# Science mistakes that ruin films for you (open spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 6, 2005, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771 "2005-11-06T07:53:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/21 "2005-11-06T18:40:06Z")
> [@Darwin's Finch](#): > > For me, it was using frog DNA (instead of the far more logical choices of, say, birds or crocodiles) to fill in the missing gaps in the dino DNA. In the book, they went on to use this as a lame-ass justification for the idea that _T. rex_’s eyesight was based on movement (whereas in the movie, they didn’t even bother trying to justify such nonsense). There are so many things wrong with _that_ idea, I don’t even know where to begin… Especially considering that given the amount of DNA recoverable from the guts of amber-trapped insects, the analogy is comparable to saying “We have the words ‘the,’ ‘and,’ and a half dozen random consonants, but we filled in the gaps with the text of ‘War and Peace’ to recreate the Bible.” ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/22 "2005-11-06T18:50:31Z")
> [@Jman](#): > > Umm…the wide arc is WHY there aren’t huge G forces on Spiderman. Ever notice that we don’t die on roller coasters, no matter how tall they get? Because the pullout arc is lengthened. He’s swinging long arcs, that would then reduce the Gs on him. The big Gs are on abrupt changes…like shooting a steel (non flexible) cable straight up while falling…then stopping you fast (Batman, anyone?) That would cause serious damage, but both the arcs that Spiderman uses, and the elasticity of the web for non-arced swings (think bungee cords) make Spiderman’s support system quite safe. You’re not taking centrifugal force into account, which is exactly what I’m talking about. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/23 "2005-11-06T19:07:36Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > So a meteor is headed for earth, I’ll buy that. But am I really supposed to believe that it just suddenly appeared out of nowhere…and that NO ONE, not even a freaking backyard astronomer, noticed it before it was so close that civilization was threatened? There were a lot of things wrong with “Armageddon,” but this is one hundred percent accurate. It is, in fact, entirely possible that such an asteroid would go unnoticed until it was too late. Left Hand has already pointed out Bill Bryson’s observation (actually, it’s the observation of the astronomers Bryson interviewed for his book) that a killer asteroid probably would not be noticed until it actually struck the Earth, at which point you’d have just enough time to shit your pants, assuming you weren’t underneath it, in which case you’d be vaporized before it even hit the ground. The asteroid in Armageddon, of course, was much larger than the sort of killer asteroids Bryson speaks of - it was, of course, “the size of Texas,” whereas Bryson’s theoretical doomsdat rocks are the more customary three-to-five kilometres across. But even a Texas-sized asteroid would probably sneak up on us. In the film they saw it WEEKS in advance, in fact; they had very early warning. The likelihood that we would have more notice than that is approximately one in a squillion. Truth is, they’re hard to see because they reflect very little light, and one coming straight at us would have no apparent lateral motion, and there’s no systematic program to look for them. There could be one heading for the Earth right this moment, getting ready to slam into the Pacific Ocean at 5:28 PM tomorrow, and you wouldn’t know a damn thing about it. The annihilation of you and everything you know could be 24 hours away. Sweet dreams! ---
**Author:** ![Jman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jman/32/4416_2.png) [@Jman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jman)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/24 "2005-11-06T19:21:35Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > You’re not taking centrifugal force into account, which is exactly what I’m talking about. Umm…yeah, I am…the further the drop, the larger the arc needed to lessen the G force. Large arcs := large G forces…quite the opposite. SHORT arcs, with small, abrupt changes = large G forces. Spidey would be just fine. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/25 "2005-11-06T19:27:27Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The annihilation of you and everything you know could be 24 hours away. > > Sweet dreams! However, if we did have that 24 hours advance warning, Jack Bauer would be able to stop it. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/26 "2005-11-06T19:28:49Z")
> [@Mr. Miskatonic](#): > > In the book, he lost me whne he tried to describe black clothing as being just as comfy in the sun as white clothing because of it being an effficient ‘black body radiater’. I’m not so sure this is completely wrong. [SD Staff Report](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mblackcool.html) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/27 "2005-11-06T19:39:26Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > From **Jurassic Park** , the thing that bothered me was when the geneticists started talking about their foolproof plan to keep the critters from breeding. I’d knew enough about [parthenogenesis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis), which occurs in vertebrates (if only some lizards), to know that