful than what an average dust storm would be on Mars.

However the author said that he needed to breach reality just once, because it's a story and it needs to be exciting.

[DDE]

On 3/31/2018 at 3:46 AM, K^2 said:

Yeah, but they're mostly necessary for passive sensing. A civilian active sonar will give you the same sense for the acoustic cross-section of a target as a military passive sonar would. Sure, you're not going to detect the target from as far away, and you are certainly not going to do it without completely giving yourself away. But the cross-section is the same regardless of sensing equipment.

I have no unbannable words for this statement.

There is no concept of cross-section in passive sonar operation. The only thing it detects is noise made by the target. Active sonar doesn’t. They are two systems with entirely different principles and often significantly different operating frequencies. Active sonar can defect wrecks that make no noise. Passive sonar can detect targets thousands of miles away. The similar naming is incidential and counterproductive.

Edited April 1, 2018 by DDE

[K^2]

7 hours ago, DDE said:

I have no unbannable words for this statement.

There is no concept of cross-section in passive sonar operation. The only thing it detects is noise made by the target. Active sonar doesn’t. They are two systems with entirely different principles and often significantly different operating frequencies. Active sonar can defect wrecks that make no noise. Passive sonar can detect targets thousands of miles away. The similar naming is incidential and counterproductive.

You're out of date by at least a couple of decades. I'm not going to say that listening for boat noises is completely irrelevant now, I mean, when it works it works, and hunting for cargo ships is still a big part of sub's job. But there has been so much improvement in masking noises, that if you are only aware of things that make noise, you're going to be very dead. Modern passive sonar systems use the same techniques in looking for submerged objects as passive radar. They use noise made by other things in the ocean reflecting off hulls to try and identify things that are trying to stay very, very quiet. Acoustic cross-section is more relevant now than it has ever been.

[lajoswinkler]

I consider myself to be quite a purist when it comes to being annoyed by poorly presented science in movies, but my god, some of you people here... Honestly, I don't know what strikes me more - übernerdism or just plain lack of understanding how cinematography works.

Honestly, some of posts here belong to the drawer labeled "cringe".

[ARS]

It's not ubernerdism or nitpicking, we understand that some scientific accuracy had to be sacrificed for the sake of the plot, but when the movie treat it's "Hollywood science" as if it's "Legitimate science", then that's what tipped us, since usually, the public's general knowledge about science is from watching TV's, and this could lead to misunderstanding

Think this thread like "Everything wrong with...", but from scientific point of view, and sometimes, aside from pointing the inaccuracies (or sins), we provide the reason and/ or explanation about it

Edited April 2, 2018 by ARS

[kerbiloid]

8 hours ago, K^2 said:

Modern passive sonar systems use the same techniques in looking for submerged objects as passive radar. They use noise made by other things in the ocean reflecting off hulls to try and identify things that are trying to stay very, very quiet. Acoustic cross-section is more relevant now than it has ever been.

So, it took a century for them to have a fun like I was doing in childhood.
Walking along a wall, feel the distance by hearing street noises reflected from it.

[p1t1o]

 

On 4/1/2018 at 10:09 PM, lajoswinkler said:

I consider myself to be quite a purist when it comes to being annoyed by poorly presented science in movies, but my god, some of you people here... Honestly, I don't know what strikes me more - übernerdism or just plain lack of understanding how cinematography works.

Honestly, some of posts here belong to the drawer labeled "cringe".

Nope. You dont walk into a nerd's nest by choice and complain that everything is too nerdy.

Go and make your own "complain about bad sci fi but only just the right amount" thread.

Peace

 

 

[YNM]

On 4/2/2018 at 4:09 AM, lajoswinkler said:

Honestly, I don't know what strikes me more - übernerdism or just plain lack of understanding how cinematography works.

While I could accept some tradeoffs (and I definitely liked satires), perhaps some of the other forum members here just want to point out how stuff IRL isn't quite what it seems in movies.

"Surely no one would make such mistakes ?"

Well, you call that out of a place familiar with the language and concepts... not everywhere else.

[kerbiloid]

Screamers (1995).

1. Nuke hand grenade. It crashes everything inside a stadium-sized area, but doesn't burn of irradiate the thrower.
2. Anti-rad red smoke cigarettes. A very strange idea of anti-rad protection.
3. ... and why are they not smoking them when working on a crash site.
4. Escape pod. A tiny SSTO. If they have so compact energy source, why not just hit the enemy with a fireship instead of bothering with androids.
 

