Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame

[p1t1o]

I think that "Deep Impact" and "Contact" have very similar vibe, the "look" of the movie (the colour palette, lighting etc.) as well as the feel of the suspense and gently mounting tension are of the same flavour.

HotTake: They occur in the same universe, one after the other. Perhaps the story of Contact is spurred by a regained interest in looking outwards towards space after the near-miss in Deep Impact.

 

[kerbiloid]

A meteorite which had impressed me more than others - 2nd part of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_Day
At the very end of the meteorite storm.

[magnemoe]

18 hours ago, DAL59 said:

Why is the meteor just cruising along like a plane?  Why does it look like a ballistic missile at 0:05?  Also, according to online calculators, the heat and air blasts would hit long before the tsunami.

Dramatic effect, the water effect is obviously junk as its hypersonic, still most asteroids don't hit at 0 degree and have an reentry trail  
The tsunami can travel farther than the blast effect. 

[DAL59]

13 hours ago, p1t1o said:

I think that "Deep Impact" and "Contact" have very similar vibe, the "look" of the movie (the colour palette, lighting etc.) as well as the feel of the suspense and gently mounting tension are of the same flavour.

HotTake: They occur in the same universe, one after the other. Perhaps the story of Contact is spurred by a regained interest in looking outwards towards space after the near-miss in Deep Impact.

 

Contact isn't a very good movie.  

1.  Why where people willing to believe in aliens and metal rings that glow blue, but not time dilation, when there was direct the "18 hours of static"?  Its completely unreasonable that people would dismiss time travel after aliens were discovered.  Surely as an astronaut she would be considered mentally sound and reliable?

2.  Why did they not send a dummy through the second machine?  Did they just forget about it?

3.  At a price of "only" 350 billion, China would have build one too.

4.  Wait a few decades and build it on the moon in case its a bomb.  

5.  The aliens are perhaps the stupidest aliens ever.  Apparently, they test civs by having one person hallucinate for a few hours, and seeing if anyone believes them.  Its a great sign of any civilization if they just immediately believe hallucinations!  Luckily in her case she had a camera.

6.  WHY ISNT SHE WEARING HER HELMET AND WHY IS THERE NO FOOD OR WATER IT COULD JUST TELEPORT HER TO INTERSTELLAR SPACE arghh

11 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Dramatic effect, the water effect is obviously junk as its hypersonic, still most asteroids don't hit at 0 degree and have an reentry trail  
The tsunami can travel farther than the blast effect. 

What I don't get is, asteroid impacts are dramatic.  They wouldn't lose anything with realism!

Edited October 2, 2018 by DAL59

[p1t1o]

6 hours ago, DAL59 said:

Contact isn't a very good movie.  

Not the point I was making, and I respectfully disagree, but the movie is full of the stuff you point out.

Like: 

"Oh no, the biggest space project since the moon landing just blew up!!" "No worries, well just use this handy backup."

"Well, the design doesnt include a chair, but we will put a chair in it. And not a nuclear powered remote control rover stuffed with instruments. In fact we wont put a single instrument in at all. Not. A. One."

[wumpus]

10 hours ago, DAL59 said:

Contact isn't a very good movie. 

3.  At a price of "only" 350 billion, China would have build one too.

1985: Carl Sagan writes a novel named Contact
1996: Carl Sagan dies
1997: Contact movie made

I think this explains a lot about Contact the Movie.

In 1985, there is no way the Chinese are making anything like a starship and I wouldn't expect one in 1997 either.  I'd strongly doubt that the USSR (1985) or Russia (1997) would be up to building a 350 billion dollar starship, but some might expect them to try.

[Gargamel]

21 hours ago, DAL59 said:

6.  WHY ISNT SHE WEARING HER HELMET AND WHY IS THERE NO FOOD OR WATER IT COULD JUST TELEPORT HER TO INTERSTELLAR SPACE arghh

That's actually addressed in the movie IIRC.   They discuss that the plans do not show any indication for needed life support, with the counter arguments that it can't hurt to take some.   It's been a while since I've seen the movie, though.