there was at least one way that a new species biology might surprise people even if one forces all the embryos to develop as females. > > Add to that the fact that in many non-mammalian species the _female_ is larger, and more aggressive, than the male, it just seemed really stupid to force all the critters to be female, not male. > > And if I, a college drop out could see the problems with these decisions that the allegedly competent genetic engineers had made, there was a problem. What I hated most in Jurassic Park was Jeff Goldblum’s totally obnoxious womanizing chaos theory moron character. Oh, yes… Chaos theory TOTALLY proves that any time man does anything as complex as an amusement park, it’s guaranteed to destroy itself in a frenzy of our of control chaos. Basically, Goldblum’s ‘chaos theory’ is ludditism masquerading as science. We can’t control anything! Don’t even try! If a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a hurricane on the other side of the world, who do you think YOU are trying to engineer anything? Huh? Tell it to the people at Disney World. ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/28 "2005-11-06T19:40:22Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > But even a Texas-sized asteroid would probably sneak up on us. No. It couldn’t. Texas has a length of 790 miles and a widtih of 660 miles. The largest asteroid in the Solar System is Ceres, which has a diameter of 580 miles. Ceres was discovered in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi. There are no undiscovered asteroids “the size of Texas” wandering around the Solar System. ---
**Author:** ![EnderWay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d26b3c/32.png) [@EnderWay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EnderWay)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/29 "2005-11-06T19:46:49Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > So a meteor is headed for earth, I’ll buy that. But am I really supposed to believe that it just suddenly appeared out of nowhere…and that NO ONE, not even a freaking backyard astronomer, noticed it before it was so close that civilization was threatened? What is this, a new law of physics: spontaneous creation? A gigantic rock just created itself from space dust, AND it’s defying all laws of motion and is hurtling towards earth with no means of propulsion save gravity…? On June 17, 2002 it was discovered that an asteriod had just missed earth, passing by ar 120 kilmeters, 1/3 the distance between the Earth an the Moon. It just missed Earth in June 14, 2002. It wasn’t noticed till threed days later! > [@](#): > > The asteroid escaped earlier detection by approaching from the direction of the Sun, which hid it from observation. It did enter the night sky when it passed the Earth, but initially was moving too fast to be picked up by automated survey cameras. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/30 "2005-11-06T19:47:50Z")
A few others that really bug me: - People outrunning fireballs and explosions. - For that matter, people who escape explosions by just jumping out of the hallway, while the explosion flies down the hall and past them. Apparently, not a single writer in hollywood is familiar with the concept of ‘overpressure’. - People that fall, but are ‘saved’ when they grab a pipe on the way down, or even land across a flagpole or something. As if having all that force being concentrated on a 6" pipe across your waste or under your arm is somehow better than distributing it across your entire body on the ground. Besides, try dropping even a foot or two and then stopping yourself by grabbing onto anything. Good luck. ---
**Author:** ![EnderWay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d26b3c/32.png) [@EnderWay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EnderWay)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/31 "2005-11-06T19:48:06Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > So a meteor is headed for earth, I’ll buy that. But am I really supposed to believe that it just suddenly appeared out of nowhere…and that NO ONE, not even a freaking backyard astronomer, noticed it before it was so close that civilization was threatened? What is this, a new law of physics: spontaneous creation? A gigantic rock just created itself from space dust, AND it’s defying all laws of motion and is hurtling towards earth with no means of propulsion save gravity…? On June 17, 2002 it was discovered that an asteriod had just missed earth, passing by ar 120 kilmeters, 1/3 the distance between the Earth an the Moon. It just missed Earth in June 14, 2002. It wasn’t noticed till threed days later! > [@](#): > > The asteroid escaped earlier detection by approaching from the direction of the Sun, which hid it from observation. It did enter the night sky when it passed the Earth, but initially was moving too fast to be picked up by automated survey cameras. [Earth Near Miss](http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2444) ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/32 "2005-11-06T19:59:12Z")
That’s alright. That was a good miss, what about the largish meteor that _bounced_ off the atmosphere in the late 1970’s? (Sorry, can’t Google it now, have to get offline before the lightning fries me and my 'puter.) ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/33 "2005-11-06T20:11:55Z")
