They're making a Doctor Strange movie? Hmm, odd place to find that out, but interesting nonetheless.

Where is the science in 2012?! Huh? Cowboys and aliens had more science and was a better movie

Sometimes, but usually not so much. Link (new window)

The splitting the Red Sea thing so your people could safely walk on the ocean bottom ... it doesn't work at all.

Here's what I don't get... if you know a lot about something -- anything -- you will realize that Hollywood gets the details very, very wrong. (As does news media, but that's a different rant.) Science, cars, technology, whatever -- minor details, very wrong, almost always. To the point where it's more surprising when something obscure is done right.

On science fiction, made up technology and "errors" around it don't matter. Whatever. Hollywood is Hollywood, and fiction is fiction.

But, on shows where they're trying to be "real" (X-Files, maybe, any current-day show showing any IT, any medical drama, etc), there are plenty of geeks out here who would -love- to read a script or watch an early cut for free, just to have read it, to catch minor things that don't change the story but are wrong.

Like, I dunno, a supposed-MD saying "I see he's fractured his C-7 vertebra" while they're pointing at the lumbar region kind of things. Or any ridiculous technobabble from a "nerd" on a cop show that could just have easily used the right jargon but the writers have no idea what anything outside Microsoft Word on their magic MacBook is. I mean, is it really that impossible to put in a little effort to get minor stuff right?

Bhruic: They're making a Doctor Strange movie? Hmm, odd place to find that out, but interesting nonetheless.

First I have heard of it, as well. It's something that I look forward to. One of my favortie heroes (right there with Cable, Nightcrawler, Green Lantern, and AoA Morph).

Spherical planet. Pff.

The best injection of actual science into any movie I've seen to date is the nuclear explosion-to-balloon scene from Mars Attacks. In a movie that's else-wise completely ridiculous, that scene is absolutely brilliant.

/ACK ACK ACK!!

And when scientists in K-19: The Widowmaker worried that a nuclear reactor would explode, it spread a dangerous notion: Damaged reactors don't explode, they melt.

Chernobyl (new window)

i know, the movie was probably trying to put forth the notion that it would be a nuclear explosion. Still, they can go kablooie, and it's not a good thing.

Err, my other link got eaten;

Fukushima Reactor Explosion (new window)

SFSailor: On science fiction, made up technology and "errors" around it don't matter.



Jeff Megall: Sony has a futuristic sci-fi movie they're looking to make, Message from Sector Six.
Nick Naylor: Cigarettes in space?
Jeff Megall: It's the final frontier, Nick.
Nick Naylor: But wouldn't they blow up in an all-oxygen environment?
Jeff Megall: [long pause] Probably. But, you know, it's an easy fix. One line of dialogue: "Thank God we created the, you know, whatever device." You ought to make a product to tie in with the movie, such as a new brand of cigarettes.
Nick Naylor: Sector Sixes?

BronyMedic: Samwise Gamgee - They were referring to a nuclear reactor achiveing criticality and exploding much like a nuclear weapon, which is a common misconception.

Chernobyl exploded due to flash-vaporized water which tore the vessel apart.
Fukushima exploded due to hydrogen ignition.

Yeah, never saw the movie, but I figured that was what they were going for. Still, it's categorically incorrect to state that a reactor can't explode (in a non-nuclear way). And it's still a Very Bad Thing (TM).

Phineas and Ferb used to inject a lot of Science, but I don't see it as much anymore.

Phineas: Buford's pulling us down.
Baljeet: How is that possible? He weighs no more down there than he did up here!
Ferb: It's probably best not to question.

Not a movie, but Stargate: Galactica pissed me off with its Sending Stones. The premise is that they're teleported by an entire planet's worth of power to a space ship billions of light years from the Milky Way [not hyperbole, this is what they say on the show]. It destroys the planet in the process. That alone is pretty wonky but heck I can suspend disbelief over it. It establishes that their destination is so mind-bogglingly far away that even with magically efficient supertechnology it has enormous energy requirements.

The part that pisses me off is that as a convenient plot device, they have these little rocks that allow instantaneous communication (by swapping consciousnesses) with Earth running on, I don't know, D-cell batteries or something [it's very portable whatever it is]. What's worse is that although the signal can travel instantly across billions of light years without time-dilation issues, they have issues whenever the ship accelerates or decelerates. These devices become a huge crutch for the series too.

/Lamer than the Tenth Doctor's screwdriver
//I hate the Stargate franchise but I can't stop watching

Samwise Gamgee: BronyMedic: Samwise Gamgee - They were referring to a nuclear reactor achiveing criticality and exploding much like a nuclear weapon, which is a common misconception.

