# 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:** 4
**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, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/61 "2005-05-11T00:02:20Z")
Whups, my mistate, SGI. I always do that. But yes, it was recognizably unix. ---
**Author:** ![Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spatial_Rift_47)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/62 "2005-05-11T00:13:20Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What bothers me most about Star Trek is those drives that can move a spaceship around **without expelling any reaction mass.** It’s called non-Newtonian propulsion. Do we know how engineer such a device? Could I even begin to guess at the underlying principles? Of course not, and that’s the whole point. Science fiction, real honest-to-Zarquon science fiction, at its very best, is about addressing the ethical and social implications of hypothetical science and technology. It’s all a big giant what-if. Star Trek has many of these, and perhaps the biggest one is, “what if we had a ‘warp drive’?” If you want reality, don’t watch science fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Monstre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Monstre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstre)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/63 "2005-05-11T00:19:41Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > 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 I thought he was just saying there was no need for the Super Giant Death Beam. All the ship really had to do was… you know… land. _squish_ ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/64 "2005-05-11T00:26:45Z")
> [@Anne Neville](#): > > 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). I’m pretty sure the Sun is four light-minutes from the Earth. > [@Darwin's Finch](#): > > > [@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” I’ll have to take your word for it, then – I scrubbed all memory of that movie after having sat through it, keeping only the most annoying parts to remind me why I don’t want to see it again. …writing three million lines of code by himself, sheah right… > [@Darwin's Finch](#): > > Of course, Jurassic Park was laden with science blunders I always thought this was a potshot at JP’s dinotology: **Ponder:** “Stay still, sir! A lot of reptiles can’t see you if you don’t move!” **Ridcully:** “Can’t see things that don’t move? You mean we just have to wait for it to walk into a tree?” –Terry Pratchett, _The Last Continent_ > [@Tengu](#): > > Do you mean **Armageddon?** I don’t remember Deep Impact as clearly, but I don’t remember the plot being that completely identical. No, definitely **Deep Impact.** The two movies came out at around the same time, though, and had nearly identical plots, thus demonstrating that “creativity” in Hollywood means “intern who knows how to work copier.” > [@Case Sensitive](#): > > 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. You weren’t supposed to be looking at the planets in that movie. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Monstre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Monstre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstre)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/65 "2005-05-11T00:28:26Z")
> [@Fiver](#): > > _Mission to Mars_ showed a stream of Dr Pepper come out of the spacecraft and freeze into a long (tasty) rod of ice which then collided with something on the after part of the ship, causing catastrophic damage. I thought **Miller** was more specifically referring to the part where Tim Robbins, too far to retrieve with jetpacks and doomed to float in orbit, took off his spacesuit helmet to prevent wifey from coming after him, and he immediately turned into Captain Crusty-Head. > [@D\_Odds](#): > > like it’s funny watching Candid Gamera defend time travel in Superman: The Movie. Hey, at least he [didn’t ask this question](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=140878). (a little blast from the past…) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![AHarris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bcef8e/32.png) [@AHarris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHarris)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/66 "2005-05-11T00:52:01Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > 1.) Ships in SF movies almost never move as if they’re really spaceships in a vacuum. They glide and swoop as if they’re in an atmosphere. **2001** and **2010** got this right, and just about nobody else. (Some people claim the new **Battlestar Galactica** series does it right, but nmot from what Ive seen) I don’t find this one so bad. The ability to stop on a dime while in a vacuum might sound good, but I think that (i am not a physicist), properly implemented, swooping would be alot easier on contents of the spaceship when momentum is factored in. Sure you can go from 100 km/h ‘forward’ to 100 km/h ‘up’ very quickly, but either a) you would still be going 100 km/h ‘forward’ or b) if you managed to kill your ‘forward’ momentum in that time, the crew could hit the walls very hard. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/67 "2005-05-11T01:46:31Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > I’m pretty sure the Sun is four light-minutes from the Earth. Yep. You are correct. At least during those fortunately rare periods when the Earth is about 45M miles from the Sun. ---
