Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame

[tater]

11 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Issue is that even at WW 1 naval combat took place at so long range its not cinematic anymore because of rangefinders and fire control tables who was analogue fire control computers. 

Space combat in babylon 5 was good til it jumped the shark near the end. You'd see a Narn ship fire a particle beam. Cut scene. Centauri ships coming around the limb of a planet in orbit—that get cut in half by beam. Ships implied very far apart.

[DDE]

On 4/17/2024 at 3:10 AM, SunlitZelkova said:

Depends on your definition of using aircraft. Japanese scout planes dropped flares over Allied cruisers at night time during one of the Guadalcanal battles, and then the surface ships attacked.

Well, by that definition, we get to Rutland of Jutland 

Edited April 22 by DDE

[DDE]

Rebel Moon's premise belongs here. An interstellar-capable empire bullies peasants to give up grain.

[Superfluous J]

5 hours ago, DDE said:

An interstellar-capable empire bullies peasants to give up grain.

It's worse. They bully peasants of ONE VILLAGE on ONE PLANET (okay, moon) for grain. Like, think big. Oppress the entire planet or even better the whole sector. I mean come on people Tarken would make Vader force choke you into next week.

[kerbiloid]

They were too lazy to oppress just a single farm, and see what happened.

[SunlitZelkova]

Ya know, one deleterious effect of these black and white, good vs evil sci-fi stories is it causes people to then view real world conflicts through the same lens, when the truth is much more complicated.

It’s quite a shame. Archetypes also get used to simplify complex histories when the reality of the events is more complex too.

I blame the format. For example, George Lucas had an interesting opportunity to make a different kind of war series with The Clone Wars TV show, as the conflict was hinted at being much more complex in the original prequel movies (Padme’s thoughts of how the Republic had become the thing they were fighting against, and the “heroes on both sides” line in the opening scrawl).

Instead, the Separatists were turned into a pseudo Empire. Yet another black and white, easy to digest story. Partially because the target audience was children and having good guys that do bad things and bad guys that do good things would be too hard to understand, but I think it was also because the format of Star Wars has always been black and white, good vs. evil.

At least Andor kind of got into how the Rebels had to get as dirty as their enemies to try and win.

[DDE]

24 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Ya know, one deleterious effect of these black and white, good vs evil sci-fi stories

Sci-fi isn't to blame, it's a reflection of the thinking applied to the real world, especially by third-party well-wishers.

[SunlitZelkova]

3 minutes ago, DDE said:

Sci-fi isn't to blame, it's a reflection of the thinking applied to the real world, especially by third-party well-wishers.

Very good point!

[Snark]

Some content has been removed.

Folks, a gentle reminder, please leave real-life politics out of the forum, even tongue-in-cheek or in jest.

Thank you for your understanding.

[Superfluous J]

I think it has more to do with it being an adventure story, than sci-fi or fantasy or whatnot. In an adventure story, you want ADVENTURE, not politics and subterfuge and layered characters. "These guys are bad and we're fighting them because we're good" is the quickest way from title screen to action.

[magnemoe]

6 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Ya know, one deleterious effect of these black and white, good vs evil sci-fi stories is it causes people to then view real world conflicts through the same lens, when the truth is much more complicated.

But movies has an timeline of 2 hours, so story need to be short and therefor simple. Having two grey factions is great in and multi seasons tv series or an +100 hour video game, not in an 2 hour movie. 
Heard lot of calls for simpler enemies. Now if you can do this if the villain motive understandable like the ship AI in Wall-E.
And it was correct, returning to earth would be an hundreds of year process, humans could not survive on earth yet. The villain part was trying to keep status quo at all cost.

Edited April 26 by magnemoe

[tater]

8 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Star Wars has always been black and white, good vs. evil.

Not really, Star Wars after the first 1-2 film was just bad writing.

First movie was good vs evil, and the next 2 followed that line—ignoring a huge plotline about the droids, IMHO (they're clearly sentient).