Chernobyl exploded due to flash-vaporized water which tore the vessel apart.
Fukushima exploded due to hydrogen ignition.

Yeah, never saw the movie, but I figured that was what they were going for. Still, it's categorically incorrect to state that a reactor can't explode (in a non-nuclear way). And it's still a Very Bad Thing (TM).

From the script of k-19:

What would happen?
Vadim Radtchenko: Hiroshima. 1.4 megatons.

UNOBTAINIUM

OK, I'm a scientist, not a professional fiction writer, but I know enough about this to know the golden rule of science fiction/fantasy: your audience will accept the impossible, but not the improbable.

So...

Indiana Jones knows enough about an extremely specific branch of specialty archaeology/history to pick out a specific cup from a lineup in seconds: totally impossible, so OK, cool.

Protagonist closes his eyes, spins around, picks the right maguffin from a pile of similar items on the force of sheer chance: breaks even the poor grasp of statistics the average man holds, expect your movie to be considered a b flick at best.

Similarly, hand-waving is better than attempting a real explanation for something fantastic, like so:

Star Trek: Transporters are totally impossible from an engineering perspective, outright breaking laws as as fundamental as the heisenberg uncertainty principle and the conservation of energy/momentum. The solution? "Yeah, we solved that problem, that black box over there deals with it". OK, we say, sweet, human progress moves forward! Now on to the lizard-man fistfights!

Red Planet: There's a genetic anomaly we have to explain. Well, you see, this is what a human bit of DNA looks like, so if you replace this base pair it...
The Audience: This is the most retarded thing I ever heard, did the writer not pass third grade science?

Basically, it's a hallmark of good writing to feed your audience just enough information that they have to engage their brain to fill in the gaps, i.e. they're working with you to make whatever it is plausible, flesh out the rules of your magic, build a context for your teleportation widget, etc. This makes it more interesting to the scientifically literate, because it's an interesting idea that could maybe work in a certain context. _Bad_ writing attempts a complete explanation, which can be picked apart by everyone that knows more about the subject than you (in the case of a screen-writer, basically everyone ever). Even getting professional consulting is unlikely to save you from bad writing.

BronyMedic: Samwise Gamgee - They were referring to a nuclear reactor achiveing criticality and exploding much like a nuclear weapon, which is a common misconception.

Chernobyl exploded due to flash-vaporized water which tore the vessel apart.
Fukushima exploded due to hydrogen ignition.

Chernobyl went prompt critical: it was a small and very dirty nuclear explosion. It "only" blew its top because it wasn't designed to maintain the exponential chain reaction like a nuclear bomb is.

The_EliteOne: UNOBTAINIUM

That one isn't so far fetched. Some scientists visit Pandora, discover a naturally occurring room temperature semiconductor and jokingly call it Unobtanium (which is a common joke name in the sciences for a material with magical properties). The name sticks before they can come up with a better name, so they just wind up making it the real name of the element. It's not any more ridiculous than Californium.

Bhruic: They're making a Doctor Strange movie? Hmm, odd place to find that out, but interesting nonetheless.

Mad_Radhu: The_EliteOne: UNOBTAINIUM

That one isn't so far fetched. Some scientists visit Pandora, discover a naturally occurring room temperature semiconductor and jokingly call it Unobtanium (which is a common joke name in the sciences for a material with magical properties). The name sticks before they can come up with a better name, so they just wind up making it the real name of the element. It's not any more ridiculous than Californium.

"Unobtainium", "Phlebotinum", and "Technobabble" are also common script placeholders for MacGuffins and handwavy plot solutions. So hopefully you can see why it would look really, really lazy to have a finished product calling something "Unobtainium".

Jim_Callahan: OK, I'm a scientist, not a professional fiction writer, but I know enough about this to know the golden rule of science fiction/fantasy: your audience will accept the impossible, but not the improbable.

So...

Indiana Jones knows enough about an extremely specific branch of specialty archaeology/history to pick out a specific cup from a lineup in seconds: totally impossible, so OK, cool.

Protagonist closes his eyes, spins around, picks the right maguffin from a pile of similar items on the force of sheer chance: breaks even the poor grasp of statistics the average man holds, expect your movie to be considered a b flick at best.

Similarly, hand-waving is better than attempting a real explanation for something fantastic, like so:

Star Trek: Transporters are totally impossible from an engineering perspective, outright breaking laws as as fundamental as the heisenberg uncertainty principle and the conservation of energy/momentum. The solution? "Yeah, we solved that problem, that black box over there deals with it". OK, we say, sweet, human progress moves forward! Now on to the lizard-man fistfights!

