What is your biggest science pet peeve in movies?

[p1t1o]

Jupiter Ascending - I quite liked this movie. I absolutely LOVED the super-space-tech massive raygun-cannon that takes several seconds to "charge" whilst vibration and growling like a bulldog pooping glass, before issuing a blast akin to a giant airzooka, knocking a guy over and *gasp* flattening a few square metres of crops!

[monstah]

2 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Jupiter Ascending - I quite liked this movie. [snip] *gasp* [snip]

...my sarcasm detector is on maintenance. Is this a serious post?

[p1t1o]

1 minute ago, monstah said:

...my sarcasm detector is on maintenance. Is this a serious post?

Im not sure about *serious*  but I did enjoy the movie and that raygun is ridiculous 

[Jonfliesgoats]

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: The British have useless, flying aircraft carriers before the avengers.

Speaking of flying aircraft carriers, we (America) did that in the 30s.  It was a very Kerbal solution to defending a giant, lumbering zeppelin.

http://www.airshipcenter.com/viewtopic.php?t=197

Science Peeve: 

Time travel in the terminator universe: Organic John Connor can travel through time, but organic cotton clothing can't.

[monstah]

15 minutes ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

Time travel in the terminator universe: Organic John Connor can travel through time, but organic cotton clothing can't.

Because the manufacturing process killed its midichlorians, yo.

16 minutes ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: The British have useless, flying aircraft carriers before the avengers.

Speaking of flying aircraft carriers, we (America) did that in the 30s.  It was a very Kerbal solution to defending a giant, lumbering zeppelin.

http://www.airshipcenter.com/viewtopic.php?t=197

Hey, that's pretty cool!

[todofwar]

20 minutes ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: The British have useless, flying aircraft carriers before the avengers.

Speaking of flying aircraft carriers, we (America) did that in the 30s.  It was a very Kerbal solution to defending a giant, lumbering zeppelin.

http://www.airshipcenter.com/viewtopic.php?t=197

Science Peeve: 

Time travel in the terminator universe: Organic John Connor can travel through time, but organic cotton clothing can't.

Ah, the USS Akron. My favorite airborne vessel except the SR71. Sure, the Akron was mostly useless, but it gets many points for style. I still wonder if something like this can't be made useful today. Probably not.

Back to fiction, I also like Jupiter Ascending in the "it's so bad it's good" kind of way. Though, I still wonder what the hell bending differential equations means.

Edited December 2, 2016 by todofwar

[Jonfliesgoats]

So bad it's good: Starship Troopers (film)

Good: Starship Troopers (book)

Bad science in thAt movie: The young child who becomes a telepathic colonel is not charismatic.  In reality, a telepath would know what everyone wants to see and hear, and would use that information to further their position.  Telepaths would be affable.

I suppose in science fiction, a hunter of telepaths would be paranoid of anyone who seems too kind, too accommodating or too charming.  A hunter of evil telepaths would only be comfortable around people who are visibly flawed and he would automatically suppress those thoughts to prevent nearby telepaths from learning what makes him comfortable and at ease.

As such a hunter of telepaths would be unable to form any sort of social or romantic relationship.  He would be consumed simultaneously with killing telepaths and suppressing his own thoughts.

[Jonfliesgoats]

Flying aircraft carriers came back after World War 2:

http://www.air-and-space.com/goblins.htm

After the goblin we experimented with F-84/ B-36 combinations too.  We used the trapeze system pioneered with biplanes in the 30s.

 In terms of doctrine, this is a vestige of "The Bomber Always Gets Through" philosophy so strategic bombing that was pioneered by an Italian just after the First World War.  Strategic bombing was disastrously supported by the Air Corps despite evidence from The Spanish Civil War that fighters could and did cause significant losses to bomber forces.  It took the bloody losses of 1943 to convince Arnold and Eaker of the necessity of fighter escort.   One can even argue that Doolittle and his decision to release fighters from escort roles during return voyages to prowl and strafe axis countryside did more to disrupt infrastructure and logistics than the bombers themselves.

Another piece of trivia related to the parasite fighter program and dogged support for faulty strategies: Claire Chennault.

Claire Chennault was in charge of the Air Corps fighter tactics school and pushed the idea that fighters could and would stop bombers.  He became so unpopular that his career was sidelined and he resigned in 1937.  Shortly thereafter he organized the AVG for the Chinese Nationalist forces and used P-40s to significantly reduce the efficacy of Japanese bombing in China.

