What is your biggest science pet peeve in movies?

[razark]

2 hours ago, p1t1o said:

Most things in StarWars get a pass since it is more a fantasy than a "science" fiction...

Well, yeah.  If we're going to go with the whole "you can make a sword out of a bunch of light that just stops at a certain distance and it's really super amazing and it can cut through anything except another light just like it", why draw the line at "well, it's just silly if you add a crossguard to the magic sword!"?

 

However, if you look at the image, you'll see that the crossguard is actually connected to the central blade.  This is what makes it effective as a guard.  The handle projection off to the side is to protect the user's hand from slipping up into it.  Yes, it would be destroyed if the opponent's blade hit the housing, but the blade inside it would stop it from going further.  (While this is pure speculation, there's nothing in canon that I'm aware of that says this cannot be how it is constructed.)

 

2 hours ago, p1t1o said:

Darth Maul's sabre was sliced in half and wasn't Luke's at one point?

Luke's wrist got severed.  The saber itself was not harmed.

Darth Maul's was just two lightsabers stuck pommel to pommel.  I'm not sure where it was cut, but afterwards, he was only using a single blade.  This makes sense if one of the sabers was damaged by the cut.

[p1t1o]

8 minutes ago, razark said:

Well, yeah.  If we're going to go with the whole "you can make a sword out of a bunch of light that just stops at a certain distance and it's really super amazing and it can cut through anything except another light just like it", why draw the line at "well, it's just silly if you add a crossguard to the magic sword!"?

I dont see it as quite that loose. You can have whatever technology you want without relying on physics, but any special powers have to be specifically stated. Lightsabres can cut through almost anything, but you clearly cant extend one to a length of 1km. Though power requirements or any other physical law that prevents this are not delineated, any ability to do this is never mentioned, and therefore deos not exist in-universe. Same goes for lightsabre-proof materials. Unless specifically stated as resistant, any material is vulnerable, otherwise nothing is.

Its a small, petty matter, sure. But it irks me because it makes me think that whoever was designing it was designing a cool-looking trinket and not designing a jedi weapon.

Edited January 4, 2017 by p1t1o

[kerbiloid]

3 hours ago, Kerbart said:

The Sith lords have red light sabers because the don't have access to Kyber crystals

Probably, Loras Tyrell, being a sith/jedi, had six different crystals at once.

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, p1t1o said:

but you clearly cant extend one to a length of 1km.

\

On a related note, in Timothy Zahn's Star Wars novels (best Expanded Universe autho, IMO) Specter of the Past / Vision of the Future there is a material called cortosis ore which causes some sort of feedback that shuts down lightsabers.

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, TheKorbinger said:

That makes sense, but his hab does pop in the movie, killing his crops. The hole is big enough him to walk through. Such a rapid decompression would prove to be fatal if he wasn't already his suit.

What happened in the book (and, IIRC, the movie) is that the airlock tore away from the rest of the hab. That opened up a big, airlock-sized hole, but it didn't pop the whole hab like a balloon.

There is a design criterion used for things like this (particularly big tanks of gas or liquid) called "leak-before-burst". It means that cracks or tears will propagate slowly enough that the pressure will fall before it causes a massive rupture. Latex balloons are not "leak-before-burst", and that's why they pop.

I will not get into the rapid decompression thing, as that has been discussed here so many other times.

[lodger]

In most cases I tend to simply accept the fiction part of any science fiction movie and do not care about all the inconsistencies and unrealistic things that happen on the screen. However, what does annoy me is when they mix up the terms 'planet' and 'star'. It rarely happens, but at least in the german language version of the japanese anime/cartoon tv show 'Captain Future' they mix them up several times. I mean, if it's a program/series/movie intended for a younger audience couldn't they at least try to get these basic things right for the sake of education?

Edited January 4, 2017 by lodger

[JetJaguar]

The lightsaber crossguard makes sense to me.  It may not have been explicitly mentioned in the films, but in the books it's been stated that a lightsaber can cut through virtually anything except another lightsaber blade.  Therefore, for a crossguard to be effective vs. a lightsaber, it would also have to be made of lightsaber blades itself.