Red Planet: There's a genetic anomaly we have to explain. Well, you see, this is what a human bit of DNA looks like, so if you replace this base pair it...
The Audience: This is the most retarded thing I ever heard, did the writer not pass third grade science?

Basically, it's a hallmark of good writing to feed your audience just enough information that they have to engage their brain to fill in the gaps, i.e. they're working with you to make whatever it is plausible, flesh out the rules of your magic, build a context for your teleportation widget, etc. This makes it more interesting to the scientifically literate, because it's an interesting idea that could maybe work in a certain context. _Bad_ writing attempts a complete explanation, which can be picked apart by everyone that knows more about the subject than you (in the case of a screen-writer, basically ev ...

Good point. To me, the stones in Stargate (to borrow the previous poster's example) are a form of quantum entanglement, and the 'jump to FTL' scrambles it momentarily. Not firm science, but the mind smooths over the rough parts to enjoy the smoother ones. Same with the planet; the show describes a fictional, ultra-heavy, ultra-energy dense, ultraconducting material. The entire planet is made of it. Cause enough of it to react, there goes the planet. The transporters in Star Trek; despite the 'canon' description in the show, if I had to assuage my sense of scientific and engineering integrity, I'd opt for a 'switches the physical space and matter between two points' instead of breaking down atom by atom.

All this of course depends on your engagement in the disbelief; my friends find me notorious in sci fi movies for pointing out absurdities UNLESS I am really enjoying it.

/far too many debates over Avatar than I really want to get into

doglover: Indiana Jones knows enough about an extremely specific branch of specialty archaeology/history to pick out a specific cup from a lineup in seconds: totally impossible, so OK, cool.

Impossible to figure out Jesus, obscure as he is, was humble? Really? Uh... dude. I don't know what you're smokin.

And I want to know which edition of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade you saw. He determined that the wooden cup was the one because Jesus was a carpenter. I don't recall anything about humility.

doglover: Also, who says maguffin?

SFSailor: Like, I dunno, a supposed-MD saying "I see he's fractured his C-7 vertebra" while they're pointing at the lumbar region kind of things. Or any ridiculous technobabble from a "nerd" on a cop show that could just have easily used the right jargon but the writers have no idea what anything outside Microsoft Word on their magic MacBook is. I mean, is it really that impossible to put in a little effort to get minor stuff right?

Oh, and you could do better? You know what, as soon as I finish this GUI interface using Visual Basic to track your IP address, I'm going to be paying you a visit. See how you like that, you armchair critic.

doglover: ThreadSinger: /far too many debates over Avatar than I really want to get into

It would be quicker to argue was WASN'T absurd about Avatar. All I can come up with is "3D would be good for a Pern movie."

Ha! The spaceship at the beginning had heat radiators... I thought to myself 'This is a first! Someone got the idea you need to vent heat!'.. then the movie implodiated.

Jim_Callahan: OK, I'm a scientist, not a professional fiction writer, but I know enough about this to know the golden rule of science fiction/fantasy: your audience will accept the impossible, but not the improbable.

Reminds me of NGT's shtick about how Red Matter in ST:2009 is ok, but the sky in Titanic is WRONG.

Jim_Callahan: Indiana Jones knows enough about an extremely specific branch of specialty archaeology/history to pick out a specific cup from a lineup in seconds: totally impossible, so OK, cool.

In fairness, it's not like he was making an authoritative, scholarly assessment for publication. He was using very limited time (Dad's about to die, after all) and limited knowledge about Jesus (or those that might have provided a cup at the cross) to make a best guess. With a life on the line, doing nothing really wasn't an option, so playing the odds game in the limited time available was the best move. What he did required no more knowledge than one would expect from a person with even limited knowledge of the Gospels. What it did require was that spark that says, "Hey, I really *do* have knowledge that I can apply to this!" That's why Indy is Indy and I'm just a sloth dangling in a tree...

ThreadSinger: To me, the stones in Stargate (to borrow the previous poster's example) are a form of quantum entanglement, and the 'jump to FTL' scrambles it momentarily

See, to me that's still a lame explanation since even as a layman I know that quantum physics are still subject to the speed of light.

Supposedly the Stargates work by subspace wormholes, blah blah blah, instant travel across vast differences. Fine. And the first thing the Stargate:Universe series establishes is that even for the Stargates to get from Here to Way Over There it takes an incredible amount of energy. Also fine. It's also the plot hurdle about why they can't just go home, which is critical to the premise of the show.