[magnemoe]

On 4/1/2018 at 11:43 PM, ARS said:

It's not ubernerdism or nitpicking, we understand that some scientific accuracy had to be sacrificed for the sake of the plot, but when the movie treat it's "Hollywood science" as if it's "Legitimate science", then that's what tipped us, since usually, the public's general knowledge about science is from watching TV's, and this could lead to misunderstanding

Think this thread like "Everything wrong with...", but from scientific point of view, and sometimes, aside from pointing the inaccuracies (or sins), we provide the reason and/ or explanation about it

This, some stuff even get too stupid like the exploding cars who became an joke and has mostly gone away.
i find giant plot holes worse. 
 

[ARS]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Screamers (1995).

1. Nuke hand grenade. It crashes everything inside a stadium-sized area, but doesn't burn of irradiate the thrower.
2. Anti-rad red smoke cigarettes. A very strange idea of anti-rad protection.
3. ... and why are they not smoking them when working on a crash site.
4. Escape pod. A tiny SSTO. If they have so compact energy source, why not just hit the enemy with a fireship instead of bothering with androids.
 

1. There's a minimum yield for nuclear device, and the smallest nuclear warhead ever manufactured is Davy Crockett tac nuke. Aside from uranium or plutonium, which has a minimum yield far too large for a grenade-sized device, in theory there are transuranic elements that's theoretically can be used for nuclear grenade, but it'll be ridiculously unreliable since there's a lot of pre-ignition issue and lingering radioactive fallout (the reason why uranium or plutonium used is because they are NOT that radioactive). So yeah, unless the movie takes place where the setting is advanced enough (emphasis on "enough" to make tactical nuclear weapon that fits in your pocket), I find the idea of nuclear grenade is ridiculous

2. Kinda strange, but that's Hollywood science for you. Don't even ask how that's supposed to work, I've seen in a more ridiculous example that apparently drinking vodka makes you resistant enough to radioactive fallout, so much that you can basically strolling around inside Chernobyl nuclear power plant without radiation suit

3. Smoking is bad for health (though I feel that even when you replace cigarette with radiation suit, it doesn't seem to affect the plot at all)

4. When you can make a tiny SSTO to be reliable enough to make the idea of escape pod viable (they're not, and probably never in real life. Space is so dang large and empty, an escape pod gives you a survival scenario so horrible that being instantly vaporized when your ship blew up seems to be a more appealing choice), you can make an orbital missile reliable enough to hit the enemy in space

[DDE]

On 4/2/2018 at 12:09 AM, lajoswinkler said:

I consider myself to be quite a purist when it comes to being annoyed by poorly presented science in movies, but my god, some of you people here... Honestly, I don't know what strikes me more - übernerdism or just plain lack of understanding how cinematography works.

Honestly, some of posts here belong to the drawer labeled "cringe".

I’ve always theorized that this ties into various strength of suspension of disbelief. Suspension of disbelief allows the human mind to depart ‘peak ubernerdism’ , but it has its limits - and these limits vary from domain to domain. The reaction to it being abused varies from “meh” to “oh, dear” to “**** this **********ing ********”. An example of a domain would be human relations. Have you ever noticed, how, before maybe five years ago, the bulk of the people enjoying Mary Sues also had a stunted, underdeveloped, one may say juvenile, perception of interpersonal relationships, of storytelling? Remember, someone read all those piles of fanfic. Someone enjoyed Ebony Ravenhair-whatever. It is my opinion that hard sci-fi has similar irreversible effects.

Why five or so years? Because of certain recent pieces of media...

*user last seen running for the Canadian border, being chased by angry mods*

We can occasionally put on the silly hats and enjoy something. But you can’t stop the mind from picking it apart afterwards.

Edited April 3, 2018 by DDE

[kerbiloid]

24 minutes ago, ARS said:

1. There's a minimum yield for nuclear device, and the smallest nuclear warhead ever manufactured is Davy Crockett tac nuke.

Davy Crockett distance is 2 km. 500 m is a deadly zone.
While that grenade exploded in tens meters from the grenader.
Neutrons and part of gamma decrease with exp(- r/~200m) factor.
So within 200..500 m range there are absolutely different doses that outside.

