# Things That Bother Me in Science Fiction Movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [October 24, 2023, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001 "2023-10-24T08:55:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 23
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2023, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/441 "2023-11-24T17:41:37Z")
Carpenter’s Law: All discussions about science fiction eventually lead to _The Thing._ ---
**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:** [November 24, 2023, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/442 "2023-11-24T17:59:48Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > But The Thing also creates new constructions (even if it uses past “memories” as bases). So The Thing isn’t just taking over a body and leaving everything in place – it’s reconstituting the body from what it’s learned of its structure. > > I mean, otherwise why does the Bennings -Thing have those weird hands when the catch it running away? It obviously wasn’t simply copying Benning cell-by-cell and keeping the structure. Blair’s simulation shows it taking over a host by infecting it cell by cell. We see multiple instances of it directly infecting something through gross trauma, but it’s also acknowledged that there’s a more subtle risk - McCready orders everyone to only eat food from sealed tins, once Blair explains what’s going on. We don’t see how most of the infections happened, so we don’t know what the “subtle” infection looks like. What happens if someone eats a piece of meat that’s actually Thing-infected flesh? Maybe its nothing more than a slight fever, maybe the victims goes into convulsions and starts growing weird fleshy bits until the process settles down. But the broad point is, it’s entirely justified in-film to assume that it’s able to perfectly mimic its victims because it’s able to infect cells without necessarily destroying or distorting them. At any rate, I figure Benning’s had weird meat hands because his arms got torn off during his traumatic infection, and was in the process of growing a new pair when they caught up with him. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2023, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/443 "2023-11-24T21:57:47Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Which is the wat Star Trek did it in the early days, appropriately enough. Right down to the Salt Creature showing Uhura a buff black dude. On the bridge when Uhura tries to reason with him, the swashbuckler grabs her proclaiming he’ll protect this “fair maiden”. Her reply- **“Sorry, Neither.”** ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/444 "2023-11-25T06:17:36Z")
I’m amazed that line made it past the censor. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/445 "2023-11-25T08:37:37Z")
Yeah Star trek pushed a few boundaries and got away with it because “It was science fiction, you know.” IIRC also the first interracial kiss. [Fifty Years Ago, "Star Trek" Aired TV's First Interracial Kiss | Arts & Culture| Smithsonian Magazine](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fifty-years-ago-star-trek-aired-tvs-first-interracial-kiss-180970204/#:~:text=On%20Nov.,to%20sing%2C%20dance%20and%20kiss). _On Nov. 22, 1968, an episode of “Star Trek” titled “[Plato’s Stepchildren](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708443/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1)” broadcast the first interracial kiss on American television._ ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/446 "2023-11-25T12:16:02Z")
As a slight nitpick, because this is the place for it, Kirk and uhuras kiss wasn’t technically “the first interracial kiss” as often described. There had been several instances of white dude with (genuinely) Asian woman, including in star trek. But of course white dude and black woman was a much bigger deal, and a brave and significant thing for the show to do. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/447 "2023-11-25T18:24:41Z")
Nancy Sinatra kissed Sammy Davis, Jr. on TV a year earlier. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/448 "2023-11-25T20:47:56Z")
Yeah, I saw that, it was a peck on the cheek. One of those Hollywood greeting “kisses”. I am gonna give that a pass, due to that. In ST:ToS Kirk and Uhura really do a serious romantic kiss. But it’s a debating point. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/449 "2023-11-25T22:32:53Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Shapeshifters like the Thing should be relegated to fantasy/ fairy tales. I just don’t buy an actual living being able to mimic someone so completely as to be mistaken for that person. There’s just too many variables that the shapeshifter wouldn’t know. It would be creepy enough if the shapeshifter was only seen in the shadows, so it’s inexactness wouldn’t be readily apparent. What bothers me is that even just mimicking the appearance, there are a lot of variables related to mass or the optical characteristics of materials. For example: Mystique imitating any human who isn’t approximately the same height and weight as either Jennifer Lawrence or Rebecca Romjin. Or the T-1000 looking like anything other than a cast metal statue of whatever or whoever it was imitating. But somehow its nano-whatever can recreate the same optical and physical behaviors of skin, hair, clothing, etc. ---
**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:** [November 26, 2023, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/450 "2023-11-26T00:38:20Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > In ST:ToS Kirk and Uhura really do a serious romantic kiss. Not really. They were forced to do it by the Platonians, and Kirk looks more POed than turned on. It’s not even an open-mouthed kiss, something about which Shatner had been warned repeatedly by the censors over the previous two years. I have no doubt Shatner enjoyed kissing Nichelle Nichols, but he was instructed by the director to keep it restrained. What we saw actually was the most passionate take, but that’s only because Shatner deliberately ruined several others by mugging. _In re_ Uhura’s line in “The Naked Time,” she said it so quickly and quietly that it was hardly noticeable. I saw that episode three or four times when I became a Trekker, and I still couldn’t catch what she was saying. I didn’t find out until I saw it in print in James Blish’s paperback adaptation. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2023, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/451 "2023-11-26T00:44:19Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > _In re_ Uhura’s line in “The Naked Time,” she said it so quickly and quietly that it was hardly noticeable. I saw that episode three or four times when I became a Trekker, and I still couldn’t catch what she was saying. We have been binging my old DvD set, with closed captioning on. Yep, it’s a little hard to catch. Great line tho, we were snorting and guffawing. ---
**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:** [November 26, 2023, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/452 "2023-11-26T00:57:28Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Great line tho, we were snorting and guffawing. One line of Nichelle’s that got cut came in “The Squire of Gothos” when William Campbell slipped up and called her “A Nubian slave”: “I’ll kick you in the ankle!” ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2023, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/453 "2023-11-26T01:24:08Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I have no doubt Shatner enjoyed kissing Nichelle Nichols, but he was instructed by the director to keep it restrained. What we saw actually was the most passionate take, but that’s only because Shatner deliberately ruined several others by mugging. It would have been a much better scene if instead of “It’s ok, Captain” she’d said something like “Let’s see what you’ve got, white boy.” Of course they’d have to hire new people at Standards & Practices, because the old ones would have infarcted at such a thing. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2023, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/454 "2023-11-26T01:31:05Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > There was an old SF story, whose title and author both escape me, which had some vehicles designed to travel on the surface of the sun. Might be “The Weather Man” by Theodore Thomas…i=the link gives a brief description of it. And that’s the last I will say on this modest derail. > **[‘The Weather Man’ by Theodore L Thomas](https://everythingisnice.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/the-weather-man-by-theodore-l-thomas/)** > > I’m not sure what you would call this; a meteorachic dystopia, maybe? The Weather Congress was the supreme body of Earth, able to bend states, nations, continents, and hemispheres to its will… ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2023, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/455 "2023-11-26T01:49:55Z")
I’m often bothered by sci-fi that can imagine amazing technological innovation but can’t imagine political-economic structures much beyond kingdoms and empires and maybe representative democracy at best. Star Trek? Until they stop ordering ensigns to their death? Not so utopian. Star Wars? Hierarchy all the way down. Black Panther? King with a lot of agricultural labourers and a warrior caste. Would it kill Hollywood to read “And Then There Were None,” by Eric Frank Russell? Or watch the Monty Python peasant sketch? ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2023, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/456 "2023-11-26T03:17:56Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Mystique imitating any human who isn’t approximately the same height and weight as either Jennifer Lawrence or Rebecca Romjin. When the kids in _Animorphs_ became smaller animals, their extra mass was stored in Z-Space (another dimension, and a handy one at that). Long before that, as a little kid, I devoured Sci-Fi books and TV. But I’d also learned about the conservation of mass, which meant there was a lot I just couldn’t believe. It took me some time until I could suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy my earlier favorites again. ---
**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:** [November 26, 2023, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/457 "2023-11-26T06:53:31Z")
> [@Kropotkin](#): > > Would it kill Hollywood to read “And Then There Were None,” by Eric Frank Russell? Or watch the Monty Python peasant sketch? Or just film the damn Culture novels already. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2023, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/458 "2023-11-26T07:19:32Z")
> [@Kropotkin](#): > > Would it kill Hollywood to read “And Then There Were None,” by Eric Frank Russell? Well, thats a bit of a stretch- a world of humans that speak english and have a life much as early farming America does- but no government, money etc. Has any large scale human society worked that way? perfectly peaceful? No wars, slavery, etc. Sure passive resistance is one thing but starvation and the whip will make most humans work. So it’s a humorous fantasy. I think ST-TNG ran into communes, etc telepathic races, etc. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2023, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/459 "2023-11-26T07:20:31Z")
> [@Kropotkin](#): > > I’m often bothered by sci-fi that can imagine amazing technological innovation but can’t imagine political-economic structures much beyond kingdoms and empires and maybe representative democracy at best. Star Trek? Until they stop ordering ensigns to their death? Not so utopian. Star Wars? Hierarchy all the way down. Black Panther? King with a lot of agricultural labourers and a warrior caste. Would it kill Hollywood to read “And Then There Were None,” by Eric Frank Russell? Or watch the Monty Python peasant sketch? Don’t even get me started about Wakanda. I think I mentioned it before, but I am definitely bothered by how Wakanda has deflector shields and anti-gravity aircraft but their infantry fight Shaka Zulu style with no body armor, hand shields and pew-pew spears (basically giving an energy weapon rifle the ergonomics and optical targeting of a spear). And their armor are basically endangered rhinos with some armor. ---
**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:** [November 26, 2023, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001/460 "2023-11-26T10:08:38Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > What bothers me is that even just mimicking the appearance, there are a lot of variables related to mass or the optical characteristics of materials. For example: > Mystique imitating any human who isn’t approximately the same height and weight as either Jennifer Lawrence or Rebecca Romjin. > Or the T-1000 looking like anything other than a cast metal statue of whatever or whoever it was imitating. But somehow its nano-whatever can recreate the same optical and physical behaviors of skin, hair, clothing, etc. I’m still not seeing this as a major problem. Sufficiently advanced smart materials could replicate the texture, colour, specular reflection, luminosity and internal scattering of almost any surface, making a replica at least as convincing as a competent 3D simulation. Of course the processing requirements in real time of such a process would be phenomenal - so it would require very advanced and fast information technology that we currently don’t have, and we might not expect to see this sort of mimicry for decades or even hundreds of years yet. The other big problems are scale and mass - if a one-foot-tall shapeshifting robot replicates a tall human, or an elephant, or a _Game of Thrones_ Dragon, then it would need to expand until it has extremely low density. In a stiff breeze it would blow away. Maybe the original robot could carry some lead or osmium ballast - but that would make it very heavy, and you wouldn’t want to drop it on your foot. It would also create a lower bound on how small it could get - eventually a shrinking shapeshifter-bot gets too dense to be useful. On the other hand a shape-shifting-bot could acquire mass and ballast from the environment- water from a pond, gravel from a pathway, sand from a beach etcetera… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-in-science-fiction-movies/992001.md?page=24)