Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame

[YNM]

37 minutes ago, tater said:

The Saturn/Ares paint job looks like crappy reused footage.

Because it was XD

37 minutes ago, tater said:

Doesn't matter, his concerns about time vanish, even if you magically allow him to live, for the same reason going to the water world was a problem, except (literally) infinitely worse.

... yet another plot device. Falling into a black hole is a big "if" which they decide to abuse anyway.

1 minute ago, Canopus said:

Yeah but just as ridiculous when it comes to Delta v requirements.

More magic.

 

Maybe it's just that my tastes a bit cheap.

 

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is still funnier (better) !

[KSK]

3 hours ago, NSEP said:

Some Sci-Fi are good at the Fiction part and provide amazing and enjoyable stories, like Star Wars, but fail miserably at the Science part. Some Sci-Fi are extremely realistic but don't provide much of a story, like Lockheed Martins PowerPoint presentations.

You could swap that around and it would still almost work.

 

[tater]

11 minutes ago, YNM said:

Maybe it's just that my tastes a bit cheap.

 

Hey, I frickin love Galaxy Quest, so my taste s pretty cheap, too.

[Waxing_Kibbous]

Sort of an obscure movie, but in Spectral they had the Tony Stark-esque character who by simply "reversing the polarity" of a camera type detector turned it into a spotlight type detector. *groan*. Still a pretty entertaining movie though.

[mikegarrison]

You can do anything with anything if you "reverse the polarity". Everybody knows that.

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

("Harry Potter" (whole series)
* the magic doesn't work that way

OK, that was funny.

[PB666]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

A relativistic hohmann would be a thing.

If you have relativistic speed you don't need a Hohmann. Essentially you accelerate at 1 g toward a point just before the planet, then begin decelerating after you get close and you if you are lucky going to to a - burn to land. Technically if humans could survive 4 g acceleration and once you pass MaxQ you basically burn to your destination, whatever that direction it is and you will stop burning half way and begin your deceleration to descent. Lets say the destination is 80,000,000,000 meters away and acceleration is 4 g. Hlaf the distance is 40,000,000,000 therefore 40,000,000,000 = 1/2 39.2 t2 . . .so you burn half a day toward mars 1.8x 10⁶dV, then you reverse it for half a day once again using about 2 million dV. The 10 or so minutes required to break orbit and land don't make that much difference.

Where does the dV come from, you have Yoda sitting on the navigation panel so you really don't care.

[monstah]

6 hours ago, DDE said:

I think 2012's planet-killer neutrinos are still funnier. They've found a particle name, and failed to read past the article header on Wikipedia.

More recently, Alien: Covenant has a neutrino burst from a star disable the ship. I thought exactly the same thing you wrote there. When you say "article header", you mean just the title, right? Because even that first paragraph before the TOC states it passes right through stuff.

I don't usually think using weak science as an excuse for a good plot is a problem, but when you could literally choose any different "science word" and not sound as much idiotic, it does annoy me a lot

And don't even get me started on Interstellar... All the hype about using a real physicist, only to have real science stop at "black holes do funky things with time", and throw a crappy, crappy plot on top of it all... UGH.

[Exploro]

6 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Way back about 15 years ago, in one of the Seattle Mariners commercials, their catcher Dan Wilson had some throwaway line about some paint being completely transparent to neutrinos. What made it funny was that Wilson has an engineering degree, and I'm sure he knew that the whole planet is basically transparent to neutrinos.

To be fair not every engineering discipline deals with sub-atomic particles. Important for an aerospace engineer to know about but not for a person who works in mechanical engineering.

Edited January 31, 2018 by Exploro

[mikegarrison]

10 minutes ago, Exploro said:

To be fair not every engineering discipline deals with sub-atomic particles. Important for an aerospace engineer to know about but not for a person who works in mechanical engineering.

OK, this is true. I should have said that from the tone of his voice it seemed very clear that he was making a joke and that he knew he was making a joke. Most professional baseball players are no more or less educated about physics than the average person, but I knew that Wilson was.

