# The mundane unrealistic details that take you out of the batshit fantastically unrealistic setting **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 23, 2015, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755 "2015-03-23T02:44:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**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 25, 2015, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/101 "2015-03-25T12:55:38Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > …Do Atlanteans have to worry about shrikage? Who cares? Nobody would be able to see anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/102 "2015-03-25T13:11:19Z")
> [@Chopsticks](#): > > The Matrix. Keanu Reeves, brain in a vat, artificial intelligences? Sure. The robots use humans as fuel because there is no sunlight, and humans are fed recycled humans? :dubious: :smack: Let’s see, what grade was it where we learned about the food chain, some time in elementary school? Well, sure that’s what they taught you in elementary school. Where did you go to elementary school? In the Matrix. [The machines tell elegant lies.](http://lesswrong.com/lw/s4/fundamental_doubts/) ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/103 "2015-03-25T13:13:09Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#): > > But building an enormous, view-obscuring eyesore of a SETI radioscope smack in the middle of one of the richest counties in New York state?? No. The taxpaying citizens would ensure that zoning ordinances expressly forbade it from ever being built. That is just too hard to swallow. What’s Professor X’s power again? ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/104 "2015-03-25T13:33:01Z")
I thought of this thread yesterday when I was watching a YouTube video of a bunch of guys playing the new Dragonball Xenoverse game. While a fight is going on Lord Frieza says something to the effect of “What chance to four ants have against a dinosaur”. How does Frieza know what a dinosaur is? At this point in the series they are on Namek, so not only has Frieza never been to Earth before, but I’m pretty sure he barely even knows what Earth is, only vaguely knowing they have Dragonballs from Vegeta. I know that Dino’s exist in the universe (I think Gohan is chased by one sometime?) but it took me out of the scene that an alien with no prior knowledge or experience of Earth knows what a dinosaur is. …or ants for that matter ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/105 "2015-03-25T13:50:02Z")
> [@Trancephalic](#): > > The Fly. > > OK, so both organisms get equal genetic vote regardless of relative biomass. Cool. I can deal with that. > > But what about genetically distinct microbes living within and without Brundle and especially the fly? (Also aren’t mitochondrions genetically distinct, too?) > > Shouldn’t they have become Brundlegerm, the 185-pound single-celled organism? > > Actually that might be scarier, especially if he could divide via fission and consume via osmosis. I don’t usually approve of reboots, but that would be one hell of a reboot. ---
**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 25, 2015, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/106 "2015-03-25T14:06:09Z")
> [@SpazCat](#): > > I don’t usually approve of reboots, but that would be one hell of a reboot. Langelaan’s original story doesn’t really stand up to a moment’s scrutiny. In the story, the scientist ends up combined not only with the fly, but also with parts of the kitten that he tried to teleport earlier. I guess the pieces were just floating around in the hyperverse, or computer memory, or something. And they all happened to combine in a fashion that resulted in a working, living creature. Two of them, in fact. The first movie wisely ignored the splicing-with-a-kitten part (although they kept the episode of the failed teleportation of the cat). The Cronenberg remake viewed the re-combination on the level of DNA, which is more interesting and classier and made for a deeper script, but it’s still absurd. And, as pointed out, you don’t even need the fly. Brundle could end up sharing DNA with the microparasites in his eyelashes, or his intestinal flora, or whatever. You just have to look at the story as a piece of horror fiction, and not worry too much about the science. It’s amazing that Langelaan’s original story not only got filmed – twice – but also spawned a total of three sequels (two for the original film, one for the remake) and a LOT of parodies and cultural references. Gary Larson had a field day with it. I’m sure a lot of people thought that Langelaan’s story, which appeared in Playboy in the 1950s, started the whole teleporter-gone-wrong meme. But it didn’t, by some eighty years. The very first two stories about teleportation both involved the terrible, horrible consequences of Teleportation Gone Wrong, tapping into a vein of revulsion I call **Teleportation Angst**. People don’t see the cultura effects and advantages of teleportation – their first instinct is how it can screw up. It’s as if the first stories about a rocket to the moon ended with the rocket ship blowing up on the launch pad. My essay on it appeared in Teemings: [http://www.teemings.net/series\_1/issue14/calmeacham.html](http://www.teemings.net/series_1/issue14/calmeacham.html) ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/107 "2015-03-25T14:12:13Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > What’s Professor X’s power again? So he could have used his mind control to convince his neighbors to let them build the huge telescope on the horizon… why, exactly? > [@Superdude](#): > > …Do Atlanteans have to worry about shrikage? No, but there’s still coral… :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/108 "2015-03-25T14:58:40Z")
