# Bad Science: Favourite SF Movie Blunders **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 10, 2005, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201 "2005-05-10T11:06:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/41 "2005-05-10T19:41:21Z")
Guess I should have scrolled down first. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/42 "2005-05-10T19:42:20Z")
> [@Lute Skywatcher](#): > > Actually, [it’s a Unix variant](http://www.sgi.com/fun/freeware/3d_navigator.html). I swear I’ve seen this link [before](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6143341&postcount=20). ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/43 "2005-05-10T19:42:58Z")
> [@Rufus Xavier](#): > > “She made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.” > > Of course, we can pretend this means something that might be plausible in the Star Wars universe, but we all know in our hearts that this is a screw up. I always interpreted this as Solo trying to sound impressive to the geezer and the farmboy, but Kenobi was giving him a “You really _are_ a clueless noob” :dubious: look in response. 😃 And while it’s not entirely a science blunder, **Deep Impact** really pissed me off for the sheer level of stupidity in the film. The rescue crew that’s supposed to blow up the asteroid demonstrates less planning than a pack of dead hyenas, but that’s okay, because the President of the United States is a brainless dolt[sup]\*[/sup], just like every other character in the movie. By the final reel, I was rooting for the asteroid to wipe out the planet and let it start a-new. [sup]\*[/sup] Insert your own political joke here. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/44 "2005-05-10T19:46:05Z")
> [@Robot Arm](#): > > No joke, I went to see this movie with a major computer geek friend of mine, and when they showed the computer screen he said “that’s Unix.” Two seconds later, the girl says “I know this, it’s Unix.” The interface doesn’t bug me half as much as the notion that a ten-year-old non-geek girl would be a UNIX guru. Nothing against geek girls, but the total lack of character development/background/exposition just turned her into a bad _deus ex machina_ in a training bra. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Lowry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/45 "2005-05-10T20:17:47Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Watch **2001** Dave Bowman, recall, goes from his space pod to vacuum in getting back aboard the _Discovery_. Notice how his blood didn’t freeze or boil, and he didn’t even lose consciousness. > This whole issue of humans-in-a-vacuum has been as recurring theme in Arthur C. Clarke’s work. He has people go out into vacuum without pressure suits in **The Other Side of the Sky** and **Earthlight** long before 2001. When the movie came out, he prepared an article to defend his stand that people don’ty come apart in vacuum. It’s reprinted in his collection **The view from Serendip** , and cites NASA studiers on monkeys to support his view. Later on, Clarke mentioned the idea in **The Fountains of Paradise**. In that, his most recent use of it AFAIK, he mentions the breaking of blood vessels near the surface and the time limitations. > But blowing people up is more dramatic, and Pierre Boulle (he of “Planet of the Apes”) has someone blow up in **Garden on the Moon**. So did Martin Caidin (Author of “Marooned”, and the book that sparked “The Six Million Dollar Man”, and who, with his test pilot background, oughtta know better) in **Four Came Back**. Thank you, that’s interesting. 2001 is one of those movies I have always meant to watch, and never have. I guess that is another reason to see it now. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/46 "2005-05-10T20:25:42Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#): > > **Spatial Rift 47** , it is funny watching you defend _Star Trek_. Just like it’s funny watching **Candid Gamera** defend time travel in _Superman: The Movie_. Hey, I’m not defending. If you want to point out it’s ridiculous for Superman to be able to move past lightspeed, go right ahead… I’m just explaining that it wasn’t quite what Spatial made it out to be. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/47 "2005-05-10T20:33:44Z")
Making fun of **Queen of Outer Space** is like shooting fish in a barrel, but I love the fact that Zsa Zsa Gabor is the only girl on Venus with a Hungarian accent. ---
**Author:** ![bclouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@bclouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bclouse)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/48 "2005-05-10T20:50:10Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > The Earth didn’t start spinning backwards, thus causing time to reverse. Superman exceeded lightspeed, travelling back through time, and the viewer’s perspective travelled with him - so as Superman returned to the previous time, we went along, watching the Earth’s rotation appear to reverse itself as a consequence, not the cause, of the time travel. WOW! ---
**Author:** ![bclouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@bclouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bclouse)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/49 "2005-05-10T20:53:48Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > The Earth didn’t start spinning backwards, thus causing time to reverse. Superman exceeded lightspeed, travelling back through time, and the viewer’s perspective travelled with him - so as Superman returned to the previous time, we went along, watching the Earth’s rotation appear to reverse itself as a consequence, not the cause, of the time travel. [What I was gonna write before my computer shorted out:] WOW! I never thought of it that way. Now, not only does it seem possible but, indeed, probable. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/50 "2005-05-10T20:54:40Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > Star Trek: Generations had an acme super sun-destroying missile. There were just so many things wrong with this Around the time I saw that movie, I calculated how fast the missile had to be going, assuming the planet was about 8 light-minutes from its star (distance from Earth to Sun). It was several times the speed of light. I was taking an astrophysics class, and the professor had us calculate how long it would take the sun to collapse if fusion was stopped, or if all the heat was magically absorbed from it. Time for sun to collapse if fusion stops: ~10^7 years Time for sun to collapse if all heat absorbed: ~30 minutes About sound in space: [the Bad Astronomer says that Star Trek originally had no sound in space](http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/enterprise.html), but the producers thought it seemed too weird without sound in space, so they had it put in. I have never seen another cite for this, though. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/51 "2005-05-10T20:57:52Z")
> [@Spatial Rift 47](#): > > That said, there are viable errors in some of the ways Star Trek does some things, like the way the starships bank and swoop. Yes, we all know that this is an error, but let’s just chalk it up to the helmsmen having a little fun, hmm? > > As for the ships all happening to be in the same plane, that’s bullshit. Obviously the ships, once they get within a certain distance, are going to adjust to put themselves in the same plane as the other ship. Same orientation? How do we know that’s actually the case? Maybe we’ve been looking at the Klingon Birds of Prey upside-down all these years. > > The one area where Star Trek does annoy me is all those two dimensional shockwaves. I mean, space has THREE zarqing directions, not two. What bothers me most about Star Trek is those drives that can move a spaceship around **without expelling any reaction mass.** ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/52 "2005-05-10T21:03:17Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > The interface doesn’t bug me half as much as the notion that a ten-year-old non-geek girl would be a UNIX guru. Nothing against geek girls, but the total lack of character development/background/exposition just turned her into a bad _deus ex machina_ in a training bra. To be fair, she _did_ have a line earlier about being a “hacker” (shortly after being sneezed on by the _Brachiosaurus_, and just as Grant was finding hatched _Velociraptor_ eggs). Of course, **Jurassic Park** was laden with science blunders, from the near-opening scenes of grad students _lightly brushing away sand from dinosaur bones_ (instead of chiseling them out of bedrock), to those same grad students laughing when Grant mentioned that birds descended from dinos, continuing with the idea that _T. rex_’s vision was based on movement (pulled completely out of Grant’s ass in the context of the movie, explained lamely within book), and, of course, topped off with the whole concept of cloning dinosaurs being completely unworkable in any present-day setting to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/53 "2005-05-10T21:09:35Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > And while it’s not entirely a science blunder, **Deep Impact** really pissed me off for the sheer level of stupidity in the film. The rescue crew that’s supposed to blow up the asteroid demonstrates less planning than a pack of dead hyenas, but that’s okay, because the President of the United States is a brainless dolt Do you mean Armageddon? I don’t remember Deep Impact as clearly, but I don’t remember the plot being that completely identical. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/54 "2005-05-10T21:15:21Z")
> [@Darwin's Finch](#): > > Of course, **Jurassic Park** was laden with science blunders, from the near-opening scenes of grad students _lightly brushing away sand from dinosaur bones_ (instead of chiseling them out of bedrock), to those same grad students laughing when Grant mentioned that birds descended from dinos, continuing with the idea that _T. rex_’s vision was based on movement (pulled completely out of Grant’s ass in the context of the movie, explained lamely within book), and, of course, topped off with the whole concept of cloning dinosaurs being completely unworkable in any present-day setting to begin with. At a panel discussion on dinosaurs at an SF convention, a paleontologist explained that the biggest scientific flaw in _Jurassic Park_ is its core premise: The proteins in blood are very hard to digest; therefore bloodsucking insects have special digestive juices that break them down immediately on consumption; therefore it would be impossible to extract a DNA sample of the blood-donor organism from a bloodsucking insect, whether it drew the blood one minute ago or 60 million years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/55 "2005-05-10T21:38:58Z")
I forgot _Timecop_, where the villains travel back in time to hijack a consignment of Civil War gold: it’s later determined that said gold is about 200 years older than it ought to be through, wait for it, _carbon dating_. On the subject of astronomy, the first _Tomb Raider_ movie has a classic: not only do the makers have no apparent idea of what a planetary conjunction actually is, when viewed through an optical telescope in someone’s bedroom, all the planets are clearly visible in a neat little cosmic line dance. Including Pluto. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/56 "2005-05-10T22:20:59Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Actually, I like the idea of shooting down massive ships that completely overshadow entire cities. the logical consequence is a _huge_ pile of rubble – crushed city plus cashed spaeship – where your city ought to be. But somehow they never show that. When the Area 51 ship was shot down, you’d think the impact of a ship that big would shake the ground a bit, too, considering it crashed a few hundred yards away. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/57 "2005-05-10T23:10:40Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > In _Independence Day_, the ships were so damned huge that gravity should have flattened everything underneath them. That would’ve reduced the drama a little bit… Umm…can you explain why? -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/58 "2005-05-10T23:20:08Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > Umm…can you explain why? > > -Joe Which part do you need explained? The gravity part, or the reduced drama part? ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/59 "2005-05-10T23:39:20Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Which part do you need explained? The gravity part, or the reduced drama part? The part where a giant flying saucer that flies through some (presumably near-magical) anti-gravity would crush a city by flying above it. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/60 "2005-05-11T00:00:54Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > I’ve always wondered what the reaction to the “I know this, it’s Unix” line would’ve been had it come from a 10 year old boy with plastic frame glasses. Something tells me it would’ve been ignored and not brought up as “ONE OF THE WORST SCIENCE MOMENTS OF ALL TIME!!!11!!1” It is a very, very, very, very obscure 3D window manager written by Sun. The chance of a 10 year old girl or boy ever having seen this are about one in eleventy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201.md?page=4)