The problem comes when you have these little devices that can then violate that barrier by using very little power and suffer from very arbitary setbacks all because the either the writers or studio apparently thought, "Gosh, that's kind of depressing that they can't talk with people back home in realtime." What's worse is that although the premise of the show is "Lost in Space", the focus of the show ended up being "Meanwhile... on planet Earth".

It wasn't a bad show - I was hooked - but those stupid stones ended up being like that one idiot with a cell phone who talks loudly on it through your entire hiking trip.

"Across vast differences", eh? Oh that's good.

I'm clearly too sober for this discussion about fiction :P

doglover: Okay, now I REALLY don't know what you're smokin, but I want some. The "average man" knows there in, in ascending order of falsehood, lies, damn lies, and statistics. A real hero can pick the right one on instinct because most acts of heroism are just butt thundering stupidity with a side dish of luck. Also, who says maguffin? Prats. That's who.

To respond to the substance of the post: There's a refinement to the rule that says that a random one-in-a-million guess can get your protagonist into trouble, but not out of it. The fisherman can pull the djinn's bottle out of the sea at random, but he has to actually trick the djinn back in, the creature can't just randomly wander back in to pack his socks or something. Winning by guesswork is also legit if the guess is plausible: randomly guessing that the dog-loving dude used the name of his dog as a password is fine, randomly guessing a 16-digit password consisting of a string of random characters is not.

To respond to the "prat" comment: You're in a literature thread, dude, if "maguffin" is vocabulary that goes over your head then you're so far out of your depth in a literature discussion that it's not even funny.

ThreadSinger: doglover: ThreadSinger: /far too many debates over Avatar than I really want to get into

It would be quicker to argue was WASN'T absurd about Avatar. All I can come up with is "3D would be good for a Pern movie."

Ha! The spaceship at the beginning had heat radiators... I thought to myself 'This is a first! Someone got the idea you need to vent heat!'.. then the movie implodiated.

To be fair, it wasn't billed as hard science fiction. And the pirate/mercenary captain's character is one of my favorite swashbuckling villains ever, because he makes no excuses about just wanting to start a fight and he is pulled inevitably toward his role in the plot by the gravitational pull of his planet-sized balls. Witness:

-- Calmly manipulates data to get his way (start a fight with the blue man group). When this doesn't work, he arrests everyone, despite having no such authority. All the other people with guns go along with this, even though he's not the one paying them.

-- Runs into poisonous atmosphere firing his handgun at a runaway helicopter while holding his breath. Actually hits someone. Glares after it for a full minute while someone brings him an SCBA instead of going back to get one himself when his target is out of range.

-- Calmly steps into battle-mech, checks his readings, and buckles his seatbelt before putting out his shirt, which has been on fire for two minutes. Then jumps out of crashing plane.

-- His mech is equipped with a giant bowie knife, and this makes perfect sense in context of the character.

Seriously, whoever wrote that character deserves an award for making what was otherwise the most boring screenplay in the history of mankind into something that's actually kind of badass.

treesloth: Jim_Callahan: Indiana Jones knows enough about an extremely specific branch of specialty archaeology/history to pick out a specific cup from a lineup in seconds: totally impossible, so OK, cool.

In fairness, it's not like he was making an authoritative, scholarly assessment for publication. He was using very limited time (Dad's about to die, after all) and limited knowledge about Jesus (or those that might have provided a cup at the cross) to make a best guess. With a life on the line, doing nothing really wasn't an option, so playing the odds game in the limited time available was the best move. What he did required no more knowledge than one would expect from a person with even limited knowledge of the Gospels. What it did require was that spark that says, "Hey, I really *do* have knowledge that I can apply to this!" That's why Indy is Indy and I'm just a sloth dangling in a tree...

Yeah, but my point was that the explanation is "hey, dude's a professional artifact-recovery guy" and they leave it at that. They don't really try to explain exactly what kind of educational background would give you the expertise to narrow it down like that.

So, when he manages to pull out a really good educated guess, your mind is going "yeah, ok, he could have studied that, and studied this, and so on," and you build your own narrative to explain how he could get within a coin-flip or two of the right answer. Sure, having that level of knowledge about several extremely-specific subjects is essentially impossible, but the way it's written puts you on the side of the writers by having you subconsciously participate in making it plausible.

Compare this to, say, The Da Vinci Code, where detailed explanations of how each clue is derived are presented. Since that explanation is there, instead of building an explanation and immersing you in the story, the back part of your brain that recognizes patterns is going "right, but that's kind of weak" and "but that could as easily refer to this other painting I'm aware of" and "that's not how those puzzles really work". Your subconscious is fighting against immersion, basically.

So, yeah, there's your real world example: Temple of Doom, infinitely crazier than the Da Vinci Code, but infinitely more convincing due to good writing rather than shiatty writing.

