# Sci-fi/action movie tech that is worse than our current tech--and STUPID! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 18, 2017, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293 "2017-06-18T15:29:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2017, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/161 "2017-06-25T20:05:54Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Couldn’t they have taken something like an Archimedian screw and produced a kind of steam turbine engine?\* 😕 A turbine requires precision balancing and fitment machining, it also requires precision bearings. Things they did not have the capacity to do. They would have more realistic potential to pull off a crude piston steam engine, but to get something strong light and efficient they would need to acquire the ability to work cast iron with a degree of precision i think. > [@](#): > > The important thing is that Hero, like Savery 1700 years later, realized steam can exert pressure. True, but realizing something with no incentive to make it a functional work device, doesn’t lead anyplace. They had no incentive i guess to invent a steam tractor or water pump etc. > [@](#): > > Of course, they then would have had to solve the problem of supplying a steady stream of fuel in order to produce a useful device. > > Oil? Coal? Wood? Charcoal? Cow patties? :dubious: I have a feeling lack of things to burn would be the least of their issues > [@](#): > > For that matter, couldn’t they have applied Archimedian screws in reverse to produce water-powered turbine engines? 😕 The screw works good for low speed lifting, i dont think though that it works well for power generation? I dont think you can force the screw nearly as easy as the screw can lift? ---
**Author:** ![BuckChongo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@BuckChongo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BuckChongo)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/162 "2017-06-26T00:22:31Z")
If you have the tech to travel faster than light all the other tech they show is laughably outdated. But what really bothers me is flashlights. No matter what future century it is if somebody is in the dark they use a handheld flashlight. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/163 "2017-06-26T03:20:40Z")
> [@Weisshund](#): > > The screw works good for low speed lifting, i dont think though that it works well for power generation? I dont think you can force the screw nearly as easy as the screw can lift? Once you know the general principles, it becomes a matter of finding engineering solutions and developing the technology. I guess they simply had no incentive for doing so. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/164 "2017-06-26T03:29:43Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Just a quick note about that alleged bug-hurled asteroid in SST: I thought that was clearly a fake pretext so as to start the war in the first place-yes, human military leadership would knowingly hurl disaster at their own people to spark a conflict against a distant species which had in fact zero blame. Open to a cite proving me wrong tho. Within the context of the movie _Starship Troopers_, I would think it entirely plausible, but I can’t prove it one way or another short of a definitive statement from Paul Verhoeven, because the movie doesn’t say one way or another. But the novel? Doubtful. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/165 "2017-06-26T03:32:55Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **terentii** : > > Once you know the general principles, it becomes a matter of finding engineering solutions and developing the technology. I guess they simply had no incentive for doing so. Of course they did, which is why it only took them a few thousand years to work out the technology and engineering. If they didn’t have the incentive, we’d still be using slaves and mules today. ---
**Author:** ![TYphoonSignal8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@TYphoonSignal8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TYphoonSignal8)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/166 "2017-06-26T08:29:18Z")
People always get angry with me in this forum whenever I scoff at the slow-moving swords which by reason of their reduced velocity bypass shields, as depicted in \*Dune. \* So I won’t mention it. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/167 "2017-06-26T09:14:43Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Am I wrong in having my doubts as to the actual sophistication of the (reconstruction of the) Antikythera mechanism? Scientific American had a lovely article on how astonishingly advanced and complex it all was, but I can’t tell how much of that is speculation, and how much is solidly evidence-based. I’m skeptical…but am I wrong for that? I had a look at the original a couple of months ago, in the museum in Athens; it is very complicated, and helpfully covered in etched instructions (most of which haven’t survived). The mechanism is basically a set of gears that you move by hand, to replicate the epicyclic theory of the movement of planets and the Moon. The theories of the astronomer Hipparchus in particular seem to have been replicated in solid form. It seems to indicate the dates for the games festivals as well, which is nice. Note that the answers it gives aren’t very accurate (Mars is out by up to 38° on occasion), but it seems to be a fantastic attempt to turn the very complicated cosmology of the time into something you could manipulate physically for a range of dates. I don’t know if there were many other devices of similar type at that time- Hipparchus is known to have used a range of astrolabes and equatorial rings, but there are no other geared devices from this era as far as I know. ---