24 minutes ago, ARS said:

in theory there are transuranic elements that's theoretically can be used for nuclear grenade, but it'll be ridiculously unreliable since there's a lot of pre-ignition issue and lingering radioactive fallout

Iirc they called it "plutonium rocket" or so, but this may be a translator's addition.

24 minutes ago, ARS said:

I've seen in a more ridiculous example that apparently drinking vodka makes you resistant enough to radioactive fallout, so much that you can basically strolling around inside Chernobyl nuclear power plant without radiation suit

With vodka this is more or less clear. This is instead of red wine which was (by legend or irl) given to atomic submariners to protect them from radiation.
Which in turn appears from
1) the idea that red wine binds free radicals in human cells or so, and this makes them rad-resistive.
2) the historical fact that military sailors periodically got a daily portion of alcohol to relax.
So, if no red wine - the rad-resistance adepts use what they currently have for self-protection: vodka, beer, whatever.

While in Screamers they get a TV-command: "Light the red cigarettes", inside an underground bunker. Kinda a flash-mob.

24 minutes ago, ARS said:

3. Smoking is bad for health

It's also somewhat strange way to consume the protective agents - by inhaling.

also Screamers (1995).

5. Plot or engineering mistake. Cyborgs are drinking whiskey or so right from the bottle, like they are humans.
But this is exactly what should the cyborgs do - to clear their internal electronic components.
So, that's the indicator of a cyborg: to drink a lot and not get drunken.

Edited April 3, 2018 by kerbiloid

[lajoswinkler]

51 minutes ago, DDE said:

We can occasionally put on the silly hats and enjoy something. But you can’t stop the mind from picking it apart afterwards.

I am basically angry with people trashing good movies because they're better than average. Such movies make people's "error detectors" get overpowered, they find something small and then it's trash talk time. "Boooo, worst movie ever", blablabla. So childlish.

And sometimes it's not even an error, but something very subtle. Nope, let's all jump on the trashtalk bandwagon.

[p1t1o]

57 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

I am basically angry with people trashing good movies because they're better than average. Such movies make people's "error detectors" get overpowered, they find something small and then it's trash talk time. "Boooo, worst movie ever", blablabla. So childlish.

And sometimes it's not even an error, but something very subtle. Nope, let's all jump on the trashtalk bandwagon.

Thats true and not true. For example, I'd trash Tron:Legacy into pieces, anyone would, on scientific grounds, but as a fantasy movie I think its great.

I would say a lot of people would enjoy trashing the science in any movie, regardless of how good a movie they think it is, because that is the fun of a thread like this. And if it so happens that a few movies that are actively trying to be "sciency" get torn apart as well, then that just icing

This thread basically *is* the trashtalk bandwagon. If you're not talking trash, you're in the wrong wagon.

Your favorite movie will still be good, no matter what people post here, isnt getting offended by a few deliberately pedantic comments kinda childish?

Instead of bandwagons and trash talk, why not chime in with why you think such-and-such a film is still a good film despite whatever perceived inaccuracy?

 

 

[PakledHostage]

3 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

I am basically angry with people trashing good movies because they're better than average. Such movies make people's "error detectors" get overpowered, they find something small and then it's trash talk time. "Boooo, worst movie ever", blablabla. So childlish.

And sometimes it's not even an error, but something very subtle. Nope, let's all jump on the trashtalk bandwagon.

We've had this discussion before, so I am pretty confident that you're thinking of movies like Gravity when you say this. But bear in mind that many people consider movies like Gravity or Interstellar to be cringe inducingly bad, not for their science mistakes but for their plots. Maybe those people's reactions to what they feel are garbage plots is spilling over into rage against other aspects of those films?

[kerbiloid]

A kind of sci-fi pearl: VR.5 series.

They enter virtual reality by taking a phone to the ear. Like every human has a dial-up modem in the brain.

Edited April 3, 2018 by kerbiloid

[YNM]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Like every human has a dial-up modem in the brain.

No-one said that's impossible yet. If anything, it's just coming around...

 

 

 

_______

And on the point of "cringe" commentary, take a look at this "gem" :

Sure, you may say, it has a hell of "mistakes". But they didn't sell it for their correctness.

And that's why it's good.

[Just Jim]

6 minutes ago, YNM said:

Sure, you may say, it has a hell of "mistakes". But they didn't sell it for their correctness.

And that's why it's good.

Yes... that was a great example of "good" bad science!!!