The prequels ruined everything. Making "the force" heritable means that the story is no longer good vs evil—it's evil vs evil. The non-force capable galaxian citizens—the bulk of the population—are to be ruled by their betters, whether they like it or not. "Good" branded Jedi, or "bad" branded Sith. Both are magical beings who have power over regular people. Even if the "good" are in charge right now—all that needs to happen is for one of the good guys to get angry... it's rule by hereditary kings, and you might get a great one, you might get a maniac.

I'd argue having set up hereditary force nonsense, the new movies should have not had the First Order as the bad guys, vs Jedi—it should have been all the regular people vs the first order AND the Jedi! Death to the totalitarian wizards! The regular people rise up with their allies: the abused, chattel slaves—the droids!

Edited April 26 by tater

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, tater said:

The prequels ruined everything. Making "the force" heritable

I agree with that first part, but the 2nd part was established in Empire (though partly not verified until Jedi), when they established that the only 3 known and still living people who could use the force were a dad and his 2 kids.

[DDE]

1 hour ago, tater said:

The prequels ruined everything. Making "the force" heritable means that the story is no longer good vs evil—it's evil vs evil. The non-force capable galaxian citizens—the bulk of the population—are to be ruled by their betters, whether they like it or not. "Good" branded Jedi, or "bad" branded Sith. Both are magical beings who have power over regular people. Even if the "good" are in charge right now

...which of course is undermined by the Jedi being pointedly apolitical to the point of apathy, which the old fluff explored in-depth.

Your post kind of reminds me of the in-universe early Imperial propaganda claiming the younglings were mind-controlling the local populace, and so Vader and the 501st did nothing wrong.

1 hour ago, tater said:

ignoring a huge plotline about the droids, IMHO (they're clearly sentient)

While I won't entirely disagree, this is a case where a sci-fi cliche muddles our perception. Sci-fi doesn't generally know how to do non-sentient droids. Accordingly, it's not clear how sentient the droids are - and then we wonder into the real-life debate of what sentience is and how AIs can passably "fake" it by simply responding in-line with out expectations. All tha before the question whether sentience is even the primary factor to consider when asking whether droids deserve rights.

Also, when SW did finally have a crack at the droid rights problem, it produced a character so obnoxious I signed up with the Butlerian Jihad.

[magnemoe]

14 hours ago, tater said:

Not really, Star Wars after the first 1-2 film was just bad writing.

First movie was good vs evil, and the next 2 followed that line—ignoring a huge plotline about the droids, IMHO (they're clearly sentient).

The prequels ruined everything. Making "the force" heritable means that the story is no longer good vs evil—it's evil vs evil. The non-force capable galaxian citizens—the bulk of the population—are to be ruled by their betters, whether they like it or not. "Good" branded Jedi, or "bad" branded Sith. Both are magical beings who have power over regular people. Even if the "good" are in charge right now—all that needs to happen is for one of the good guys to get angry... it's rule by hereditary kings, and you might get a great one, you might get a maniac.

Magic being something a few have is pretty common idea. Not unrealistic as in you need special properties to become an fighter pilot and its  far harder to compete in the Olympics. 
In high fantasy like Elder scrolls there magic is common ordinary peoples like an farmers might know some healing spells and some spells to resist bandits or animals as an shield but they mostly used weapons. 
Its an skill thing. during WW 2 US has an benefit in that an significant faction of their recruits could fix cars. 
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff300/fv00214.htm obvious Freefall reference. 

Yes it was an idiotic thing to add, just point device and say the force is strong in him. Do not try to explain magic or advanced just make it make sense in universe .

The prequels got lots of hate but they did not try to hyperspace ram their own ass as an main strategy so end up looking good today. 

[PakledHostage]

I grew up with the original trilogy. When the Phantom Menace was released, I was super excited and rushed out to see it. I just about walked out in disgust when metaclorians were introduced. As many flaws as the series has, that was by far the stupidest decision.  Bringing back Palpatine in The Rise of Skywalker is a close second.

[magnemoe]

21 hours ago, PakledHostage said:

I grew up with the original trilogy. When the Phantom Menace was released, I was super excited and rushed out to see it. I just about walked out in disgust when metaclorians were introduced. As many flaws as the series has, that was by far the stupidest decision.  Bringing back Palpatine in The Rise of Skywalker is a close second.

Living in Europe, we had to wait months or download the movie, so I went to an party at an friend with much better internet, download took days and was almost finished so we watched the first movies while waiting.
Being drunk was probably an benefit  , for some reason it was the last blockbuster movie who did not have an global release. 

[PakledHostage]

I like that "machete order" for the original 6 is: 4,5,2,3,6. (Note that 1 is omitted.) Still doesn't fully solve the problem of metaclorians, but it's better. And it's probably best to just pretend that 7, 8 and 9 don't exist; they throw so much cringe into the series anyway.  Rogue One was good, and most of the streaming series are good too, but 1, 7, 8 and 9 are "#2", if you know what I mean...

[kerbiloid]

Actually the entire Star Wars epic is completely far-fetched.

It should finish in the middle of Ep. IV, as this scene is a full nonsense.

IRL, Luke would see a normal, intact Lars Homestead, and alive but worried uncle and aunt, who would say to him:
"Luke! The Imperial Police is here, they have some questions to you."

An hour later they would be flying to Obi 1 Kenobi to confiscate the Imperial property they were looking for.

Six hours later Luke would be sitting at the Imperial Police office and writing, that he was not going to hide the stolen Imperial Property; that he is just an illiterate peasant from backyard of the Universe, and was enchanted by the shiny metallic speaking bots; that he brought them to Mr. Kenobi to realize, what they are, and should he bring them to the police office immediately, or may keep them for a while to watch the holographic cartoon with the girl; that he has no idea about the rebels (whom he hates, because they want to put down the order they live in, and he is strongly disagreed with that); that Mr. Kenobi was talking something about a Jedi having  killed his father, so now he hopes to join the Imperial Troopers asap, once the crops get ready, or next year, or some next year; that Mr. Kenobi had shown to him a presumably unregistered plasma sword with a button, and he was very afraid of it, as he had never taken by hands something more dangerous than agricultural tools at their farm; and yes, Mr. Kenobi was saying strange things, which he hadn't understood, about joining the Jedis, like if he is one of them.

Next week Luke would be released on bail his uncle and aunt, and would be whole year signing every day in the police journal.

Without Luke, the Death Star would not be destroyed.

[Superfluous J]

4 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Next week Luke would be released on bail his uncle and aunt, and would be whole year signing every day in the police journal.

This totally made me think of one of my all-time favorite pieces of fan fiction, Troops

 

[Codraroll]

On 4/26/2024 at 1:01 PM, PakledHostage said:

Bringing back Palpatine in The Rise of Skywalker is a close second.

Off-screen. In an event only shown during a Fortnite event.

That whole movie was ... indescribably bad.

9 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Actually the entire Star Wars epic is completely far-fetched.

It should finish in the middle of Ep. IV, as this scene is a full nonsense.

IRL, Luke would see a normal, intact Lars Homestead, and alive but worried uncle and aunt, who would say to him:
"Luke! The Imperial Police is here, they have some questions to you."

An hour later they would be flying to Obi 1 Kenobi to confiscate the Imperial property they were looking for.

Six hours later Luke would be sitting at the Imperial Police office and writing, that he was not going to hide the stolen Imperial Property; that he is just an illiterate peasant from backyard of the Universe, and was enchanted by the shiny metallic speaking bots; that he brought them to Mr. Kenobi to realize, what they are, and should he bring them to the police office immediately, or may keep them for a while to watch the holographic cartoon with the girl; that he has no idea about the rebels (whom he hates, because they want to put down the order they live in, and he is strongly disagreed with that); that Mr. Kenobi was talking something about a Jedi having  killed his father, so now he hopes to join the Imperial Troopers asap, once the crops get ready, or next year, or some next year; that Mr. Kenobi had shown to him a presumably unregistered plasma sword with a button, and he was very afraid of it, as he had never taken by hands something more dangerous than agricultural tools at their farm; and yes, Mr. Kenobi was saying strange things, which he hadn't understood, about joining the Jedis, like if he is one of them.

