# "Hard" science movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 11, 2008, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010 "2008-03-11T20:09:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/21 "2008-03-12T05:51:57Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] That was the one I was going to mention. I was particularly impressed that to reprogram the board, they didn’t dial up something, but actually had to physically swap it. Very rare for movie makers to know that. Most of the hacks had actually been more or less done also. [/QUOTE] Most of the hacks are actually from famous (or infamous) hacks (practical jokes) done at Caltech or Harvey Mudd/Claremont. Of course, that still doesn’t explain why a couple of penniless undergrads (even really brilliant ones) had access to a Motorola brickphone in 1985, or how they’re able to talk their way onto an Air Force base and into a B-1 facility with obviously faked I.D.s. On the other hand, it had Jordan, who is the second most attractive geek girl ever. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/22 "2008-03-12T06:13:58Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] **[Star Cops](http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/starcops/)**, a British science fiction show where there was no artificial gravity, no FTL travel, no aliens, and when the spoke to the dead, it was because the people they were speaking to had their rockets go off accidentally so they were headed out toward space and couldn’t be rescued due to their trajectory (thus, it was only a matter of time). [/QUOTE] “Anna, if you tell me to bend like a willow I’m gonna throw up.” A very good show. Pity it had such a short run; nine episodes, I think. And in that time, it used the scientist-can’t-get-approval-to-test-his-invention-so-stages-accident-to-require-its-use more than once, didn’t it? > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > On the other hand, it had Jordan, who is the second most attractive geek girl ever. Can I take a guess at who’s number one?Trillian (Zooey Deschanel) from _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ Maybe not quite what the OP is asking, but there’s _Until the End of the World_; made in 1991 and set in 1999/2000. Unlike most movies set in the future (so to speak), the characters don’t act as if they’re awed by the technology. There’s a video phone in a train station, and it’s scratched and abused as any public phone would be. The vehicles on the road aren’t all visionary concept cars, there are some old beaters, too. _2001_ may be the pinnacle of “hard science” movies, but it misses some points in how people would live with that technology. The real world has scuffs and scratches. _2001_ looks like it takes place in a world where no one invented graffiti. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/23 "2008-03-12T06:54:00Z")
To do this sort of thread, you have to distinguish between two types of scientific unreality. The first is where the science is just wrong, for no other reason than the filmmaker - couldn’t be bothered, didn’t have the budget, or didn’t have a clue, or - is really just making an ordinary action/drama etc movie which happens to be set it in the future or in space, but doesn’t want to scare off the average punter by making them deal with how different things would be. For these reasons we get gratuitous inaccuracy, like sound travelling in a vacuum and fighter craft in space that manouevre like aeroplanes. This sort of stuff in my mind disqualifies a movie from being “hard” science fiction. However, there is another type of inaccuracy or implausibility and that is where it is part of the story that an aspect (or several aspects) of technology or reality are, in the story, different to what we know. This second sort of scientific unreality (as long as it is not otherwise accompanied by the first sort) is virtually the essence of hard SF. I think it was Asimov who said that you can write good hard SF that involves something impossible as long as you include a plausible line of scientific bull$%#$ explaining why this was permitted. In bad sci fi people travel in spaceships to a distant star in two weeks. In good SF they do the same thing but using a “hyperdrive”. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/24 "2008-03-12T10:12:06Z")
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir] _Serenity_ didn’t violate any of the laws of physics that I recall. [/QUOTE] Don’t they have artificial gravity and some sort of force fields? I think it’s also a little bit forgiving on the issues of drive systems and fuel supplies, but I’d concede that might just be ‘future technology’. ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/25 "2008-03-12T10:16:18Z")
[QUOTE=Giles] **The Dish** is based on real events, so it’s scientifically pretty good, even when the scientists miss the obvious – for example, they lose the calculated bearings of the Apollo space craft, and try to recalculate them, until one has a “doh!” moment, and just looks in the sky to see where the Moon is. [/QUOTE] You think that this **doesn’t** happen in real life??? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/26 "2008-03-12T11:33:00Z")
> [@](#): > > I wasn’t assuming he was. I’m not sure why you thought I was. What else can this possibly mean, then?: > [@](#): > > I think it’s possibe we’ll have such androids at some point, but speculation about them and what they would be like “as people” and so on seems very premature. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/27 "2008-03-12T13:33:34Z")
[QUOTE=Angua] You think that this **doesn’t** happen in real life??? 😉 [/QUOTE] No, I think it does happen in real life. That’s what makes **The Dish** so much fun: everything in it could have happened in real life, even though at least some was made up for the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/28 "2008-03-12T13:51:37Z")
[QUOTE=Robot Arm] … Can I take a guess at who’s number one?.. [/QUOTE] Well, this runs the risk of getting this thread seriously offtrack, but I would have guessed he meant (in no particular order) either Agent Scully from _The X Files_, Lt. Uhura from _Star Trek_, Counselor Troi from _ST:TNG_, River Tam from _Firefly/Serenity_, or Trinity from _The Matrix_. But that’s just me. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/29 "2008-03-12T14:21:08Z")
[QUOTE=Princhester] To do this sort of thread, you have to distinguish between two types of scientific unreality. The first is where the science is just wrong, for no other reason than the filmmaker - couldn’t be bothered, didn’t have the budget, or didn’t have a clue, or - is really just making an ordinary action/drama etc movie which happens to be set it in the future or in space, but doesn’t want to scare off the average punter by making them deal with how different things would be. For these reasons we get gratuitous inaccuracy, like sound travelling in a vacuum and fighter craft in space that manouevre like aeroplanes. This sort of stuff in my mind disqualifies a movie from being “hard” science fiction. [/QUOTE] Also, the more forgivable version of this is artistic license. You can’t hear radio transmissions either, but we often hear pilots chatter and probes beep in movies. We see the outer planets looking like they do in NASA photos, and not as gray or black bulks like they would to human eyes in those light conditions. That’s not bad science so much as it’s translating things humans can’t directly perceive or can’t perceive well into a form we can, to make the movie work better. You could even excuse the infamous spaceship “whoosh” this way; they do create shockwaves in the charged gas that fills the vacuum. And to our Earthbound perceptions, that creates the perception of fast movement, which is good moviemaking. ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/30 "2008-03-12T14:39:28Z")
[QUOTE=Giles] No, I think it does happen in real life. That’s what makes **The Dish** so much fun: everything in it could have happened in real life, even though at least some was made up for the movie. [/QUOTE] Just making sure. 😉 It was, to my mind, when I watched it (as a radio astronomer) really rather believeable (right down to the 'OMG! We’ve lost them :smack: ’ moment), moreso than say _Contact_ which royally did my head in on so many levels. (The book I can cope with, the film, not so much). I will also add that the whole “playing cricket on the radio dish” made me giggle too. Its perfectly possible, and knowing the Aussie/Aussie based astronomers that I do, entirely likely that they’d do something like that. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Slypork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@Slypork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slypork)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/31 "2008-03-12T16:02:13Z")
Thanks for the suggestions, folks. I’m looking for the scientifically accurate (as much as possible) movies. The idea of AI in _Blade runner_ being advanced enough for an android to contemplate its own mortality is within the realm of possibilities for future technology. Lasers zapping through space or spaceships maneuvering like F-16s violate the laws of physics within our known universe. I forgot about _Andromeda Strain_! And, yes, _Awakenings_ fits within my OP because it was accurate. Movies like _Independence Day_ though are right out. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/32 "2008-03-12T16:28:18Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] What else can this possibly mean, then?: [/QUOTE] I think that we know so little about what future androids will be like (whether their built in five years or five hundred) that any movie that portrays them in any detail–esp. Blade Runner style androids–counts as implausible. It’s _possible_ blade runner style robots will exist at some point in the future just like it’s _possible_ we’ll have FTL travel and time travel and teleportation at some point i the future–_possible_ but the mechanisms can not be understood at the present so any mechanisms presented in a movie count as implausible. -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/33 "2008-03-12T16:36:54Z")
[QUOTE=Frylock] I think that we know so little about what future androids will be like (whether their built in five years or five hundred) that any movie that portrays them in any detail–esp. Blade Runner style androids–counts as implausible. It’s _possible_ blade runner style robots will exist at some point in the future just like it’s _possible_ we’ll have FTL travel and time travel and teleportation at some point i the future–_possible_ but the mechanisms can not be understood at the present so any mechanisms presented in a movie count as implausible. [/QUOTE] As **Slypork** says; FTL, time travel, and teleportation require breaking or finding a way around known laws to be practical/possible. Androids don’t. It’s a near certainty that androids can be built; the existence of humans proves that nature allows the construction of human level creatures. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/34 "2008-03-12T16:52:35Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] As **Slypork** says; FTL, time travel, and teleportation require breaking or finding a way around known laws to be practical/possible. Androids don’t. It’s a near certainty that androids can be built; the existence of humans proves that nature allows the construction of human level creatures. [/QUOTE] Look, to be clear: I think there will be androids someday. I haven’t been trying to say we won’t. I don’t mean it’s implausible to think _there will be_ androids. Rather, what I think is that once you do much description, much more than saying simply “there are androids,” you stretch the bounds of plausibility, because you’re moving into the territory of pure unbounded speculation. _Who knows_ how androids would or could be built, or what they would or could be like? -FrL- ---