So in the parasite fighter program you see a legacy of navy airships, a legacy of career-risk management at the expense of aircrew lives, and a relationship with tactical innovation and excellence with obsolescent planes paired with innovative pilots.  In the Goblin fighter, you see just how ridiculous engineering will go to support a bad idea.

The trick is identifyng the next good or bad idea before we prove their merits with blood.  If mid and upper level mangement and officers find themselves whitewashing things to protect their careers, that's a good signal that we may be trying to defend a bad idea.

When we apply this knowledge to, say, the CV-22 or the F-35...

https://warisboring.com/arrogant-u-s-generals-made-the-p-51-mustang-a-necessity-fd6063ff4893#.f6ki9z1wt

Edited December 2, 2016 by Jonfliesgoats
Added link

[RedDwarfIV]

On 12/2/2016 at 1:32 PM, Jonfliesgoats said:

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: The British have useless, flying aircraft carriers before the avengers.

They fared better than Sky Captain's static airfield

[ARS]

Well, as far as my movies experience goes, here is my pet peeves:

1. Literally every superhero movies is wrong. I'm fine about superhero genre, but what I hate, is when they try to be scientific by technobabbling about the powers in the story. Literally every technobabble about superhero powers is not even close to making sense

2. Related to 'catch someone mid-fall to save them from falling without breaking their bones or outright killing the victim', in any superhero with super strength, lifting something very heavy (remember that scene in superman where he prevent a plane from falling by holding on it's nose?) if he really apply enough force to lift or halt something very heavy at such a small area (their hands) they might as well just crushed the object due to object's own weight being pitted against such a huge force over a such small area

3. Hollywood teaches you that, as long as you don't touch lava, molten metal, acid, etc. You will be fine. No flashpoint or dangerous fumes at all, even if u stand very close to them

4. Someone throw a frag  grenade, but the explosion is very PYROTECHNIC (and if I may add, every time someone throw a frag grenade in movies, the victim of that grenade is always shown died because that grenade's explosion, and rarely because of being hit by shrapnel of that frag grenade

5. Pick any space themed movies, and every time they depict it on screen is always WRONG

6.Every time there's a bomb squad's scene of 'red or blue wire?', it's just a total nonsense. Who the heck in real world making a bomb to be obvious to be defused, and always follow red or blue wire? A true bomb maker will make the cables in same color. And rarely, we never see a bomb scene with anti handling device such as mercury switch

Honestly, those are some of my pet peeves regarding to movie's cliches these days. This is also the reason why I'm enjoying anime more than film, Bcs in anime, at least u can understand that its totally for fun (and avoiding classic movies cliches)

[Tex_NL]

39 minutes ago, ARS said:

Bcs in anime, at least u can understand that its totally for fun (and avoiding classic movies cliches)

There is anime and there is anime.
Obviously there is no scientific relevance in the likes of Pokemon so I won't even go into that. But there are plenty of more realistic sci-fi anime. Some of them get things very right, like PlanetES, while others get things still horrible wrong, like Cowboy Bebop or Space Battleship Yamato.
The real difference between anime and life action is that anime is not limited by technology. If you can visualize and draw it you can film it. In life action you might not.

Edited December 4, 2016 by Tex_NL

[adsii1970]

Another pet peeve is when the story line is sacrificed for the sake of demonstrating some new special effects or to make the movie more intense. "Event Horizon" was good...up to the halfway point, then it was downhill from there...

[todofwar]

@ARS, for the supermarn catching the plane scene, it sort of makes sense based on previous movies. In one scene he and Lois are flying, and he holds her only by the fingertips as she continues to fly. But as soon as she let's go she falls. Basically, superman seems to temporarily cancel gravity of things he's touching. Now, this doesn't help the catching people mid fall part though. And the rule is never applied consistently either.

 

Edit: and wasn't that because of a failed attempt to do an air launch of a shuttle style rocket? Why would they have a full passenger load for such a mission?

Edited December 4, 2016 by todofwar

[Tex_NL]

 

[Codraroll]

On 2.12.2016 at 3:06 PM, Jonfliesgoats said:

Bad science in thAt movie [Starship Troopers]: The young child who becomes a telepathic colonel is not charismatic. 