10 hours ago, wumpus said:

In 1985, there is no way the Chinese are making anything like a starship and I wouldn't expect one in 1997 either. 

Currently re-reading some of the Tom Clancy novels.   It's been about 15 years at least since I read some of them, and in the early 90's, Japan is portrayed as the financial 'enemy' that China has become 25 years later.    At the time of the book, and the movie even, aside from Europe, Japan was the only other economy really strong enough to make this plausible.  China really wasn't the economic power house then as it is today. 

[p1t1o]

18 hours ago, wumpus said:

1985: Carl Sagan writes a novel named Contact
1996: Carl Sagan dies
1997: Contact movie made

I think this explains a lot about Contact the Movie.

In 1985, there is no way the Chinese are making anything like a starship and I wouldn't expect one in 1997 either.  I'd strongly doubt that the USSR (1985) or Russia (1997) would be up to building a 350 billion dollar starship, but some might expect them to try.

Carl Sagan actually died whilst the movie was in production - he was scientific advisor on set.

[kerbiloid]

On 10/2/2018 at 6:42 AM, DAL59 said:

IT COULD JUST TELEPORT HER TO INTERSTELLAR SPACE

That's why

On 10/2/2018 at 6:42 AM, DAL59 said:

NO FOOD OR WATER

 

Can you really imagine her having lunch in vacuum?

Edited October 3, 2018 by kerbiloid

[DAL59]

6 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

That's why

 

Can you really imagine her having lunch in vacuum?

The point is, it could take several days for the teleport- who knows?

[KG3]

On ‎10‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 11:42 PM, DAL59 said:

6.  WHY ISNT SHE WEARING HER HELMET AND WHY IS THERE NO FOOD OR WATER IT COULD JUST TELEPORT HER TO INTERSTELLAR SPACE arghh

I haven't seen the movie in  quite a while but I seem to recall that they didn't know what the machine was supposed to do.  I think they thought it was some sort of device for communication with aliens.  Still, a space suite and helmet would have been a good idea.  Safety first!

[Superfluous J]

On 10/1/2018 at 11:42 PM, DAL59 said:

The aliens are perhaps the stupidest aliens ever.  Apparently, they test civs by having one person hallucinate for a few hours, and seeing if anyone believes them.  Its a great sign of any civilization if they just immediately believe hallucinations!  Luckily in her case she had a camera.

Like so many others it's been a LONG time since I saw it but I vaguely recall having the impression that perhaps the aliens didn't even consider the possibility that nobody would believe her.

In the book, there was no camera footage. They told her about an artifact of the universe's creation in the digits of Pi where if you used base whatever and ran out to digit whatever and put the digits in rows of however many wide there was a string of 0's and 1's that drew a circle inside a box. And in the book they looked for it and found it IIRC.

[kerbiloid]

6 hours ago, DAL59 said:

The point is, it could take several days for the teleport- who knows?

 

58 minutes ago, KG3 said:

Still, a space suite and helmet would have been a good idea.  Safety first!

http://www.scp-wiki.net/security-clearance-levels#toc11

[DAL59]

Why are people happy and celebrating across the galaxy?  The majority of the empire's fleet still exists, and presumably at least some of the population were pro-empire, so the galaxy should have been total chaos and anarchy after the battle of Endor.  With the emperor dead, local leaders would try to seize power, and the galaxy would fall into civil war.  No wonder the New Republic was useless.  Also, all of the Ewoks die a few hours later due to the death star's debris.  

Critiquing star wars with real world physics is not a good idea, but it has to obey logic and internal consistency in order to be considered good.  As another example, 50 dinosaurs escaping is not a global or even local threat.  They'll get shot, run over, or eaten by wolves.  

[kerbiloid]

18 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

The majority of the empire's fleet still exists, and presumably at least some of the population were pro-empire, so the galaxy should have been total chaos and anarchy after the battle of Endor.

And at least according to the Tie Fighter game every imperial general betrays the emperor sooner or later, so look that ultimately they don't need him a lot.
Also none of the Death Stars was widely used,so their force was not that what defines the success of imperial forces.
Just several imperial generals can step up  now.

