Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame

[antipro]

18 minutes ago, Minmus Taster said:

A cult movie does not make it a good movie.

ok it's true, and Dune may not be among the best, but I've seen infinitely worse science fiction movies,
especially in recent years.

Edited September 20, 2021 by antipro

[NFUN]

A better than awful movie does not make it a good movie.

[antipro]

11 minutes ago, NFUN said:

A better than awful movie does not make it a good movie.

ahah! That's right and funny, but dudes you won't be able to make me say that Dune sucks.

So, what do you think about Idiocracy (Judge, 2006)?
It's a quasi-sci-fi movie and it's a cult, I find it very funny.

Edited September 21, 2021 by antipro

[kerbiloid]

5 hours ago, antipro said:

Dune in Hall of Shame? De gustibus non est disputandum but are you mad?

In the 'Bad Science" room .

[tater]

I would count the "hall of shame" in the context of this thread as necessarily being movies that present themselves as "realistic" in some fashion.

Dune simply doesn't. The upcoming Foundation on AppleTV? Ditto, space opera. They can be good, or bad as movies unrelated to their Sci Fi realism "cred" IMO.

[wumpus]

21 hours ago, tater said:

I would count the "hall of shame" in the context of this thread as necessarily being movies that present themselves as "realistic" in some fashion.

Dune simply doesn't. The upcoming Foundation on AppleTV? Ditto, space opera. They can be good, or bad as movies unrelated to their Sci Fi realism "cred" IMO.

One of the things that made Dune (the book) interesting was the early use of ecology as the "science" in its "science fiction".  I'd claim any criticism of a movie adaptation of Dune botching the ecology or climatology as fair game.  The rest of the bit with shields, lasguns, anti-causality drugs, and floating fat men can be brushed aside as "space fantasy".

Foundation's "science" base was pulled out from under it during Asmiov's lifetime, and I suspect he may have even used this to shoo away publishers demanding foundation novels ("when we say 'novel' we mean sci-fi novel.  When we say 'sci-fi novel' we mean Foundation novel").  Chaos simply buries the whole idea of pyschohistory (please ignore the chanting of post-80s peak oil cultists chanting "Hare Seldon! Hare Seldon! Hare Seldon!"). 

[magnemoe]

15 minutes ago, wumpus said:

One of the things that made Dune (the book) interesting was the early use of ecology as the "science" in its "science fiction".  I'd claim any criticism of a movie adaptation of Dune botching the ecology or climatology as fair game.  The rest of the bit with shields, lasguns, anti-causality drugs, and floating fat men can be brushed aside as "space fantasy".

Foundation's "science" base was pulled out from under it during Asmiov's lifetime, and I suspect he may have even used this to shoo away publishers demanding foundation novels ("when we say 'novel' we mean sci-fi novel.  When we say 'sci-fi novel' we mean Foundation novel").  Chaos simply buries the whole idea of pyschohistory (please ignore the chanting of post-80s peak oil cultists chanting "Hare Seldon! Hare Seldon! Hare Seldon!"). 

This, movie has to have realistic elements they take seriously, one example is guns in the aliens series. An movie universe also need to make sense in its universe or why adding hyperspace ramming was an bad idea. 
Yes it looked awesome but it throws the the entire consent of huge capital ships out with the bathwater and adds more problem, I guess it would also work against planetary shields. 

On the other hand history is full of stuff who would not work in an movie. Take the entire fight with Bismark, from Hood blowing up, and yes it was armored against Bismark's shells at that distance to the lucky torpedo who disabled the rudder on Bismark on the last mission they could fly that evening. And its much weirder stuff happened. 

 

[Technical Ben]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

This, movie has to have realistic elements they take seriously, one example is guns in the aliens series. An movie universe also need to make sense in its universe or why adding hyperspace ramming was an bad idea. 
Yes it looked awesome but it throws the the entire consent of huge capital ships out with the bathwater and adds more problem, I guess it would also work against planetary shields. 

On the other hand history is full of stuff who would not work in an movie. Take the entire fight with Bismark, from Hood blowing up, and yes it was armored against Bismark's shells at that distance to the lucky torpedo who disabled the rudder on Bismark on the last mission they could fly that evening. And its much weirder stuff happened. 

 

IMO you don't need a reason why Hyperspace ramming is not used. In real life, nuclear bombs were dropped in war/actual aggression only twice. In 100 years or so, only twice. For there to have been one or only two hyperspace ramming incidents in all of the (current storyline) history of Star Wars, well, that I can actually believe.

