What is your biggest science pet peeve in movies?

[PB666]

2 hours ago, Kertech said:

Loving the article!

 

To be stealthy in space, don't be in space... 

There is actually a way. Its akin to the star-trek single human probe. You create a spicule, its direction faces the detector. It emits heat to a very small foot print forward. Using this technique you could spread an attack over the sky and therefore lower the dTheta that the ememy can see, you can even them approach from the glare vector of large stars so that the craft is shrouded in reflections. Of course the only form of propulsion would be a photon drive, since all plums create signature. The target eventually detects the spicule but by that time the spicules are already very close and can engage the enemy in a basic one-off destruction and only works against single isolated ships. I could be a means of territorial defense, or could be used by a planet for targeting moon or asteroid based laser weapons. The spicules could be unmanned and in large number would communicate via close low intensity radio communications. The article basically argues that your footprint in space given the sun and internal heating is your signature. The only way to circumvent this is to reduce the crossectional area facing the target. By reducing that area and continually placing the most reduced area at the target you become invisible except at close range.

Another technique is to bury your base so deeply in a asteroid that your heat signature and a normal asteroid heat signature are nearly indistinquishable. The heat signature of the asteroid can be drop by very slight changes in its surface structure and albedo.

[cantab]

On 25/04/2016 at 8:49 PM, WestAir said:

1. Pilots struggle for five full minutes to pull a Jumbo Jet out of a dive. (If you're pulling back for five minutes, that's why you're in the dive to begin with.)

2. Enemy Marksmen miss every shot. And it's not like they only shot once or twice - they literally unloaded on our heroes. (Did I mention the untrained heroes kill all twelve enemies with precision?)

3. Nuclear Weapons. ("We've got 30 seconds to disarm the nuke!" - or "Russia's fired an ICBM. We have to hack it mid flight!")

4. Speaking of the above^ Super weapons. Because in Sci Fi like Star Trek, the base weapons of starships are often already superweapons. (A Quantum Torpedo literally has its yield select-able on launch and can destroy the surface of a planet. Why do we need super weapons, again, when we have 70 Quantum Torpedo planet killers sitting on B deck? And why don't these super weapon torpedoes, that can destroy planets, not destroy the enemy spaceship which is the size of a minibus?)

5. Car / Plane / Train / Spaceship crashes. If your wreck looks like the aftermath of a WW2 bombing, no actors should be crawling out of the rubble saying "That was close!" - The next scene should, instead, take place in a CSI lab with doctors comparing our heroes remains with dental records on file.

6. Finally - my biggest pet peeve with Hollywood: The reactions of Earth to events of the film. If you just Nuked Paris or an alien race just vaporized SF Bay, society won't just give the Klingons a "free pass". No body is going to Hakuna Matata a war act. It's silly when cities get vaporized and everyone is always so chill about it!

1) I believe it's happened. You can argue it's bad piloting and the pilots should act differently, but bad piloting happens.

5) Truth In Television to an extent. People climb out of what look like huge wrecks in modern cars *because* the car has crumple zones to reduce the g-forces on the occupants.

[tater]

Directional radiation of heat presumes you know where the enemy detectors are. The asteroid idea... dunno, if it has a power plant so that it can actually do anything, or a crew, it seems like it will slowly equilibrate with the crew compartment over long time frames.

[KerbMav]

On 12.4.2016 at 2:17 PM, Hary R said:

- Why do your phone ( tablet , computer whatever) make strange noise when you use the touchscreen?

- Why do you use you computer's keybord that much? and why do you never use you mouse?

- Ask the witless elders in public transport - the same that yell into their phones as if it was a phone made with cans and a line ...

- Well, our new system at work forces the use of the mouse so to speak, the older version was much more hotkey friendly, but I hate it, so maybe programmers in the future took a heart?

On 12.4.2016 at 2:17 PM, sevenperforce said:

I can forgive that if and only if the engines depicted are "warp" engines or otherwise actuate FTL travel, as it is conceivable that something like an Alcubierre drive would need constant power to be engaged and would grind to a halt if the engines stopped.

Warp engines that warp the space to allow faster than light travel still need the ship to move by itself by other means to cross the folded space in front of it and that velocity is still retained after the warp field collapses.

On 12.4.2016 at 2:44 PM, RainDreamer said:

Which reminds me that movies always portray atoms using the orbital models.

