What is your biggest science pet peeve in movies?

[KerBlammo]

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But yeah, in hindsight I do wish they didn't have hooves, legs/bones, hair/fur, eyes, mouths, etc.

I see what you did there

 

[Camacha]

10 hours ago, cantab said:

On alien biology, there's one thing I feel reasonably confident in predicting. If the general group of alien life has n recognisable legs, the technologically advanced species in that group will have at most n-1 legs - because at least one will have been repurposed evolutionarily as an arm. If the group has bilateral symmetry, expect n-2 legs and 2 arms.

Though I understand your train of thought and initially agreed, it seems it does not hold up to a comparison to Earth species. Elephant have a big brain and a trunk that did not evolve from a leg. Octopuses are smart creatures too, and seem to have lots of legs and entire bodies that can manipulate things in fairly complex ways.

They are just two examples, but it shows that even those basic assumptions quickly break down when tested.

10 hours ago, magnemoe said:

However, lots of stuff was set then fishes evolved, two eyes, no good place for extra useful eyes. four fins becomes four limbs. 
Hard to get more limbs or eyes later. 

Why? Adding or removing already existing structures is relatively easy. You just change the order of cell division a bit in the beginning. Just look at vertebrae. Cats have a different number from humans, while the structure is a lot more essential to life than even eyes. Humans have four limbs, while most monkeys have five.

[alast.andy]

 

I have a few but my, by far, my biggest one I owe to KSP.

Kerbal Space Program has RUINED watching the way spacecraft in movies move.

I know KSP could be more accurate  at times (such as space should be silent but that would be really boring and this is a game)

but I feel like it at minimal gives me an idea, like how a driving game is to driving.

 

Not the same thing at all but assuming it was a somewhat realistic driving game it could give you

enough of a feel to then  know when something is VERY wrong what the way a car is moving.  (Cars don't drive sideways down the road,  that sort of thing) 

 

Prior to playing KSP,  I logically knew that the movement of spacecraft in movies was often not that accurate.  

But it did not punch me in the gut as oh, that's just not possible.  

 

Now the way spaceships in movies move around often just looks so silly  that they break the suspension of disbelief for me.  

 

Thank you squad... I think. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[kerbiloid]

13 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Hard to get more limbs or eyes later. 

The strict way to add something: to double its bud. So you can get two pairs of arms, two pairs of eyes, etc.
If this increases the species' ability to survive, it has chances to stay in future.

[ModZero]

6 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

The strict way to add something: to double its bud. So you can get two pairs of arms, two pairs of eyes, etc.
If this increases the species' ability to survive, it has chances to stay in future.

So, tell me, how do you modify the joints to suddenly handle two sets of arms hanging off it?

10 hours ago, Camacha said:

Elephant have a big brain and a trunk that did not evolve from a leg.

And it seems that despite being quite smart and socially capable they can't keep it up against a bunch of hairless monkeys with opposable fingers. Even though we have tools that enable us to work efficiently with just one hand, but a lot of that was (ultimately) done by people who had two agile hands. Hands with fingers not only grab, but are very precise.

Octopuses sound more likely, but there's the question of how an aquatic creature comes up with fire.

[Just Jim]

I think I saw someone else say this somewhere, but my biggest peeve is when movies try to explain too much, or try to be too accurate.  Science fiction, which I assume we're mostly talking about here... is just that... fiction.  It's not real, and therefor to me it doesn't have to be... and I find it really annoying when a movie seems to go out of it's way to try and convince the audience it is reality, and loses the story somewhere in the process.

I grew up in the 60's, with campy flying saucers and giant monsters stomping Tokyo apart week after week... so maybe I got desensitized early on to movies having to be anywhere near factual to be fun.  It's easy for me to just assume that saucer should fly without questioning the physics of it.
Now I can't watch movies like The Day After or The Martian without pulling my hair out and screaming in frustration.  Not because of inaccuracies, but because they're trying too hard to be accurate.  And IMO this completely ruined the stories.
But give me something like Chronicles of Riddick or Alien.... or Mar's Attacks... lol... and I'm fine.

[PB666]

10 hours ago, alast.andy said:

 

I have a few but my, by far, my biggest one I owe to KSP.

Kerbal Space Program has RUINED watching the way spacecraft in movies move.

I know KSP could be more accurate  at times (such as space should be silent but that would be really boring and this is a game)

but I feel like it at minimal gives me an idea, like how a driving game is to driving.

 

Not the same thing at all but assuming it was a somewhat realistic driving game it could give you

enough of a feel to then  know when something is VERY wrong what the way a car is moving.  (Cars don't drive sideways down the road,  that sort of thing) 

 

Prior to playing KSP,  I logically knew that the movement of spacecraft in movies was often not that accurate.  

But it did not punch me in the gut as oh, that's just not possible.  

