# Movies with impeccable science/logic in them... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 5, 2004, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-impeccable-science-logic-in-them/263275 "2004-09-05T22:27:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**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:** [September 7, 2004, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-impeccable-science-logic-in-them/263275/21 "2004-09-07T06:22:29Z")
> [@SPOOFE](#): > > Because the Federation prefers aesthetic prettiness over utilitarian efficiency. I mean, look how poorly their ships are designed. Can’t argue that! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2004, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-impeccable-science-logic-in-them/263275/22 "2004-09-07T11:58:26Z")
I’m come to the conclusion sevice in Starfleet is used as a method of population control. I mean, why else would they store all of the high explosives in people’s workstations? My theory also explains why the ships are designed with the engines mounted on flimsy pylons that make attractive targets in battle. ---
**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:** [September 7, 2004, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-impeccable-science-logic-in-them/263275/23 "2004-09-07T11:59:18Z")
**Forbidden Planet** – This movie is good SF gold, and I think it’s grossly underappreciated (even though a lot of folks like it) 1.) The deceleration scene at the beginning – they never actually say they’re decelerating, but they keep talking about the “DC Point” , stowing breakable gear, and not wanting to “bounce through this one”. Then they step into some kind of stasis cham,bers that apparently keeps their internal organs from getting mashed into jelly when they suddely brake from lightspeed. None of this is explicitly explained, but you can figure it out. People who know will appreciate it; those that don’t will like looking at the pretty lights. 2.) A robot that obeys Asimov’s Three Laws (without violating copyright), and which has an emergency override. And the bit about “not harming rational beings” is used in a very clever way to drive home a plot point at the end. 3.) Trying to figure out why they couldn’t destroy the Monster – some people on this Board have taken issue with the amount of energy used (expressed in eV), but the close reasoning here puts this film light years ahead of other flicks with apparently invulnerable monsters. After all, there’s a reason for it here, and it leads to the film’s finale. There’s lots more, but Forbidden Planet is one of those very few SF films that doesn’t actually insult your intelligence. **Angry Red Planet** – a really bad film (Norman Maurer, son-in-law of Stooge Moe Howard, was one of the producers), but it has a moment of shining brilliance in it, which I’ve mentioned on this Board before – After the Good Guys have been attacked by the Giant Space Amoeba, they get rid of it by a method that is incredibly clever and, dammit, would probably work. It’s not some magical cure-all, or some random bit of luck, but a well thought-out bit of scientific problem solving. **Panic in the Year Zero** – Reaaallllly low budget SF film from circa 1960. Somebody (the Russkis, presumably) nuke L.A., and Ray Milland’s family has to cope with survival. How do you cross a highway full of refugees wh aren’t going to obey your handsignals? And other problems are answered. Not high tech, but believable. **The Day the Earth Stood Still** – The overall tone of this film and its writing are excellent. It’s hard to believe that a saucer on the Ellipse wouldn’t be watched 24/7 by the military (not to mention civilian onlookers), and that the whoile city wouldn’t be quarantined, but otherwise I love it. Sealing Gort in plastic, using diamonds as a unit of exchange, Klaatu’s shutting down power (selectively!) are really cute ideas. And I love Klaatu’s talking to Sam Jaffe’s ersatz Einstein about solving his diffie Q’s by using “variation of parameters”. I didn’t think screenwriters knew about math higher than multiplication. ---
**Author:** ![Blackclaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e68b1a/32.png) [@Blackclaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackclaw)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2004, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-impeccable-science-logic-in-them/263275/24 "2004-09-07T12:45:25Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > It’s not a movie (yet), but _Firefly_ had the most accurate science I’ve seen yet in a science fiction program. No sound in space, realistic depictions of being out in space suits (a villian is killed simply by unhooking his magnetic boots from a ship and letting him drift away, helpless), etc. The one thing they got wrong (putting a gun in a spacesuit so it would have air to fire) was a result of their actually trying to get it right - a technical advisor let them down when they asked what they needed to do to get a gun to fire in space. > > Another big detail they covered which you never see in other SF shows - ever notice how when the Enterprise meets up with another ship, it always seems to be in the same plane, and they are never rotating with respect to each other? In Firefly, that doesn’t always happen. Often a ship will appear and the Firefly will have to match rotation, or turn 90 degrees to meet it, or whatever. Although the gun would have fired without the spacesuit, wouldn’t it have failed to cycle properly? I recall something about “Vacuum welding” being mentioned in a “guns in space” thread a while back. ---
**Author:** ![williamweigand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b3f665/32.png) [@williamweigand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/williamweigand)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2004, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-impeccable-science-logic-in-them/263275/25 "2004-09-07T13:20:53Z")
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen **Quest For Fire** , but I remember as seeming more accurate in its depictions of early hominids than any other movie up to that point. In fact , for years I’ve considered _only_ **2001** and **Quest For Fire** as being “true” Science Fiction films.(I’ll admit - I haven’t yet seen a few of the previous films mentioned - but I’m looking forward to doing so.) ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2004, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-impeccable-science-logic-in-them/263275/26 "2004-09-07T14:10:18Z")