[razark]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

And at least according to the Tie Fighter game every imperial general betrays the emperor sooner or later, so look that ultimately they don't need him a lot.

That just makes this part worse:

2 hours ago, DAL59 said:

With the emperor dead, local leaders would try to seize power, and the galaxy would fall into civil war.

(Of course, the galaxy wouldn't fall into civil war.  That's pretty much what's going on in Episodes 4-6.)

Edited October 8, 2018 by razark

[Superfluous J]

3 hours ago, DAL59 said:

Why are people happy and celebrating across the galaxy?  The majority of the empire's fleet still exists, and presumably at least some of the population were pro-empire, so the galaxy should have been total chaos and anarchy after the battle of Endor.  With the emperor dead, local leaders would try to seize power, and the galaxy would fall into civil war.

Those local leaders ARE who is celebrating

Also, anybody celebrating might not realize how the problem isn't actually fixed. It wouldn't be the first time seemingly good news turned sour upon sober reflection.

What I want to know is how they heard about it so fast. I much preferred the more subdued original ending even if it was all yub nub, eee chop yub nub.

I mean, who knew that ah toe mee wouldn't actually lead to toe pee chee keene?

[Green Baron]

Yeah, typical rhetorical story telling element: cut of the worm's head (or heads if numHeads > 1) and the rest will rot.

[KerikBalm]

Well, if we're going into the field of "social science", there's been a number of bad movies recently depicting some future society after some major change in government... where society is organized in ridiculous ways... just so some special teen-early 20's hero/heroine can get caught up in it and bring a downfall to the government.

In most of those cases, the existing government is so ridiculous, maybe the anarchy and years more of civil war is preferable.

[DAL59]

2 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Well, if we're going into the field of "social science", there's been a number of bad movies recently depicting some future society after some major change in government... where society is organized in ridiculous ways... just so some special teen-early 20's hero/heroine can get caught up in it and bring a downfall to the government.

In most of those cases, the existing government is so ridiculous, maybe the anarchy and years more of civil war is preferable.

Having 13 districts which are limited to one industry is the worst economic and political decision ever, as a loss of control or natural disaster anywhere would cripple the country.

[magnemoe]

7 hours ago, Green Baron said:

Yeah, typical rhetorical story telling element: cut of the worm's head (or heads if numHeads > 1) and the rest will rot.

True, however the emperor took power in an silent coup, he got extra power to fix the crisis and stayed at power. He has only ruled an generation. 
It might be one of the rare cases there its mostly one bad guy to remove and the system reverts, Noriega in Panama is one real life example, yes in both cases the leadership was more than one guy but it was not huge and had little popular support, you also had an previous structure to fall back on. 

Yes you would have the old corrupt and inefficient republic back and many of the empire loyalist started the new order but it was not enough of them and they was to disorganized after the emperors death to hold an territory. Good chance that the emperor deliberately kept the various commanders away from each other so they would not band up on him, moral might also be low after all the setbacks. 

The rebels was also not some resistance group hiding in cellars, they fought major fleet battles with the empire. No not as strong but not something the empire could just swat away. 

[KerikBalm]

3 hours ago, DAL59 said:

Having 13 districts which are limited to one industry is the worst economic and political decision ever, as a loss of control or natural disaster anywhere would cripple the country.

I wasn't just thinking of that one...

I've seen parts of the divergent series... and the social system there seemed utterly ridiculous... worse than HP sorting hat (if the houses were entire factions for life and all aspects of governance)

[DAL59]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

The rebels was also not some resistance group hiding in cellars, they fought major fleet battles with the empire.

Literally just one major battle (in the movies anyway).  They spent most of their time going to planets, being found and attacked, and escaping.    

[kerbiloid]

19 hours ago, Green Baron said:

cut of the worm's head (or heads if numHeads > 1) and the rest will rot.

"Cut off the snake's tail up to the neck."

[DAL59]

In A New Hope, why was there just a worm hanging out in the garbage area?  Sure, it could be for waste processing, but why do you need a garbage area and compressor at all?  Just dump it into space!  How did the worm get there?  The movie wouldn't have lost any plot or motivation without it.