It is a depiction of what the sensors tell the computer, so I can live with that.

[Hary R]

13 hours ago, KerbMav said:

On 12/4/2016 at 3:17 PM, Hary R said:

- Why do your phone ( tablet , computer whatever) make strange noise when you use the touchscreen?

- Why do you use you computer's keybord that much? and why do you never use you mouse?

- Ask the witless elders in public transport - the same that yell into their phones as if it was a phone made with cans and a line ..

Well yeah, It just annoys me that in every movie a touchscreen need make a sound and no one find it annoying.

 

13 hours ago, KerbMav said:

Well, our new system at work forces the use of the mouse so to speak, the older version was much more hotkey friendly, but I hate it, so maybe programmers in the future took a heart?

I've recently watched a movie that have this trope but show a window with a command line in it and I was like "finally". It was just a little window in a wide variety of windows showing picture, report and videos but that little detail explained all the taping.

[KerbMav]

3 hours ago, Hary R said:

Well yeah, It just annoys me that in every movie a touchscreen need make a sound and no one find it annoying.

 

I've recently watched a movie that have this trope but show a window with a command line in it and I was like "finally". It was just a little window in a wide variety of windows showing picture, report and videos but that little detail explained all the taping.

Well, psychologically this is done to make it clear for the audience that the character is not just tapping his toy but actually typing something. For the same reason a CSI agent swipes a piece of evidence three times with his tool to take a sample, to make it clear that he is doing something. A smaller and bearable concession in TV and movies to the slower viewers than dumbing down or forgetting plotlines I think.

 

I gave some thought on the audible feedback and letter-by-letter presentation while communicating via text messages with an AI. It might feel a bit more comfortable for the user instead of a suddenly appearing complete answer?

[WestAir]

20 hours ago, cantab said:

1) I believe it's happened. You can argue it's bad piloting and the pilots should act differently, but bad piloting happens.

I meant more of the traditional "The pilots are unconscious and Joe Hero just sat in the cockpit seat. He now has to pull us out of a dive and it takes him 5 minutes of screen time and all the muscle he can muster to do it." scenario that happens often in Hollywood.

When I fly small Cessna's, Piper's or Cirrus' I use three fingers on the yoke and it's sufficient to do about anything. That's why I personally have a pet peeve with movies where Joe Hero pulls up for five straight minutes with all his (bulking) muscles to save the plane.

 

[monstah]

4 hours ago, KerbMav said:

I gave some thought on the audible feedback and letter-by-letter presentation while communicating via text messages with an AI. It might feel a bit more comfortable for the user instead of a suddenly appearing complete answer?

Oh, sure. As comfortable as, say, referring to the ship's systems as 'MOTHER'  

On 27/04/2016 at 11:16 PM, WestAir said:

Another fantasy pet peeve has been people "bulking up" or transforming into stronger bodies - like the Hulk.

Just where does the extra mass come from? Unless it's plant-man with the ability to rapidly absorb calories directly from sunlight, I don't get it.

 

On 27/04/2016 at 2:49 AM, RainDreamer said:

Also...where does it go later when they go back to normal? I don't see a ton of mass get shedded off, just seeing them compressed back to human size. Maybe hulk is just a really inflated human balloon. 

Guy's, there's NO EXTRA MASS! That's why he jumps around that far, he's just really low-density! As for the strenght, well... COMIC BOOK MAGIC.

On 27/04/2016 at 4:45 AM, Red Fang said:

There is a fart joke in there, I'm sure. 

See? He got it! XD

On 27/04/2016 at 11:19 AM, adsii1970 said:

As the OP's author, @todofwar, stated, my wife and I enjoy watching bad sci-fi, for a variety of reasons. When it comes to the Sy-Fy Channel produced movies, we have a lot of fun critiquing the horrible CGI, bad character developments, bad story lines with so many plot holes you could drive a crude supertanker through, and unrealistic representation of science... However, over the last four years, there is a constant set of themes in every Sy-Fy disaster movie. It has gotten so bad that we are considering ending this favorite pastime. Anyhow, here's our list:

• Nearly every Sy-Fy movie has a beautiful woman, normally either blonde or red head, that is also very smart. Many times, this woman "saves" the world and has a pocketful of academic achievements and recognition all before the age of 40 and between 24 and 35 mostly. This is unrealistic...
• Every military officer is portrayed as being a dumb knuckledragger incapable of having rational thought beyond "let's blow the crap out of it..." mentality. As a military veteran with nearly 8 years in the Army, most officers, from Colonels to Generals, are actually very smart academically or have a huge dosage of common sense. While they are trained to be effective on the battlefield, many can also come up to very good decisions based on their ability to see outcomes. I am overly tired of seeing the military portrayed as idiots and morons.
• Older women (those over 40) are portrayed as being out of touch, weak, insensitive, and if they are an academic equal and rival to the young "brilliantly smart" then you can chalk it up... she's a goner. She's going to die...
• The guy that is the romantic partner of the the "savior woman" usually falls into to broad categories with the following story line:
  • He is a loser that is not as smart as she is but is simply her puppy dog partner. He is usually the only one who believes the woman from the very start and she has to do something crap-tacular to save her.
  • From the start of the movie, it is clear they are mis-matched and he is her academic rival who brutally disagrees with her. At the same time, they have a mutual male friend who is as dumb as a box of rocks. Smart boyfriend dies and the dumb guy ends up becoming a part of the plan to save the day.
• In the last four years of Sy-Fy movies, military research is the cause of the disaster phenomenon. Whether it is an earthquake, a tidal wave, fires, freezing weather, or even dinosaurs, military weapons research always triggers the disaster...

Oh, man. I love to critique bad acting, bad production and bad CGI, but I cannot stand Syfy's horrible writing. It seriously makes my brain bleed.

[todofwar]

Ant Man had a really horrendous one. They explicitly state the technology relies on shrinking the distance between atoms. So, there should be a limit to how small you can get. Yet at one point they talk about going "subatomic", which should be impossible by the movie's rules. Not to mention the whole "mass is conserved" thing which was supposed to be one of the reasons Ant Man can do some serious damage when shrunk gets haphazardly applied. Internal consistency, that's all I ask

And another thing that has some spoilers:

Spoiler

At the end of the movie he goes "subatomic", and we see the worst depiction of basically everything at the micro, nano, and femto scales.

 

[WestAir]

1 hour ago, todofwar said:

Ant Man had a really horrendous one. They explicitly state the technology relies on shrinking the distance between atoms. So, there should be a limit to how small you can get. Yet at one point they talk about going "subatomic", which should be impossible by the movie's rules. Not to mention the whole "mass is conserved" thing which was supposed to be one of the reasons Ant Man can do some serious damage when shrunk gets haphazardly applied. Internal consistency, that's all I ask

And another thing that has some spoilers:

  Hide contents

At the end of the movie he goes "subatomic", and we see the worst depiction of basically everything at the micro, nano, and femto scales.

 

I thought the exact same thing when I watched Ant Man. Moreover, once he dropped below the Planck Scale they said "Time and space have no meaning here!" yet there was obviously time and space - just the way we're used to - present. (Not to mention photons and other particles were working fine at that scale. Even with suspension of belief, he shouldn't have been able to see anything.)

[cubinator]

Another Ant Man complaint: The ants act like dogs. Seriously? And many of the ants have wings, while only male ants ever grow wings, and that's only during mating season. And also, from the whole density-conservation thing, he would become a black hole if he got too small. I can tolerate the turbo-encabulator they used to make the machine, but other parts were kind of annoying. Oh, and that guy's keychain was actually driveable when expanded.

[Nikolai]

57 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Oh, and that guy's keychain was actually driveable when expanded.

I thought that was because he'd shrunk a full-size tank to make a keychain.  Or am I missing the point of your objection?

[insert_name]

4 minutes ago, Nikolai said:

I thought that was because he'd shrunk a full-size tank to make a keychain.  Or am I missing the point of your objection?

but then it would have the mass of a full size tank, imagine trying to put that in your pocket

[WestAir]

1 hour ago, insert_name said:

but then it would have the mass of a full size tank, imagine trying to put that in your pocket

I'm trying but it's a lot to tank in.

[Andem]

2 hours ago, cubinator said:

Another Ant Man complaint: The ants act like dogs. Seriously? And many of the ants have wings, while only male ants ever grow wings, and that's only during mating season. And also, from the whole density-conservation thing, he would become a black hole if he got too small. I can tolerate the turbo-encabulator they used to make the machine, but other parts were kind of annoying. Oh, and that guy's keychain was actually driveable when expanded.