> [@Chad C. Mulligan](#): > > Actually, 2001 and 2010 both showed that they did not have artificial gravity. … And Tsiolkovsky also had a rotating section that provided artificial gravity. nitpick: That’s the _Leonov_. Unfortunately they didn’t do a good job with the interior shots - there are many scenes where characters are walking around normally on what should be a non-rotating part of the ship (e.g. the pod bays of both ships). _2010_ had very convincing orbital mechanics for a sci-fi movie. They made it clear that ships can enter a transfer orbit and coast to the destination, and that _stopping_ a spaceship is not a trivial task. The “we can’t head home before the launch window unless we get more fuel” argument was realistic, and their solution was believable. The only problem I have is the “the engine ignition timing must be accurate to 1/100 of a second” which seems a bit unrealistic, but at worst it’s an exaggeration, not an outright error. Incidentally, _Babylon 5_ copied the ship design from _2010_. The Omega-class destroyer is just an enlarged version of the Leonov. ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2004, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-impeccable-science-logic-in-them/263275/27 "2004-09-07T14:59:28Z")
_Destination Moon_ was a movie that put scientific realism above silly things like artistic merit, and it shows. It is a remarkable film, because there are very few details wrong. Definitely a must-see for Heinlein fans and Apollo buffs. ---
**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:** [September 7, 2004, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-impeccable-science-logic-in-them/263275/28 "2004-09-07T15:01:19Z")
Destination: Moon was filmed before the moon landing. Or before most of NASA existed. Watch it sometime. ---
**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:** [September 7, 2004, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-impeccable-science-logic-in-them/263275/29 "2004-09-07T15:07:39Z")
Ha! Figures Podykane’d beat me to that. Okay. Star Wars has a honorable mention, for realizing space isn’t all pretty, that even in a different galaxy, things get used. Dr. Strangelove, for the interior of a B-52. Fast and the Furious showed a lot of the real modifications to a car. They wound up looking stupid, but… lightening it by cutting out bits of the floor and replacing it with diamond plate… that sort of thing. The performance was a bit outre, but the vehicles were real. ---
**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:** [September 7, 2004, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-impeccable-science-logic-in-them/263275/30 "2004-09-07T15:33:00Z")
**Podkayne** sez: > [@](#): > > Destination Moon was a movie that put scientific realism above silly things like artistic merit, and it shows. It is a remarkable film, because there are very few details wrong. Definitely a must-see for Heinlein fans and Apollo buffs and likewise **E-Sabbath** : > [@](#): > > Destination: Moon was filmed before the moon landing. Or before most of NASA existed. Watch it sometime. Regarding DM – Heinlein wrote a piece about the struggle to write the screenplayt and get it accurate and – more important – to _keep_ it accurate, Well worth reading. It originally appeared in Astounding before the film came out. It’s been reprinted in **Focus on the Science Fiction Film** and in **Requiem** , and probably other places, too. For that matter, read Jerome Agle’s book **The Making of Kubrick’s 2001** and Arthur C. Clarke’s **The Lost Worlds of 2001** about trying to keep _that_ film accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Dancer\_Flight](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dancer_flight/32/7601_2.png) [@Dancer\_Flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dancer_Flight)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2004, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-impeccable-science-logic-in-them/263275/31 "2004-09-07T17:29:08Z")
> [@Blackclaw](#): > > Although the gun would have fired without the spacesuit, wouldn’t it have failed to cycle properly? I recall something about “Vacuum welding” being mentioned in a “guns in space” thread a while back. That was me, in that thread. Note that when a firearm is cleaned, the action is often lubricated which would prevent the contact of very clean surfaces required for vacuum welding. It shouldn’t be a problem and that original post was a little tongue in cheek. A friend of mine was doing an honours project in forensic sciences which involved trying to recover DNA from fingerprint on loaded and expended .45ACP cartridges. In order to completely isolate the casings from any other source of contamination, the gun had to be bleached and degreased. While it was a pain to get it to work, apparently it fired several times without incident and was restored to smooth operation after the experiment with a thorough cleaning/lubrication of the action. I would anticipate vacuum welding to be a problem only under similarly harsh treatment of the firearm (i.e. bleached and degreased). -DF [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-impeccable-science-logic-in-them/263275.md?page=1)