The Biology of B-Movie Monsters

Ant writes "The Biology of B-Movie Monsters is a published paper about the reality of movie-monster anatomy in 2003. In the paper, Michael C. LaBarbera explores the implications of extremely large and extremely small fantasy creatures, whose mass, volume and surface-area scale at different rates as they are shrunk/enlarged (e.g., ants can carry many times their body-weight, but if they were the size of tigers, they'd be crushed under their own carapaces). Other issues covered include the respiratory difficulties of Mothra, the biomechanics of Jurassic Park dinosaurs, and the reason E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial is so effing cute.."

Comments

Classic Hollywood

[Chaffar]

I don't think anyone expected Hollywood to actually WANT to have accurate physics in their movies, all that counts is "how cool" they look. It's not a bad thing, mind you. Who'd want to see a King Kong that would die 'cause his bones snapped from the shear weight of his body? Pretty cool read though... shocking to see an article that isn't split into 14 pages to cash in on advertisers.

Oh common. . .

[ookabooka]

I think its perfectly natural to forgive inaccuracies like that if you aren't familiar with the material. For instance, my mother is horrible with computers, she knows that they can't do half the things they do in the movies, but it doesn't really bother her. Now have her sit down and watch tv show House (She's a doctor) and she will fret the whole way through. What am I getting at? It's easy to look past the 1 or 2 facts you know about a subject and enjoy the fiction, but if you are an expert it's natural for your mind to dissect it.

So while I watch House and think "I doubt that that many people could get soo many rare diseases" she thinks "Those test results aren't indicitive of that, why don't they screen for this? That disease can't progress that quickly. That disease doesn't present symptoms like that at all! Doctors don't go to patients houses like that. " etc etc It's hard to shut that voice out.

Totally missing the point

[Per Abrahamsen]

The point of the article isn't to make fun of B-movies. The point is to teach science in an entertaining way.

Re:Cacoon

[asuffield]

Neither seem to posess the skill of suspension of disbelief, a prerequisite for watching a movie.

"Suspension of disbelief" is a skill exercised in creating a movie - specifically, it's the art of creating a movie that is unrealistic, but not so unrealistic that it triggers the "wait, this is a load of crap" instinct in the watchers. It's the difference between reasoned speculation and juvenile wish-fulfillment. It's the trick of creating a movie that "makes sense" even though it's fiction. It's okay to be unlikely but you have to avoid unreasonable or impossible or the intelligent parts of the audience are going to (rightly) say that your movie sucks.

It is, in absolutely no sense, the job of the watcher to make the movie not suck. The watcher is the customer. They are paying the maker to make a movie that doesn't suck. If you make a movie and expect the watcher to make it not suck, then you (the maker) need to pay them to watch it, because they're the one doing the work.

A movie that fails to entertain you is not your fault for being a bad watcher, it's a bad movie.

Movies get better

[suv4x4]

Very interesting article and I've learned a lot. Here's one more:

could an invisible man be a reality? Maybe, who knows, but one thing is certain: to be invisible, photons should pass straight through you, so you are in fact invisible. Your eyes won't be able to register anything and you'll be effectively completely blind.

So I guess that's the other side of the coin, noone can see you, but you can't see anything at all.

On the point whether we should "suspend our disbelief" when going to see movies: depends on the movie. For a fantasy movie with magicians, elfs, and trolls, suspending your disbelief is only natural.
But a "sci-fi" is called a "sci-fi" since it's based on a scientific probability. Of course most people do not specialize in biology and chemistry and all this and for them it's all the same.

But you can see for yourself how amazingly irritating it is for a Slashdotter to watch a movie with preposterous ideas about computer technology and Internet (err infinite detail raster photos and magic "password hacking" boxes anyone?).

However we gotta give it to Hollywood. I know it's modern to bash movies nowadays, but just compare the level of sophistication of modern sci-fi movies with what people were fed in the 50-s. It's definitely better, and definitely has more science put into it.
It's the only thing we can expect with an increasingly better informed and discriminating public as people are nowadays.

Re:Movies get better

[zero_offset]

Why would you assume things like bones, blood, and all the other tissues of the body could somehow be rendered completely transparent yet functional normally, but not the rods and cones in your eye? It's easy to dream up a lot of explanations if you're also willing to accept an absurdity such as invisibility: perhaps the rods and cones are so sparsely distributed that they are effectively invisible to nearby observers. Or perhaps the rods and cones only subtly deflect the incoming photons instead of absorbing them. Or maybe the invisibility process is so fabulously amazing that your rods and cones are altered to emit the same light they absorb.

In fact, I submit that since the rest of your head and the surrounding eye tissue is transparent, you could actually see in every direction at once, simultaneously.

How's that for a fucked up spin on human vision?

Re:he's missing something

[1u3hr]

Alien satisfies both mass audiences with requisite scares, but it also satisfies the scientifically-minded audience,

ORLY? How does the Alien grow from the tadpole that bursts out of the crewman's chest to the full-sized adult, without eating anyone or thing? (Apparently there was a cut scene showing the humans it had caught paralysed and used to incubate more Aliens (like wasps, etc) so it never eats anything at all -- unless it sneaked into the galley and microwaved a TV dinner.) And let's not even consider the economics of an interstellar freighter shipping ore; no ore is that valuable or rare. Yeah, a fun movie, many good things about it, but not at all scientific.

Re:Cacoon

[fatphil]

I'd like to agree with you, I dearly would. However, if movie makers simply kept to the believable, then none of them would ever make any movies. They have to aim a movie for the demographic sector which they believe will be forgiving of the unbelievable aspects - i.e. will suspend disbelief.

If you are not prepared to suspend disbelief because you insist that superman must obey the laws of conservation of energy and momentum, then it's not the film-makers fault - it's your fault for going to a movie where the lead character by design violates the laws of physics.

It doesn't always work that way - the 'everything blows up/bursts into flames' device is unbelievable to anyone with more than double-digit tally of axons, and yet trashy film-makers (yes, that means 99% of Holywood) insist on using it frequently - and indeed that _is_ bad film-making.

FatPhil

B-Movie What???

[Nom du Keyboard]

Who cares about the biology of B-Movie monsters? How about the biology of B-Movie Actresses instead? Brinke Stevens and Julie Strain are my favs, and they span the gamet between small and sexy to big and sexy.

I mean, think about it for a moment. What surface area do you really care about? The monster's hide, or the amount of boobage exposed? Does anybody really watch those movies for the monsters, or for the showers?

Re:Cacoon

[slackingme]

How the fuck is this insightful? I mean, really..

I know this anti-social attitude works /most/ of the time (armchair MDs, 'weapons experts', physicists.. generally good) but this whole post just.. doesn't work out. Or at least, the attack doesn't.

Who says he wasn't seeing the movie with WWII vets? Vietnam vets? Or perhaps they were just too young to HAVE fought in a military conflict, because, ya know, there just haven't been that many* (*USA-centric) as of late. 'til the recent warmongering of GWB II.

"unwilling or unfit", bah. I know this posting is mostly pointless in itself, and I only get to post twice a day, but I just had to say.. wow, you're an asshole. Take two steps back. Breath. Breath.

I certainly hope the mods get around to fixing the vile mistake that is the moderation on your post.

Ah, shit. Did I just bite? :(

Re:he's missing something

[Creedo]

In the Alan Dean Foster novelization, the alien tore open food packages that the crew used. So, it's not true that it didn't eat. Also, part of the point of having the cat onboard was vermin. I imagine that the alien fed on them as well.