What's the worst example of bad science in a film you've watched?

[JoJo]

Sunshine, where the Sun is dying and needs to be reactivated by a nuclear explosion is pretty bad science. Also 2012 where the Earth's core is being heated up by neutrinos, causing disasters everywhere. Both are facepalmingly good examples of OT subject.

 

[AugustFall]

snip

This isn't an example of "bad science". They're perfectly aware of this.

The reason for them breaking this rule of science is that the moviegoers and -buyers wouldn't be comfortable watching a movie that includes thirty minutes of space warfare, with nothing but Captain Kirk occasionally screaming commands to his subordinates.

That would, simply put, be mindboggingly boring.

I think it could be quite arty, a huge space battle in complete silence. It would show how insignificant our struggles are in the grand scheme of things. With all our technology we still don't even make a sound in space.


It would be super boring after the initial wow-factor subsided of course.

 

[Aratus]

How about all of the SyFy (Such a stupid acronym) original movies.
BEWARE THE SHARKTAPUS! (Actual movie)

 

[Hawk of Battle]

THE WATER HURTS THEM!!!

Ah Shyalamadingdong, you never fail to facepalm us all.

 

[Mr. Omega]

The happening...

just... everything in this movie.. the plants.. its just..

Dont know ho i managed to sit trough that movie, its just painfull to hear it all.

This, this, a million times THIS. When someone explained that to me, I said "Couldn't we have gone with ghosts? Would have made more sense..." Yes, I said GHOSTS would have made more sense that The Happening.

OT: Anything involving combining science and the supernatural. The two are, by nature, supposed to be incompatible

EDIT: Also, 2012. EVERY SINGLE EXPLINATION FOR IT. EVER! None of them make sense, particularly on why any of that shit would happen on 12/21/2012. For god sakes, the Mayans don't even believe that bullshit, and it's their legend we base it on!

 

[Kenko]

That you can hear explosions and laserguns in space.
It's the worst because the film-makers can't even plead ignorance - everybody knows about this.

Yeah, Firefly did that one awesomely. No sounds at all in space.

As for movies with bad science...hrrmmm... I'd have to say Pandorum. At the end of the movie they save humanity appearently with only 1,2k people left. So yeah, thats a pretty nitpicky point but it bugged me as the critical limit beforer we die out is around what 20k people? If we get to low from that we'll just weed ourselves out with inbreeding and poor genetical diversity.

 

[Unrulyhandbag]

I wrote an entire article on the inaccurate portrayal of space warfare. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.100198-Space-Warfare-Almost-Everything-You-Know-Is-Probably-Wrong#1554585] Most examples of bad science in movies annoy the hell out of me.

In the future starships will come equipped with a program that replicates the noises humans expect to hear through the internal speakers, including zappy lasers and doppler effects when approaching\passing an object, just to help them make decisions faster and feel more comfortable.

This would work if it didn't actually slow down people's reactions. Sound isn't as discriminate as a simple vector projection on a screen.

yeah It was the answer I got on the freespace forum from a dev when I asked why they put a rather awesome Doppler sound system in a space game, I thought it was nice back covering on his part.

 

[mattttherman3]

Speeds faster than light(warp drive), but I'd like to believe it could happen...

 

[tofulove]

i think we can all agree the movie that had the worse science was weird science.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25q3hxlgvw4&NR=1

 

[Terminate421]

666 is actually 999 which takes us to the year 1999.......

 

[sniper9474]

Flubber

 

[brucesea]

In the Mummy the big blockbuster verson, the poor slave chaps who dig up the box with the mummy's innerds in get sprayed with a substance refered to later as "salt acid" this is impossible a salt like sodium cloride (table salt) is the result of the combination of a Base and an Acid (useally a Bases are alkilid) this combination of alkilides and acid preduces a PH neutral substance (that PH 7 fucking 7 not 5.5 like the dove adverts say 5.5 is a mild acid!!!!!!!!!!!!!) if you so either ur substance is a salt or a acid or a base it cannot be a combination of any of these fuck sake

 

[The Austin]

That you can hear explosions and laserguns in space.
It's the worst because the film-makers can't even plead ignorance - everybody knows about this.

I've tried thinking of a way to do this in a movie, and I just can't.

Imagine if you will, a movie in which a giant epic space battle is taking place, all while no sound is heard. It would be boring.

Really, really boring.

 

[Chosen_Chaos]

For me, it's a tossup between the scene in Wing Commander where a damaged fighter is pushed off the deck (with the pilot still in it for added drama)... where it promptly drops. They're in deep space, and the stupid thing behaves as though it's near a planet. Facepalm number 1.

The second and third are from Armageddon, firstly where it's stated that the incoming asteroid will kill everything on Earth, "down to bacteria". I was suspicious enough to use the numbers given (97 billion tons at 36,000 miles per hour) to work out how much energy would be released by the impact... and got the result of 3 million megatons. That would be bad, yes, but the Dinosaur Killer yielded an estimated 100 million megatons, and there were survivors. The second example from Armageddon was where we, the audience, were expected to believe that one nuclear device would be able to split the asteroid cleanly (mostly) in two, instead of fragmenting it. Riiiiiight...

 

[nuba km]

That you can hear explosions and laserguns in space.
It's the worst because the film-makers can't even plead ignorance - everybody knows about this.

I don't mind it because watch any sci-fi film and mute it when it is in space. have you gone and done that well as you may have noticed it is stupid and makes the film more boring.

 

[Hosker]

House of flying daggers springs to mind.

 

[Falconcry]

the one that springs to mind for me is an all too common one in most action films and even serious thriller films, the idea that bullets can be stopped by the most mundane cover availible i.e. wooden tables, cars, steel barrels, a plasterboard wall is laughable as is shooting any oil drum and having it explode

 

[moose_man]

That you can hear explosions and laserguns in space.
It's the worst because the film-makers can't even plead ignorance - everybody knows about this.

Well it might not be scientific but I'd rather have Star Wars with its lasers and explosions then have what scientists have said real space warfare would be like.

Yeah, there was a Simpsons comic along those lines once... Everyone left the theater.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

"The Core" makes no sense as Microwaves aren't stopped my the Earth's magnetic field anyway. Undercutting the entire premise of the movie.

Armageddon is also awfully bad Science. They drill a hole 800 yards (or about) into an asteroid the size of Texas. Leaving aside the mechanics and point of sending drillers into space rather than astronauts that isn't even a scratch on the surface! How would drilling a hole the length of your street make any difference to an asteroid the size of a state?