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, PB666 said:

If you have relativistic speed you don't need a Hohmann. Essentially you accelerate at 1 g toward a point just before the planet, then begin decelerating after you get close and you if you are lucky going to to a - burn to land. Technically if humans could survive 4 g acceleration and once you pass MaxQ you basically burn to your destination, whatever that direction it is and you will stop burning half way and begin your deceleration to descent. Lets say the destination is 80,000,000,000 meters away and acceleration is 4 g. Hlaf the distance is 40,000,000,000 therefore 40,000,000,000 = 1/2 39.2 t2 . . .so you burn half a day toward mars 1.8x 10⁶dV, then you reverse it for half a day once again using about 2 million dV. The 10 or so minutes required to break orbit and land don't make that much difference.

Where does the dV come from, you have Yoda sitting on the navigation panel so you really don't care.

This, even with nuclear pulse engines not to talk about fusion you can ignore planetary gravity at cruise.  Now you would need to brake and enter orbit at destination. 

[PB666]

2 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

This, even with nuclear pulse engines not to talk about fusion you can ignore planetary gravity at cruise.  Now you would need to brake and enter orbit at destination. 

Nah, if you manage to plan your launch sit on Earth carefully when you go to Mars your landing site would be matched up, begin the counter burn early enough and allow extra acceleration for the land. Again this is ludicrous because there is no human that can survive 4 g acceleration for a day (unless they were inside of some kind of rotating device, the blood cells would start to settle out in the peripheral circulatory system.) and there is no current source of power that could do this, its a fantasy but relativistic. To travel at ~0.9c  you need 1 g of acceleration for 1 year. This is only 1/100th of that level of acceleration.

[Superfluous J]

5 hours ago, PB666 said:

They should only be allowed to break one physics rule per movie, lol.

Not quite. You can break any number so long as you know you're breaking them, have extremely good reasons for breaking them, and at least acknowledge to the consumer of your fiction that you are breaking them because very smart people discovered or invented ways around what are our current mistaken views of physics, in this fictional universe.

FTL drives work because we don't currently know something that someone smart figures out in the future: Good Science Fiction.

A space ship built by a world with no resources can visit 3 planets around a black hole and do a slingshot maneuver because gravity and stuff: Bad Science Fiction.

----

Okay, here's my big peeve with Science Fiction. Interstellar does it but as far as I know nobody's mentioned it because SO MANY SHOWS AND MOVIES do it:

"Earth is doomed. We can't live there. Let's build a perfectly sealed environment in space, solving hundreds of engineering challenges in all fields, to save a couple hundred people instead of building much simpler - but still perfectly sealed environments on the ground and save thousands, millions, or even billions of people."

If you can build a massive self-contained-yet-thriving space station, you can build a massive self-contained city on the surface of Earth. And it will be bigger, easier to maintain, and easier to protect.

Edited January 31, 2018 by 5thHorseman

[Just Jim]

4 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Okay, here's my big peeve with Science Fiction. Interstellar does it but as far as I know nobody's mentioned it because SO MANY SHOWS AND MOVIES do it:

"Earth is doomed. We can't live there. Let's build a perfectly sealed environment in space, solving hundreds of engineering challenges in all fields, to save a couple hundred people instead of building much simpler - but still perfectly sealed environments on the ground and save thousands, millions, or even billions of people."

If you can build a massive self-contained-yet-thriving space station, you can build a massive self-contained city on the surface of Earth. And it will be bigger, easier to maintain, and easier to protect.

Oh, man... there you go with that logic crap.... lmao!!!  

[PB666]

57 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Okay, here's my big peeve with Science Fiction. Interstellar does it but as far as I know nobody's mentioned it because SO MANY SHOWS AND MOVIES do it:

"Earth is doomed. We can't live there. Let's build a perfectly sealed environment in space, solving hundreds of engineering challenges in all fields, to save a couple hundred people instead of building much simpler - but still perfectly sealed environments on the ground and save thousands, millions, or even billions of people."

If you can build a massive self-contained-yet-thriving space station, you can build a massive self-contained city on the surface of Earth. And it will be bigger, easier to maintain, and easier to protect.

Big earth killing asteroids or Wall-E pollution make nice excuses for launching people into space.

BTW, I would not make too much fun of sci-fantasy . . . . . . . .
I mean if we whack all future tech off at the knees, then eventually we're a space-faring civilization that never finds a way to leave the solar system

 

[PakledHostage]

7 hours ago, tater said:

Interstellar was awful. I managed to miss it in the theater, then saw the bluray on sale and bought it. I might see if a friend wants to try and trap shoot with it, that might make up for however many minutes of my life I lost forever.

