No, it’s the point that films, especially about non-existent phenoma like, oh, say, time-travellers, are that thing called “fiction” - as in made up, fake, not to be considered real. The mistake here, as I see it, is confusing science* fiction* films made to (however ham-handedly) convey a “message” and taking liberties with films purporting to portray real science in a documentary or a biopic.
And that it’s a bit much to get one’s knickers in a twist over them.
Well, if you’re so indiscriminate that any pseudoscientific babbling or ridiculous explanation for impossible feats doesn’t bother you, I’m happy for you. This whole treating-critical-thought-as-a-character-flaw, though, is something what you ought to work on.
Was there any other way to do it? I mean, if they were going to do it at all.
Besides, they had already handwaved the opacity problem with that sees-through-rocks machine . . .
What’s especially irritating is when the movie makes no attempt at all to include some real science when it would not have been much work or mangled the plot to do so. What do I like? Consider Spiderman 2. Wicked strong genetic freak stops train with strength and bodily fluids? Well…okay. But it has to take him 2 tries: the first one fails because the buildings his web attach to fail, so he has to spread out the load with multiple webs. That’s a stress loading issue. Okay, then. That’ll do.
OK, but why did Doctor Octopus have to link his AI directly to his own brain in order to use it to control the waldoes?! And why did a supergenius like he never think to include a cutout or an off switch?!
If we’re talking about getting the science wrong in Spiderman 2, how could Doc Oc’s fusion reactor get out of control? The original fuel source is deuterium, but nothing is added to the system once it gets started except chunks of iron pulled in by the magnetic fields generated by the mini-sun. But iron won’t fuse under any P/T conditions…
Not to mention that when you toss a miniature sun underwater, you don’t get so much as a little puff of steam. I’m still trying to figure that one out.
Sure, it would have been difficult to portray the passage of the vessel if they had accurately portrayed magma as opaque, but it’s hardly satisfying when such a significant circumvention has to be used just to make the movie possible.
Yeah, but the footage of the ship travelling through magma was presented as purely visible, not by magic sees-through-rocks machine.
I love that movie. It’s the best surrealist comedy of the decade. Every possible cliche of cheap drama and bad science that throws in even cheaper jokes to add humor to a project that in no way possible could be taken seriously to begin with. The absolute best part is that it now stars a TWO-TIME Oscar winner. How sweet is that!
“Bob?!?!”
There was NEVER such a thing as a Starship Troopers movie.
Never.
I’m still trying to figure out what post #27 is rambling on about.
Geez – I take it as a given that just about every movie is going to get their science wrong, and screw up on basic things like common sense and logic. It’s why I celebrate every good or even half-good science fiction movie.
You think these current examples are bad? Go back to the 1950s cheapies for leaps of illogic and plots that required a derrick to support the Suspension of Disbelief. As a kid, I learned to use a sort of doublethink – movies required one set of rules, where dinosaurs and cavemen could co-exist, the laws of physics didn’t apply, and reptiles tricked out with rubber fins looked like real dinosaurs. The Real World had its own set of rules.
My all-time favorite was The Cape Canaveral Monsters, where the captured teenagers manage to blow up the stronghold of the aliens plotting against our space base by building a hydrogen bomb out of the plastic belts. No kidding.
In Independence Day, they upload a computer virus from an Apple laptop to the alien mothership. Apparently the aliens use Apples, too.
I dunno; willing suspension of disbelief is easy with some movies, impossible with others; I think for me, it hinges upon whether or not the plot is reliant upon the crappy science - Starship Troopers - although it may be a terrible desecration of the book - is a lightweight war/action movie with tolerable pace; it’s riddled with stupid science, but none of it (that I can think of) forms an absolutely essential part of the story - you could repplace the giant bugs with some other enemy; you could replace the bug meteors with some other terrible weapon of mass destruction - replace the micro nukes with some other kind of bomb - and so on - and you would still have essentially the same movie.
The Core, OTOH, is just propped up and totally reliant upon stupid science just to make the damn thing work - the movie is just one long stream of deux ex machinae. It doesn’t even try to engage me enough to let me overlook them.
I don’t disagree with your point, but the pedant in me wants to point out that you’ve just said “Two from the Machines”.
Oops.
sometimes, one god is not enough.
I assume you meant this for Walter, since he seems to be the one having trouble with the concept.
Still not getting the concept of “Internal Logic?” Try this: consider that the most unscientific thing about Star Trek is the propusion system, yet no one complains about it. Gene Rodenberry says, “There’s this stuff called dilithium, and it makes enough power to fuel a faster-than-light spaceship (by doing something that wouldn’t really allow you to go faster than light).” The audience says, “If you say so,” because it’s a pretty boring show if they’re just tooling around the solar system. That’s not what the OP is talking about.
Dude, what do you think the “U” in USB stands for? :smack: