This chart posted at io9 exposes the many liberties filmmakers take with science in movies about space. The only two films to receive a clean bill are true stories from history. Link -via The High Definite
This chart posted at io9 exposes the many liberties filmmakers take with science in movies about space. The only two films to receive a clean bill are true stories from history. Link -via The High Definite
Too many spaceships look like airplanes, and 'fly' through space.
A better related category would be outright broken representations of relativity when dealing with near-light and FTL travel.
Also, no star trek movies?
What does it matter what it looks like. Presuming the movie is in the future designs could be radically different thanks to new technologies we discover.
If the movie is current though it should probably try to refrain from using technology that doesn't exist on the aircraft or designs that just aren't possible.
http://io9.com/367792/bad-movie-physics-a-report-card
Not sure what they were watching in the "Alien Movies" to check the box for interspecies breeding.
for instance, criticizing easy communication with aliens in star wars assumes that humans (who in star wars aren't even really humans) are unfamiliar with aliens. it makes sense that humans can't communicate with aliens in most movies, because there hasn't been any time for them to learn about each other and the differences between their languages. when han solo talks to greedo in the cantina however, he is speaking to an alien he personally knows and it isn't that farfetched that in his career as a smuggler he has learned some alien languages. han solo knowing the same language as greedo is about as weird as me knowing spanish. (which i don't, but i should learn, because i work with a lot of mexicans)
in stargate also, the aliens that the humans encounter are familiar with humans. they are supposedly very smart and rule by masquerading as human gods. the fact that they can speak human languages is kind of logical.
the movie contact is entirely about aliens contacting humans on earth, if they choose to engage in such an endeavor without at least a rough understanding of our language they would be complete morons
the fact that other planets have gravity similar to earth in some movies isn't that odd either, for instance in alien the strange harsh world they land on in response to the distress signal is only one planet, which could very well simply be similar to earth in size. while on the planets surface they always wear giant suits also, so it's hard to judge the planets exact gravity. the very idea that highly habitable planets (the only ones we would ever choose to visit) would have at least similar gravity to earth is almost obvious. i can't see why humans would ever visit a planet with extreme gravity.
how can this chart be mocking movies for the use of "faster than light travel" when the chart itself describes lasers as "faster than light"
which is ridiculous, a laser is light, i don't think i've ever heard lasers described in fiction as "faster than light"
usually such laser technology isn't even explained, and sometimes it's not even called "lasers"...so we have no idea what we are really seeing depicted.
is a "blaster" a laser? is a "phaser" a laser? not specifying makes any arguments against their scientific basis moot.
human-xenomorph hyrbid in the alien franchise
calling it interbreeding however ignores everything about the alien franchise
it's not like ripley banged a xenomorph
whoever made this thing needs to watch these movies again
That said - a good many of those are purely because of budget reasons if nothing else. Ones I hate are the big budget movies that use bad science for no readily apparent reason. Armageddon is one huge bad science extravaganza. I mean I dont think a single space scene actually obeys any law of physics...
Contact - sound in space? When? Trying to remember its been a while but do they ever actually go into space at any point?
Also in Serenity, didn't they explain how they made other planets more hospitable.. aka like Earth?
i have always assumed the final scene in contact was more of a internal experience than an actual trip into space. although there was space imagery, like the image of her father, it seemed pretty clear that this was a projection concocted by the aliens.
The funniest thing in Star Wars is that hundreds of armour-wearing soldiers can't hit four people without armour, but those four people can just turn around and blast those soldiers without any problem.
reminds me of the Family Guy quote "Do we ever hit anything with these?" "I hit a bird once."
All planets have Earth gravity. No, they all had earth-like gravity. Endor's was a little lower, Hoth's a little higher.
All planets have a climate planet-wide. Alderaan, Endor, Yavin, and Naboo had multiple climates. Bespin and Hoth might well have had a gradient of gas giant and snow world climates respectively. Coruscant would have before it became an unending city with climate control.
Easy communication with aliens. Protocol droids and 25,000 years of interspecies interaction.
Nearby asteroids aren't drawn close by gravity. We saw asteroids for minutes and they were moving at unrealistically high speeds and close to each other. This one is not really able to be ruled on without at least a few hours of star wars asteroid footage.
Faster-than-light travel. Hyperspace is like sub-space, you don't move faster than light, you shift into a plane where the relative distances are warped shorter and traverse them at sub-light speeds. That's why you use the sublight engines in hyperspace.
Enemy Mine:
All planets have Earth gravity. Two planets are shown with two earth-like gravities.
All planets have a climate planet-wide. Two planets with variable climates and seasons.
Easy communication with aliens. Two aliens in the entire galaxy that have had a prolonged war, probably have special teams dedicated to translating war messages and codes, and it takes a long time for them to learn each others' language.
You get present day broadcasts at Earth trailing off to vintage and grainy broadcasts as you get into the stars. I think our signal sphere is about 85 light years in radius at them moment?
In no way was it meant to be sound in space if thats what they were thinking.
yeah man, i agree, it's clearly a film technique used to represent something metaphorically
the people who made this chart know very little of film, science fiction, or science