Science Fiction Flubs - Your Pet Peeves
July 20, 2010 - 11:14am
This is kind of an interesting article about how SciFi commonly makes mistakes about SciFacts.
But I'm kind of sad that it's largely focused on space, when there are soooooooooo many other Science FAILS in movies and popular culture.
I think I need to reflect a bit more to come up with my own, but 'Hollywood OS' (espeically "Hacking") is probably the one that always irks me the most.
I know we're supposed to suspend our disbelief, but it pulls us out of fantasy so fast, we can't help it! :P
July 24, 2010 - 3:43am
#2
Aw man, that movie was just a Die Hard film. I don't even know why you brought your brain! While the computer stuff was totally silly, it was fine since I just went to see McClane beat action movie tropes up.
Anyways, the article's pretty fun, though the comments posted by people seem significantly more enlightening, lol
July 24, 2010 - 8:29am
#3
I have trouble turning my brain off sometimes.
The hacking of the street lights really broke my suspension of disbelief for that movie, so I started noticing everything else that was wrong after that.
July 25, 2010 - 8:39am
#4
The one thing that article got wrong is that the gun battles in the Star Wars universe were done with blasters, not lasers. I'm going to say that blasters fire a pulse of good guy/bad guy coordinated colour at a dodgeable pace which eminates noise particles in all directions so you can hear them in space.
Debunk that!
July 25, 2010 - 3:41pm
#5
I'm not enough of a techincal geek to debunk all of this; but it's been suggested before that the whole 'sound in space' thing you get from the intersteller dogfighting could be explained (other than "IT'S A MOVIE") by having computers in the cockpit who either generate a fascimle of the sound efffect, or play prerecorded scripts when certain explosive or other situations are detected.
Kinda makes sense in a way; I know it throws ME off when I'm playing a game and there's no sound when I fire my gun.
August 9, 2010 - 11:25pm
#6
I have heard similar to that before. The "Lasers" and "Blasters" are really charged plasma or some other form of energy that'd do the same job. It's just easier to call them lasers than explain the workings of plasma.
August 10, 2010 - 9:05am
#7
"Frikkin' Blaster Beams" just doesn't have the same ring.
July 25, 2010 - 4:10pm
#8
The thing that always throws me off is noise in space. Noise and sounds themselves are not made up of particles but are resultant of pressure waves through a material (namely air) and the material particles colliding with each other and propagating the sound.With space being the vacuum that it is there are no particles and therefore no medium through which sound can move. Any mechanical noise caused by something on your own ship would still be heard through the pressurized cabin but you would hear nothing that is not physically attached.
The only thing I've seen this covered correctly (if I was paying attention at least) in was the show 'firefly' and the subsequent movie of the show 'serenity' I had to watch the end of the movie twice because the first time i was blathering about the sounds and my friends (who cared much less than I did) shouted me to silence.
July 26, 2010 - 10:16am
#9
If gravity is caused by an as-yet undiscovered graviton particle, sound is caused by an as-yet undiscovered sounditron particle.
July 26, 2010 - 7:11pm
#10
I need to write a story *just* to use the term 'sounditron particle' now...
August 1, 2010 - 12:14pm
#11
If the purpose of the story is to use the sounditron particle, I'm demanding co-author credit.
July 26, 2010 - 4:02pm
#12
That may just be vague enough for a government research grant! to the capitol!
August 1, 2010 - 3:36am
#13
My dad has a philosophy of "dont let the truth get in the way of a good story"
Still, scifi misnomers do still occur. I'm irritated about the whole Rail Gun thing commonly being referred to as using magnets to launch projectiles, while that's more likely a coil gun, rail guns use an electric charge.
August 10, 2010 - 8:56pm
#14
The article Jam notes mentions Star Trek, and that got me going on how quickly the Cheif Engineer solves whatever issue comes up in that episode. The guy literally drops some totally insane idea at a staff meeting about modding the only engine they have to get home, to screw with the frabric of space for a purpose that has no real impact on the overall mission. On top of that, he pulls it all off in a matter of minutes! think about this: Buddy rips an anti-matter / matter reactor apart, mods it to produce some form of energy that it didn't originally produce, distribute that energy through a system that wasn't designed to contain that energy, it works first time with no testing against a thing that has never been seen before, put it all back together and tweak it to put out 25% higher output then originally spec'd, and all in the space of minutes.