I might also still have a Gravity DVD laying around that I could send you. It'd be a fitting end for that piece of cr*p.

[YNM]

6 hours ago, tater said:

Hey, I frickin love Galaxy Quest, so my taste s pretty cheap, too.

S'long as it's fun !

Interstellar isn't fun, but they're "romantic" in a different way than most romance, guess that's why I tip my hat for it a bit.

Bigger tip to andy weir, and biggest tip to douglas adams.

 

On other stuff :

- Gravity : fair graphics, BS mechanics.

- 2012 : Is a hype movie. Hypest of all.

Edited January 31, 2018 by YNM

[Kerbart]

Let’s not make the mistake that the SF genre has a monopoly on ignoring reality, you can pretty much pick *any* movie for that.

As mentioned, movies are made with a “let’s not have reality interfere with a good story” mindset. Although the lack of reality a good story does not make...

[PakledHostage]

1 hour ago, YNM said:

- Gravity : fair graphics, BS mechanics.

Don't forget BS story... I was waiting for the Lilliputians to tie up Stone when she washed up on the beach at the end.

But nobody has mentioned the radioactive squid monster in Europa Report yet. All in all, that wasn't a bad movie, but I thought the radioactive squid monster idea was kind of dumb.

2 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

As mentioned, movies are made with a “let’s not have reality interfere with a good story” mindset. Although the lack of reality a good story does not make...

Agreed. Movies like Starship Troopers and Star Wars (some episodes, at least) are just fun. Who cares about realism? 

[mrfox]

For me, the key in a immersive scfi story is not total realism, but the suspension of disbelief. And the good ones does this by presenting a consistent narrative that, although not 100% realistic in "our" universe, makes logical sense given the rules of "that" universe.

Hence, Gravity works for me. And so does Galaxy Quest. Because they don't pretend to be "hard" scfi.

And Interstellar doesn't. Because it tries too hard to be "hard".

The inconsistency grinds when you manage 8/10 for astrophysics, but 0/10 for engineering physics.

[kerbiloid]

6 hours ago, PB666 said:

If you have relativistic speed you don't need a Hohmann.

Thank you, I suspected something like that. Now I'm sure.
Btw they speak about a black hole proximity, where any speed is relativistic. No "just push the pedal into floor and fly straight".
So, probably some kind of Hohmann could take place, but it's amusing to imagine its shape and other.

5 hours ago, monstah said:

Alien: Covenant has a neutrino burst from a star disable the ship

Yes!

Spoiler

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

Big earth killing asteroids

There was a plenty of them, up to 500 km craters. The Earth life is still alive and haven't degraded.

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

Wall-E pollution

Wall-E treasure planet.
Mountains of scattered chemical elements already extracted from the Earth crust and concentrated right at hands is a pollution?!

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

we're a space-faring civilization that never finds a way to leave the solar system

We are a larva of space-faring civilization.
The future technological singularity (with post-humans and web) will be its pupa.
An adult species will have a little common with the modern augmented post-monkeys. Maybe something like The First Ones from Babylon 5, or that bald guy in The Deconstruction of Falling Stars episode turning into a flash.
(Btw what looks realistic in B5: both Vorlons and Shadows live on/in a native planet, not scattering across the Universe, though they could).

 

9 hours ago, tater said:

In B5 they flew into some docking bay which was not rotating.

To be accurate, also the have both. Say, s02 opening, t 02:07 or so. You can clearly see two bays: one above the rotating part (in the fork), another one - right on the rotation axis.
But I meant the torus station(s) in Expanse.

Gravity direction.
s04e03 The Summoning,
(Timing may not match accurately, due to localization)
05:19. Ivanova speaks with Marcus looking at the star sky behind the window. Probably the floor is tilted 30°.
07:08. Delenn speaks with a lower species near a window.  The star sky is motionless. They should float in air.
10:43. Delenn stays at control panel looking at window. The star sky is motionless.
Just a second later. Two crafts leave the axial bay. The star sky looks motionless relative to the rotating part.

s03e03 A Day in the Strife.
31:02. Again motionless sky in the command post window.

s03e11 Ceremonies of Light and Dark.
00:07. External view, Ivanova stays behind the window, camera flies away, a shadow of the station quickly passed by. A second later — internal view, sky is motionless.
07:25. They launch coffins into the star, and they are flying slowly right in the star direction.