Yeah, wasn't the whole point that shrunk objects retain their mass? How the hell was some seventy year old lugging around a fully functional soviet tan in his pocket? And how was he keeping that thing running after 60 years? Tanks aren't the most reliable vehicle you can get your hands on, and weigh in at several hundred metric tons.

[cubinator]

19 hours ago, Nikolai said:

I thought that was because he'd shrunk a full-size tank to make a keychain.  Or am I missing the point of your objection?

I don't quite recall exactly what he did, but either way it's awfully implausible. If it had retained it's mass (and followed the "rules" layed out earlier in the movie) it's density would approach that of a neutron star white dwarf. Imagine needing a crane to put your keys in your pocket? If it was just a really light tank it wouldn't have been able to blow through that wall, and if it was outside it would have blown away in the wind. So, basically, this comes down to movies being inconsistent with their rules as the cause of the annoyance. But on a side note...

...that would be a really expensive keychain.

Edited April 30, 2016 by cubinator
actual math is 3x10^10 times less exciting

[Sanic]

Centrifuges.

 

[KerbMav]

On 27.4.2016 at 4:19 PM, adsii1970 said:

However, over the last four years, there is a constant set of themes in every Sy-Fy disaster movie. It has gotten so bad that we are considering ending this favorite pastime.

Less Sy-Fy, more chill.

[Tex_NL]

One thing that never ceases to annoy me is not limited to movies. TV series, games, hell ... even Discovery Channel science documentaries get it wrong all the time. Planet rotation.
Everybody with even the most basic schooling should know earth rotates counter clockwise just like all the other planets. Like earth all planets orbit the sun counter clockwise. All moons also rotate and orbit counter clockwise. There are of course a few minor exceptions like Neptunes moon Triton but you get the picture by now. Everything rotates counter clockwise. Even our galaxy does.

Is it REALLY that hard to make your fragging CG animations rotate correctly? And I am looking especially at you Discovery Channel. One shot a galaxy or black hole rotates clockwise, next shot it rotates counter clockwise like it should. Only to be followed by yet another clockwise rotation. And they call that a science channel. More like a science failure.

Edited April 30, 2016 by Tex_NL

[Shpaget]

What if you're looking at it from south?

[Nikolai]

16 hours ago, cubinator said:

I don't quite recall exactly what he did, but either way it's awfully implausible. If it had retained it's mass (and followed the "rules" layed out earlier in the movie) it's density would approach that of a neutron star.

True -- but they followed that rule pretty inconsistently (Ant Man himself should have sunk through the ground/floor on several occasions), so I just ignored it.

16 hours ago, cubinator said:

...that would be a really expensive keychain.

I figured he stole it some time ago on a visit to a military base.  Shrunk it when no one was looking and walked right out the gate with it.

[cubinator]

4 minutes ago, Nikolai said:

True -- but they followed that rule pretty inconsistently (Ant Man himself should have sunk through the ground/floor on several occasions), so I just ignored it.

Yeah, that's annoying when they specifically mention rules about their turboencabulator but then break them/ignore them later on.

6 minutes ago, Nikolai said:

I figured he stole it some time ago on a visit to a military base.  Shrunk it when no one was looking and walked right out the gate with it.

I'm sure that's what he did. I meant if he were to sell it or something. Of course, if their rules were consistent, the guards would have noticed something str--

[Tex_NL]

3 hours ago, Shpaget said:

What if you're looking at it from south?

Sure, that would change the perspective. But it does not magically change the rotation.
A nice example is the game Mass Effect 2. All planets rotated clockwise, even earth. The continents on earth are so recognizable there is absolutely no mistake possible. On that earth the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. That's just Wrong!

[Shpaget]

Well, ok. I haven't played Mass Effect, so I wouldn't know, but... The perspective wasn't from orbit? From prograde LEO it looks like Earth is spinning clockwise.

Anyway, Earths rotation is almost imperceptible and realistic depiction would be quite boring in a game or a movie.

[cubinator]

52 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

Well, ok. I haven't played Mass Effect, so I wouldn't know, but... The perspective wasn't from orbit? From prograde LEO it looks like Earth is spinning clockwise.

Anyway, Earths rotation is almost imperceptible and realistic depiction would be quite boring in a game or a movie.

Well, I assume in-game it could be sped up, but still, it's going backwards. The sun used to rise in the west in Minecraft, but I believe they changed that so it goes the right way now.