Of all the bad science in that movie, this is the one that bothers you? I saw that movie when I was doing my military service, and my biggest pet peeve was that the marines were sent out with weapons and tactics that clearly weren't suitable for the mission. Even during one of the "weapons test" scenes, they show that you have to empty the gun's entire clip into the bug at point blank range to kill it. They then proclaim the weapon to be successful. Even though it requires its wielder to get within the bug's attack range (roughly two metres) and then spend all of his ammunition to kill a single enemy.

You know, this can even be expanded into a more general case: That battles in (non-historical) movies invariably feature foot soldiers alost exclusively, regardless of time period. In Star Wars Episode I, the warring armies set up infantry formations with shields and catapults and fire at each other at a few hundred paces. In TRON Legacy, the villain's plan involves an invasion of Earth - with an army of soldiers armed with spears. Starship Troopers, they deploy rifle-armed infantry against enemies with bulletproof exoskeletons. In the Hunger Games books (I haven't seen the last two movies), foot soldiers charge into a city they know to be rigged with traps, carrying nothing more than light rifles (or even bows and arrows). Even in the Avengers movies, everybody fights hand-to-hand on foot, despite being capable of levitation. In Edge of Tomorrow, the humans' entire battle plan consists of putting foot soldiers on a beach, without backup, and letting them duke it out against monsters that have no ranged attacks. Small firearms can't harm the monster in Jurassic World, but that doesn't encourage the security forces to bring anything more powerful.

What happened to combat vehicles or tanks? You know, stuff that can survive small-arms fire with ease, and shoot back with guns that can kill entire squadrons of infantrymen with one shot, at ranges exceeding a kilometer? Or to ask the loaded question, where is the artillery? Even in WWI, machine gun fire, mines and bayonets were trivial dangers compared to incoming, high-speed, flying explosives. Artillery accounted for 70 % of all battle casualties in WWII. And that was before they figured out how to make the shells explode in mid-air, which multipled their lethality several times again. You might see the occasional dramatic explosion and subsequent smoke plume a few metres behind the hero as he runs for cover, but artillery will rarely be considered a threat.

In reality, artillery is brutal, which is why it is so widely applied in warfare. The sound of the guns firing can kill you alone. The shells come flying in at speeds around a kilometer per second, you will neither see nor hear them come. The effective range of artillery is measured in dozens of kilometers, so you might not ever see the guns that ruin your day. For standard NATO ammunition, 155 mm, any shell landing within fifteen metres of the target is considered a direct hit - their lethal range of the shock wave over flat, open ground exceeds 70 metres, and within 400 metres infantry won't be able to function.

 

Still, artillery is a very un-personal way to kill or die, so I can see why it isn't applied in movies. A sudden explosion out of nowhere that kills everybody would not make for very good cinema. But whenever the producers need to show how powerful some enemy is, and how little human technology can harm it, they send in a small squad of guys carrying small firearms, and let them get within a few paces of the enemy before they even consider firing them (upon which they are unceremoniously mauled/eaten/beaten). The only message that gets across to me isn't "Oh look, the military has no way to stand up against this", it's "These idiots brought pea shooters to a war, and did not even use them very wisely".

 

What makes Starship Troopers exceptionally facepalm-worthy, though, is that the movie features a short scene where the bugs are bombed from aircraft - and helplessly killed by the thousands, with no chance to retaliate. If the humans could do that the entire time, why did they ever deploy infantry? And why did they go back to the infantry and abandon the aircraft strategy afterwards?

[todofwar]

13 minutes ago, Codraroll said:

Of all the bad science in that movie, this is the one that bothers you? I saw that movie when I was doing my military service, and my biggest pet peeve was that the marines were sent out with weapons and tactics that clearly weren't suitable for the mission. Even during one of the "weapons test" scenes, they show that you have to empty the gun's entire clip into the bug at point blank range to kill it. They then proclaim the weapon to be successful. Even though it requires its wielder to get within the bug's attack range (roughly two metres) and then spend all of his ammunition to kill a single enemy.

You know, this can even be expanded into a more general case: That battles in (non-historical) movies invariably feature foot soldiers alost exclusively, regardless of time period. In Star Wars Episode I, the warring armies set up infantry formations with shields and catapults and fire at each other at a few hundred paces. In TRON Legacy, the villain's plan involves an invasion of Earth - with an army of soldiers armed with spears. Starship Troopers, they deploy rifle-armed infantry against enemies with bulletproof exoskeletons. In the Hunger Games books (I haven't seen the last two movies), foot soldiers charge into a city they know to be rigged with traps, carrying nothing more than light rifles (or even bows and arrows). Even in the Avengers movies, everybody fights hand-to-hand on foot, despite being capable of levitation. In Edge of Tomorrow, the humans' entire battle plan consists of putting foot soldiers on a beach, without backup, and letting them duke it out against monsters that have no ranged attacks. Small firearms can't harm the monster in Jurassic World, but that doesn't encourage the security forces to bring anything more powerful.

