Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame

[kerbiloid]

5G Zombies (2020)

5G doesn't zombify.

[wumpus]

On 5/4/2020 at 10:16 AM, kerbiloid said:

5G Zombies (2020)

5G doesn't zombify.

Facebook does, but is transmission media agnostic.

[DDE]

On 5/4/2020 at 5:16 PM, kerbiloid said:

5G Zombies (2020)

5G doesn't zombify.

Zombies with hypnoloops. Somebody is going back to the roots?

[Gargamel]

One episode in to "Space Force" On netflix, and so so much bad science.   But it's gotten some laughs out of me.   Just accept it's not intended to be accurate.   

[Canopus]

9 hours ago, Gargamel said:

One episode in to "Space Force" On netflix, and so so much bad science.   But it's gotten some laughs out of me.   Just accept it's not intended to be accurate.   

So you‘d recommend checking it out?

[kerbiloid]

It's a funny satirical movie, not exactly about the space .

Actually there is not much of space, but it was funny.

[Gargamel]

2 hours ago, Canopus said:

So you‘d recommend checking it out?

Yes, I'm enjoying it.  There's a really good cast, Some good jokes, and the story lines are nice.  But my god, do not expect the technical aspects to make any sense. 

[Superfluous J]

13 hours ago, Gargamel said:

One episode in to "Space Force" On netflix, and so so much bad science.   But it's gotten some laughs out of me.   Just accept it's not intended to be accurate.   

I assumed it would be like The Office, and nothing Space related would actually ever get done.

Edited May 31, 2020 by Superfluous J
Actually actually

[DDE]

2 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

I assumed it would be like The Office, and nothing Space related would actually ever get done.

It's possible this is how the authors sincerely view the Space Force.

[kerbiloid]

3 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

nothing Space related would actually ever get done.

The very end of s01e01 and whole s01e02 are all about space.

Edited May 31, 2020 by kerbiloid

[Superfluous J]

On 5/31/2020 at 11:39 AM, kerbiloid said:

The very end of s01e01 and whole s01e02 are all about space.

I watched them and agree with you.

I did not watch the rest because not only was it not funny or interesting, the science was... well it wasn't science.

[Jacke]

9 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

I watched them and agree with you.

I did not watch the rest because not only was it not funny or interesting, the science was... well it wasn't science.

I watch like just over 2 minutes and lost interest.  Good to see my gut feel was right.

[NFUN]

Literally every episode of Scorpion, which is frustrating because they often get like 80% of the way to being correct but decide to stop in territory that makes them more wrong than if they were just making stuff up. The "I know enough about computers to break them but not to fix them" of fiction.

Some of my favorite examples:

• There was a solar storm strong enough to send powerful auroras down to at least LA and it all it did was cause a power outage that was fixed in like a day
• An Andromeda Strain plot that seemed to make absolutely no sense
• A particle accelerator was built 3km under the ground to discover WIMPs (no, not a particle detector in a mine, a full LHC-esque particle accelerator) that accelerated particles to 30 TeV, with everybody worried about it creating black holes that would destroy the world despite how a 30 TeV black hole would evaporate in less than a Planck second... Additionally, anybody underground becomes an idiot because of increased air pressure. The science team also ran experiments on prairie dogs to research this effect, because as prairie dogs routinely go up to ten feet (!) underground, it would be illuminating to research any physiological changes they experience, since, as we all know, this behavior is both extremely relevant to being a mile below the surface and something completely foreign to human beings
• And so much more!

So infuriating. I didn't have a choice in being exposed to it, ftr

I also think, for the last point, they were worried about it making a black hole because the protagonists accidentally changed it from running at half-capacity to full... so, even taking for granted that this is a real threat, why the love would they build a particle accelerator that everybody involved knew would kill everybody if ran as designed??

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Jacke said:

I watch like just over 2 minutes and lost interest.  Good to see my gut feel was right.

I give most every show 2 full episodes, as the pilot may not be representative of the actual show. If it's really horrible of course I'll bail early, but this one had good points. Just not many of them.

[razark]

12 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

I did not watch the rest because not only was it not funny or interesting, the science was... well it wasn't science.

I watched it in the background while doing other stuff, since some friends had recommended it.