**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/68 "2005-05-11T01:51:35Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > I’m pretty sure the Sun is four light-minutes from the Earth. I’m pretty sure you’re wrong 🙂 I groaned at the spaceships crashing in Starship Troopers, with these giant, slow-moving ships yards apart in space, moving as though on water. And when bits and pieces come off they immediately fall “down” in the same direction. ---
**Author:** ![Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spatial_Rift_47)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/69 "2005-05-11T02:04:34Z")
Well, let’s see. It takes about 8 and a half minutes for light to travel from the Sun to the Earth, and since a light-minute is the distance light travels in one minute … just a hunch, but I’d have to guess that the Earth is, oh I don’t know, eight light-minutes away from the sun. But, as I said, the people who made the missile in question have faster than light drives on their ships, so why can’t they have a faster than light drive on the missile too? > [@AHarris](#): > > Sure you can go from 100 km/h ‘forward’ to 100 km/h ‘up’ very quickly, but either a) you would still be going 100 km/h ‘forward’ or b) if you managed to kill your ‘forward’ momentum in that time, the crew could hit the walls very hard. This is why Star Trek has the convenient plot device called “inertial dampers.” See my above post on why this is not a stupid thing to have. My defense of Star Trek differs from **CandidGamera** ’s defense of Superman’s time travel in one very important way: I didn’t directly contradict any currently known laws of physics. The ships in Star Trek presumably draw on physics we don’t know about yet, because the postulate is that the warp drive in question works by warping the fabric of spacetime, thus changing the only rules we have about how spacetime works. We don’t know if that would work or not, but for Superman to do what **CG** says he did would contradict one of the fundamental conclusions of Special Relativity: That no observer in an inertial frame of reference (as Supes was before his little jaunt) can accelerate from a speed below c to a speed equal to or greater than c. Travelling faster than light is one thing. Doing so by the only method we know to be incontrovertibly impossible is quite another. ---
**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 11, 2005, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/70 "2005-05-11T02:08:12Z")
> [@Spatial Rift 47](#): > > This is why Star Trek has the convenient plot device called “inertial dampers.” See my above post on why this is not a stupid thing to have. In the Hyperion/Endymion saga, they had FTL ships, but no inertial dampers. It wasn’t pretty. (Un)luckily for them, they had the cruciform instead. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/71 "2005-05-11T02:18:49Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > You weren’t supposed to be looking at the planets in that movie. 😉 There were a couple of globes it was hard to take my eyes off. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_in\_second\_hand\_clothing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9d8465/32.png) [@wolf\_in\_second\_hand\_clothing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_in_second_hand_clothing)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/72 "2005-05-11T02:23:01Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > 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 It’s pretty much the method that the ship is staying in the air. It’s sure not using lift like an airplane, there are presumably no large propellers on top, and it’s probably not lighter than air. So if we assume it has some sort of system that repulses it off the ground… anything it flies over would be just as squashed as if it were physically on it. At least I think that’s what he was getting at. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/73 "2005-05-11T03:03:53Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What bothers me most about Star Trek is those drives that can move a spaceship around **without expelling any reaction mass.** Yeah, like you want to be you want to be tossing anti-matter out willy nilly. According to the ST Tech manual, the ship moves, at least at warp, by bending space around it(this is also the black box explantion for how they can exceed the speed of light). ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/74 "2005-05-11T03:13:24Z")
Stupid fingers. That should be “Like you want to be tossing out anti-matter willy Nilly” And it should be “Bending Space-Time” How? We don’t know. It’s a black box tech that achieved the desired effect for the premise of the show. Just like transporters and replicators and holodecks(though they abused they concept pretty badly). ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/75 "2005-05-11T03:22:22Z")