> [@Podkayne](#): > > Texas has a length of 790 miles and a widtih of 660 miles. This is something that bugged me. The damn thing is 700+ miles in diameter, but you need to drill 800 feet down for the bomb to work? And if you’re just a few feet too shallow, it will fail utterly? ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/34 "2005-11-06T20:38:03Z")
And that leaves aside the whole issue that one nuke doesn’t have nearly enough energy to blow apart an asteroid that was even 10 km in size. The energy required to move the two halves aprat is just orders of magnitude too large. In general, the writers seemed to have no freakin’ grasp of what a big hunk of rock hurtling through space actually means. Which is understandable; it’s something quite outside our terrestrial experience. But they didn’t bother to listen to anyone who does know, so the made a movie basically 100% devioid of factual scientific content. In the opening narration, Charlton Heston says that the K-T impactor (a 10-km sized object) hit Earth with the energy of a ten thousand nuclear bombs. Uh, try a _million_ nuclear bombs, Charlton. And it would be _extremely_ difficult to change the orbit of such an asteroid to set it on a course toward Earth. And an asteorid “the size of Texas” would be pulled into a spherical shape by its gravity. And, as an aside, the asteroid looked all wrong. It’s called “regolith”, people. God, that movie sucked. ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/35 "2005-11-06T20:39:36Z")
Whoops, rearranged some lines and didn’t read carefully. “And it would be extremely difficult to change the orbit of such an asteroid to set it on a course toward Earth.” refers to the Armageddon asteroid, not a 10-km-sized body. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/36 "2005-11-06T21:19:51Z")
> [@Agent Foxtrot](#): > > _Spider-man 2_, when Spidey, Doc Oc, and MJ were mere feet from the artificial sun which sucked in everything from miles around…except them. I’d also imagine the radiation would be so intense that they’d be instantly fried. > > Adam Something else bothered me too. Doc Ock exerts phenomenal force on things with those mech arms, and they are anchored to his human body. Wouldn’t that much force tear him apart? ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/37 "2005-11-06T21:53:46Z")
These threads always need a link to the [Bad Astronomy movie pages](http://badastronomy.com/bad/movies/index.html). ---
**Author:** ![rayh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@rayh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rayh)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/38 "2005-11-06T22:17:01Z")
How about the one in Die Hard 2 where he sets light to the leaking fuel which then catches up with the taking off plane. A 747 takes off at about 150 mph. Fuel burns nowhere near that fast. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/39 "2005-11-06T22:19:05Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Something else bothered me too. Doc Ock exerts phenomenal force on things with those mech arms, and they are anchored to his human body. Wouldn’t that much force tear him apart? They were also attached to one another, so that woudn’t be a problem. Think of it this way - technically speaking, Doc Cok wasn’t a man with four metal arms… he was a four-armed robot with a human bolted to its chest. ---
**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:** [November 6, 2005, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771/40 "2005-11-06T22:29:25Z")
37 posts and no one has yet mentioned [Intuitor’s](http://intuitor.com/moviephysics/index.html) #1 Insultingly Stupid Movie Pick: [The Core](http://intuitor.com/moviephysics/core.html)? What is wrong with you people? On the bright side of things, I just bought [Real Genius](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089886/) (just released on DVD) and it is every bit as good as I remember it. And while it sports a number of exaggerations and effects to support the story and the gags, it is clear that the director and producer went to some amount of effort to get actual technical experiese; the language describing the development and operation of lasers is (mostly) right, and the idea of using chemical iodide as a lasing medium was current at the time. The biggest obvious science gaff in the film is when Mitch is describing a rod of water ice as “liquid nitrogen”, but is actually a result of editing rather than bad scripting (the container the ice is in is filled with frozen nitrogen). There are also a number of references to actual pranks committed by various former Caltech students, and of course “DEI” appears in numerous places thoughout the film. (One of the tech advisors on the film was a Caltech alum and inserted “DEI” with the recognizance of the filmmakers.) In _Blade Runner_ some of the biochemistry terminalogy used in the conversation between Tyrell and Roy Batty isn’t just nonsensical technobabble, though the procedures they describe don’t make a lot of sense. Still, it’s a heck of a lot better than listening to the cast of the latest _Star Trek_-spinoff escape their latest plot development by creating a new particle. The laws of particle physics in the _Star Trek_ universe must be fiendishly complex, what with the thousands of \_\_\_\_ions that are discovered on every five year mission. :rolleyes: Stranger [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-mistakes-that-ruin-films-for-you-open-spoilers/329771.md?page=3)