• Welcome to the new Internet Infidels Discussion Board, formerly Talk Freethought.

What's some dumb science you've seen in fiction?

 
 
 
Keith&Co. said:
There's also the deflector in the eject chamberso the gas generator pressurizes the chamber rather than blasts the nozzle.

Bringing this back around ot the OP, the climax of The Spy Who Loved Me when they cringed at the screen that looked like the two missiles were going to collide in space. It's bad enough that every representation of a an ICBM or SLBM missile in flight stays intact from launch to impact. Apparently the third stage motor just burn through the first and second stages when it's its turn... and it's powered flight all the way to detonation....
Click to expand...

And where are the fires of re-entry??
 
bilby said:
OK, fair enough, most of them would think it was a nucular missile, but at least they wouldn't completely lose the plot
Click to expand...
You show the warheads on reentry, starting to crease the upper atmosphere, you cut to Joe Airforce pointing at one or more DOTS on a radar screen: "Look! The nuclear warhead(s) is(are) starting to enter the upper atmosphere! Detonation in (some random number based on how much dialogue there is between now and the resolution of the plot, not suborbital physics) minutes!"

Movie goers can tell a light saber from a blaster, or a Mark I phaser from a Mark II exactly because someone has arranged to have taught them what they're looking at, not just relied on their preconceptions. If movie goers expect to see an entire Trident II missile at impact, it's because other directors have trained them to see the intact missile through the entire flight....
 
If we're going to talk about movies and TV shows, wouldn't it be easier to list the instances when they got science correct?
 
Underseer said:
If we're going to talk about movies and TV shows, wouldn't it be easier to list the instances when they got science correct?
Click to expand...
It would be complicated due to the slow accumulation of scientific knowledge, and the fundamental uncertainty of scientific knowledge (simulation hypothesis and the possibility of multiple sets of natural laws in a greater multiverse).

If any logically possible set of natural laws can exist, there could be a set of laws in which a being such as Thor or Odin could be in a position of godhood. It would also be possible for a being to exist outside of the natural laws of certain universes that could influence events in various universes in such a way that "supernatural" events occurred (of course the line of "natural" would be blurred in these scenarios).

So basically, since we don't know the overarching set of natural laws, every single thing that happens in movies that is logically possible could be scientifically accurate in the multiverse, although what happens is not scientifically accurate in our specific evolutionary branch of the multiverse.

But once again, I'm preaching to the fucking choir.
 
Underseer said:
If we're going to talk about movies and TV shows, wouldn't it be easier to list the instances when they got science correct?
Click to expand...
If it's something that nobody seems to have trouble with, then there is not much point in pointing it out. Like how combustion involves getting oxygen from the air. Not many phiogistonists these days.

So one ought to look at what many movie and TV-show makers get incorrect -- which ones get it correct?
 
I don't mind wrong science in fiction. I treat it like a necessary plot element, like magic in a fantasy setting. That world works that way and that's all.

I hate inconsistent dumb science, because it jars me out of my suspension of disbelief, and then I end analyzing the bad science instead of being interested in the plot and the character arcs.

Thus the "trapped in the matrix because body is disconnected" rant above. If you're trying to tell me that your machine is just a sophisticated way of accessing some kind of Internet, and then do it, I will hate you. If you present me a fantasy-like setting where people do "transfer their souls in the matrix" (however meaningless that is for me in the real world), then I'm your guest.
The problem is the writers never think about it. They present you the first, semi-realistic, scenario, and then slip into the second simply because they're religious and techno-dumb and assume it can only work by soul transfer, and then I'm "argh" and completely lose the plot.
 
dx713 said:
Thus the "trapped in the matrix because body is disconnected" rant above. If you're trying to tell me that your machine is just a sophisticated way of accessing some kind of Internet, and then do it, I will hate you. If you present me a fantasy-like setting where people do "transfer their souls in the matrix" (however meaningless that is for me in the real world), then I'm your guest.
The problem is the writers never think about it. They present you the first, semi-realistic, scenario, and then slip into the second simply because they're religious and techno-dumb and assume it can only work by soul transfer, and then I'm "argh" and completely lose the plot.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, after that moment in the 2nd (I think?) movie where Neo uses his power to stop the machines even though they were outside the Matrix, I was like; "Neat, they're going for a matrix inside the matrix type thing". But nope... just magic.
 
Stephen King wrote that you can have just one element in your story that requires suspension of disbelief (Ghost in the attic, monster in the woods, alien living next door, etc.) but then everything else in your story must be as close to reality as possible.

Although come to think of it, an alien ghost has possibilities. An alien comes to Earth, then dies . . . and haunts your attic. The monster in the woods is his abandoned pet.
 
bilby said:
Viewers can be relied upon to recognise a complete stack with a nice jet of flame coming out of it as 'a nuclear missile'*; show them a final stage on a ballistic trajectory, and 85% of them would be confused, and wouldn't know what the fuck they were looking at, or why James Bond was worried about it.
Click to expand...
I remember when Gene Roddenberry, creator of ST:TOS, was once asked why the series does not show any of its spaceships upside down. It's a concession to an Earthbound audience, like noisy explosions and the like. If an explosion was soundless, some people might wonder what happened to their TV's sound.

That reminds me of the Star Wars Star Destroyer, with a superstructure and lots of guns on one side, and not much on the other side. Much like an Earth surface warship, and not what one would expect in outer space.
 
James Brown said:
Keith&Co. said:
Like breaking open a pump-action shotgun to see if it was loaded...
Click to expand...

I've never handled a shotgun. What's the problem with what you described?
Click to expand...
Kind of like the difference between a revolver and an automatic. It's two different sorts of shotgun. The break-action doesn't have reloads, you bend or 'break' the barrels down from the stock, pull the empties out of the barrels and slip new ones in place. The pump action loads a shell each time you, well, pump it. You can NOT open the firing chamber by folding the barrel down.
In one of King's short stories, the character had one gun, but he performed both actions on it at different points in the story.
Not exactly crucial to the plot, but a lot of readers i knew were taken completely out of the story by the discontinuity.
 
Cool. Did not know that.

Where are the new shells in a pump-action shotgun? I've never seen a shotgun with a protruding clip. (But then again, what do I know?)
 
James Brown said:
Cool. Did not know that.

Where are the new shells in a pump-action shotgun? I've never seen a shotgun with a protruding clip. (But then again, what do I know?)
Click to expand...

It's called a tube magazine. They line up in a tube that's parallel to and under the barrel. Jacking the round moves the last one up and into the chamber.
 
lpetrich said:
bilby said:
Viewers can be relied upon to recognise a complete stack with a nice jet of flame coming out of it as 'a nuclear missile'*; show them a final stage on a ballistic trajectory, and 85% of them would be confused, and wouldn't know what the fuck they were looking at, or why James Bond was worried about it.
Click to expand...
I remember when Gene Roddenberry, creator of ST:TOS, was once asked why the series does not show any of its spaceships upside down. It's a concession to an Earthbound audience, like noisy explosions and the like. If an explosion was soundless, some people might wonder what happened to their TV's sound.

That reminds me of the Star Wars Star Destroyer, with a superstructure and lots of guns on one side, and not much on the other side. Much like an Earth surface warship, and not what one would expect in outer space.
Click to expand...

Well, if it's an atmosphere-skimming planetary invasion vessel, which according to the story it is, then it does make some sort of sense. The hatches and so on for landing vehicles and AT-ATs are on the atmosphere side, along with most of the armour. The space-facing stuff is for piloting, navigation, and sensors, is for more vulnerable to attack, and thus needs lots of turbo-lasers. It doesn't make a huge amount of sense, but it's not totally unreasonable. If you're going to complain, complain about the bi-plane style dogfighting, and the classic Kessel run/parsec problem.
 
lpetrich said:
bilby said:
Viewers can be relied upon to recognise a complete stack with a nice jet of flame coming out of it as 'a nuclear missile'*; show them a final stage on a ballistic trajectory, and 85% of them would be confused, and wouldn't know what the fuck they were looking at, or why James Bond was worried about it.
Click to expand...
I remember when Gene Roddenberry, creator of ST:TOS, was once asked why the series does not show any of its spaceships upside down. It's a concession to an Earthbound audience, like noisy explosions and the like. If an explosion was soundless, some people might wonder what happened to their TV's sound.

That reminds me of the Star Wars Star Destroyer, with a superstructure and lots of guns on one side, and not much on the other side. Much like an Earth surface warship, and not what one would expect in outer space.
Click to expand...

Another silly example from Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country from 1991, that shows space in Star Trek is a 2-dimensional plane (excuse the poor quality, only clip I could find):

[YOUTUBE]zoK-tPS_bYE[/YOUTUBE]
 
Almost every single example of computer science in the movies and TV is total bullshit. Computers are MAGIC!!! Hackers are always busily typing code on a keyboard at full speed, never using a brute-force attack to get passwords. It takes mere seconds to access the most heavily secured servers, and the hackers are always desperately trying to keep one step ahead of the IT guys who are trying to stop attacks in real-time.

And don't even get me started on the misuse of terms such as "upload," "download," "hard drive," and on and on. Oh, and the magical laptops that self-destruct with smoke and even fire when someone tries to hack them. And even when the good guys manage to get the heavily-encrypted hard drive from the bad guys, they always have 'one shot to get the information before it self-destructs.' Have these idiots never heard of cloning a drive?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom