Worst Movies for Science

[SLD]

http://www.realclearscience.com/blo...myths_of_all_time-comments.html#disqus_thread

Interesting article about the upcoming movie Lucy and nominating it for the worst movie about science ever because it perpetuates the myth that we only use 10% of our brains. It does sound pretty stupid and so it does have to be up there, but the author asks for other nominees. Mine would have to be the Day After Tomorrow, depicting Global Warming as really a Global Ice Age - overnight! But maybe there are others.

I would however discount silly movies like Austin Powers from the nominations list. They aren't trying to be scientific. These are.

SLD

 

[Underseer]

Yeah, the 10% myth bugs me a lot. If all of your neurons fired simultaneously, I doubt you would experience coherent thought at all, assuming you weren't racked with some kind of horrible seizure.

 

[credoconsolans]

http://www.realclearscience.com/blo...myths_of_all_time-comments.html#disqus_thread

Interesting article about the upcoming movie Lucy and nominating it for the worst movie about science ever because it perpetuates the myth that we only use 10% of our brains. It does sound pretty stupid and so it does have to be up there, but the author asks for other nominees. Mine would have to be the Day After Tomorrow, depicting Global Warming as really a Global Ice Age - overnight! But maybe there are others.

I would however discount silly movies like Austin Powers from the nominations list. They aren't trying to be scientific. These are.

SLD

Also the assumption of the movie is that telepathy, telekinesis, etc., exist and if we could just access it, we could do it.

I prefer the Bradley Cooper movie Limitless about the drug that allows him to access more of his brainpower. It just made him smarter and sharper, not a supernatural character.

My vote for the suckiest science movie that doesn't include sci-fantasy movies is a tie between Mission to Mars and Red Planet.

I hear they're making a movie from the book, The Martian. I can only hope with the success of the movie Gravity, that they will stick to the science more in The Martian.

 

[dystopian]

I prefer the Bradley Cooper movie Limitless about the drug that allows him to access more of his brainpower. It just made him smarter and sharper, not a supernatural character.

I liked that movie, I should watch it again.

That said, I don't necessarily mind the whole "hidden superpowers in the brain" kind of movie if done properly. The 10% line just ruins it though.

 

[steve_bnk]

Documentaries are meant to be good science.

Scifi movies are for escapist fantasies and fictional stories for entrainment. They are not meant to be reality based.

Star Trek in all its incarnations was far from reality based science.

 

[bilby]

The Core.

/Thread

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The Core.

/Thread

Yeah, that was my first thought, also. It's pretty hard to beat that for a lack of science.

 

[Underseer]

Documentaries are meant to be good science.

Scifi movies are for escapist fantasies and fictional stories for entrainment. They are not meant to be reality based.

Star Trek in all its incarnations was far from reality based science.

I am more than able to turn my brain off and roll with it up to a point. This in particular is a pet peeve, however, and it will take me right out of the movie world and back into the real world.

 

[steve_bnk]

The question should be asked the other way around.

Which popular highly rated scifi movies were 'good science'?

The original classics Day The Earth Stood Still, War Of The Worlds,, and Forbidden Planet would all fail the good science test.

Technically not movies, Dr Who and Red Dwarf.
Star Wars
Close Encounters

 

[barbos]

Scientifically correct movies are usually financial busts.
Documentaries are usually correct but distort and exaggerate reality to some extent to make it more appealing to general public.
I have seen one university video course (astronomy) which was clearly false. But it was just one instance in a long course, not a big deal.

 

[rjh01]

Do many people still believe that we use only 10% of our brain? The idea is just so stupid for so many reasons.

 

[Peez]

Do many people still believe that we use only 10% of our brain? The idea is just so stupid for so many reasons.

Indeed, when someone brings this claim out I typically ask how well they think they would do if we removed 90% of their brain.

Peez

 

[Peez]

Documentaries are meant to be good science.

Scifi movies are for escapist fantasies and fictional stories for entrainment. They are not meant to be reality based.

Star Trek in all its incarnations was far from reality based science.

Understood, but what I see as "hard' science fiction will take liberties with one or a few specific things, but otherwise at least attempt to be 'realistic'. Star Trek certainly does not qualify as hard sf in my view, but 2001 A Space Odyssey was about as hard as SF movies get.

Peez

 

[Peez]

Trying to pick a 'worst' science science fiction movie is pretty hard, there are so many and it is not always clear what constitutes a science fiction movie (does X-Men qualify?). Just about any disaster movie I have ever seen would be a contender. Any movie involving giant organisms should be considered. Movies about telekinesis, pyrokinesis, etc., typically do very well (badly) here. Most movies that involve interplanetary or interstellar travel tend to get a lot wrong. Then there is time travel...

Peez

 

[Malintent]

http://www.realclearscience.com/blo...myths_of_all_time-comments.html#disqus_thread

Interesting article about the upcoming movie Lucy and nominating it for the worst movie about science ever because it perpetuates the myth that we only use 10% of our brains. It does sound pretty stupid and so it does have to be up there, but the author asks for other nominees. Mine would have to be the Day After Tomorrow, depicting Global Warming as really a Global Ice Age - overnight! But maybe there are others.

I would however discount silly movies like Austin Powers from the nominations list. They aren't trying to be scientific. These are.

SLD

Also the assumption of the movie is that telepathy, telekinesis, etc., exist and if we could just access it, we could do it.

I prefer the Bradley Cooper movie Limitless about the drug that allows him to access more of his brainpower. It just made him smarter and sharper, not a supernatural character.

My vote for the suckiest science movie that doesn't include sci-fantasy movies is a tie between Mission to Mars and Red Planet.

I hear they're making a movie from the book, The Martian. I can only hope with the success of the movie Gravity, that they will stick to the science more in The Martian.

"Limitless" sounds similar in concept to the movie "Phenomina". I loved that movie.. at least the concept. Drunk guy walking home from bar looks up into the night sky and a flash of light knocks him out... he then becomes a super-genius... Aliens? God? it ends up pretty rational and the ending has a beautiful twist... something to provide hope for mankind.

 

[steve_bnk]

NOVA is sscience fact and theory at times stretching the speculations.

Science fiction, the key word is fiction.


Any space based scifi movie that uses a light at the rear of a spaceship as an engine or has sound effects in a vacuum is unrealistic.


Any space based movie which has those wonderful FTL engines without an apparent energy source is unrealistic.

Any space based movie that does not explain how waste heat is removed in a vacuum and the unavoidable temperature rise cooking the crew is un realistic.

Most or all scifi space based movies violate the laws of conservation in some form.

I'm just getting started.

 

[PyramidHead]

Can I nominate a show? I think Fringe is up there with the silliest depictions of science on TV.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The Core, Armageddon, 2012 (fucking neutrinos?).

Documentaries are meant to be good science.

Scifi movies are for escapist fantasies and fictional stories for entrainment. They are not meant to be reality based.

Star Trek in all its incarnations was far from reality based science.

Understood, but what I see as "hard' science fiction will take liberties with one or a few specific things, but otherwise at least attempt to be 'realistic'. Star Trek certainly does not qualify as hard sf in my view...

In general, it doesn't qualify as science fiction at all. It is space fantasy in my opinion.

 

[Togo]

What about the film 2012? 2 hours of lava and exploding houses, all justified by the immortal lines

The neutrinos! They're mutating!

The comedian Bill Baily does a particularly good commentary on this.

 

[Keith&Co.]

In general, it doesn't qualify as science fiction at all. It is space fantasy in my opinion.

I read some editorial in a scifi magazine. He divided science fiction from fantasy by the number of impossibilities.
A completely science-factual work would be a documentary, or a textbook. And it would be dated, as the impossible becomes possible fairly often.

If they take one impossible thing and see how the world would be different with that, it's science fiction. Say if they only add FTL travel, or aliens, or telepathy, matter transmission.

If they use more than two impossible-to-modern-science plot devices, we're into a fantasy world. Which works whether they're elves or Vulcans, magic or FTL, the Realm of the Gods or a hollow Earth....