> [@Chopsticks](#): > > The Matrix. Keanu Reeves, brain in a vat, artificial intelligences? Sure. The robots use humans as fuel because there is no sunlight, and humans are fed recycled humans? :dubious: :smack: Oh, cripes. The human batteries. Yes, the Matrix should be the freaking trope namer for this entire subject. [This quote from Homer sums up my opinion on the matter.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vxHkAQRQUQ) ---
**Author:** ![oft\_wears\_hats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@oft\_wears\_hats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oft_wears_hats)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/109 "2015-03-25T16:44:53Z")
Indiana Jones in that damn fridge in Crystal Skull. Given what we’ve seen in the series before, I’d have been less taken out of the story if there had been a freak magical portal that opened up that took Indy out of the blast radius. A gift from Shiva, perhaps, for that business in Temple of Doom? I’d believe that far more readily than the laws of physics just deciding to pop out for a quick lunch. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > If you read H.G. Wells’ _The Invisible Man_, he does address those issues. He has all of Griffin’s bodily tissues have a refractive index of 1, and even talks about what happens to the food he eats. > > It’s absurd, of course – Even if you could make biological tissue completely transparent and lower in index, you still couldn’t get it as low as the index of air\*. And, even if you did, it’s absurdly difficult to make things completely vanish by index-matching. I know – I’ve worked at it (not with people, of course). It’s too easy for dirt on the surfaces or reflections at high angles of incidence to screw up the illusion. > > And, of course, there’s the whole issue of being able to see. A truly invisible man would necessarily be blind. > > \*\* there certainly do exist water creatures that are invisible, or mostly so. But they don’t have to match the refractive index of air – only of water, a much easier proposition. It’d be much easier to have an Invisible Aquatic Man, but that has fewer dramatic possibilities in rural England. IIRC, the Sci-Fi show Invisible Man tried to address this. The main character became invisible by secreting a substance called “quicksilver” via a surgically implanted gland. The quicksilver coated the surface of his body and clothes (and occasionally other objects as required by the plot), bending visible light around it or something. The eyesight issue was addressed in that while it bent visible light, it passed non-visible frequencies and rendered them visible on the far side of the quicksilver. So the hero could see in a washed out grayscale, as well as being able to see certain things outside of the visible spectrum. Granted, I doubt any of this would hold up to even a layman’s examination (how much non-visible light is present at night, especially indoors?), but it was good enough to enable suspension of disbelief. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/110 "2015-03-25T16:49:19Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > So he could have used his mind control to convince his neighbors to let them build the huge telescope on the horizon… why, exactly? Yes, in fact given that HIS OWN ESTATE would likely see its property value plummet due to the proximity…no wayyyyyyy would it get built there. He would telepathically command it. ---
**Author:** ![Gerald\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Gerald\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gerald_II)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/111 "2015-03-25T18:01:41Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No, that one senator _[called for](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Finis_Valorum#Removal_from_office)_ a vote, which just lead to the actual [vote](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Vote_of_No_Confidence) of no confidence the next day. [Which is a real thing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_of_no_confidence) in parliamentary systems. Wow, I take it back then. Thanks for enlightening me. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/112 "2015-03-25T18:16:47Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > I read it on my a Kindle, so page 46%, location 6106. 