So I was watching Good Will Hunting the other day on basic cable. Good movie; it’s about math and that’s always good. Except that I have to pick out every single mathematical inconsistency in the movie. I think that in the beginning, Lambeau talks about putting an advanced Fourier on the board for the kids to solve, yet when they zoom in on the problem, it’s actually really really basic problems from elementary graph theory and combinatorics. Ha! I pulled the most irrelevant and insignificant plot hole ever! That’s when I realized I was a geek.
Same with a Beautiful Mind. Everyone who watched that movie within earshot of me had to hear about how Nash’s analysis of the “dating game” in the beginning had barely much to do with him and the Equilibrium, and was instead shown by Tucker in his 1951 paper on the Prisoner’s Dilemma. I’m sure my friends were enthralled.
Or especially how in Spiderman 2, tritium was solid and crystalline at room temperature. Since when do elements mimic structures of ionic compounds? You know, completely ignoring that this guy got bitten by a mutant spider and now shoots webbing out of his wrists. Or about the guy with tentacles coming out of his back. No. I must pick out the inconsistencies related to hydrogen isotopes.
In Apollo 13, Jim Lovell’s daughter is throwing a tantrum because the Beatles broke up, and she is seen with a copy of the Let It Be LP…which wasn’t released until a month after the Apollo 13 flight. Oddly, this appears to have been caught and edited out for the DVD release, as there is only a fleeting, unrecognizeable glimpse of part of the album cover. I remember the album being clearly visible in the VHS version.
Can’t he be both, like the late Earl Warren?
Anyhoo, in WarGames, Matthew Broderick answers the telephone and hears a computer signal. He then hooks up his computer modem and panics when he realizes the incoming signal is from the WOPR war computer, which is trying to connect to him because it thinks he’s its original programmer and it wants to continue the “game” of setting off World War III.
Modems don’t work that way, though. They call and wait for the answering computer to send a signal before initiating two-way communications.
[sub]Glavin![/sub]
Alternately, during Patrick Stewart’s guest appearance on Saturday Night Live, they ran a sketch representing a Star Trek/Love Boat crossover. Bernie Kopell appeared as the ship’s doctor, complaining to the Geordi/Isaac bartender that the night before he’d had a date with a Cardassian, only to discover that the date was (gasp!) male.
Trouble is, in every appearance of a Cardassian character on the various Trek shows, there was never even the slightest effort made to blur the gender lines. Actors played male Cardassians; actresses played female Cardassians.
You just need to watch movies and TV with the right friends! On Friday nights when we don’t go out (which is more often than I would care to admit) my nerdy friends and I watch Numbers and discuss the correct and incorrect things on the show (and wonder why none of our professors were as hot as the math guy on the show, but that might not be your thing). Good times can be had by all.
Ever since ROTS came out, I’ve been watching the movies and playing the Lucasarts games. I just came off of playing X-wing(stopped when I blew up the death star. Eventually I’ll beat tours 4 and 5, but not now) and am now playing KOTOR.
Which is really exciting my uber-geek genes because I keep finding problems with both, like:
-Why doesn’t the Death Star just blow up the Planet Yavin isn’t of waiting for a clear shot at the moon?
-In the prequels, why can nobody ever sense that the force is strong with palapatine?
-In X-wing, why does it seem to take so long for some of the ships to go into hyperspace? And why is it so inconsistant between mission? Sometimes the ships can go into hyperspace seconds after finishing their objective, and other times it takes them a good 5 minutes or so.
X-wing has so many plotholes or techical problems that I’m not going to start listing them(unless someone wants me to). Though it is quite a good game.
-And why is Technology in Knights of the Old Republic almost the same as the SW tech 4000 years later?
And yes, I know the real answer to all of these, but I’m thinking in the context of the universe?
In Schindler’s List, when the Nazis give the kid a wire brush to remove lime deposits from the bathtub, then shoot him for failing. I’m only part German and I still know instinctively that he should have been given a bottle of vinegar.
From what I understand, technology in the SW universe is kinda sin-wave-ish and kind of static. Certain places/peopel go up and down, and the mojority of the universe during the reign of the Old Republic (which, if you remember, goes right up to the end of ROTS) is at a realtively static tech level. Probably because no one cares to go any further. Or maybe they are so far advanced that anything REALLY big takes so long to find out, that it takes too long, and in the end, the people who started are five generations dead and the current people really don’t know what/why they are researching.
It ain’t rocket science… lol. sorry… Wow, that’s pretty cool… there were the same sort of inconsistencies in The Saint- the weird Val Kilmer version. It’s still a good movie, but some of it is strange… though I can’t explain the scientific/elements part— it not even close to where it would be correct. I just know a bit about science. Always got A’s in school for that. Though, not math. hehe. It had something to do with nuclear fusion/fisson. (sp) please correct me, or elaborate.
(*the Numb3r’s remark was a tad cruel!.. lol)
I think some of these things aren’t plotholes, more like inconsistencies, as someoone pointed out. There’s a few in “Taking Lives” with Angelina Jolie.
In a few scenes, she’s wearing one dress, and when she turns around, or the next scene, it’s a different dress, though not enogh time has gone by to explain how or why she changed dresses!
In one movie, (Can’t remember the name) Ben Affleck is running around after a nuclear blast, or some other kind of gas is released, and he’s wearing a SWEATER, and jeans. There are guys in those hasmat suit, and they are dying, though our hero BEN is just covering his nose and mouth with his sleeve!!!
Did they not notice this in editing? What kind of air is in editing rooms, anyhow?!!! :smack:
The one math goof that always makes me cringe in movies is what the Scarecrow said after he got his “brain” (alright, it was only a diploma) from the wizard in the Wizard of Oz. He completely butchered the Pythagorean Theorem. When the geek in me points this out to anyone who’s watching the movie with me, all I get is a “So what?”. Oh well.
In Dolores Claiborne, there is a scene set on the evening before a solar eclipse which shows a full moon in the sky. Of course, that is the opposite of what you’d see - on the evening before a solar eclipse the moon is almost new, or very close to it. In either case, it would be virtually invisible.
I couldn’t enjoy the movie after that. What a geek!
In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy threatens the Nazi’s with a Panzershrek, which wasn’t invented until after WWII had started, and the Germans had seen how effective the US bazooka was.
My nit with “A Beautiful Mind”, IIRC correctly was that the position show on the Go board (for those who don’t know, Go is the game they were shown playing with white and black stones place on the intersections of lines on a board. A lot of math guys seem to like it) was such that one more move would have killed a big ol’ group and the outcome would have been totally different than what was portrayed in the movie. I do remember thinking that whomever set up the board didn’t know how to play the game. It’s either that or a move is played incorrectly on the board. All I know is I went “HEY! THAT’S WRONG!” and then my friends turned and looked at me like I was nuts.
I do remember that my Dad commented that something about the math not being right as well. He’s got a PHD. Next time I see him I’ll ask. I think he explained it to me but I just don’t know enough to get it.
I don’t even bother to think about all the computer plotholes/errors anymore. There are just too many of them. If I didn’t ingnore them I’d go nuts.