On the story/plot/world building/character feelings level, those involved show that the Last Order is pushing far to hard, and risking a new out right MAD (mutually assured destruction) war, which they probably were trying to prevent/avoid from the other films (and prequels) where it's about subterfuge and getting a hold, without an out right unwinnable or devastating war.

But they pushed too hard, and unleashed the Kracken of space attacks.

Everything else? Yeah, stupid parts of the film (a few scenes are worth saving, but IMO the hyperspace ramming is brilliant, just needed decent dialogue leading up to it, and not the trash "we know best, you're all idiots" plot we got). Even Holdo could have been great, *if* handing off to Akbar, and Akbar + Leah handing down the reigns to her etc, and she takes on responsibility, fixes the rift between her and Poe, Poe also learning to use teamwork (so a growth for him)... or whatever, do the opposite, make them go rouge or traitor... but anything would have been better than the trash soap opera they gave that episode of Star Wars.

 

That's why I have deep respect for the actors and the set designers, the animators and the storyboard writers. Because they did a great job. Provided the best. Then one or two head writers/directors/focus groups/meddling investors seem to have trashed all that hard work.

Also, the interesting thing about Dune is it skirts the line of plausibility. While the lore/stories to the "technology" are fanciful, the base understanding (causality breaking time travel worm hole creating cats as FTL drives) borders on known physics with just enough "it's nature that did it" to leave you questioning if it's just a quantum fluctuation in their universe that allows it all.

Edited September 22, 2021 by Technical Ben

[Codraroll]

4 hours ago, magnemoe said:

On the other hand history is full of stuff who would not work in an movie. Take the entire fight with Bismark, from Hood blowing up, and yes it was armored against Bismark's shells at that distance to the lucky torpedo who disabled the rudder on Bismark on the last mission they could fly that evening. And its much weirder stuff happened. 

The Blücher comes to mind as resembling one of those movie moments where the only way the good guys can do something heroic, is if the enemy does something bleethingly stupid. Like sailing their newest cruiser into a narrow sound right in front of a battery of heavy shore guns, and hinging the most vital part of their invasion plan on the ship making it through the sound intact.

The movie scene they made depicting the event turned out quite epic, though.

[DDE]

8 hours ago, Codraroll said:

The Blücher comes to mind as resembling one of those movie moments where the only way the good guys can do something heroic, is if the enemy does something bleethingly stupid. Like sailing their newest cruiser into a narrow sound right in front of a battery of heavy shore guns, and hinging the most vital part of their invasion plan on the ship making it through the sound intact.

"Hold on, mein Kameraden. We're suckering them into 2 cm range!"

Spoiler

"It's a fort, you idiot!"

[kerbiloid]

Such illustrative difference between the dispersed solid and condensed liquid particles in the gas medium in the field of potential force,

[magnemoe]

13 hours ago, Technical Ben said:

IMO you don't need a reason why Hyperspace ramming is not used. In real life, nuclear bombs were dropped in war/actual aggression only twice. In 100 years or so, only twice. For there to have been one or only two hyperspace ramming incidents in all of the (current storyline) history of Star Wars, well, that I can actually believe.

On the story/plot/world building/character feelings level, those involved show that the Last Order is pushing far to hard, and risking a new out right MAD (mutually assured destruction) war, which they probably were trying to prevent/avoid from the other films (and prequels) where it's about subterfuge and getting a hold, without an out right unwinnable or devastating war.

But they pushed too hard, and unleashed the Kracken of space attacks.

Everything else? Yeah, stupid parts of the film (a few scenes are worth saving, but IMO the hyperspace ramming is brilliant, just needed decent dialogue leading up to it, and not the trash "we know best, you're all idiots" plot we got). Even Holdo could have been great, *if* handing off to Akbar, and Akbar + Leah handing down the reigns to her etc, and she takes on responsibility, fixes the rift between her and Poe, Poe also learning to use teamwork (so a growth for him)... or whatever, do the opposite, make them go rouge or traitor... but anything would have been better than the trash soap opera they gave that episode of Star Wars.

That's why I have deep respect for the actors and the set designers, the animators and the storyboard writers. Because they did a great job. Provided the best. Then one or two head writers/directors/focus groups/meddling investors seem to have trashed all that hard work.

Also, the interesting thing about Dune is it skirts the line of plausibility. While the lore/stories to the "technology" are fanciful, the base understanding (causality breaking time travel worm hole creating cats as FTL drives) borders on known physics with just enough "it's nature that did it" to leave you questioning if it's just a quantum fluctuation in their universe that allows it all.

