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

2001 space odyssey

[FroMan]

There is a movie that was FAR too long. As far as the science behind it? My guess is there was more science in creating the drugs Stanley Kubrick was taking than the movie.

Re: Do not revise history

[Black Parrot]

> Hindsight is sharp, but do not forget the film came out in 1985. Giga- was not in common usage until after the first commercial 1-gig drive came out in 1995.

Millions and millions of people were exposed to it in highschool physics classes long before 1995.

> I recall actual discussion about the pronunciation -- is it a Jig-a byte, or, to avoid the potential negative racial connotations, a Gig-a byte.

No, it's a purely linguistic phenomenon. "Giga" is the classical Greek pronunciation, "Jiga" is how it would be pronounced if it were a native English word. The 'i' is the key, and it's the reason we pronounce "giant" the way we do too. (English "giant" is ultimately from the same Greek root too, which just means "big".)