What is your biggest science pet peeve in movies?

[Nikolai]

5 hours ago, cubinator said:

Of course, if their rules were consistent, the guards would have noticed something str--

Yeah.  Something in my brain realized that we were just having fun telling a story, and that I shouldn't expect too much internal consistency.  It's like the rules for Girl Genius, where "Is it funny?" is sometimes more pertinent to the plot than "Is it logical?".  Or Kerbal Space Program, for that matter, where realism often takes a back seat to fun.

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, Nikolai said:

Yeah.  Something in my brain realized that we were just having fun telling a story, and that I shouldn't expect too much internal consistency.  It's like the rules for Girl Genius, where "Is it funny?" is sometimes more pertinent to the plot than "Is it logical?".  Or Kerbal Space Program, for that matter, where realism often takes a back seat to fun.

Agreed. I hope they never change the sliding mechanics in KSP, they're hilarious.

[Drelam]

On 27.4.2016 at 4:19 PM, 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...

To me bad movies are only funny when they are unintentional bad.

[StrandedonEarth]

You want a really so-bad-it's-funny movie? Peter Jackson's first movie, Bad Taste! (I'd post a pic, but there was nothing really suitable for these forums!)

[Kertech]

another one that gets me is pretty much any fight scene, a punch to the head will knock them out (it may do but it wouldn't be the non lethal, he'll get up later and be fine sort, it's the, he'll be concussed/have had a haemorrhage/not wake up later kind), punching someone does not injure the puncher who goes on to hit everyone in the head. Getting shot anywhere but hear/head is fine (it's not). I'm fine unless it's just because the writers are being lazy

[Mitchz95]

Another must-see for "bad movie night" is Impact. If you think Armageddon's science is bad, you haven't seen anything yet. The final quarter of the movie will either have you laughing hysterically or in tears. Or both.

[Hary R]

7 hours ago, Mitchz95 said:

Another must-see for "bad movie night" is Impact. If you think Armageddon's science is bad, you haven't seen anything yet. The final quarter of the movie will either have you laughing hysterically or in tears. Or both.

Quot of the plote from wiki:

Quote

Impact is a mini-series about a meteor shower which eventually sends the moon on a collision course with Earth

Is that the one you are talking about, i'm laughing just by reading this. 

[Nikolai]

On 4/30/2016 at 5:41 PM, Drelam said:

To me bad movies are only funny when they are unintentional bad.

I also like bad movies, but selectively.  "Badness" can take several different forms.

There's stuff where the people involved clearly have more talent than they need for the thing they're doing; they're just having fun and inviting us to share in the sense of exaggerated playfulness -- like the old Batman series, or the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons.  That's camp.  I enjoy it.

Then there's stuff where the people involved clearly want to do something amazing, but realizing it lies beyond their talent.  Like Plan 9 from Outer Space, or heck, anything by Ed Wood.  That's kitsch.  It's also fun, and I also enjoy it -- but for different reasons.

And then there's stuff that doesn't seem to showcase any talent and doesn't seem to aspire to anything.  I don't have a name for it, but to my tastes, it tends to be painfully bad.

[sevenperforce]

25 minutes ago, Nikolai said:

And then there's stuff that doesn't seem to showcase any talent and doesn't seem to aspire to anything.  I don't have a name for it, but to my tastes, it tends to be painfully bad.

Starwarzianholidazic?

[Drelam]

42 minutes ago, Nikolai said:

I also like bad movies, but selectively.  "Badness" can take several different forms.

There's stuff where the people involved clearly have more talent than they need for the thing they're doing; they're just having fun and inviting us to share in the sense of exaggerated playfulness -- like the old Batman series, or the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons.  That's camp.  I enjoy it.

Then there's stuff where the people involved clearly want to do something amazing, but realizing it lies beyond their talent.  Like Plan 9 from Outer Space, or heck, anything by Ed Wood.  That's kitsch.  It's also fun, and I also enjoy it -- but for different reasons.

And then there's stuff that doesn't seem to showcase any talent and doesn't seem to aspire to anything.  I don't have a name for it, but to my tastes, it tends to be painfully bad.

I must say i'm not a huge fan of bad movies.

I just dislike this "let's jump on the cheap movie train to fill the market gap" mentality (especially most Sci-Fy productions). To me this is just a waste of money that could (or better said -should-) be spent on other things.

 

On topic: Apart from many thing that have already been mentioned, what bothers me the most is when movies are telling historical stories but from our moral point of view. For example when the hero clearly has our ethical standards to make him/her more likeable, while mostly only the bad guys behave more realistic (for example "the patriot" or "Kingdom of Heaven" to name a few. Would it be too much to tell the audience that in previous times (where the movie takes place) people had different moral standards and how glad we should be to live in our (more civilized) times?

I'm so tired of seeing 20/21th century people populating previous times like hollywood tries to show us.

(sorry for my bad english)

 

 

[Nikolai]

2 hours ago, Drelam said:

I must say i'm not a huge fan of bad movies.