[YNM]

On 4/1/2018 at 9:16 AM, DAL59 said:

... Not only would the Stacks fall over immediately, they are no less expensive hat a normal building.

I can see why.

The movie creators overthought it.

Better way to have homes :

(also, given the name "the Stacks", I bet that was what on the original writer's mind.)

There are other stacks though.

Edited April 4, 2018 by YNM

[ARS]

I'm seeing a pattern in movies now... It's just like most AAA games today

Game: [graphic+DLC] > [story+gameplay]

Movie: [CG+plot] > [sensibility+scientific accuracy]

14 hours ago, magnemoe said:

This, some stuff even get too stupid like the exploding cars who became an joke and has mostly gone away.
i find giant plot holes worse. 
 

Exploding cars is actually quite rare in real life car accidents, the fuel tank rarely leaks in traffic collision (since it's usually placed behind the car, the least likely place to be hit). Sadly, many people treat the "car collision leads to explosion" as if it's serious (thanks to Hollywood) and there's quite a lot traffic collision that ends with the passengers dead because they didn't wear any seatbelt (fearing that seatbelts may hinder them getting out quickly from the car if there's an accident). Race cars DOES have a higher probability to explode when involved in traffic collision since they are usually very light (to maximize speed), fragile and filled to the brim with high performance fuel, but then again, race car drivers are protected by safety systems (rollcage, reinforced driver seat, fireproof race suit, helmet) that's not present on regular cars on the road

[YNM]

38 minutes ago, ARS said:

Game: [graphic+DLC] > [story+gameplay]

What, KSP have stories ? DLCs are the modern version of "expansion packs" and an alternative to releasing new versions separately (which I think is a good one).

I mostly only play simulations though, I don't need an imposing story.

38 minutes ago, ARS said:

fearing that seatbelts may hinder them getting out quickly from the car if there's an accident

or just plain ignorance.

Though I have heard the reverse applies for motorcyles - if you crash, leave (push away) immediately.

Edited April 4, 2018 by YNM

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, ARS said:

I'm seeing a pattern in movies now... It's just like most AAA games today

Game: [graphic+DLC] > [story+gameplay]

Movie: [CG+plot] > [sensibility+scientific accuracy]

Exploding cars is actually quite rare in real life car accidents, the fuel tank rarely leaks in traffic collision (since it's usually placed behind the car, the least likely place to be hit). Sadly, many people treat the "car collision leads to explosion" as if it's serious (thanks to Hollywood) and there's quite a lot traffic collision that ends with the passengers dead because they didn't wear any seatbelt (fearing that seatbelts may hinder them getting out quickly from the car if there's an accident). Race cars DOES have a higher probability to explode when involved in traffic collision since they are usually very light (to maximize speed), fragile and filled to the brim with high performance fuel, but then again, race car drivers are protected by safety systems (rollcage, reinforced driver seat, fireproof race suit, helmet) that's not present on regular cars on the road

And that race cars tend to use 4 or 5 point seat belts rather than the simple 3 point ones, if knocked out or seriously injured its hard to leave the car fast. 
Seat belts has an added benefit in helping you stay in the seat in  sharp turns like turnabouts

Regarding movies i think things was as bad if not worse earlier 

[Gargamel]

On 4/1/2018 at 6:02 AM, RealKerbal3x said:

In The Martian (great book and film by the way) the storm at the beginning is like 100 times more powerful than what an average dust storm would be on Mars.

However the author said that he needed to breach reality just once, because it's a story and it needs to be exciting.

Yeah, but I forgave that one major plot point for all the rest of the insanely accurate science (or at least portrayed as such).  You get a free pass or two if you can make up for it later. 

12 hours ago, PakledHostage said:

But bear in mind that many people consider movies like Gravity or Interstellar to be cringe inducingly bad, not for their science mistakes but for their plots

Hey, I liked both of them.  Gravity was a really fun ride, just like Twister.  But The science... *twitch*. 

---

Saw the Titan the other day on Netflix.   Boring.  As.  Heck.    I even forgave the stretches of science as they were plot points, and really didn't try to explain that much as led to some suspension  of disbelief.  But even though I forgave the plot points, the plot was just dumb.  And the story line boring.  It's not a sci-fi movie at all, but a really cheesy and slow horror film.  And then the end scene, I was doing the Cleveland voice "No, No, No, No, Don't do it..... AGGGG they did it!".   They actually made him..... *spoiler*.    Definitely want my money back for that one.