Btw, why the radiator panels on the station tail are against each other? Are they warming themselves?

9 hours ago, DAL59 said:

The expanse does have sound in space, but it does't have artificial gravity, and has newtonian physics, so it is sadly the only current accuratish show. 

s01e06
39:30 A ship docks onto the rotating station, the part behind it cleary moves from left to right.
This moment is also copypasted into s02e02.

Spoiler

(Btw why the Martians in Expanse use all red? They live on a red planet, they should use blue or green as bright.
And why the marine spacine marsine girl who was trained under Earth gravity is not portrayed by Zoe Bell?)

 

[DDE]

5 hours ago, YNM said:

2012 : Is a hype movie. Hypest of all.

Bashing on lack of realism in 2012 is like saying a paraplegic can't do ballet. It's the crappy sauce that went onto my bucket of popcorn.

3 hours ago, PakledHostage said:

All in all, that wasn't a bad movie, but I thought the radioactive squid monster idea was kind of dumb

Spoiler

But... it's rad.

 

[RizzoTheRat]

There was a quote from a NASA astronaut about the film Gravity, saying in general the science was fairly good but it had one major flaw, he didn't know of any female astronaut who would let go of George Clooney

[p1t1o]

Oh this is a good topic.

Gravity. It nearly made me scream because it was trying so hard to be realistic but theres a bit where george clooney is hanging on for dear life, and he looses his grip, and...falls off.

What?

Wow, almost ninja'd by @RizzoTheRat, but not quite

 

One common trope is IR vision that can see people in detail through walls, which is garbage. Unless the wall is made of some monolithic, optical-quality IR transparent material, which bricks and drywall are not.

 

Every movie where a professional scientist hand-picked to crew a prestigious space missions and does things like:

"Screw this Im going into the biohazard area without any of this plentiful safety equipment!"

"Wow its so beautiful here in this totally alien environment, better take my helmet/breathing apparatus off!".

"Hi, I have a PhD in anthropology and my main field of study is human emotions, though I do have some academic experience in zoological biochemistry. I also have a life-size skull tattoo'd on my face, am ex-special forces black ops, can bench 4500lbs and have enough firepower stored under my bunk to hold off an armoured division. You know, in case the local fauna is agressive."

"In fact, lets give all the scientists automatic weapons!"

"Im really disgruntled about being here even though somehow I got through all 17 layers of the application process and was selected above 3000 other people, all the heads of their field from all over the world. I think I will be insubordinate all of the time."

 

I dont know about "scientific inaccuracy" but something that made me laugh out loud:

In Jupiter Ascending, there is a part near a farm. This and that happens and at one point someone is about to fire a large, sci-fi weapon.

Its huge, about the size of a bag of golf clubs. It lights up and starts one of those whining "charge up cycles", the noise growing louder. Lights start to flash faster and faster. And VOOOM the weapon is fired and the person firing it struggles with the immense recoil.

What effect does the weapon have on the target?

He falls over. Oh and a good several square metres of corn is flattened.

Edited January 31, 2018 by p1t1o

[RizzoTheRat]

18 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

"In fact, lets give all the scientists automatic weapons!"

As a scientist doing a lot of work for the military I'm always disappointed by this, the biggest thing they've ever let me fire was a 40mm (with a chalk dust practice round)

[KSK]

6 hours ago, PakledHostage said:

Agreed. Movies like Starship Troopers and Star Wars (some episodes, at least) are just fun. Who cares about realism? 

Going to have to respectfully disagree about Starship Troopers. That's another prime candidate for @Just Jim's rogue's gallery of movies that are so terribly bad you can use it to throw a "Bad-Movie" party, in my opinion.

I'll grant you that a more faithful adaptation of the book would have been difficult and probably controversial but what we got failed at pretty much every level; as a satire it was hamfisted, as a commentary on the source material it had nothing to say and as either a sci-fi war movie, or a coming-of-age-in-the-military adventure movie, it was dreadful. Featuring a cast of beautiful people actors that looked - and acted - like sculptures.

Back on topic - I don't even recall any glaring scientific errors.