**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:** [March 12, 2008, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/35 "2008-03-12T17:04:36Z")
[QUOTE=Slypork] _2001_ – no zooming spaceships, docking shuttle matching the rotation of the space station. Well done. [/QUOTE] While it may have done well in the physics department, much of the allegorical ending had to do with evolution, in which it did not do so well. _Any_ reference to “the next step in evolution”, human or otherwise, is not scientifically accurate. Nor is any speculation about how humans might evolve in the future (without knowing the environmental conditions between now and “then”, such speculation is as scientifically accurate as is picking lottery numbers). Even if our evolution is being guided by aliens, one individual transcending this existence doesn’t equate to “evolution” in the sense the we know it. Soundless space is fine; “Star Babies” are crap. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/36 "2008-03-12T17:17:33Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] Andromeda Strain Alien Aliens [/QUOTE] As much as I hate to criticize… no way. The bacteria in _The Andromeda Strain_ and the aliens in, well, _Aliens_ were little short of magic plot devices. Not even close to hard sci-fi, but it was well-done enough that most people wouldn’t notice. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/37 "2008-03-12T17:18:30Z")
[QUOTE=Darwin’s Finch] While it may have done well in the physics department, much of the allegorical ending had to do with evolution, in which it did not do so well. _Any_ reference to “the next step in evolution”, human or otherwise, is not scientifically accurate. Nor is any speculation about how humans might evolve in the future (without knowing the environmental conditions between now and “then”, such speculation is as scientifically accurate as is picking lottery numbers). Even if our evolution is being guided by aliens, one individual transcending this existence doesn’t equate to “evolution” in the sense the we know it. Soundless space is fine; “Star Babies” are crap. [/QUOTE] [Arguably rude, as well.](http://davidszondy.com/future/Dystopias/starchild.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Slypork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@Slypork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slypork)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/38 "2008-03-12T17:37:58Z")
[QUOTE=Darwin’s Finch] While it may have done well in the physics department, much of the allegorical ending had to do with evolution, in which it did not do so well. _Any_ reference to “the next step in evolution”, human or otherwise, is not scientifically accurate. Nor is any speculation about how humans might evolve in the future (without knowing the environmental conditions between now and “then”, such speculation is as scientifically accurate as is picking lottery numbers). Even if our evolution is being guided by aliens, one individual transcending this existence doesn’t equate to “evolution” in the sense the we know it. Soundless space is fine; “Star Babies” are crap. [/QUOTE] No disagreement there. But without some of the stretching of imagination, you basically wind up with a future documentary. 😉 Some movies set in the future extrapolate from current technology and attempt to provide plausible scenarios and situations. For example, _Alien_ and _Aliens_ as well as _2001_ had people dealing with long space flights by being placed in hibernation, something that NASA and other organizations have explored. _Red Planet_ had a Mars lander use airbags just like the Pathfinder mission did (although I doubt astronauts would be thrilled about bouncing in a giant balloon) and also flexible thin screen displays which are just coming into development. Obviously science fiction movies will have to provide some “fantastic” ideas. Terminator robots with biological exteriors or machines composed of “liquid metal” that is self aware and capable of reconstituting itself? No way. Terminator robots made of strong alloys or swarms of nanobots functioning as a single unit and capable of reconstituting themselves? Feasible. ---
**Author:** ![Autumn\_Almanac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d26b3c/32.png) [@Autumn\_Almanac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autumn_Almanac)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/39 "2008-03-12T17:39:18Z")
Since _Serenity_ has been mentioned, what about the character of River Tam? After some kind of brainwashing procedure, she gains vaguely-implied telepathic abilities as well as melee combat and marksmanship skills that border on the supernatural. Does that qualify as bad/unrealistic science, or does it fall under “science so advanced it looks like magic”? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010/40 "2008-03-12T18:27:12Z")
The British/German series _Space Island 1_ is very much like a documentary about a super-ISS (spinning cartwheel type), with only one episode ever veering away from Hard Science IIRC (a “weird alien artifact from Mars” episode). Like\* Star Cops\*, it also had a “no hope of rescue talking with dead men” episode. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-science-movies/441010.md?page=3)