Next week Luke would be released on bail his uncle and aunt, and would be whole year signing every day in the police journal.

Without Luke, the Death Star would not be destroyed.

Remember that this is the middle of nowhere, where the Empire does not have any local presence. The whole affair was carried out by the trigger-happy soldiers brought in on Vader's Star Destroyer. Goons of the "shoot first, forget that there were supposed to be questions" type. [snip]

Edited April 29 by Vanamonde

[kerbiloid]

7 hours ago, Codraroll said:

Remember that this is the middle of nowhere, where the Empire does not have any local presence.

Can't recall any Tatooine government, at least opposing their presence.

So, even if Tattoo-inn is not a part of the Empire, it's either its dominion, or has a treaty with it.
So, Luke would be signing in the Tatooinian police office, as the Imperial supervised person.
The Tatoogovernment doesn't need rebels there, messing with Mr. Hutt's honest business, bringing taxes.

7 hours ago, Codraroll said:

Goons of the "shoot first, forget that there were supposed to be questions" type.

Can't recall when they were shooting first without a reason.

I heard, somewhere on the Earth you should keep hands on the car wheel, when a road policeman is approaching and touching by hand the car trunk.

And on Tatooine people carry plasma blasters in the inn, as we know.

7 hours ago, Codraroll said:

Remember that this is the middle of nowhere, where the Empire does not have any local presence.

Can't recall any Tatooine government, at least opposing their presence.

So, even if Tattoo-inn is not a part of the Empire, it's either its dominion, or has a treaty with it.
So, Luke would be signing in the Tatooinian police office, as the Imperial supervised person.
The Tatoogovernment doesn't need rebels there, messing with Mr. Hutt's honest business, bringing taxes.

7 hours ago, Codraroll said:

Goons of the "shoot first, forget that there were supposed to be questions" type.

Can't recall when they were shooting first without a reason.

I heard, somewhere in the Universe you should keep hands on the car wheel, when a road policeman is approaching and touching by hand the car trunk.

Spoiler

The Jawa driver didn't keep his hands on the wheel, and his colleagues started waving with guns.

Spoiler

P.S. The Imperial troopers had to climb one on another to touch the trunk.

And on Tatooine people carry plasma blasters in the inn, as we know.,

Edited April 29 by kerbiloid

[Codraroll]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Can't recall any Tatooine government, at least opposing their presence.

So, even if Tattoo-inn is not a part of the Empire, it's either its dominion, or has a treaty with it.
So, Luke would be signing in the Tatooinian police office, as the Imperial supervised person.

There's not much of anything on Tatooine. It has very few inhabitants and seemingly no formal government. Police seems to be out of the picture entirely. The planet might even be too poor to be worth taxing (it's a bad deal for the Empire to keep a tax system running, if everyone who live there are exempt due to low income).

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Can't recall when they were shooting first without a reason.

Their reason is usually something like "my trigger finger is itching". Those are soldiers, not policemen.

[kerbiloid]

Aliens

When the meatbags are walking inside the heat exhanger, Lt. Gorman ordered them all to give up all ammo (including grenades) to prevent the pipes damaging.

Do I get it right, that all their ammo (including grenades) was occupying one bag and weighting 10..20 kg, i.e. a clip and a grenade per soldier?

M41A was 10 mm, after all.

***

Let alone the kitchengarden flamethrower, fueled with propane instead of napalm.

[Vanamonde]

That's the least of Aliens problems. I love the movie but of course if a fusion reactor is damaged it just stops working rather than blowing up. Just about every movie that mentions fusion gets that wrong, though.