**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:** [June 26, 2017, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/168 "2017-06-26T10:34:52Z")
> [@TYphoonSignal8](#): > > People always get angry with me in this forum whenever I scoff at the slow-moving swords which by reason of their reduced velocity bypass shields, as depicted in \*Dune. \* Meh. Once you have force shields, making them dilatant doesn’t break my credulity threshold. If that kind of thing works for [fluids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D3o) in real life, it’s not that weird for sci-fi fields ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/169 "2017-06-26T14:26:00Z")
> [@ExTank](#): > > Within the context of the movie _Starship Troopers_, I would think it entirely plausible, but I can’t prove it one way or another short of a definitive statement from Paul Verhoeven, because the movie doesn’t say one way or another. But the novel? Doubtful. I certainly wouldn’t put it past the government in the ST novel. The government makes a big deal about how it’s impossible to talk to the bugs, so this has to be total war, there’s no choice and we have to make sacrifices. But the Skinnies are allied with the bugs at first, then become allied with the Federation partway through the book, and the ‘no communication’ line never wavers. Couldn’t they just communicate with the bugs by talking to the Skinnies, and having the Skinnies relay the message to the bugs? I definitely get the impression that the Federation started the war in ST and are trying to perpetuate it for their own reasons. I never really bought the ‘oh they’re such a good and kind and just’ government line after the when they had their official spokesman say that the idea of a handicapped person wanting to vote was “silly”. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/170 "2017-06-26T14:56:28Z")
I don’t remember anything about communication being impossible in the book. Are you sure you’re not mixing it up with _Ender’s Game_? ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/171 "2017-06-26T15:06:43Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > • I was watching one of the dumbest movies ever made last night, [Aeon Flux](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402022/), and this movie featured a trope that has to be in [tvtropes.org](http://tvtropes.org) somewhere: retarded defenses that the characters need to breach. Aeon and her partner have to run through this deadly garden in order to get to this government building, and they are being shot at by these weird gourds with darts in them, and the normal-looking grass can turn into sharp spikes. And they make it through and just walk through these openings in the building. Huh? All of this could have been prevented with, you know, an electrified fence or something. And there is no one to go after them in the building (or outside, for that matter), since no one was alerted via motion detectors, cameras, etc. I can’t find anything specific, but I’d say it was an over application of [Rule of Cool](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool) generously leavened with [[URL=“http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotArmor”]Plot Armor](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotArmor). The general idea is brilliantly lampshaded on [_Galaxy Quest_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqRdT8m1Suo). ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/172 "2017-06-26T19:01:51Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Except that was back in 1987, when I had an Apple //e on my desk. > > So complaining that they suck worse than an iPad misses the point. There was no such equivalent device in 1987 that was better. And yeah, back in the old days nobody, especially Hollywood TV guys, expected being able to store terabytes of information in a thumbnail. Let alone ubiquitous wireless data transfer. > > So it the answer is that it just wasn’t on the radar at all. We were barely out of “Computers are giant things that take up whole rooms and are ministered to by a special cult of priest-technicians.” I do not think that is correct. Moore’s law was put forth on the mid '60s. My HS math teacher told me in 1975 that we would have full-fledged computers the size of calculators in a quarter of a century, and when you look at the potential capabilities of the Apple Newton, he was very close to the mark. As for Hollywood, there was a very popular movie in about 1967 where Heywood Floyd was reading a news tablet – apparently wireless – on the moon shuttle. The biggest problem with tech is that everyone seems to be on a different page. Where will we be in 20 years? Will we have started to see some negative effects on humanity due to pervasive technology (cf., _Dune_, where they have mentats because computers are outlawed)? Or will there be a resources crash that stymies technical progress? Or some other unimaginable combination of factors? It is pretty difficult to guess what to expect. Apocalypse are handy for dealing with that. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2017, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/173 "2017-06-27T10:19:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t remember anything about communication being impossible in the book. Are you sure you’re not mixing it up with _Ender’s Game_? No, I remember noticing it when I read ST originally, which was something like 15 years before I read Ender’s Game. It’s not like getting something mixed up in the book is unusual, Heinlein later claimed that something like 95% of federal service was boring government jobs (not military at all), but what he wrote in the novel doesn’t support that, and in fact implies the opposite. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2017, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/174 "2017-06-27T10:47:46Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > No, I remember noticing it when I read ST originally, which was something like 15 years before I read Ender’s Game. It’s not like getting something mixed up in the book is unusual, Heinlein later claimed that something like 95% of federal service was boring government jobs (not military at all), but what he wrote in the novel doesn’t support that, and in fact implies the opposite. I just finished up reading ST myself—the most I recall on that front is that 1) Most of the really specialized support/logistical work done in the military/Mobile Infantry was done by the civil service (or civilian contractors, IIRC) when possible, and 2) the Mobile Infantry itself, by the numbers, was actually relatively small in numbers, especially considering that they recruited from at least all of Earth. Plus, with the focus of the story primarily not taking place in “The World,” almost by definition we don’t get to see all the boring or civilian-oriented government jobs. And, actually, as at least one planet was mentioned as being the subject of a terraforming project—Venus, at that—it’s conceivable that the labor needs of megaprojects _alone_ might skew the proportion of services away from military roles. (_Starship Dirt-Farmer_ probably isn’t going to get a Verhoeven adaptation anytime soon, though.) ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2017, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/175 "2017-06-27T11:42:35Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > I just finished up reading ST myself—the most I recall on that front is that 1) Most of the really specialized support/logistical work done in the military/Mobile Infantry was done by the civil service (or civilian contractors, IIRC) when possible, and 2) the Mobile Infantry itself, by the numbers, was actually relatively small in numbers, especially considering that they recruited from at least all of Earth. “So why don’t you boys go home, go to college, and then go be chemists or insurance brokers or whatever? A term of service isn’t a kiddie camp; it’s either real military service, rough and dangerous even in peacetime, or a most unreasonable facsimile thereof. Not a vacation. Not a romantic adventure.” There’s an 11 page essay on the topic that’s been floating around the net for two decades that’s filled with quotes from the book: [https://www.nitrosyncretic.com/pdfs/nature\_of\_fedsvc\_1996.pdf](https://www.nitrosyncretic.com/pdfs/nature_of_fedsvc_1996.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2017, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/176 "2017-06-27T15:32:43Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > “So why don’t you boys go home, go to college, and then go be chemists or insurance brokers or whatever? A term of service isn’t a kiddie camp; it’s either real military service, rough and dangerous even in peacetime, or a most unreasonable facsimile thereof. Not a vacation. Not a romantic adventure.” There’s an 11 page essay on the topic that’s been floating around the net for two decades that’s filled with quotes from the book: [https://www.nitrosyncretic.com/pdfs/nature\_of\_fedsvc\_1996.pdf](https://www.nitrosyncretic.com/pdfs/nature_of_fedsvc_1996.pdf) An interesting essay, just from a light browsing\*, although there are still a _lot_ of unknowns in _what_ constitutes the “civil” form of Federal Service, and how dangerous or indeed how regimented it must be. (And as funny as how a Heinleinian [Shock Labor Battalion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udarnik) would be. :D) \*Although even it’s author notes, “Heinlein would not have made such a statement did he not believe it. I believe that Heinlein’s intention was for Federal Service to be only five percent military, and that in the haste and fury of writing it and due to the nature of the protagonist’s service, the supporting statements were left out or inadvertently edited out[…]But if any reader chooses to take Heinlein’s separate comment as evidence of his intent to make Federal Service ninety-five per-cent ‘civil service,’ they will get no argument from me.” I believe that’s the “Doylist” perspective, more or less. The “Watsonian” one might be that Johnny Rico himself was uninterested in, or felt an in-universe reader would already be familiar with, the details of the Civil Service. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2017, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/177 "2017-06-27T15:36:14Z")
> [@Weisshund](#): > > I have a feeling lack of things to burn would be the least of their issues Except it turns out that the place where the steam engine was actually developed to a practical level, out of all the kinds of factories and smelters and other places that could use motive power, was a _coal mine_. And steam engines were only ever wood-fired on any significant scale in North America, home of huge existing forests of a like never seen in the civilized sections of classical Greece and Rome. Which kind of makes me think that fuel would in fact be one of the greater of their issues. When slaves and oxen (including upkeep) are cheaper than fuel, low-quality steam engines don’t make much sense. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2017, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/178 "2017-06-28T21:28:24Z")
The issue with steam engines isn’t just the engineering, but the metallurgy. I don’t believe any Greek or Roman metallurgists would have been able to reliably reproduce such engines over the long haul. Tolerances having already been mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2017, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/179 "2017-06-28T21:32:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The YouTube series “Man At Arms” did an episode on the [Buster Sword](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xogheZdAO18). They made it mostly to show that they could, but yeah, they acknowledge throughout just how ridiculously impractical it is. “75-80 pounds” Yup, no HUMAN is going to use that as an effective weapon. I’d love to see someone like Mark Henry or Braun Strowman, but even they’re not going to be able to “fight” with it, just swing and hope you connect. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2017, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293/180 "2017-06-29T00:35:49Z")
And that’s with it being mostly aluminum. Imagine if they had done it all in steel! I do wonder, though, why they only give an estimate of the weight. Do they not have a scale? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-action-movie-tech-that-is-worse-than-our-current-tech-and-stupid/789293.md?page=10)