> [@Spatial Rift 47](#): > > My defense of Star Trek differs from **CandidGamera** ’s defense of Superman’s time travel in one very important way: I didn’t directly contradict any currently known laws of physics. The ships in Star Trek presumably draw on physics we don’t know about yet, because the postulate is that the warp drive in question works by warping the fabric of spacetime, thus changing the only rules we have about how spacetime works. We don’t know if that would work or not, but for Superman to do what **CG** says he did would contradict one of the fundamental conclusions of Special Relativity: That no observer in an inertial frame of reference (as Supes was before his little jaunt) can accelerate from a speed below c to a speed equal to or greater than c. Travelling faster than light is one thing. Doing so by the only method we know to be incontrovertibly impossible is quite another. (shakes head) So, you’re saying that a man who can fly by the force of will at near-luminal speeds is unbelievable once he achieves superluminal speeds? If it makes you feel better, pretend that once Supes makes it up to ~.99c(ish) he actually turns on the warp drive concealed in his sternum. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/76 "2005-05-11T06:57:16Z")
> [@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. According to an Uber Star War Geek friend of mine, the idea is… Ships in Star Wars make Hyperspace jumps. But not all the time… you’ve got to travel thorough normal space occasionally to get to Jump Points. Han is bragging that he has managed to cover the Kessel Run (smuggling spice) in more hyperspace than usual. Translation: I’m a shit-hot pilot and can plot Jump Points on the fly better than anyone else. ---
**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 11, 2005, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/77 "2005-05-11T13:13:46Z")
> [@Tristan](#): > > According to an Uber Star War Geek friend of mine, the idea is… > > Ships in Star Wars make Hyperspace jumps. But not all the time… you’ve got to travel thorough normal space occasionally to get to Jump Points. > > Han is bragging that he has managed to cover the Kessel Run (smuggling spice) in more hyperspace than usual. Translation: I’m a shit-hot pilot and can plot Jump Points on the fly better than anyone else. Your friend is an unabashed Lucas apologist. 😉 Maybe ask him why people a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away somehow mystically manage to use the parsec at all, which if I recall correctly, is a somewhat Earth-centric measurement… ---
**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 11, 2005, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/78 "2005-05-11T13:16:40Z")
> [@Spatial Rift 47](#): > > My defense of Star Trek differs from **CandidGamera** ’s defense of Superman’s time travel in one very important way: I didn’t directly contradict any currently known laws of physics. The ships in Star Trek presumably draw on physics we don’t know about yet, because the postulate is that the warp drive in question works by warping the fabric of spacetime, thus changing the only rules we have about how spacetime works. We don’t know if that would work or not, but for Superman to do what **CG** says he did would contradict one of the fundamental conclusions of Special Relativity: That no observer in an inertial frame of reference (as Supes was before his little jaunt) can accelerate from a speed below c to a speed equal to or greater than c. Travelling faster than light is one thing. Doing so by the only method we know to be incontrovertibly impossible is quite another. Nein. That’s not at all what I did. You said, in essence : “Superman’s turning the world backwards! That’s ridiculous! And how would that turn everything back in time!” All I did was pointed out you were confusing the cause with the effect, and the effect with the cause. Fundamental logical error. I even noted in a later post that I wasn’t going to debate the merits or flaws of Superman’s superluminal capability. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/79 "2005-05-11T14:12:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Maybe ask him why people a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away somehow mystically manage to use the parsec at all, which if I recall correctly, is a somewhat Earth-centric measurement… Well, if you’re going to complain about that, then aren’t you offended that they’re speaking English? I just figure ‘parsecs’ was a translation error from Early-Common-Imperiese to English and don’t worry about it (Or maybe it was that Han used the wrong word, as E-C-I isn’t his first language, having been raised speaking Lower Tatoinese?) ---
**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 11, 2005, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201/80 "2005-05-11T14:16:23Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Well, if you’re going to complain about that, then aren’t you offended that they’re speaking English? > > I just figure ‘parsecs’ was a translation error from Early-Common-Imperiese to English and don’t worry about it (Or maybe it was that Han used the wrong word, as E-C-I isn’t his first language, having been raised speaking Lower Tatoinese?) Because “lightyear” is a far more universal and appropriate measurement to use than “parsec” in this case, and it’s further evidence Lucas didn’t know what he was talking about, and just picked something that sounds cool. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-science-favourite-sf-movie-blunders/303201.md?page=5)