MusicMakeMyHeadPound: ThreadSinger: To me, the stones in Stargate (to borrow the previous poster's example) are a form of quantum entanglement, and the 'jump to FTL' scrambles it momentarily

See, to me that's still a lame explanation since even as a layman I know that quantum physics are still subject to the speed of light.


The problem comes when you have these little devices that can then violate that barrier by using very little power and suffer from very arbitary setbacks all because the either the writers or studio apparently thought, "Gosh, that's kind of depressing that they can't talk with people back home in realtime." What's worse is that although the premise of the show is "Lost in Space", the focus of the show ended up being "Meanwhile... on planet Earth".

It wasn't a bad show - I was hooked - but those stupid stones ended up being like that one idiot with a cell phone who talks loudly on it through your entire hiking trip.

I disagree. I cannot access my university sciency-journal database from work, but I recall documentation which says Q.E (or non-locality) can act thousands of times faster than the propagation of light. I'm sure wiki has links or some such thing.

Which, if correct, removes the 'punching a hole in time and space' requirement of a wormhole. And if it does, an arbitrary-sized wormhole (enough to send a signal through) might have arbitrary power requirements. As for real-time communication, if they were smart/had tools in the context of the narrative, they'd link the transmission system to the various computers on Earth and on the ship, or have someone ALWAYS switched.

Frankly, I was more disappointed with the lack of imagination for the ship; I'd envisioned things like inertia-less drives, nano-technology, neural-uplinks for the ship's systems, etc. Not the clunky click click consoles, obvious rocket engines, and primitive looking sets. The writers probably did what Galactica did and said 'We're REAL science-fiction, bullets and rockets and big clicky computers for real men!'. Blarg.

NuttierThanEver: GameSprocket: Phineas and Ferb used to inject a lot of Science, but I don't see it as much anymore.

Phineas: Buford's pulling us down.
Baljeet: How is that possible? He weighs no more down there than he did up here!
Ferb: It's probably best not to question.

Aren't you a little old to be making a Phineas and Ferb reference?

Yes, yes he is.

I read a lot of DR. Strange when I was younger, I would've thought a scientist would make a poor consultant for a movie about him.

Did they reboot the series or something, changing the entire character? I don't get it.

Also, if I were the consulting scientist on the Tron movie, I would've suggested they put motherfarking Tron in it for more than two minutes.

MusicMakeMyHeadPound: "Across vast differences", eh? Oh that's good.

I'm clearly too sober for this discussion about fiction :P

At work, can't hide the vodak; boss would quantum entangle me to his boot up my ass.

Fiction is best debated in a fictionally sober state of mind.

Jim_Callahan: doglover: Okay, now I REALLY don't know what you're smokin, but I want some. The "average man" knows there in, in ascending order of falsehood, lies, damn lies, and statistics. A real hero can pick the right one on instinct because most acts of heroism are just butt thundering stupidity with a side dish of luck. Also, who says maguffin? Prats. That's who.

To respond to the substance of the post: There's a refinement to the rule that says that a random one-in-a-million guess can get your protagonist into trouble, but not out of it. The fisherman can pull the djinn's bottle out of the sea at random, but he has to actually trick the djinn back in, the creature can't just randomly wander back in to pack his socks or something. Winning by guesswork is also legit if the guess is plausible: randomly guessing that the dog-loving dude used the name of his dog as a password is fine, randomly guessing a 16-digit password consisting of a string of random characters is not.

To respond to the "prat" comment: You're in a literature thread, dude, if "maguffin" is vocabulary that goes over your head then you're so far out of your depth in a literature discussion that it's not even funny.

ThreadSinger: doglover: ThreadSinger: /far too many debates over Avatar than I really want to get into

It would be quicker to argue was WASN'T absurd about Avatar. All I can come up with is "3D would be good for a Pern movie."

Ha! The spaceship at the beginning had heat radiators... I thought to myself 'This is a first! Someone got the idea you need to vent heat!'.. then the movie implodiated.

To be fair, it wasn't billed as hard science fiction. And the pirate/mercenary captain's character is one of my favorite swashbuckling villains ever, because he makes no excuses about just wanting to start a fight and he is pulled inevitably toward his role in the plot by the gravitational pull of his planet-sized balls. Witness:

-- Calmly manipulates data to get his way (start a fight with the ...

Yea, he was the best part of the movie. I nominate him as Captain Keyes in a Halo movie.

pute kisses like a man: science, eh? I got your science right here

[www.moviecritic.com.au image 640x360]

Oh, well played. Here's a coin. Heads or Tails?