What is your biggest science pet peeve in movies?

[Nikolai]

6 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

If you accept inertisl dampeners, and they're ability to instantly change a particle's velocity with no acceleration then why can't a ship stop?

Stop with respect to what?  What's the universal reference frame that applies between stars moving at several dozen kilometers per second relative to one another?

[kerbiloid]

Btw "Alien" is a 1979 movie, when there were green text displays and typewriter as a secondary (sometimes primary) terminal.

They just combined green display with a typewriter-like sound.

Edited April 12, 2016 by kerbiloid

[insert_name]

6 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

"The ship that made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs." A parsec is a unit of distance, so it's like saying you ran the 100-yard dash in 100 yards. Not very impressive.

And "nebulas are dangerous". Oh no, there's going to be a couple more atoms per cubic centimeter! How terrifying!

the kessel run is a flyby of a black hole cluster, they can fly closer to the black holes for more speed, but its more dangerous

[Stargate525]

Mine is the unrealistic depiction of hacking and computer infiltration: any computer problem is a hack, viruses are common, people can gain access to any computer that is on anywhere in the world... Mainly because people believe them, and then I have to deal with them at work.

[Steel]

 

32 minutes ago, Stargate525 said:

Mine is the unrealistic depiction of hacking and computer infiltration: any computer problem is a hack, viruses are common, people can gain access to any computer that is on anywhere in the world... Mainly because people believe them, and then I have to deal with them at work.

I especially enjoy when the hacking involves some fancy 3d graphical interface like it was a game rather than someone just sitting at a command line

[Servo]

Atmospheric reentry:
Star trek (into Darkness), Star Wars (all of them), and a ton of other movies/shows get it way wrong.

You don't just drop casually into the atmosphere from orbital velocity and expect to regain control perfectly (to say less of bleeding off 8km/s orbital velocity without heating problems). And anything where they're desperatly trying to keep from falling into the atmosphere from orbit (end scene of Into Darkness), if they are going as fast as they were, straight down, they'd be through the atmosphere in like 30 seconds, not to mention vaporized on contact with the atmosphere.

[todofwar]

What happens to humans when exposed to the vacuum of space. Related to this, people on the Internet claiming everyone who gets exposed to space should instantly blow up. In Guardians of the Galaxy, there's a seen where a character is exposed to space probably long enough to do some real damage but not necessarily kill him outright. Everyone on a different forum complained he didn't instantly blow up like a popped balloon. 

[PB666]

The soviets lost two astronauts due to short term suffocation during reentry, but there were other symptoms. 

@KSK Its fine if they at least try, I think stargate universe was good in the point that they tried to at least have a credible drive system and at least show that popping in and out of luminal drive has costs. Basically star trek chars had god status, so the conflicts are rather silly in retrospect, here kirk is battling godzilla in one episode, couple of movies later and spock is being resurrected from the dead form a coffin that was torpedoed to a planet, really. And the Dr is carrying his soul, cause like spock knew this was going to happen after which he goes on to live 200 more years. I like star trek, TWoK was i think one of the finest sci fantasy movies, but some of the other stuff you are shaking you head. 

 

 

[Bill Phil]

10 hours ago, todofwar said:

It always gets shown all wrong though. It's a double helix, but it looks more like a corkscrew than a ladder. You don't have two thin lines twisting up with rods connecting them, you have flat disks pairing up and then stacking quite tightly to each other. Than you have how prometheus showed DNA getting covered in black slime and braking, which was just it's own level of ridiculousness. I know, I shouldn't expect science out of prometheus but this is a space for us all to be pedantic about little things

Also, I know molecules don't "look" like anything but that doesn't mean all depictions are equal. We have crystal structures of DNA, we know quite a bit about how its atoms are arranged.

There wouldn't be any rods connecting lines. A corkscrew is still a twisted ladder... It's just an approximation, representing the connection of two bases.

32 minutes ago, todofwar said:

What happens to humans when exposed to the vacuum of space. Related to this, people on the Internet claiming everyone who gets exposed to space should instantly blow up. In Guardians of the Galaxy, there's a seen where a character is exposed to space probably long enough to do some real damage but not necessarily kill him outright. Everyone on a different forum complained he didn't instantly blow up like a popped balloon. 

He still should've bloated up, though. Along with gas releases and blood vessel popping.

