# Favorite "defy-physics" Movie/TV plot hole? (SPOILERS!) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 8, 2003, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893 "2003-05-08T13:45:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Rabid\_Squirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Rabid\_Squirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rabid_Squirrel)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/41 "2003-05-09T00:58:49Z")
Eech, SuperMan with their idea that one base pair corresponds for each characteristic of a spider. Star Trek Voyager: That episode where aliens were fiddling with their DNA, and they had bar codes on the little spheres representing the sugar molecules ANY show where they can blow up a digital picture x100 times and not get pixels the size of your fist through the wonders of the magical phrase “enhance”. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/42 "2003-05-09T01:30:32Z")
I second the opinion of Duke of Rat. The bus jump in SPEED just made me groan out loud. With no ramp that bus would have dropped like a brick the second the front wheels went over the edge, I don’t care how fast your going! Another groaner was mentioned by Cervaise. Bruce Willis catching himself by the fingertips after falling through an elevator shaft. I challenge anyone to grab hold of a ledge after falling even 8 feet. The latest groaner was XXX when he jumped the motorcycle, held on to the seat with one hand, and shot the bad guys with the other. I swear they put that in there to make you laugh out loud. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/43 "2003-05-09T01:32:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*[Fortunately, the USMC could.](http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1989/EGF.htm) \*\* Whoa, there, fella. As the son of an Annapolis grad I have to point out that’s a **Navy** vessel you’re talking about. I have a number of Marine friends so we always go back and forth about the “Navy as chauffeur” jokes… ---
**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 9, 2003, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/44 "2003-05-09T01:41:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tanstaafl \* > \*\*As for the Kessel run thing, I always thought the line was there to show that Han Solo didn’t really know what he was talking about. In other words, its a _deliberate_ mistake. Watch the scene again and you will see that Obi-Wan rolls his eyes when he says it. \*\* See, this is the sort of explanation that makes the mistake _worse_. I can handle that George Lucas, filmmaker, doesn’t know what a parsec is. Why should he? When’s the last time he was in a spaceship? It’s a minor screenwriting mistake that probably only bothers professional astronomers. On the other hand, the idea that Han Solo, professional spaceship captain, doesn’t know what a parsec is, is totally 'effing stupid. It turns Han from a dangerous and unscrupulous rogue to a buffoon all the other smugglers over at Jabba’s make fun of. “Hey, Han! We’re heading over to Tashi station. Why don’t you drive, so we get there in fifty miles instead of sixty! HAW HAW HAW!” And why on Earth (or the planet of your choice) would that be the pilot of Obi Wan decided to pick for the job? Say your moving, and you hire a guy to drive the moving van for you. If it comes out that the driver doesn’t know the difference between a mile and an hour, are you going to trust him to drive all your stuff to your new home? Of course not. You’d fire his ass, hire a guy who knows his job, and call all the mental insitutions in town to see if they’re missing anybody. Naw, I’m going with the “Han knows a good short-cut” explanation, and assume that Obi Wan was rolling his eyes because he’s thinking, “Yeah, I heard all about your spaceship during the last twenty years I spent _living in the desert._” Or possibly, “Christ, I thought I’d finished having to listen to punks like this brag about their swanky spaceships after I pushed Anakin into that volcano.” ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/45 "2003-05-09T02:55:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Marley23 \* > \*\*Everything in Independence Day. If the ships were as large as they were, the pressure would have totally flattened everything beneath them: they were utterly huge and extremely close. Oops. There are a lot of other major flaws [SNIP] \*\* [Things I Learned By Watching _Independence Day_](http://www.hit-n-run.com/cgi/read_review.cgi?review=23020_rogermw)😉 ---
**Author:** ![sciguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@sciguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciguy)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/46 "2003-05-09T06:52:30Z")
What about the big “Monster Dragster” in _The Fast and the Furious_? You know, that 900HP (or whatever) behemoth that can pop a wheelie without shredding it’s back tires to the axle? Oh, and I loved how in _Armaggedon_ they spun up Mir for gravity **before** the shuttles docked on the end of the rotating arms. Nasa definitely must’ve sent their best pilots! ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/47 "2003-05-09T12:41:26Z")