Get your point, however nuclear weapons has not been used for two reasons, the first is fear of enlargement of the conflict up to all out nuclear war, the second is an lack of need as most modern wars who has not been internal conflicts has been in limited scope with strict rules of engagement.

Hyperspace ramming on the other hand is not very destructive in the star wars universe perspective there the empire multiple times made planets uninhabitable with orbital bombardment using star destroyers.
Yes it disabled the huge ship in one hit. But that was because it ignored the shield and also had very high penetration power. And they used an descent sized spaceship for the ramming. 
For most uses an small vessel had worked just as well like an stripped down droid controlled x-wing. 

Most important its no reasons for the rebel forces to not use it as they have few large ships and has no hopes of winning an large fleet engagement and they was actively hunted by their enemies. 
It was not an limited war. 

But again it was an awesome scene, think they explained it away in the next movie that it was an very low chance event that it worked. 

[magnemoe]

10 hours ago, Codraroll said:

The Blücher comes to mind as resembling one of those movie moments where the only way the good guys can do something heroic, is if the enemy does something bleethingly stupid. Like sailing their newest cruiser into a narrow sound right in front of a battery of heavy shore guns, and hinging the most vital part of their invasion plan on the ship making it through the sound intact.

The movie scene they made depicting the event turned out quite epic, though.

Now sailing up to Oslo and into many other Norwegian fjords was an huge gamble who mostly worked out, they was almost able to take Oslo by surprise. 
Landing further out would given Norway more time to prepare and the British and French more time to help making this an much harder fight. 

Now the real danger here was probably if Norway was aware and set up an ambush, on the other hand while that sounds cool it would probably be more safe to attack as early as you could who let Germany fall back to land far out. 

[DDE]

1 minute ago, magnemoe said:

Now sailing up to Oslo and into many other Norwegian fjords was an huge gamble who mostly worked out, they was almost able to take Oslo by surprise. 

*laughs in Unternehmen Zerberus*

2 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Landing further out would given Norway more time to prepare and the British and French more time to help making this an much harder fight. 

It was actually an even hairier situation. The British and French were fairly close to sending troops north to support Finland against the Soviets - troops that could have been easily diverted.

[Technical Ben]

On 9/23/2021 at 9:49 AM, magnemoe said:

Get your point, however nuclear weapons has not been used for two reasons, the first is fear of enlargement of the conflict up to all out nuclear war, the second is an lack of need as most modern wars who has not been internal conflicts has been in limited scope with strict rules of engagement.

Hyperspace ramming on the other hand is not very destructive in the star wars universe perspective there the empire multiple times made planets uninhabitable with orbital bombardment using star destroyers.
Yes it disabled the huge ship in one hit. But that was because it ignored the shield and also had very high penetration power. And they used an descent sized spaceship for the ramming. 
For most uses an small vessel had worked just as well like an stripped down droid controlled x-wing. 

Most important its no reasons for the rebel forces to not use it as they have few large ships and has no hopes of winning an large fleet engagement and they was actively hunted by their enemies. 
It was not an limited war. 

But again it was an awesome scene, think they explained it away in the next movie that it was an very low chance event that it worked. 

Yes, I do agree it's nuanced too.

 So in a FTL ship universe, they probably would also not use such weapons for fear of MAD. I've a draft sci-fi story on DeviantArt with some ship designs which uses this exact story line. Imagine Firefly/Serenity universe but spanning multiple star systems with FTL drives. Then a "One hour war" happens where a group uses FTL drives aggressively, and from that day, no one, due to social/cultural/emotional reasons ever risks it again, until one day... And as you say, things like planets being gravity wells, and small craft being hard to track (at the light year ranges), makes most FTL drives impractical compared to local skirmishes (again, see real life where drones are used instead of blanket carpet bombing).

Quote

But that was because it ignored the shield and also had very high penetration power. And they used an descent sized spaceship for the ramming. 
For most uses an small vessel had worked just as well like an stripped down droid controlled x-wing. 

Most important its no reasons for the rebel forces to not use it as they have few large ships and has no hopes of winning an large fleet engagement and they was actively hunted by their enemies. 
It was not an limited war. 

IMO the Last order were chasing a dead dog, and forgot to put shield to max (engines were maxed to chase), probably had shields down to activate the "Hyperspace tracker", and lots of other mistakes... but the film/writers were really poor at communicating this (see the opening scene as the opposite, where Poe gets the one up on them by actually surprising them).