[cantab]

12 hours ago, todofwar said:

My other big one is DNA. It's not actually a twisting ladder, the space filling model looks nothing like that. And it's a molecule, it's not going to look all bumpy and gritty. This was especially frustrating in Cosmos, made me stop trusting everything that show said. 

Ball-and-stick molecular models in general are somewhat misleading, the space-filling type give a better idea of what the molecule is actually like. But ball-and-stick is easier to build and easier to see the arrangement of the atoms, which is why they persist.

[cubinator]

Of course, orbital mechanics are portrayed vastly inaccurately in most movies. Even Interstellar had some blips with transfers. The Martian, while the trajectories were actually calculated, also had the error of showing the ship with engines running burning towards the target, when it should have been burning retrograde (it was before they decided to turn around and go back to Mars). But everyone on this forum probably notices that.

Also the glorification of criminology and forensics.

I don't really like the way aliens are always humanoid. Yes, similar evolutionary pressures might make for some similar features, but...

-Oversized humanoid heads: Why should the brain be in the head? It might actually have made more sense for it to be in the middle.

-Big eyes: There are many types of eyes that could appear. Compound eyes, single large eyes, light-detecting patches of skin...

-Bipedal with two arms: Octopi seem to be extremely good at manipulating objects with their very non-armlike tentacles. If humans hadn't shown up and screwed up everything, I would bet that octopi would be likely to achieve sentience, as they are intelligent and able to manipulate objects. Dolphins are high on the list too, but I'm not sure how they would develop tools quickly without manipulative appendages.

It also bugs me when aliens are depicted as very much like a particular Earthly creature. An alien might be insect-like, or lizard-like, or human-like, or squid-like, but never seems to have a mixture of features that should probably be expected from a completely different biosphere.

Not exactly science but it bugs me how at the end of [every superhero movie ever] an entire metropolis [almost always NYC] is totally destroyed, yet right when the hero beats the villain everything is better [except the mandatory clip showing the new enemy for the obligatory $-$-$-$sequel]. In real life, that amount of destruction would have worldwide economic repercussions for centuries.

[cantab]

12 hours ago, Hary R said:

- For whatever reason, spaceship are the greatest VTOL ever created (you see that everywhere) some don't even need lift engine (Xwing i'm looking a you)

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

- Even at Starwars level this one bugs me, why your space fighter when flying on a planet fly slower than a moderne jet plane?

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

- How in the world your search engine gives you the exact answer to your search on first try

- How do you make a 52*52 pixel picture as clear as a 4k image?

- why do alien have humane like body (to put it clear why do female alien have boobs?)

- going strait up to space (thanks to KSP, i can't stand that anymore)

- When in micro gravity, thing go just fly around for no apparent reason.

- (weird me but), thunder and lightning rarely occur at the same time.

- why do a planet only have one kind of biome (dune is the only exception in my eyes)

 

Some of these are justifiable. Real mobile phones usually do have an option to make noises, or vibrate which makes a noise too, when you touch the screen or push a key. And I recently set up some EPOS system which by default made a LOUD beep every time you touched the touchscreen. (I turned that off because it was annoying as heck.)

Using the PC keyboard a lot is justifiable in certain settings, in particular if the user might reasonably be using the command line a lot. And yes, the command line is still useful, on Linux I use it on a daily basis.

Nowadays Google usually *does* give me the result I want on the first try, sometimes without even needing to click through to the website - the one sentence in the search results tells me what I need.

Single-biome planets, judged by Earth's standards, may be justifiable. Most if not all bodies in our solar system qualify - true, Mars has climate and weather but it's still a total ice desert everywhere by our standards. Desert worlds like Dune and Tatooine where life barely holds on seem plausible. A geologically dead world that retains its atmosphere and oceans will flatten out its terrain, and if the amount of water is just right it could become a "swamp world". Etc.

[SuperFastJellyfish]

23 minutes ago, cantab said:

Ball-and-stick molecular models in general are somewhat misleading, the space-filling type give a better idea of what the molecule is actually like. But ball-and-stick is easier to build and easier to see the arrangement of the atoms, which is why they persist.