Hey, no worries.  If we all liked the same stuff, talking to other people would be a lot more boring.

[RocketSquid]

On 4/29/2016 at 4:40 PM, Sanic said:

Centrifuges.

 

What about them?

[cubinator]

16 hours ago, Mitchz95 said:

Another must-see for "bad movie night" is Impact. If you think Armageddon's science is bad, you haven't seen anything yet. The final quarter of the movie will either have you laughing hysterically or in tears. Or both.

I think I read a book like that once. The plot started with a huge "asteroid" which would impact the Moon and be visible on Earth. Unfortunately, scientists "miscalculated" the mass of the "asteroid" and the Moon falls towards Earth. Everyone sees it getting bigger and panics, but it stops just before hitting Earth. Then it causes a bunch of catastrophic tidal effects like flooding coastal cities, and volcanoes that create a worldwide ash cloud that causes a global winter. 

IT

STOPS

I think there was a series, but the science was so cringe-worthy that I stopped. Conservation of momentum schmonservation of momentum.

[sevenperforce]

26 minutes ago, cubinator said:

I think I read a book like that once. The plot started with a huge "asteroid" which would impact the Moon and be visible on Earth. Unfortunately, scientists "miscalculated" the mass of the "asteroid" and the Moon falls towards Earth. Everyone sees it getting bigger and panics, but it stops just before hitting Earth. Then it causes a bunch of catastrophic tidal effects like flooding coastal cities, and volcanoes that create a worldwide ash cloud that causes a global winter. 

IT

STOPS

I think there was a series, but the science was so cringe-worthy that I stopped. Conservation of momentum schmonservation of momentum.

Life As We Knew It.

Hmm.

I don't suppose it would "stop" but a sufficiently dense mass hitting it at precisely the right point could drain enough orbital energy to lower the perigee significantly. You'd have a moon that got significantly larger and smaller throughout the (now shorter) month. You'd need another asteroid collision to "circularize" in the lower orbit if you wanted it to stay at that perigee all the time.

And everyone would be dead. First from the rain of meteor debris that would splatter the Earth like so many raindrops, and second from the extreme tides that would cover even the highest mountains, and third from the...well everyone is dead by this point so why go on?

Did it ever suggest how much closer to Earth the moon was?

Presuming a maximum solar-system-object impact velocity of roughly 71 km/s, dropping the orbital momentum of the moon by a mere 5% would require an impactor with a mass of 5.2e19 kg, roughly 200,000 times the mass of Halley's comet or about twice the mass of Mimas.

[insert_name]

2 hours ago, cubinator said:

I think I read a book like that once. The plot started with a huge "asteroid" which would impact the Moon and be visible on Earth. Unfortunately, scientists "miscalculated" the mass of the "asteroid" and the Moon falls towards Earth. Everyone sees it getting bigger and panics, but it stops just before hitting Earth. Then it causes a bunch of catastrophic tidal effects like flooding coastal cities, and volcanoes that create a worldwide ash cloud that causes a global winter. 

IT

STOPS

I think there was a series, but the science was so cringe-worthy that I stopped. Conservation of momentum schmonservation of momentum.

it probably stopped getting bigger because it reached perigee and started going back up, if the asteroid hits the moon at the right angle at the right time it could easily bring down the perigee

[sevenperforce]

33 minutes ago, insert_name said:

it probably stopped getting bigger because it reached perigee and started going back up, if the asteroid hits the moon at the right angle at the right time it could easily bring down the perigee

If by "asteroid" you mean "one of Saturn's moons" and if by "hits" you mean "impacts at solar escape velocity" and if by "bring down" you mean "decrease by 5%" then sure.

Edited May 2, 2016 by sevenperforce

[Shpaget]

35 minutes ago, insert_name said:

if the asteroid hits the moon at the right angle at the right time it could easily bring down the perigee

Easily? To such extent to wreak havoc on Earth? No. There are very few known asteroids big enough to do that.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Shpaget

[cubinator]

2 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Life As We Knew It.

Hmm.

(1)I don't suppose it would "stop" but a sufficiently dense mass hitting it at precisely the right point could drain enough orbital energy to lower the perigee significantly. You'd have a moon that got significantly larger and smaller throughout the (now shorter) month. You'd need another asteroid collision to "circularize" in the lower orbit if you wanted it to stay at that perigee all the time.

(2)And everyone would be dead. First from the rain of meteor debris that would splatter the Earth like so many raindrops, and second from the extreme tides that would cover even the highest mountains, and third from the...well everyone is dead by this point so why go on?

(3)Did it ever suggest how much closer to Earth the moon was?

(4)Presuming a maximum solar-system-object impact velocity of roughly 71 km/s, dropping the orbital momentum of the moon by a mere 5% would require an impactor with a mass of 5.2e19 kg, roughly 200,000 times the mass of Halley's comet or about twice the mass of Mimas.

Yes, that book.