 

Now the way spaceships in movies move around often just looks so silly  that they break the suspension of disbelief for me.  

 

Thank you squad... I think. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So true, but I think the bubble needed to be popped.

But I think if you worked flight dynamics as NASA the way rockets behave in KSP would have tainted credibility. Ah and think about your life support systems, some system specialist probably dreams 'if only humans were a robust, smaller and resource independent as kerbals"

[todofwar]

1 hour ago, Just Jim said:

I think I saw someone else say this somewhere, but my biggest peeve is when movies try to explain too much, or try to be too accurate.  Science fiction, which I assume we're mostly talking about here... is just that... fiction.  It's not real, and therefor to me it doesn't have to be... and I find it really annoying when a movie seems to go out of it's way to try and convince the audience it is reality, and loses the story somewhere in the process.

I grew up in the 60's, with campy flying saucers and giant monsters stomping Tokyo apart week after week... so maybe I got desensitized early on to movies having to be anywhere near factual to be fun.  It's easy for me to just assume that saucer should fly without questioning the physics of it.
Now I can't watch movies like The Day After or The Martian without pulling my hair out and screaming in frustration.  Not because of inaccuracies, but because they're trying too hard to be accurate.  And IMO this completely ruined the stories.
But give me something like Chronicles of Riddick or Alien.... or Mar's Attacks... lol... and I'm fine.

I judge movies by how hard they try. For example, HHGG gets all the passes because Douglas Adams is hilarious and clearly is more interested in satirizing modern life than speculating on technology. But I was extremely critical of the way the Martian handled some things (what do you mean you added liquid oxygen to a beaker? Once it boils it's going to blow that thing apart without any fuel needed! Why do you even have an accessible LO2 dewar in a ship's chemistry lab at all? That is not standard in chem labs, I am a chemist and I don't know of anyone with a LO2 dewar lying around because you don't want to deal with its need to occasionally vent O2 to maintain cryotemps) because it was trying to present itself as very accurate. 

[PB666]

4 minutes ago, todofwar said:

I judge movies by how hard they try. For example, HHGG gets all the passes because Douglas Adams is hilarious and clearly is more interested in satirizing modern life than speculating on technology. But I was extremely critical of the way the Martian handled some things (what do you mean you added liquid oxygen to a beaker? Once it boils it's going to blow that thing apart without any fuel needed! Why do you even have an accessible LO2 dewar in a ship's chemistry lab at all? That is not standard in chem labs, I am a chemist and I don't know of anyone with a LO2 dewar lying around because you don't want to deal with its need to occasionally vent O2 to maintain cryotemps) because it was trying to present itself as very accurate. 

HHGTTG was satirizing science fiction also, there was an interview with Patrick Stewart were he pointed this out in no uncertain terms.

 

[todofwar]

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

HHGTTG was satirizing science fiction also, there was an interview with Patrick Stewart were he pointed this out in no uncertain terms.

 

Of course, I guess the parts that resonated with me were the times he highlighted our own ridiculous ways, so I always remember it more as a commentary on our own society than science fiction. Doesn't mean he didn't also include plenty of jabs at the genre.

[Andem]

Oh hey, we found a new element! What do you mean, we didn't make sure it was an unknown compound? SCREW YOU. Oh, and cause it can't be found in massive qauntities on earth, we should call it something real intelligent, like Unobtanium, or Impossibilitium, or Bullcrapium. You know. like real scientists. Also, Data, HOW IS YOUR BRAIN MADE OF SUBATOMIC PARTICLES, AND AN STILL LOOK LIKE CIRCUITRY AND WIRES!

 

Edited April 16, 2016 by Andem

[PB666]

5 hours ago, todofwar said:

Of course, I guess the parts that resonated with me were the times he highlighted our own ridiculous ways, so I always remember it more as a commentary on our own society than science fiction. Doesn't mean he didn't also include plenty of jabs at the genre.

I think the point is that one can't blame KSP for ruining science fantasy, its is already teetering on its pedestal for a while.  The idea for HHGTTG came to adams in '71 and the first radio series was from '75. So sci-fi already has a reputation, it doesn't take much to see that, one episode of lost in space, after a while we watched the reruns for the comedy, not the drama. "Warning, warning, warning". How about an upside down garbage can pretending to the the master of the universe in Dr. Who. The last sci fantasy movie I saw before HHGTTG was terminator II, seriously nice special effects but too much effect and not enough plot.

What was the critical velocity in Star Trek, at warp 9.6 you could go anywhere in the Universe and be there in an instance, and yet Voyager spends 5 years in the gamma quadrant trying to get back home.

 

[Camacha]

12 hours ago, ModZero said:

And it seems that despite being quite smart and socially capable they can't keep it up against a bunch of hairless monkeys with opposable fingers.