[TheKorbinjer]

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

What happened in the book (and, IIRC, the movie) is that the airlock tore away from the rest of the hab. That opened up a big, airlock-sized hole, but it didn't pop the whole hab like a balloon.

There is a design criterion used for things like this (particularly big tanks of gas or liquid) called "leak-before-burst". It means that cracks or tears will propagate slowly enough that the pressure will fall before it causes a massive rupture. Latex balloons are not "leak-before-burst", and that's why they pop.

I will not get into the rapid decompression thing, as that has been discussed here so many other times.

I know, I didn't specify that, but i also didn't mean that. Pardon the inconvenience.

[CaptainAl]

Well, just to clear things up, lightsabers are not "Magic light swords", but actually blades of superhot laser induced plasma, bent back on itself by an electromagnetic field. Kylo Ren's crossbar is two smaller blades on each side.

 

Incidentally, because the blade goes back into the hilt, lightsabers can reclaim most energy, which is why you never see the jedis changing their double a's or plugging it in to a socket.

[mikegarrison]

46 minutes ago, CaptainAl said:

Well, just to clear things up, lightsabers are not "Magic light swords", but actually blades of superhot laser induced plasma, bent back on itself by an electromagnetic field. Kylo Ren's crossbar is two smaller blades on each side.

 

Incidentally, because the blade goes back into the hilt, lightsabers can reclaim most energy, which is why you never see the jedis changing their double a's or plugging it in to a socket.

Ha ha ha. Of course they are "magic light swords". If you think otherwise, go ahead and build one.

[Green Baron]

1 hour ago, JetJaguar said:

The lightsaber crossguard makes sense to me.  It may not have been explicitly mentioned in the films, but in the books it's been stated that a lightsaber can cut through virtually anything except another lightsaber blade.  Therefore, for a crossguard to be effective vs. a lightsaber, it would also have to be made of lightsaber blades itself.

Ah, this explains why (and that is in any movie sword fight one of my pet peeves) they always beat on each others blades like crazy, until after minutes of choreography one of them more or less accidentally dies. Some swords (like that of Aragorn) are so ridiculously long you'd be dead (3 times) before it is out of the scabbard.

Btw., the guard or crossbar or what you want to call it has, besides guarding the fingers (rather sacrifice a finger than a head :-)), other purposes. It is part of a lot of techniques in medieval long sword fencing, defensive and offensive, when fencing get's so close that it comes to wrestling. I once saw a scull with a hole in the maxilla that exactly fit to a hilt bar of a corresponding long sword.

 

[Tex_NL]

43 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Some swords (like that of Aragorn) are so ridiculously long you'd be dead (3 times) before it is out of the scabbard.

Antique Scottish claymores measured between 120 and 140 cm (47–55 in) on average. I found several websites selling Andúril (Aragorns sword) replicas. They slightly vary in length but all fall within that size range.
So the size isn't at all that weird. Yes, it IS an extremely big sword but not as absurd as it looks at first glance..

[_Augustus_]

In literally every movie I have watched, when a character is looking through binoculars they show a figure 8-shaped window. This does not exist. When you look through binoculars, your brain merges the two images.....

[DarkOwl57]

4 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

\.

hahahahahahahhaha

 

5 hours ago, p1t1o said:

I dont see it as quite that loose. You can have whatever technology you want without relying on physics, but any special powers have to be specifically stated. Lightsabres can cut through almost anything, but you clearly cant extend one to a length of 1km. Though power requirements or any other physical law that prevents this are not delineated, any ability to do this is never mentioned, and therefore deos not exist in-universe. 

I actually saw a 'Film Theory' episode on this. So according to some really old Star Wars stuff, lightsabers have a sort of magnetic field around them that keeps the plasma (The stuff that is the 'blade') in it's shape.

[Superfluous J]

4 hours ago, lodger said:

what does annoy me is when they mix up the terms 'planet' and 'star'.

I've actually never seen/heard this one, but mixing up "galaxy" and "universe" always drives me bonkers. And when they mention that a faraway star system is "millions of miles" away I cringe as well.

