Sci-Fi Movies and 'Bad Science'

Roland Piquepaille writes "Science fiction movies can be fun, and sometimes boring, when Hollywood producers want to show us a 2 1/2 hour film when 90 minutes would be enough. But what about the 'science' behind them? BBC News says it's pretty bad in 'When sci-fi forgets the science.' For example, the metamorphosis of Bruce Banner into The Hulk, based on work of marine biologist Greg Szulgit from Hiram College, Ohio, about sea cucumbers, is qualified by himself as "really awful"." The Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics website, which we've previously mentioned, is referenced in this article, and is now freshly updated to deal with movies like The Hulk.

Comments

Gee

[ElectricPoppy]

do you suppose that's why it's called science fiction??

Re:Gee

[ekarjala]

The story is the fiction, the science is what "should" make it seem feasible.

Re:Gee

[Eric Ass Raymond]

An excellent point.

I'm a professional scientist but I'm more pissed off by the "let's find a plot hole in a movie just to prove that I am smart"-people than the actual plot holes.

Hey, it's entertainment! Go with the flow!

Re:Gee

[harrkev]

Give me a break. As long as it is not TOO bad, you have to expect some of this type of stuff going on.

Star Trek: Alien species can communicate without even exchanging any sort of dictionary. All ships have exactly the same concept of "up" and "down." It is also assumed that there is an absolute time (even though it is not explicitly stated). The theory of relativity simply does not exist.

Star Wars: All ships have a maximum speed, which assumes a fixed frame of reference (motion is NOT relative). And I must admit that I like it this way. When playing Star Wars flight sims, if I had to deal with the "real" physics of acceleration (and near-limitless velocity), the game would not be as much fun to play.

And, of course, don't even get me started on X-men.

BUT (and this is the important part) -- I liked all of these movies (well, at least some in each series). The point of watching a movie is to have fun. If the movie has good plot and characters, that can make up for a LOT of bad science.

The truly sad thing is that I recognize bad science when I see it. The average American would not. I see this as not being a failing of Hollywood, but as a failing of the American educational system.

Re:Gee

[Daniel_Staal]

No. Science fiction is when the science works. At least in theory. It is the genre of the what could actually happen.

'The Hulk', and most 'Science Fiction' movies are in a different category altogether: Fantasy. That is the genre where anything is possible, no matter what. It is a total escape from reality.

I like both. But I don't confuse them.

Re:Gee

[dasmegabyte]

Here, here. I'm of the opinion that it's the Fictional Science which creates the enjoyment. It's all a matter of what-if.

Hulk is a perfect example. When he was created, everybody was scared of nuclear weapons, because they were powerful and mysterious. Marvel said, "What if a gamma bomb were able to create monsters and in doing so updates Jeckyll and Hyde?"

Good science? No. Of course not. Good science would have our man Banner dead from radiation sickness and buried in a lead lined coffin. The story is rather short and tragic. Now, with this fictional, impossible, fantastic science, Hulk is an interesting character and a symbol of inner conflict.

The "Science" in science fiction is crap because it makes the stories more interesting. Complaining that it's crap is missing the point entirely -- it's like complaining that conceits are unrealistic, something that Willy Shakespearre already touched on..."My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun," etc.

I do think there's a trade off, and the best science fiction adheres as closely to "real world" physics, chemistry and biology as it can. But you have to excuse where it steps off, or accept some VERY boring shit:

"Warp Factor 5, Mr. Sulu."

"Ahh, but captain, warp dynamics violate general relativity, and therefore are bad science. Besides which, it does not make sense that they are measured in factors when those factors have decimal values."

"I guess we'll just float around here for a while, then. Maybe I'll make out with a blonde crew member, being as there's apparently no sexual harrassment in space."

Re:Gee

[B'Trey]

Couldn't agree more. Just sent the following email to intuitor (author of the Hulk article linked above):

You closed your recent Hulk article by saying "We went to see the fantasy of a likeable nerdy guy reluctantly turn into an 8 foot high science project and educate the mindless, heartless cool guys who had ignorantly messed with him. What we got was a cross between King Cong and Godzilla. Not only did the moviemakers give us wrong physics, they gave us the wrong movie."

You couldn't be more wrong. I can only assume you're basing your expectations on the syndicated television show staring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno and that you're unfamiliar with the comic books themselves. I was profoundly disappointed in the movie. The plot was disjointed and weak. The dialog was inferior to that normally found in poorly dubbed martial arts movies. The only thing they got RIGHT was the size and strength (and color) of the character.

The Hulk is SUPPOSED to throw tanks around. He's SUPPOSED to leap thousands of feet through the air. He's SUPPOSED to have missiles bounce off his chest. Yes, the physics are all wrong. But like almost all comic books, The Hulk isn't science fiction. It's fantasy. And you might as well calculate the amount of energy it would take to turn a Hobbit invisible and complain that a tiny ring would be incapable of containing that much energy as complain about the strength or density of the Hulk.

Re:Gee

[calica]

I am probably going to have to help educate my children in math and science and check over the textbooks for errors (there was a /. story in the last 6 months about textbook errors).

Gee, teaching your kids something. Imagine that!!

The problem with education in the US isn't the schools. The problem is parents assuming the public schools will provide 100% of the education a child needs.

That is like assuming social security will provide for 100% of your retirement.

In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

[Le Marteau]

What gets me every time is when there is, say, an explosion (ala Star Wars) in space, and it goes "Boom!".

Obviously, without air, there would be no sound. I think it's much more dramatic to see the explosion without hearing the sound, like they did in 2001: A Space Oddessy, rather than the way they did it in Star Wars, which came across as rather cartoonish in comparison.

Re:In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact it is more dramatic. Firefly made good use of the silence of space on several occasions.

Conventions like woosh-n-boom-in-space aren't there for drama's sake; they're simply put in without a thought. The vastest majority of TV and movie makers are astonishingly uncreative hacks working from formulae they'd be terrified to change. Did you think the best and brightest of your society were all going to Hollywood to write and direct? People with creativity and clue have far better things to do...

Re:In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

[NudeZiggy]

Conventions like woosh-n-boom-in-space aren't there for drama's sake; they're simply put in without a thought.

bullshit. Most sound effects designers are Physics Majors anyways. Everyone (yes EVERYONE) watching a movie knows sound can't travel in a vacuum! All movie makers know it too, and they all admit it. The sound is for dramatic effect. I'm sorry, when I was 4 I woulda been bored to death with Star Wars if the Tie Fighters didnt have those cool metallic wines and the blasters have those blasty sounds. Hell, Asimov let it slide when he was consulting for the first Trek movie.

Personally, I like it a lot. Yeah, Kubric and Whedon, etc. use the true silence for the real dramatic effect, but movies would be boring if everyone did it. Besides, those sonic charges in Attack of the Clones had THE COOLEST SOUND EFFECTS. Everyone loved 'em.

If you want to argue what the sound is in Real Life, just imagine the viewer (yes, you) are viewing the action from outside, but you get the feeling you are in every space craft on screen, it's sensory immersion, the original point of it. Sonar doesn't really go "PING" (though some expensive medical equipment do). Before I knew it was silent in space, I didnt really give much thought to the sound effects in movies. Afterwards I passed it off as 3rd person omniscient experience (be it outside the craft hearing what's inside, or actually being in it, but seing it from outside....)

Besides, it's a FUCKING MOVIE get over it!

Thanks for listening.

Re:In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

[MrAndrews]

This is actually a really annoying thing to deal with as a producer. The concept of a ship making is something that sounds good (ahem) on paper, and even in some circumstances it has dramatic effect, but then when you get to the visuals of a dogfight (such as it is) in space, with lots of ships and lots of movement, the lack of some kind of whooshing sound makes it all seem very empty.

The alternative is to cut inside the ship to hear the sounds there (well, the sound of that ship itself), but eventually you need to go outside again, and once there, the silence almost seems like a statement rather than a fact. It's like the environment becoming a character by its absence.

So really, in some entertainment, it's either your scientific accuracy or your excitement level. Crappy tradeoff.

It's called "suspension of disbelief"

[Gudlyf]

Why can't people just take a movie for what it is? These aren't documentaries, you know.

I agree that some movies push it a bit too far, but did people really go into The Hulk expecting to come out saying, "holy crap, I want to go get induced with gamma rays now!"

Re:It's called "suspension of disbelief"

[Dr. Manhattan]

But these days it's very rare that any movie even tries to help you suspend that disbelief. Like "Signs". I doubt I'm spoiling anyone's fun at this point by revealing that the aliens are deathly vulnerable to water.

And they are invading a planet that's mostly covered in water.

Without wearing any protective gear.

Now, maybe if we were utterly desperate, we'd consider invading a planet mostly covered in hydrochloric acid. But if we were that desperate, we wouldn't just give up and go away as soon as the natives figured out that we didn't like the stuff. For us to consider such a planet, our survival would have to be at stake, and we'd probably fight to the last.

I know the whole movie is a setup for the payoff moment at the end, where Gibson's character rediscovers his faith. But I can think of ten different substances besides water that could be poisonous to the aliens and give the same payoff. E.g. chocolate, caffiene, alcohol, aspartame, non-dairy creamer, etc. etc. etc.

Re:It's called "suspension of disbelief"

[canadian_right]

I'm a secular humanist, and I was not offended by the depiction of religious faith in Signs. I find intolerance offensive no matter if the intolerant person shares my beliefs or not.

Not just limited to bad science.

[GreenCrackBaby]

Nothing wrecks a movie for me more than watching them talk about computers or doing stuff with computers that is so completely out to lunch that whatever illusion the movie has created so far is destroyed.

Then there's my wife, the genetics expert, for whom hollywood's attempts at describing that particular branch of science causes her to throw her popcorn in disgust.

I image that nearly everyone experiences this frustration with movies, regardless of their area of expertise though. I bet if my mom had watched american pie she would have said something along the lines of: "That's not how you bake a proper applie pie -- the crust should be darker!".

You shouldn't care...

[TexVex]

You shouldn't care...it's entertainment!

As a computer geek, I know how to program, use the internet, and assemble collections of OEM components into working computers. I wince every time I see some Hollywood version of these activities, because they are always utterly ridiculous! They aim for entertainment value rather than realism. The teeming masses don't know any better. And they don't want to. A movie is supposed to be entertaining rather than educational or thought-provoking.

I bet it's the same for every profession. I'm sure real firefighters look at firefighting scenes in movies and find a hundred little inaccuracies or unrealistic stretches. Lawyers must have retched at "Legally Blonde". Hell, I've been on a witness stand and your average real-life court case is about as exciting as boiling pasta, and lawyers don't holler "I object" every two minutes.

Everybody who really understands the basics of General Relativity and Special Relativity knows why FTL travel and "subspace" communication can't happen. Hell, Star Trek is internally inconsistent as well -- how do you fire a phaser out of your ship's warp field, across normal space, and into another ship's warp field when both ships are travelling at some multiple of the speed of light? But the average viewer doesn't give a flip about Relativity and has no desire to analyze the fictional science. They just care that Worf gets warm fuzzy feelings about pounding Borg ships with photon torpedoes.

Re:Oh please, people

[jtroutman]

No. Most emphatically, no. There are a lot of science fiction writers who manage to write books that are based in hard science. Writers like Niven, Brin, and Bear, not to mention many, many others, all write engaging stories using extrapolations of real science. What this website, and people who understand even the basics of science, are complaining about is blatently bad science. Ignoring things like basic laws of physics or biology.
You can stick within the guidlines established by reality and still have incredible stories. If you don't believe me, just look at the world around you. It follows these rules and is full of wonderous variety.

Bumblebee Movies At Risk?

[decipher_saint]

Does exclude our "aerodynamically impossible" flying insect friend from a career in the movies?

I mean seriously, if someone had said in the Middle Ages that there was to be no fiction to challenge or exaggerate current scientific knowledge think how boring literature and art would be. Flying machines were built by technical people who were inspired by science fiction of the day. Who knows, perhaps there is a flux capacitor or perpetual motion machine out there in someones imagination ;-)

Re:Reality Check

[pclminion]

Stop trying to find holes in science FICTION movies and just enjoy the movie.

The problem is, when you have a certain amount of knowledge in any particular field of science, you are simply forced to notice these inconsistencies. My personal field of interest is physics, so I immediately notice, and am terribly distracted by, physics blunders.

You read Slashdot, so I'll assume you have a fair degree of computer knowledge, or at least pretend to. Imagine watching a moviem, supposedly about some fantastic computer hackers, where in a certain scene the main character says: "I've installed a 2.4 gigahertz hard drive, and applied a firewall to the keyboard. Let's see them hack through that!"

If you're anything like me, the contents of your mouth, be it Coke, popcorn, or whatever, would immeditely be distributed across the heads of the five unfortunate people sitting in front of you.

It's not that I don't try to ignore the problems and simply enjoy the movie. The errors are simply so huge I just... can't.

Sort of goes hand in hand.

[FreeLinux]

People are now used to high drama, high action and MASSIVE special effects in their Sci-Fi diet. But a major part of the atraction of 2001 is its realism which many people find very boaring.

Have you every spent two or three hours watching Nasa TV when a soviet cargo ship docks with the ISS? Real life space activity is miserably slow, tedious, deliberate and boaring. 2001 played it like it was. The space scenes were slow, deliberate and tedious just like the real thing.

2001 cannot be compared to the new Star Wars films or DS9. 2001 was from a time when there was no CG effects. Special effects in general were new and most lacked any realism. But, 2001 made it work. It was believable and realistic and that is what makes people fans of 2001. If you must compare 2001 to something, try comparing it to the Star Trek TV series. Until 2001 was released, Start Trek and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea were the state of the are for Sci-Fi.

Now as for the Acid trip scenes in 2001, I can't explain that but,those scenes were fairly short. In real life there is no boom when something explodes in space and things happen very slowly or people float off into the void.

the midichlorians weren't stupid...

[The Lynxpro]

They were based upon the ancient Greek idea of mankind having "sparks" of the god(s) inside their very being; that everything the god(s) created had a piece of themselves inside as well. Or, for a more modern adaption, go for John Carpenter's "The Prince of Darkness." That film's premise advanced the idea that every thing in the universe had particles that were of God and also anti-God inside them; thus explaining how objects and people could be controlled by the paranormal... The reason why the Midichlorians "ruined" Star Wars is because it took away the moviegoers feelings that they too could be a Luke Skywalker, a hero transformed by his beliefs and his own inner strength. A whole generation of sci-fi moviegoers dreamed of becoming Jedi Knights only to find out that the universe made it impossible for an individual to become one from faith alone; that they only could touch the divine if they had enough microbes in their blood... The Matrix is terrible because if you've seen "Dark City" before, there's no point in seeing the film. Its just an algamation of the plot of "Dark City" (and with some of that movie's sets as well) mixed with the special effects from "Blade", the computer plot *adapted* from "The Deadly Assassin" episode from 70s Doctor Who, and a healthy batch of wire-fu. And for the third film, we have Mech-Warrior in it now as well...or maybe Robo-Jox. I know the only reason why I'll go see it is because Monica Bellucci appears in it...

Re:2001 -- totally overrated

[willtsmith]

This is the reason that studios add "bad science" to movies. 2001 was a true science fiction film.

Star Wars and Star Trek are NOT sci-fi. George Lucas himself described Star Wars as a "Space Western". Star Trek is more like space sociology. They explore current sociological issues through the lense of a more ideal social future. Every once in a while Star Trek episodes hit on a sci-fi topic, but that is rare. In fact the most sci-fi movie was Star Trek 1, which everybody thought was pretty boring.

The best science fiction of late was "Contact" starring Jody Foster. That movie was lambasted as being boring and plotless. When the "asteroid" concept hit hollywood, two movies were made. The action packed "Armageddon" starring Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck contrasted with the thought provoking "Deep Impact" starring Elijah Wood, Morgan Freeman (the first black portrayal of an American president) and Tea Leaoni. Armageddon was the more popular (and pretty stupid in my opinion). Deep Impact was very thought provoking and brilliant but took a deep second to the action flick.

The best blend I've seen lately is 'Minority Report', 'The Sixth Day' and 'The Matrix: Reloaded'. All present a sci-fi plot in an action mode with action stars.

The brilliance of Sci-Fi is that it challenges us to think. The plot is often incomprehensible without a little deep thinking. Thats what science fiction is for, to challenge us.

Many people won't get 2001, it requires thought and interpretation. A lot of people really liked Matrix: Reloaded, but ultimately didn't have a clue of the real meaning of the film beyond the fighting and chase scenes. Some people look for different things in movies. I enjoy a good think and enjoyed 2001. If you don't enjoy thought than the entire sci-fi genre probably isn't for you.