Visualization!  This is a Scanning Electron Microscope image of DNA from here:

[StrandedonEarth]

9 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Not exactly science but it bugs me how at the end of [every superhero movie ever] an entire metropolis [almost always NYC] is totally destroyed

"The Avengers" were particularly bad for destroying large chunks of cities. But I guess that's better than being dominated by.... whatever that was/they were

I don't really have anything to add that hasn't already been said science-wise, but a recent episode of Chicago Fire bugged me. They were doing an elevator rescue from one car to another, through the sides. They were walking across a 2x6 between the cars with no safety ropes! Of course, all done for dramatic reasons, but c'mon, that's SOP!

 

13 hours ago, Hary R said:

some don't even need lift engine (Xwing i'm looking a you)

They're called "repulsorlifts" and they don't have any sort of exhaust port. Yup, more movie magic.

[NFUN]

20 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

A running wheel with zombies would be an absolutely environment friendly perpetuum mobile.

Vermin Supreme 2016!

40 minutes ago, cubinator said:

I don't really like the way aliens are always humanoid. Yes, similar evolutionary pressures might make for some similar features, but...

-Oversized humanoid heads: Why should the brain be in the head? It might actually have made more sense for it to be in the middle.

-Big eyes: There are many types of eyes that could appear. Compound eyes, single large eyes, light-detecting patches of skin...

-Bipedal with two arms: Octopi seem to be extremely good at manipulating objects with their very non-armlike tentacles. If humans hadn't shown up and screwed up everything, I would bet that octopi would be likely to achieve sentience, as they are intelligent and able to manipulate objects. Dolphins are high on the list too, but I'm not sure how they would develop tools quickly without manipulative appendages.

It also bugs me when aliens are depicted as very much like a particular Earthly creature. An alien might be insect-like, or lizard-like, or human-like, or squid-like, but never seems to have a mixture of features that should probably be expected from a completely different biosphere.

Not exactly science but it bugs me how at the end of [every superhero movie ever] an entire metropolis [almost always NYC] is totally destroyed, yet right when the hero beats the villain everything is better [except the mandatory clip showing the new enemy for the obligatory $-$-$-$sequel]. In real life, that amount of destruction would have worldwide economic repercussions for centuries.

The anthropomorphism of aliens is understandable. It's not an issue that really matters (breeding and other plot devices based on similarity present problems, but that's another story), it helps the audience connect more to the aliens or makes them creepier, it is much cheaper to stick an actor in a rubber suit than to use robots or CGI, and we don't know what aliens would really look like anyway.

[HebaruSan]

55 minutes ago, cubinator said:

I don't really like the way aliens are always humanoid. Yes, similar evolutionary pressures might make for some similar features, but...

-Oversized humanoid heads: Why should the brain be in the head? It might actually have made more sense for it to be in the middle.

-Big eyes: There are many types of eyes that could appear. Compound eyes, single large eyes, light-detecting patches of skin...

-Bipedal with two arms: 

Just curious, are you familiar with these guys?

[cubinator]

23 minutes ago, NFUN said:

The anthropomorphism of aliens is understandable. It's not an issue that really matters (breeding and other plot devices based on similarity present problems, but that's another story), it helps the audience connect more to the aliens or makes them creepier, it is much cheaper to stick an actor in a rubber suit than to use robots or CGI, and we don't know what aliens would really look like anyway.

True. The point about cost is especially relevant, since we have been depicting aliens in movies for a long time, long before all the amenities of modern tech. It's natural that the original methods, proven to work pretty well, would stick.

[cubinator]

1 minute ago, HebaruSan said:

Just curious, are you familiar with these guys?

That's cool, although I would think a tripodal creature would not fare as easily as one with an even number of legs. That creature also bears resemblance mostly to land mammals, and not really to anything else. It might be a descendant of a horse or canine (or possibly kangaroo), if for some reason evolutionary pressures start to favor creatures with split heads. My ideal alien would have features in a combination not found anywhere on Earth. Maybe it would have compound eyes, a beak, fur, and tentacles all in one creature. Or maybe it would have some other combination, and possibly some organ necessary for survival on its home planet but not found anywhere on Earth?

[HebaruSan]

12 minutes ago, cubinator said:

That's cool, although I would think a tripodal creature would not fare as easily as one with an even number of legs. That creature also bears resemblance mostly to land mammals, and not really to anything else. It might be a descendant of a horse or canine (or possibly kangaroo), if for some reason evolutionary pressures start to favor creatures with split heads.