(1) Yes, it would, but in the book there is no mention whatsoever of the moon changing in apparent size periodically, so it's safe to presume that it's orbit is circular, because everyone would notice if it got bigger and smaller over time. Also, when it first comes down it does so over the course of maybe a minute, tops. Even if it was in a highly eccentric orbit it would have an orbital period of four or five days (based on knowledge of Apollo transit times). That would mean the asteroid hits and then a couple of days later people notice that the moon is getting bigger, then they panic. In the book, it happened right away.

(2) Yes.

(3) Probably about as close as it would need to be for it to appear the size it does on the book cover.

(4) Hence why I put "asteroid" in quotes. It is called an "asteroid" in the book, but really to drop the Moon's orbital velocity that much would require something that can be called a dwarf planet, and not one whose mass could be underestimated. It would have been discovered long ago, and would already be a major cause for concern due to it's Earth-crossing orbit and large size.

7 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

If by "asteroid" you mean "one of Saturn's moons" and if by "hits" you mean "impacts at solar escape velocity" and if by "bring down" you mean "decrease by 5%" then sure.

If it was a large one like Titan, it could stop it's orbital velocity entirely. Then you just need to shoot one of the Galilean moons out of your giant celestial potato cannon at the right time to circularize it's orbit. Unfortunately, when you impact two large moons you don't get one moon, you get a cloud of space lava, which is not a fun thing to be directly under.

Quote

when it first comes down it does so over the course of maybe a minute

370300 km/min = 6171666.67 m/s = 2.05% c. That's a fast moon.

Edited May 2, 2016 by cubinator
almost-xkcd-worthy math

[cantab]

On 30/04/2016 at 10:41 PM, Drelam said:

To me bad movies are only funny when they are unintentional bad.

What I really dislike are bad comedies. A bad action movie, sci-fi, thriller, or many other genres can still be fun to watch. But a bad comedy just falls flat.

Being dragged along to a few too many such bad comedies by family is honestly why I hardly watch any films at all any more.

[sevenperforce]

48 minutes ago, cubinator said:

If it was a large one like Titan, it could stop it's orbital velocity entirely. Then you just need to shoot one of the Galilean moons out of your giant celestial potato cannon at the right time to circularize it's orbit. Unfortunately, when you impact two large moons you don't get one moon, you get a cloud of space lava, which is not a fun thing to be directly under.

Amusingly, decreasing the size of the impactor actually results in a greater release of energy and even more space lava.

Particularly space lava bombarding Earth, at velocities far in excess of solar escape velocity. Mostly on the facing side (or whatever side happened to be unlucky enough to face the moon at the time the bombardment first reaches LEO) but all over to some degree, because a lot of it is going to be bent into collision or aerobrake into an eccentric orbit.

Actually at some point the lunar gravitational binding energy is going to come into play. Altering the orbit by 5% with the aforementioned 71 km/s, twice-the-mass-of-Mimas body would be 2e29 J, 60% more than the binding energy of the moon. Great.

Did they say approximately how large this "asteroid" was? Like, was it visible with the naked eye?

[cubinator]

Just now, sevenperforce said:

Did they say approximately how large this "asteroid" was? Like, was it visible with the naked eye?

The asteroid itself wasn't visible, but the impact was. In reality, it would be visible and it would be almost the same size as the moon.

[sevenperforce]

14 minutes ago, cubinator said:

The asteroid itself wasn't visible, but the impact was. In reality, it would be visible and it would be almost the same size as the moon.

Bahahahahahaha

At the orbit of the moon, an object too small to see couldn't be more than a few km across at the very most. So even if it were made of pure osmium, it would have to be moving at relativistic speeds to make any noticeable change to the moon's orbit. Which would give it enough energy to punch straight through the moon and scatter the whole thing into fragments. 

[Mitchz95]

13 hours ago, Hary R said:

Quot of the plote from wiki:

Is that the one you are talking about, i'm laughing just by reading this. 

Yeah, that's the one. One of the meteors is a fragment of a brown dwarf (which the writers apparently mixed up with a neutron star) that gets lodged in the moon, and they have to "magnetize" the moon's core to eject it into the sun before the brown dwarf's gravity causes Earth and the moon to collide. They accomplish this using an Apollo lander and a bunch of other hardware they apparently designed and built in eighteen days. Yeah, it's bad.

[cubinator]

8 minutes ago, Mitchz95 said:

Yeah, that's the one. One of the meteors is a fragment of a brown dwarf (which the writers apparently mixed up with a neutron star) that gets lodged in the moon, and they have to "magnetize" the moon's core to eject it into the sun before the brown dwarf's gravity causes Earth and the moon to collide. They accomplish this using an Apollo lander and a bunch of other hardware they apparently designed and built in eighteen days. Yeah, it's bad.

Huh? What science? I only hear technobabble.

[Bill Phil]

2 hours ago, cubinator said:

Huh? What science? I only hear technobabble.

Yeah. That's called "science."