For all we know our timing just happened to be right. People always pretend humans have all these unique qualities, but very few (or even none) of our traits cannot be found elsewhere. Other creatures are bipedal, have extremities that can manipulate things in detail, have large brains and are good at problem solving, etcetera. It seems we just happened to stumble across a luck combination before others did.

Let us not forget that other species have very little chance of developing themselves due to the pressures humans put upon them. It is very much the story of life itself - even if life started multiple times, the fact that other life had already established itself meant that it would be easily out-competed. As soon as the first species stumbles upon gold, the other species' chances are diminished a lot.

Quote

Octopuses sound more likely, but there's the question of how an aquatic creature comes up with fire.

Fire is not necessarily required, there are other ways around the problems that fire solve. See the aquatic space creatures thread for ideas

[Bill Phil]

4 hours ago, Camacha said:

For all we know our timing just happened to be right. People always pretend humans have all these unique qualities, but very few (or even none) of our traits cannot be found elsewhere. Other creatures are bipedal, have extremities that can manipulate things in detail, have large brains and are good at problem solving, etcetera. It seems we just happened to stumble across a luck combination before others did.

Let us not forget that other species have very little chance of developing themselves due to the pressures humans put upon them. It is very much the story of life itself - even if life started multiple times, the fact that other life had already established itself meant that it would be easily out-competed. As soon as the first species stumbles upon gold, the other species' chances are diminished a lot.

Fire is not necessarily required, there are other ways around the problems that fire solve. See the aquatic space creatures thread for ideas

Idk man. Humans are weird. We're one of the only species to sweat water! Our buttocks is used to store energy, which allowed us to out last prey. Our development cycle is in the double digits, and that's crazy compared to our average mass and size. We're the only mammal species to originate from one continent (Africa) and have members living on every single one their whole lives. Yeah, albatrosses can circumnavigate the world, but they're usually limited to the southern oceans. We're also the only species to widely domesticate other species for our purposes. We're also the only species to change the environment to a huge degree.

[Camacha]

3 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Idk man. Humans are weird. We're one of the only species to sweat water! Our buttocks is used to store energy, which allowed us to out last prey. Our development cycle is in the double digits, and that's crazy compared to our average mass and size. We're the only mammal species to originate from one continent (Africa) and have members living on every single one their whole lives. Yeah, albatrosses can circumnavigate the world, but they're usually limited to the southern oceans. We're also the only species to widely domesticate other species for our purposes. We're also the only species to change the environment to a huge degree.

Most of what you mention is a result of becoming dominant. Once a species is dominant, chances that another one will do the same quickly become very small. We simply put too much pressure on other species. That is beautifully illustrated by the fact that we even out-competed our brethren species, the Neanderthal, into extinction.

Hunting by exhausting prey is not unique either. Wolves tend to do that too. Sure, canines do not sweat the way we do, but that is just the tool. Other animals (like monkeys and hippos) do sweat, so that trait is not very unique either.

[Bill Phil]

15 minutes ago, Camacha said:

Most of what you mention is a result of becoming dominant. Once a species is dominant, chances that another one will do the same quickly become very small. We simply put too much pressure on other species. That is beautifully illustrated by the fact that we even out-competed our brethren species, the Neanderthal, into extinction.

Hunting by exhausting prey is not unique either. Wolves tend to do that too. Sure, canines do not sweat the way we do, but that is just the tool. Other animals (like monkeys and hippos) do sweat, so that trait is not very unique either.

Most animals ( a vast majority), if they do sweat, tend to not use water.

How can you prove it's a result of becoming dominant? You can't. If it was, becoming dominant would've taken much longer. But Homo sapiens did it in s few hundred thousand years. Compare that to Homo erectus. They lasted much longer and weren't all that dissimilar. But they didn't become dominant. They didn't domesticate animals or cross oceans. 

Water is more efficient than other methods, out lasting prey is effective, taking a while to fully develop gives more time to learn. These things in this combination are a result of evolution. They gave an individual more abilities. 

[Camacha]

2 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

How can you prove it's a result of becoming dominant?

I never said sweating was a result of becoming dominant - things are getting mixed up in the discussion. Sweat is not unique, just like pretty much all our other traits. Almost every single trait we consider to be special for humans, is replicated somewhere in the animal kingdom.

The things that do set us apart as a species are almost exclusively the result of becoming the dominant species. The fact that we did become dominant also means other species are very unlikely to replicate what we did, simply because humans will not let them.

[magnemoe]

22 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Idk man. Humans are weird. We're one of the only species to sweat water! Our buttocks is used to store energy, which allowed us to out last prey. Our development cycle is in the double digits, and that's crazy compared to our average mass and size. We're the only mammal species to originate from one continent (Africa) and have members living on every single one their whole lives. Yeah, albatrosses can circumnavigate the world, but they're usually limited to the southern oceans. We're also the only species to widely domesticate other species for our purposes. We're also the only species to change the environment to a huge degree.