Not actually a physical-impossibility thing, but pretty darned annoying, since people are talking about the hovercraft thing in the latest Bond flick: The bad guy said his army was ready to invade using a fleet of hovercraft, which, we’ll assume for the sake of the storyline, were immune to mines somehow. Why, exactly, did they need to build the death ray to clear the mines? ---
**Author:** ![Sengkelat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Sengkelat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sengkelat)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/48 "2003-05-09T13:17:54Z")
In Mission to Mars, the scene where a female astronaut tries to rescue her stranded husband, who’s adrift in orbit. To travel towards him, her maneuvering thruster is continuously fired. Once it’s turned off, her forward motion stops. What, is the thick soup of the ether slowing her down? Haven’t you heard of momentum? Newton’s first law of motion? Oh, wait, we already established that they haven’t heard of Newton’s first law from the M&M rotating helix scene. (Ludovic, good one) To continue the Bond-bashing…actually, I generally don’t mind the over-the-top stunts in Bond movies, they’re silly but part of the idiom. However, there’s a particular scene that made me inwardly groan: In Tomorrow Never Dies, the bad guys have Brosnan and Yeoh cornered in an alley after chasing them with a helicopter. The evil bad guys decide to chop our heroes up with the helicopter’s rotors. To do this, they angle the helicopter forward to get the front of the rotors near the ground, and the hovering helicopter inches forwards… So, how exactly does a helicopter hover when its rotors are facing forwards, rather than up? I suppose it’s scarier for Bond if he’s not just threatened by bad guys, but by bad guys with a Magic Helicopter ™. ---
**Author:** ![Sengkelat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Sengkelat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sengkelat)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/49 "2003-05-09T13:26:42Z")
Oh, just a random thought on mines: There exist mines that aren’t particularly sensitive. The idea here is that you don’t want to waste a mine killing a person, you want to take out a tank. The mine won’t go off without a heck of a lot of weight on it. Often these mines are long, bar-shaped charges, designed to slice through a tank tread, thus immobilizing the tank. Oh, while I’m on mines, here’s another horrible physics problem from Behind Enemy Lines: Owen Wilson and the bad guys are in a mine field. The bad guy triggers a mine, and is pretty much vaporized. They have a slo-mo shot of the bad guy’s bent and twisted AK-47 falling to the ground. And then Owen Wilson sprints through the minefield, and they show him directly in the blast of various mines, but I guess because he’s running, they just somehow don’t affect him. (He’s not even running away from the mines, the blasts are hitting him from the sides) Of course, that movie had a lot worse problems than physics. Retch! ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/50 "2003-05-09T13:58:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by NutMagnet \* > \*\*Outrunning an explosion. Actually, this has been done to death for some time. This was the first time it really sank in. Maybe because it was so graphic. Then I began to remember other movies that did it. It’s a must-have now for all action movies. \*\* The all-time classic was Arnie outrunning a nuclear explosion in _Predator_. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/51 "2003-05-09T14:53:53Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. Mean aliens are willing to spend oodles of energy crossing interstellar space in a spaceship built out of neutron-star matter just to get at one planet’s oil and coal reserves. Dick Cheney must be their Vice President. ---
**Author:** ![Kilt-wearin\_man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kilt-wearin\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilt-wearin_man)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/52 "2003-05-09T16:26:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CalMeacham \* > \*\*If you’re gonna make up a unit of measurement, don’t give it a name that’s the same as a unit for something that really exists. Either that, or don’t use real units for your fictional system. Any way you look at it “Making a Kessel run is 12 parsecs” is dumb. It’s distracting to those of us who know and use parsecs. > > At least it’s not confined to Star Wars. In Battlestar Galactica they used “microns” as a unit of distance. Of course, "microns’ _is_ a unit of distance – it’s one millionth of a meter, or a thousandth of a millimeter. > So when Lorne Greene told us that the bad guys were “12 microns away”, you wanted to go into Maxwell Smart mode and say, “Missed it by _that_ much!” \*\* Funny, I seem to reacall “mircons” being a unit of time - “micron” = “second”, “centon” = “minute”… I could be remembering wrong…SciFi won’t show BG reruns anymore, they just show _Galactica 1980_, and it’s just unwatchable. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/53 "2003-05-09T16:39:41Z")
In defense of Arnold and _Predator/_: [ul][li]They never say that it’s a nuclear explosion[/li][li]Arnie has some time to run away before the blast[/li][li]He jumps into some kind of ditch or hole for cover[/ul][/li] Granted, it’s still pretty unlikely that he would survive, but it’s more forgivable than your normal outrun-the-explosion gimmick 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![NameAlreadyTaken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/97f17d/32.png) [@NameAlreadyTaken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NameAlreadyTaken)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/54 "2003-05-09T16:41:34Z")
FWIW, I agree with **Kilt-wearin’ man** on both the terminology and the fact that Galacta 1980 is unwatchable. I think the final point is that if your Sci-Fi people speak English (through some magical translator), then the terms should match unless you explicity explain why they don’t. If we can understand the rest of the language Han Solo uses, why throw in parsecs incorrectly? Or if Apollo and Starbuck can use bad puns that are translated into Earth English, why aren’t micron and centon translated into second and minute? All I ask for is some consistency! ---
**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 9, 2003, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/55 "2003-05-09T16:53:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kilt-wearin’ man \* > \*\*Funny, I seem to reacall “mircons” being a unit of time - “micron” = “second”, “centon” = “minute”… I could be remembering wrong…SciFi won’t show BG reruns anymore, they just show _Galactica 1980_, and it’s just unwatchable. \*\* micron also mikron (mì´kròn´) noun plural microns or micra (-kre) also mikrons or mikra (-kre) A unit of length equal to one millionth (10-6) of a meter. No longer in technical use. [Greek mikron, neuter of mikros, small.] The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution restricted in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved. ---
**Author:** ![NameAlreadyTaken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/97f17d/32.png) [@NameAlreadyTaken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NameAlreadyTaken)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/56 "2003-05-09T16:56:47Z")
Sorry **Jeff** , in case you missed it, in Battlestar Galactica, the term micron is misused to represent time rather than distance. That’s what we are whining… uh, complaining, about. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/57 "2003-05-09T17:46:08Z")
[Futurama] Calculon! A fight has broken out at the special-effects warehouse! Come quick before a fiery explosion chases someone down a hallway! [/Futurama] ---
**Author:** ![NameAlreadyTaken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/97f17d/32.png) [@NameAlreadyTaken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NameAlreadyTaken)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/58 "2003-05-09T17:55:46Z")
In [The Tick vs The Big Nothing](http://www.thetick.ws/car24.html): The Tick reaches into a black hole for the infinity ball saying… “Got to hold myself together. [Must. Defy. Laws. Of Physics.](http://members.tripod.com/~chaostheory/physics.wav)” ---
**Author:** ![elf6c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c57346/32.png) [@elf6c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elf6c)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/59 "2003-05-09T18:15:00Z")
Star Trek: transporters, shields, warp drive Action movies: slow moving fire balls. Cars always flip in a half-gainer, then explode in a fireball (which moves fast :rolleyes: ). Star Wars: just about all of it. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893/60 "2003-05-09T18:23:20Z")
How did I miss this thread before? Anyway, I give you the ridiculous physics defying movie to end all ridiculous physics defying movies: _Saturn 3_. Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett are being chased around their space station by Harvey Keitel’s evil robot. (don’t ask). How do they get rid of him, you ask? They remove some panels from the floor of the space station, cover the hole with a blanket, and the robot falls through to his doom. Then they embrace, happy to be rid of the menace that fell through the **hole** in the space station. (This movie is worth renting. You’ve got Kirk and Farrah in a space station that’s about five square miles, complete with a pool, racquetball court, a bar - yes, a bar - all for the two of them. Your tax dollars at work. You’ve got Farrah showing off the latest skimpy 1980 fashions. You’ve got Kirk Douglas’ old-man naked butt. And to top it all off, they decided to dub Harvery Keitel’s voice with some foppish British dandy, so every time he speaks it’s hi-fukcing-larious). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-defy-physics-movie-tv-plot-hole-spoilers/173893.md?page=4)