😛 > > It took place right after Eddie got shot in the head. The full line reads _At the sight of this terrible head-wound Susannah leaped to her feet and began to scream again._ Must have been a pretty traumatic experience, to make her legs grow back just long enough for her to stand up and scream. ---
**Author:** ![DZedNConfused](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dzednconfused/32/15991_2.png) [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/113 "2015-03-25T19:39:36Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > In Peter Jackson’s _The Lord of the Rings,_ when Minas Tirith is shown as a giant walled city towering high above a flat, featureless, thoroughly uninhabited plain, my first thought always is: “Where do these people grow their crops?” And the one whre the Evil Overlord ™ is killing all the people in the “land”… so who is he gonna rule and how will he suport himself and his minions without workers to produce food or at least pay taxes… ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/114 "2015-03-25T20:37:54Z")
The human batteries thing in The Matrix never really bothered me. I mean, it’s totally unrealistic, but I always thought it was kind of fanwankable in a sense of “batteries is an oversimplification, the problem isn’t _just_ lack of electrical energy and human bodies provide some sort of necessary catalyst to an unexplained technolgy but they’re not the only fuel source.” I’ll be the first to admit that I’m probably trying harder than the writers. ---
**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:** [March 25, 2015, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/115 "2015-03-25T20:38:26Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Must have been a pretty traumatic experience, to make her legs grow back just long enough for her to stand up and scream. To be fair, she actually does grow demon legs at one point. The series gets kind of weird. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/116 "2015-03-25T20:46:54Z")
> [@Chopsticks](#): > > The Matrix. Keanu Reeves, brain in a vat, artificial intelligences? Sure. The robots use humans as fuel because there is no sunlight, and humans are fed recycled humans? :dubious: :smack: Let’s see, what grade was it where we learned about the food chain, some time in elementary school? > > My faith in humanity was restored later when I heard that the original story was ‘humans used as idea-generators’, and the change was due to movie exec meddling. I like **Bricker’s** fanwank of it, but mine is slightly different: the computers are **crazy assholes**. Their use of humans as batteries makes no sense from a physics perspective, but if they need to justify to themselves keeping humans locked in this shitty world, and if they’re crazy assholes, the stupid battery justification might work. ---
**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:** [March 25, 2015, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/117 "2015-03-25T21:18:01Z")
> [@DZedNConfused](#): > > And the one whre the Evil Overlord ™ is killing all the people in the “land”… so who is he gonna rule and how will he suport himself and his minions without workers to produce food or at least pay taxes… That’s assuming he wants to rule. Plenty of evil overlords just want to destroy the world, or as much of it as possible. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/118 "2015-03-25T21:36:15Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I’ve said it before – Steven Spielberg utterly shattered by Suspension of Disbelief at the beginning of **Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom** when he has Indy, Willi, and Short Round jump out of the falling plane in an inflatable raft, which falls none too softly on the snow, careens down the snowpack of the edge of a cliff into a river, lands in the river and goes through roaring rapids. And nobody gets hurt. There should be multiple broken bones at a minimum, and a triple death more likely, but they have not a scratch. That’s setting the tone of the movie. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/119 "2015-03-25T22:33:27Z")
> [@DZedNConfused](#): > > And the one whre the Evil Overlord ™ is killing all the people in the “land”… so who is he gonna rule and how will he suport himself and his minions without workers to produce food or at least pay taxes… Why don’t the minions ever realize that when all the peasant folk, et al, are gone that THEY become the peasant folk? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755/120 "2015-03-25T22:55:06Z")
> [@DZedNConfused](#): > > And the one whre the Evil Overlord ™ is killing all the people in the “land”… so who is he gonna rule and how will he suport himself and his minions without workers to produce food or at least pay taxes… I suggest investing heavily in _DrDeth’s Undead Minions™,_ which require no food, etc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mundane-unrealistic-details-that-take-you-out-of-the-batshit-fantastically-unrealistic-setting/715755.md?page=7)