Well, I think the hooves would rule out canine or kangaroo, and none of the sexes have mammary glands (their life cycle most closely resembles that of a spider wasp). What made me think of it was your comment about the location of the brain, which is supposed to be in the hump between the necks, as I suppose is not at all clear from a picture or drawing.

But yeah, in hindsight I do wish they didn't have hooves, legs/bones, hair/fur, eyes, mouths, etc. Even that novel of a body plan is not so much evolving an alien species as it is playing cross-species Frankenstein with raw materials from Earth.

[cubinator]

11 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Well, I think the hooves would rule out canine or kangaroo, and none of the sexes have mammary glands (their life cycle most closely resembles that of a spider wasp). What made me think of it was your comment about the location of the brain, which is supposed to be in the hump between the necks, as I suppose is not at all clear from a picture or drawing.

But yeah, in hindsight I do wish they didn't have hooves, legs/bones, hair/fur, eyes, mouths, etc. Even that novel of a body plan is not so much evolving an alien species as it is playing cross-species Frankenstein with raw materials from Earth.

Ah. The hump seems more like it is part of the spine/chest cavity and the fact that there is only one eye on each 'head' indicates that it may have been only one head with two eyes in the past, that split over time. I considered canines because of the shape of the legs and because the fur on the back is like a hyena's, and kangaroos because they use their tail significantly for support, which could lead to development of a tripodal descendant. In any case, it's not a far stretch to say that this creature could evolve on Earth. I would like to see something truly alien, that you could say "there's no way that could have evolved on Earth!" to. Extreme mixing of traits as described above would make me say that.

Edited April 13, 2016 by cubinator

[StrandedonEarth]

41 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Just curious, are you familiar with these guys?

A Pierson Puppeteer! I haven't seen that particular model before!

I think evolution demands that the eyes are close to the brain, so that visual threats are perceived quickly. Come to think of it, smell and hearing are close to the brain as well, in most if not all species. At the same time, eyes tend to be near the edge of a body, to minimize the body's exposure while looking for threats (among other reason). For that reason, I don't think that some of sci-fi's proposed alternate anatomies, where brains are better protected, are viable from an evolutionary perspective

[cubinator]

1 minute ago, StrandedonEarth said:

I think evolution demands that the eyes are close to the brain, so that visual threats are perceived quickly. Come to think of it, smell and hearing are close to the brain as well, in most if not all species. At the same time, eyes tend to be near the edge of a body, to minimize the body's exposure while looking for threats (among other reason). For that reason, I don't think that some of sci-fi's proposed alternate anatomies, where brains are better protected, are viable from an evolutionary perspective

Good points. Aliens probably have heads containing sensory organs and brains. That doesn't eliminate the possibility of other extreme differences, though.

[todofwar]

I never noticed it until it was mentioned here, but yeah how the hell do ships brake in sci-fi? Do they have a whole set of thrusters facing forward that are capable of matching the acceleration of the rear thrusters? Can engines somehow exert a pulling force on.... vacuum? Even Void Destroyer, a game which tried to incorporate newtonian physics into space battles, allowed you to brake without burning retrograde. Now I have a whole new thing to shake my head at!

[AngelLestat]

1 hour ago, HebaruSan said:

Just curious, are you familiar with these guys?

heh, in spanish: Titerote, From:  mundo anillo.

------------------------------------------------

Agree with mostly, but something that I hate, is when a story broke its own rules.
They describe certain mechanic of how that universe or fantasy work.. but later they contradict themselves as a clear example that the story does not have sense even in their minds.

I saw it recently in the Daredevil series,  Rule: he can use their ears as sonar to detect where the walls, objects, people are..  Later in the series, some ninjas learn to not use their swords because they learn that daredevil can locate them by the sound of their swords with the air... so they use punches and he can not see them   

Edited April 13, 2016 by AngelLestat

[HebaruSan]

23 minutes ago, cubinator said:

I would like to see something truly alien, that you could say "there's no way that could have evolved on Earth!" to. Extreme mixing of traits as described above would make me say that.

I think the practical difficulty for sci fi is how to do that in a convincing and plausible way without working out the details of billions of years of alternate evolution like some kind of exobiologist Tolkien, both in your head and on the page. You can toss in "two heads, one eye and mouth on each, three legs, kind of fuzzy" without disrupting the flow of a story overly much, but if their line of descent diverges from the familiar at or before the eukaryote stage, we might be talking about pages of exposition when one of those things shows up.