It's Science FICTION

[isa-kuruption]

That's right, everyone... by some weird cosmic coincidence, the stuff you see in Science FICTION movies is not real... and is, well at least in some cases, just plain impossible. Those of us who know better refer to this stuff as FICTION.

According to dictionary.com fiction is defined firstly as 'An imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented.'.

Ah hah! Imagine that! So in the world of science FICTION, they use imaginative creation to INVENT something that doesn't represent actuality. WOW! What a concept!

Look, if it was SCIENCE SCIENCE it just wouldnt be as fun to watch... if it was SCIENCE SCIENCE, it'd just be the Discovery Channel or TLS but costing you $8 per show (not to say these channels dont have anything of interest mind you).

The Hulk is a special case

[Our Man In Redmond]

In fact, pretty much any Marvel-influenced movie is a special case. I mean, c'mon, even when I was a kid I had some vague idea that people didn't really turn green and get musclebound when they got mad, or that Angel would have had to have had hollow bones and pectoral muscles roughly the size of a Buick to actually fly with those wings of his.

Science fiction is about the STORY, not about the effects. Sure, it's better if the science behind it is more solid, but the thing that makes science fiction good is the plot and characterization, not the science. Really, all the science is is a device to allow us to ask the basic question behind science fiction, "What if . . . "

If the story's enjoyable it's much easier to willingly suspend disbelief and let yourself think, for a few minutes at least, that a guy can shoot webs out of his wrists or death rays out of his eyeballs. We all (well, most of us) overlooked "made the Kessel run in twelve parsecs" and the explosions in space, because we thought the story behind Star Wars was so much fun. (On the other hand, if a movie otherwise stinks, the flashiest special effects aren't going to save it, and any recognizably bad science is just going to make such a movie more laughable.)

Said it best...

[geoswan]

I remember twenty years ago when Superman 3 was first released. dejanews is failing me. I remember the movie newsgroups being flooded with discussions of this film. Dejanews only found a handful of articles...

Anyhow, the movie newsgroups were flooded with many reviewers picking plot holes...

And I remember one wag posting something like this:

I have been reading all your critical comments on Superman 3 this last couple of weeks. And, after seeing it myself, I have got to agree -- this film was very unrealistic...

But I am going to disagree with you about what the most unrealistic element was. Some of you said it was a drunken Richard Pryor taking over the entire world using the computer literacy course he was taught in prison... Other of you said the most unrealistic element was ...

Well, so far as I am concerned, the most unrealistic thing about this film was the guy with the blue tights and the red cape.

Um

[autopr0n]

The people at area 51 had been working with a sample fighter for 50 years. They probably hacked out a cross-compiler in that time...

Hulk isn't Sci-Fi.

[Infirmo]

It is myth, with some sci-fi trappings. Star Wars is space opera. Matrix is myth and psychology. Star Trek isn't even sci fi, IMHO. It's space melodrama and morality play. Science fiction is different from these. It includes plausible extensions of technology and theoretical boundaries, and hopefully an interesting plot about people dealing with their changing world. Aliens is sci-fi, but only fails to be guilty of bad science because it doesn't bother to explain every detail. If they had tried to tell us why the Sulaco was able to make the journey to LV 426, it would have quickly gotten stupid. 2001 is sci-fi, as is A.I., as is Contact. Hulk is not sci-fi, although it does contain bad science. And yet it was a very good movie, I think.

Re:Let's Face It...

[MalachiConstant]

I think the Stupid Movie Physics site makes a good point about this:

There's an old axiom in fiction writing which says it's okay to ask a reader to believe the impossible but not the improbable. For example, it's okay to say that a maniac has activated an antimatter bomb in the wall safe, but it's not okay to say that someone miraculously guessed the right combination on the first try.

This makes sense. Obviously if I'm watching a movie about a robot that comes from the future I'm willing to suspend some disbelief and enjoy it. If the robot suddenly built a railgun out of common household products I would be annoyed at the impossibility of it.

When you go to a play you agree to believe that those people on stage are actually sitting around the dinner table talking or whatever and ignore that they're actors on a stage. You don't agree that they can hack into the FBI in 30 seconds. Suspension of disbelief doesn't mean you throw your brain out the window, it means that you are willing to accept certain basic fictions so the story can be told.