I should have gone with your plan.  It was decent enough to be background noise, and not much else.

[kerbiloid]

I watched in background, doing things in main window, so it was a nice filler.

Except the episode about the phone-guided monkey with tools which looks pretty realistic.

Edited June 13, 2020 by kerbiloid

[Jacke]

8 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

I give most every show 2 full episodes, as the pilot may not be representative of the actual show. If it's really horrible of course I'll bail early, but this one had good points. Just not many of them.

That's a very good point, as I can think of some shows with an abysmal pilot.  I was going to revisit "Space Force", but it was well down on my list.  Now it's even farther down.

[Nightside]

There seems to be a flood of snarky space shows these days. Surprised to see big names like Steve Carrell and Hugh Laurie headlining these dumb shows (can’t remember the name of Laurie’s show, although I watched a few episodes). 
Is anyone actually loving this stuff?

[Gargamel]

On 5/31/2020 at 4:30 AM, Canopus said:

So you‘d recommend checking it out?

Having finished it a while ago, I did enjoy it, but don't watch it for the science.   But it's so farcical, you just accept it.  But I do recommend.  But if it went more than 10 (8?) episodes for the season, I don't think I would have hung on.  

[Clamp-o-Tron]

Yeah the Space Force was pretty bad. I quit as the instant the

Spoiler

Beware spoilers

Spoiler

Monkey let go of the space station and ended on a trajectory to impact the sun??!?!?

That's a lot of Dv from a hand tool.

Maybe spinlaunch should take some ideas from the power drill method.

 

I can't watch anything that I actually know anything about. Which, granted, isn't a lot, but a lot of science fiction falls into that. I wish I could get over it.

Edited June 13, 2020 by Clamp-o-Tron

[kerbiloid]

The episode 2 with the monkey, repairing the engineering stuff, being guided by phone, was so familiar, so biographical. At both sides.

[DDE]

On 6/13/2020 at 7:48 AM, Nightside said:

There seems to be a flood of snarky space shows these days. Surprised to see big names like Steve Carrell and Hugh Laurie headlining these dumb shows (can’t remember the name of Laurie’s show, although I watched a few episodes). 
Is anyone actually loving this stuff?

Well, I have two hypotheses.

One is a kind of SpaceX Fatigue, a hangover from the hype, and of the exaggerated promises the laymen may have mistakenly perceived - a milder for of the skepticism and disillusionment of the 1970s.

But then, especially with Space Force, the political element is likely predominant, which can easily explain why it's painfully unfunny: it is sanctimonious, ill-spirited ridicule of an approved target, and the target audience is obligated to laugh at it. For the people like those present on this thread, it's even further undermined by ignorance of the subject matter, like Kirk Cameron mocking the 'Darwinists' with the crocoduck - it's not funny to make fun of something no-one was claiming in earnest. The political factor, however, ensures it's proud ignorance.

Spoiler

It's all so tiresome

 

[kerbiloid]

The second hypothesis can be disproved by Lexx which definitely could not be someone's political order, lol, but was full consisted of same rude satirical humor.

Just a hot theme and an opportunistic commercial hype. The space is cheap if film it in a rented storehouse.

***

The Head (2020), s01e01.

The team of the Antarctic station watches the old The Thing (1982) and laughs at the naive old sci-fi.
A little later they are playing, joking, and run out of the station into the frost, like any typical heroes of a thriller.

But why there is no breathe from anybody's mouth?... They yet haven't found anything terrible.
Is there at least one alive person among them from the very beginning?

Edited June 14, 2020 by kerbiloid

[PakledHostage]

10 hours ago, DDE said:

But then, especially with Space Force, the political element is likely predominant, which can easily explain why it's painfully unfunny

I suspect that it is funnier if you're not an American... Sure, some of it was cringe inducingly dumb, but it was also quite funny at times.

[Clamp-o-Tron]

Watched a couple more episodes of Space Force, and managed to ignore most of the stuff. The most egregious (even to me who doesn't know **** about cs, except for some bad python and C#) was the hacking of a military grade system by... pressing crtl-shft-6?!?

Words fail.

In other news, I've been reading Seveneves by Neal Stephenson and it's really quite excellent, both in the science and storytelling. Man do I love me some good hard scifi.