I wish I was that good, thermo would have been a breeze...
Now, I realize that I'm not as Truly Awesome as the Chief Engineer of the star ship "Enterprise" (I am, however, the Chief Engineer of the truck "Babe the Blue Ox") and it still took me 14 months to get the internal cumbustion engine to put out 27mpg from 25mpg.
August 30, 2010 - 11:16am
#15
Every problem in the Star Trek universe can be solved by modifying the deflector dish.
August 30, 2010 - 12:08pm
#16
And reversing polarity!
August 30, 2010 - 12:14pm
#17
That's so true, and it's something I haven't really reflected upon since I watched most of it as a starry-eyed kid. You gotta admit that engineers-as-heroes is kinda nice, though :)
August 15, 2010 - 8:25pm
#18
One thing that gets me is the totally clear computer screen. I can understand them in cars and planes to display speed and info but as a everyday computer monator it baffles me. It dosen't seem to be cost efficent, there is no privicy and I would figure that it would be a pain in the ass to read and work on one.
August 16, 2010 - 6:53am
#19
What gets me is when in the movie "The Core" they make a vehicle from "unobtainium". It makes me laugh everytime, and then put my palm to my forehead. The movie is terrible in all of its science, but that was just the cherry on top. I have a degree in Geology, so those parts always make me cringe and chuckle. But when they said that the vehicle was made out of a material that is too advanced, costly, or just impossible to make, it just kills me.
August 30, 2010 - 12:48pm
#20
They used the same material in Avatar! But they never explicitly stated what the material was supposed to be so great for... I thought it was a good nod :)
August 31, 2010 - 12:50pm
#21
I must admit, I did like that episode of Star Trek TNG where they had to solve the computer problems on the Enterprise by turning the ship off and on again and use the back ups - I mean that's actually quite realistic...
Pet peeve, starships moving like aircraft, yep, has to be said, can't stand that.
September 1, 2010 - 12:44pm
#22
I have a new pet peeve!
Stories masquerading as Sci Fi, when in the end they totally just trick you and say "ha ha it was a character story, we are not going to explain anything." like LOST
September 1, 2010 - 11:54pm
#23
Is it just me or are syringes in Sci Fi stories required to be in little injector guns? I'm afraid of needles as it is but putting one in a gun??? I'd rather be a red shirt.
September 3, 2010 - 6:29am
#24
Of course there wont be needles in the future... they're already developing pressure injectors, patches that can distrubte vaccines...
Yes, the computer hacking in movies always gets me, too. Especially the last Die Hard (Live Free or Die Hard, I think it was called).
We need to stop John McClane!
*tappity-tappity-tap" I HACKED THE STREET LIGHTS!
Me: Wat?
I also liked how all communications were down, except for OnStar and there was no waiting for it. If all the communications went down except for one service, that service would soon be jammed by idiots wanting to know what's going on and when they'll restore the phone service to everyone else and can I get you to call my Aunt in Poughkipsie? (trust me, I'm a soon to be former call center worker)
And sooo many other things about that movie.
Another common flub that I have noticed:
Space ships that have to constantly fire their engines to move. They have to fire the engines to accelerate, but once moving, there is no friction to stop them. I can give the benefit of the doubt to stuff like warp drives and hyperspace engines, but sublight engines like those on Star Destroyers in Star Wars don't need to be constantly lit.
Come to think of it, how do Star Destroyers stop? They have those giant engines on the back, but none on the front. I'm sure they have manuevering jets, but those would not be effective counters to the rear engines. Surely they don't have to pull a 180 and fire the engines again every time they need to stop. That's a major design flaw. Though, the Imperial Engineers weren't very good at catching those. Didn't they have CAD or DAD (Droid Aided Design) a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away?