[regex]

5 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

mixing up "galaxy" and "universe" always drives me bonkers.

That confused the crap out of me in Chapterhouse: Dune.

[kerbiloid]

 

12 hours ago, CaptainAl said:

lightsabers are not "Magic light swords"

They are. It's an opera.

12 hours ago, CaptainAl said:

actually blades of superhot laser induced plasma, bent back on itself by an electromagnetic field

Usual nerdish abracadabra for their magic. It's an opera.

10 hours ago, Green Baron said:

Some swords (like that of Aragorn) are so ridiculously long you'd be dead (3 times) before it is out of the scabbard.

That's why its previous owner broke it into parts: to pull it out quickly. Quadratisch, praktisch, gut.

Elrond also was not an idiot. He has concatenated it back for reason, too. A fiance of the elvish princess must have a long sword, otherwise peons would laugh at him.

11 hours ago, Green Baron said:

It is part of a lot of techniques in medieval long sword fencing, defensive and offensive

Unlikely a medieval guard could cut off your thumb making defenseless.

P.S.
Where are Jedi or Sith bishops with a light mace?

[Green Baron]

38 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Where are Jedi or Sith bishops with a light mace?

Don't summon them, or they show up :-)

Sorry, drifting off topic.

[DDE]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Where are Jedi or Sith bishops with a light mace?

Here.

Oh, wait...

14 hours ago, JetJaguar said:

The lightsaber crossguard makes sense to me.  It may not have been explicitly mentioned in the films, but in the books it's been stated that a lightsaber can cut through virtually anything except another lightsaber blade.  Therefore, for a crossguard to be effective vs. a lightsaber, it would also have to be made of lightsaber blades itself.

There's a laundry list of relatively conventional materials that easily shrug off laser hits, or even overload the blade entirely. Lightsaber-resistant metal swords are all over the place in KOTOR.

 

[Kosmonaut]

Sorry, I noticed in Rogue One (Very tiny mini-spoiler ahead) that the Empire was mining Kaiburr/Kyber Crystals for the Death Star. Does that mean that the death star functions like a giant lightsaber? If so, couldn't some rebel in a space suit pop in with a lightsaber and stop the whole thing?

[monstah]

2 hours ago, Kosmonaut said:

Sorry, I noticed in Rogue One (Very tiny mini-spoiler ahead) that the Empire was mining Kaiburr/Kyber Crystals for the Death Star. Does that mean that the death star functions like a giant lightsaber? If so, couldn't some rebel in a space suit pop in with a lightsaber and stop the whole thing?

For the first part, yeah, I think so. For the second part, you're basically a Hobbit Halfling with a dagger parrying the Tarrasque.

Edited January 5, 2017 by monstah

[Mitchz95]

23 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

I've actually never seen/heard this one, but mixing up "galaxy" and "universe" always drives me bonkers. And when they mention that a faraway star system is "millions of miles" away I cringe as well.

Related to this, I hate it when people use the word "moon" to describe a small planet. For example, in Star Trek Voyager, 1,000 kilograms of antimatter is said to be "enough to destroy a small moon".

People, Ganymede is bigger than Mercury! Moons aren't necessarily smaller than planets!

Edited January 5, 2017 by Mitchz95

[WinkAllKerb'']

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[insert sig here] interesting bibliographie btw

 

:3

[peadar1987]

13 hours ago, Mitchz95 said:

Related to this, I hate it when people use the word "moon" to describe a small planet. For example, in Star Trek Voyager, 1,000 kilograms of antimatter is said to be "enough to destroy a small moon".

People, Ganymede is bigger than Mercury! Moons aren't necessarily smaller than planets!

But there are no moons with a greater mass than any planets, which is what counts if you're trying to blow it to pieces with antimatter. Mercury is twice the mass of Ganymede. Although when Pluto was still classed as a planet it was (and presumably still is!) less massive than Ganymede, Callisto, Titan, Io, Earth's Moon, Europa and Triton.

[monstah]

47 minutes ago, peadar1987 said:

But there are no moons with a greater mass than any planets

True, but circumstantial, like your Pluto point proves.