Humans and pigs sweat over the entire body, its rare, probably as it don't mix well with fur for some reason? your head get sweat even with all the hair.
Wolfs also chase down prey in group over long distances, don't need to sweat as much as they live in cold areas. Think some other predators do too but not sure. 
Anyway this was early in our development still an nice thing if you do hard work in warm areas. 
 

21 hours ago, Camacha said:

I never said sweating was a result of becoming dominant - things are getting mixed up in the discussion. Sweat is not unique, just like pretty much all our other traits. Almost every single trait we consider to be special for humans, is replicated somewhere in the animal kingdom.

The things that do set us apart as a species are almost exclusively the result of becoming the dominant species. The fact that we did become dominant also means other species are very unlikely to replicate what we did, simply because humans will not let them.

We are smart and social that made us the dominate species, also being very adaptable helps a lot, this is why you find humans everywhere.
Not much room for other species to repeat that we did neither time. Yes we will probably uplift other species but that is another story. 

[Andem]

Hey! Let's get back on topic!

[PB666]

46 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Humans and pigs sweat over the entire body, its rare, probably as it don't mix well with fur for some reason? your head get sweat even with all the hair.
Wolfs also chase down prey in group over long distances, don't need to sweat as much as they live in cold areas. Think some other predators do too but not sure. 
Anyway this was early in our development still an nice thing if you do hard work in warm areas. 
 

We are smart and social that made us the dominate species, also being very adaptable helps a lot, this is why you find humans everywhere.
Not much room for other species to repeat that we did neither time. Yes we will probably uplift other species but that is another story. 

I dont know . . . . . . . . there are alot of cows, chickens, pigs on the planet. We also do a pretty good job feeding rats, pidgeons, seagulls and cockroaches. 

[magnemoe]

5 hours ago, PB666 said:

I dont know . . . . . . . . there are alot of cows, chickens, pigs on the planet. We also do a pretty good job feeding rats, pidgeons, seagulls and cockroaches. 

None who have any chance of becoming sentinel.
On the other hands we are likely to uplift cat and dogs, they probably start fighting wars. 

[Kertech]

This one made me have to leave the cinema I know mission impossible is not the most accurate films (or anywhere near realism) but in the most recent one Tom cruise swims to try and open some vault and has an oxygen meter on his arm counting down to 0%. Realistically it's blood CO2 that woud kill him long before hypoxaemia. What got me was they could have easily just given him a CO2 monito and say at some arbitary unit (or scale to perecentage) he'll die, still would have had the same effect!

[peadar1987]

Ooh I have one!

The newest Die Hard, where they go into a room at Chernobyl filled with nuclear waste, and spray an aerosol onto it that makes it completely safe. If that's a thing, when why don't they just do that to the reactor?!

[p1t1o]

Not just movies, but other media too. And it happens all the time.

I hate "bootstrap" paradoxes. You know, when find some amazing treasure or other plot point, and then later use a time machine to go back in time to put said amazing treasure/plotpoint in the place you previously found it, so that your past self can find it. Said treasure/plotpoint has no origin, it just oscillate forward and backward through time.

Another example might be, you travel back in time and set up your mother with your father. The result and the cause are the same phenomena.

Yeah, I know there are some mathematical treatments of timelike loops or something which says that this isn't necessarily forbidden, mathematically at least. But that is A) still pretty dubious, even for time travel, and B) it is still like SUPER lazy writing.

Edited April 18, 2016 by p1t1o

[lude]

Someone asked earlier about the chirality and there is work on it, 

in nature we have Rectus and Sinister stereocentres for molecules and by happen chance life has evolved to mainly use the left handed variants of enantiomers, this made right handed glucose undigestible.

I think it's called homochirality one of the theories is that an enantiomeric environment was created in which radiation destroyed right handed versions.

 

In chemistry you usually get a racemic mixture if you make something while in biochemistry you don't.

They can have no effect, slight effect or extremely undesirable effect compared to their mirrored counter part.

Another theory is that life evolved to use the left handed version due to a tiniest energy difference in it's configurations, which made it slightly better than the mirrored version, this is also a popular theory to explain why our universe exists in matter.

But it's hard to say what exactly caused that.

Apparently not all geometry is truly equal in the universe.

DNA is very interesting, especially since it changes it's form regularly and is a very superior information storing process compared to RNA but that helix is by far the only way genetic codes are stored, there's genetic information chained like a benzene ring and the life that has those is extremely resistant to all radiation and some even can use radiation as an energy source, I dunno if they had triplets or hexlets of information, I also dunno in which way their genetic code crystallizes and coils itself, I can't even fathom it.

 

Plasmides are also a very interesting thing for genetic transfer and the Lamprey is quite a curious little cthuluesque fishy animal that can change the genetic code of what it bites.