What happened to combat vehicles or tanks? You know, stuff that can survive small-arms fire with ease, and shoot back with guns that can kill entire squadrons of infantrymen with one shot, at ranges exceeding a kilometer? Or to ask the loaded question, where is the artillery? Even in WWI, machine gun fire, mines and bayonets were trivial dangers compared to incoming, high-speed, flying explosives. Artillery accounted for 70 % of all battle casualties in WWII. And that was before they figured out how to make the shells explode in mid-air, which multipled their lethality several times again. You might see the occasional dramatic explosion and subsequent smoke plume a few metres behind the hero as he runs for cover, but artillery will rarely be considered a threat.

In reality, artillery is brutal, which is why it is so widely applied in warfare. The sound of the guns firing can kill you alone. The shells come flying in at speeds around a kilometer per second, you will neither see nor hear them come. The effective range of artillery is measured in dozens of kilometers, so you might not ever see the guns that ruin your day. For standard NATO ammunition, 155 mm, any shell landing within fifteen metres of the target is considered a direct hit - their lethal range of the shock wave over flat, open ground exceeds 70 metres, and within 400 metres infantry won't be able to function.

 

Still, artillery is a very un-personal way to kill or die, so I can see why it isn't applied in movies. A sudden explosion out of nowhere that kills everybody would not make for very good cinema. But whenever the producers need to show how powerful some enemy is, and how little human technology can harm it, they send in a small squad of guys carrying small firearms, and let them get within a few paces of the enemy before they even consider firing them (upon which they are unceremoniously mauled/eaten/beaten). The only message that gets across to me isn't "Oh look, the military has no way to stand up against this", it's "These idiots brought pea shooters to a war, and did not even use them very wisely".

 

What makes Starship Troopers exceptionally facepalm-worthy, though, is that the movie features a short scene where the bugs are bombed from aircraft - and helplessly killed by the thousands, with no chance to retaliate. If the humans could do that the entire time, why did they ever deploy infantry? And why did they go back to the infantry and abandon the aircraft strategy afterwards?

Yeah, seems that hollywood is just bad at depicting warfare of any era. Even in Napoleon's time the artillery was king. Still, based on how most wars seem to go it's not too far fetched that a perfectly good strategy like air bombardment would be abandoned for nonsensical reasons. Maybe the infantry commander had more pull with the higher ups, or maybe the rifle manufacturer lobbied for more rifles to be used. Maybe when told the rifles were not useful, the army bureaucracy said that couldn't be true because all the tests clearly showed the ammunition was capable of penetrating the exoskeleton and the infantry should be deployed exclusively just to prove a point. 

[Tex_NL]

13 minutes ago, todofwar said:

Yeah, seems that hollywood is just bad at depicting warfare of any era. Even in Napoleon's time the artillery was king. Still, based on how most wars seem to go it's not too far fetched that a perfectly good strategy like air bombardment would be abandoned for nonsensical reasons. Maybe the infantry commander had more pull with the higher ups, or maybe the rifle manufacturer lobbied for more rifles to be used. Maybe when told the rifles were not useful, the army bureaucracy said that couldn't be true because all the tests clearly showed the ammunition was capable of penetrating the exoskeleton and the infantry should be deployed exclusively just to prove a point. 

The real reason the ground forces in Starship Troopers are on foot and wear basic combat gear is purely cinematic. The director Paul Verhoeven originally planned to have them wear full body exoskeleton armour. However this would render all troopers identical and unrecognisable. In favour of acting the armour was dropped.

But you're right. They should have been driving tanks and flying planes. The only moment actual infantry is justified is when they enter the tunnels.

What really bugged me in this movie (pun intended) is how the infantry has to empty multiple clips of ammo to down a bug while in the lab the same bug is put down with just a few shots.