[kerbiloid]

Interesting fact,

In the <=1990s fiction the antagonists are "... of Chaos"

In the >=2000 fiction they are "... Order"

A paradygm change?

Why not call them "Order of Chaos"

"Feels like it breaks right to left." (c) Preacher, Herr Starr.
_{May misheard the actual words, so a conditional sorry if so.}

Edited September 24, 2021 by kerbiloid

[Codraroll]

34 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Interesting fact,

In the <=1990s fiction the antagonists are "... of Chaos"

In the >=2000 finction they are "... Order"

A paradygm change?

Why not call them "Order of Chaos"

"Feels like it breaks right to left." (c) Preacher, Herr Starr.
_{May misheard the actual words, so a conditional sorry if so.}

Apparently, it's a cyclical thing. I read something of the same a few years back, regarding vampires and zombies as antagonists in movies.

In some years, the movie monsters in fashion are vampires: Glamorous elites with superhuman (or at least better-than-you) abilities, with commanding authority and big castles. They look down on regular people, treating them as little more than cattle to be slaughtered at whim, or toying with them for amusement before killing them. They typically demand fear and loyalty from their subjects, but the only reward they offer is not to be killed immediately ... for as long as you are useful to them.

Other years, zombies take over the public consciousness: Mindless, unwashed hordes of rabble. A giant, never-ending mob of braindead drones, with no individuality or capability of reason. They come in endless waves to attempt to drag you down and make you one of them. They have no regard for any common good or the realities of the current situation - all they do is charging in mindlessly to grab whatever they can of the scarce resources - the brains of regular people. 

Of course, the correlation with the political climate at the time is entirely coincidental.

Edited September 24, 2021 by Codraroll

[Snark]

Some content has been removed.  Please leave politics out of the forum, folks.  Thank you for your understanding.

[kerbiloid]

Zombitopia (2021).

It's more or less like Ebola Rex, but in SE Asia and without Mi-24.

But it still has a T-Rex-like raptor (but another one, with longer and narrow jaws) and a virus (but not Ebola, just a zombie-virus, which just turn the bittens into zombies, i.e. nothing unusual).

But is there some hidden connection between the viruses and the dinoraptors now?
It happened  at least twice this week, so I start worrying, if we should expect a dinosaur invasion.

[Nuke]

On 9/20/2021 at 3:27 PM, Minmus Taster said:

A cult movie does not make it a good movie.

yea but i never regret watching them. it is possible to enjoy a bad movie. its also possible to fail to enjoy a critically acclaimed popular movie (anything marvel). the latter might be good in the moment, but it leaves you with very little to think about when you leave the theatre. something about cult films makes you keep coming back. first time i saw dune '84, i wanted to see it again, and then i wanted to see it again when i finally did. then i watched other cuts of the film, even fan cuts. cult films get their hooks in you, even if they aren't the best. 

Edited September 30, 2021 by Nuke

[Nuke]

On 9/21/2021 at 10:56 AM, tater said:

I would count the "hall of shame" in the context of this thread as necessarily being movies that present themselves as "realistic" in some fashion.

Dune simply doesn't. The upcoming Foundation on AppleTV? Ditto, space opera. They can be good, or bad as movies unrelated to their Sci Fi realism "cred" IMO.

both dune and foundation are not really an exploration of the technology as a lot of hard scifi tends to be. if anything those things are just a part of the setting. dune touches on ecology (and the engineering there of), religion (and the engineering there of), social constructs (and the engineering there of) the effects of stagnation on a population, the limits of power and prophecy, the uncertain nature of history, and a great deal of other things that my brain isnt telling me right now. im significantly less versed in foundation, having only read the original trilogy, and having just watched the first two episodes of the new series, i am now confused about the whole thing, but it has a lot in common with dune. 

[tater]

Yeah, I only read the original 3 in Foundation. I was not a huge fan, it was just OK to me.

[kerbiloid]

Imho, Dune (the book) was from the very beginning an attempt of a Western fan of Mid-Eastern exotics to build his own theme park, with assassins and prophecies.

With worms instead of camels, and 50 shades of drug dealing. A 1001 night for hippies, "Fear and Loathing on Arrakis", just not a comedy.

Edited September 30, 2021 by kerbiloid

[StrandedonEarth]

10 hours ago, Nuke said:

it is possible to enjoy a bad movie.

Yeah, there’s no accounting for “Bad Taste” (yeah, it’s a movie, so bad it’s funny. I think it even got a plug on “The X Files”)

[kerbiloid]

11 hours ago, Nuke said:

it is possible to enjoy a bad movie

Troma and Asylum are all about this.