Edited December 4, 2016 by Tex_NL

[ARS]

Ah starship troopers, one of the movies that I watched when I was a child (and ruin my childhood (I'm still not used for gory scene back then)). While it was a good film, sometimes I'd like to point out that the idea to exclusively rely on infantry to fight alien bugs in their alien planet without any air, armor or artillery support (and said infantry generally only armed with assault rifles, launchers and grenades. nothing more, no machineguns, sniper rifles are rare (only 1 appearance in first film, and it's used for mercy kill instead of killing bugs) and the launcher is only tactical nukes which they can't use without ducking behind cover (seriously, does anyone not having an idea to bring regular rocket laucher?) is just plain stupid. Also if I may add (from the first film anyway) how the heck klendathu, the alien homeworld that's completely desert have any oxygen? unless there's some explanation about natural autonomous process to replenish the planet's oxygen supply, I'm calling that absurd

[razark]

I'm still waiting for them to make a Starship Troopers movie based on the novel by Heinlein.

[Tex_NL]

5 minutes ago, razark said:

I'm still waiting for them to make a Starship Troopers movie based on the novel by Heinlein.

Don't know how close but Starship Troopers IS based on the book by Robert Heinlein. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120201/

[Codraroll]

31 minutes ago, Tex_NL said:

Don't know how close...

Basically, in name only.

[razark]

30 minutes ago, Tex_NL said:

Don't know how close but Starship Troopers IS based on the book by Robert Heinlein.

I've read the book and seen the movie.

The title and character names are based on the Heinlein novel.  Nothing else is.

 

Quote

Starship Troopers is a 1997 American satirical military science fiction action film directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Edward Neumeier, originally from an unrelated script called Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine, but eventually licensing the name Starship Troopers from a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein.

Quote

The movie started life as a script called Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine. When similarities, especially the "bugs," were pointed out between this and the novel Starship Troopers, plans were made to license the rights to the book and tweak character names and circumstances to match. Verhoeven had never read the book, and attempted to read it for the film, but it made him "bored and depressed", so he read only a few chapters:

    "I stopped after two chapters because it was so boring,...It is really quite a bad book. I asked Ed Neumeier to tell me the story because I just couldn't read the thing."

 

[Jonfliesgoats]

I don't know what you guys are talking about.  everything else in Starship Troopers is EXACTLY as it would be in real life!  There is nothing I would have appreciated more in the field than Jake Busey playing a plastic violin.

Seriously, for all these movies we have to put our brains down for a minute to try to dig into the deeper message in the fiction.  There are many things in starship Troopers that are stupid, but I could get over all of it except the terrible use of Neil Patrick Harris.  Also I like Heinlein.

Lets look at economics of space movies:

The universe is big and full of empty planets and moons full of resources.  Still we fight deadly enemies who   earth for water, bypassing Europa, Enceledus, etc (Signs).  Oh and these Aliens can travel faster than light, but they haven't figured out rain ponchos.  Cowboys v. Aliens have aliens come to earth to mine gold ad they are defeated by cowboys.  Gold from asteroids or elsewhere is somehow not available.

Also, back to Starship Troopers, we can travel faster than light, but we don't use that energy capability to accelerate something massive into a planet full of bugs and autoclave the whole world?

Unless you shut down your mind, you start foaming at the mouth in the theaters and ruin your date night.  War movies are even worse.

 

43 minutes ago, Tex_NL said:

Don't know how close but Starship Troopers IS based on the book by Robert Heinlein. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120201/

The book is really good.

Battlestar Galactica:

Cylons and Humans are both capable of destroying each other.  They live in a galaxy without any other known intelligent life.  So you have evenly paired powers tat can both devastate each other in an empty galaxy.  Cylons can simply defend themselves and expand away from humanity without the cost and loss of protracted conflict.  Humans can expand in the other direction.

 

Edited December 4, 2016 by Jonfliesgoats

[monstah]

12 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

Another pet peeve is when the story line is sacrificed for the sake of demonstrating some new special effects or to make the movie more intense. "Event Horizon" was good...up to the halfway point, then it was downhill from there...

Aw, COME ON! That's the best "so bad it's good" movie ever!

[p1t1o]

14 hours ago, Codraroll said:

<snippity-snip>

Wasn't starship troopers a metaphor for Vietnam? Ie: sending soldiers with what is thought of as top-of-the-range equipment (fancy rifles and various equipment, troop dropships, tactics etc.) which turned out to be woefully inappropriate for the type of warfare the enemy is forcing you to engage (jungle warfare, guerilla tactics, close-quarters etc).

Also, whilst I actually quite like the film, this was funny

13 hours ago, Tex_NL said:

In favour of acting the armour was dropped.

"Acting" lol!