# What movies/TV shows qualify as "hard" science fiction? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 17, 2018, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795 "2018-01-17T03:11:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2018, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/81 "2018-01-17T20:04:51Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > The Expanse (I think…never seen it) The Expanse was very hard scifi in my opinion, at least most of the first season. One particular space battle in particular, the prep they did and how the battle went really blew my mind. But there is one developing aspect to the show that is pretty out there. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2018, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/82 "2018-01-17T20:06:46Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > The implications of how advanced or speculative science might change things in non-trivial ways must be integral to the story. It’s not sufficient that somebody just dies in a more spectacular way when the cop shoots the robber in space. It you set something against a space or nominally futuristic backdrop when it could just as easily be set in Victorian England or the Wild West without changing the story one iota, I don’t think it’s hard sci fi. [_The Man In The White Suit_, a wonderful 1951 Alec Guinness Ealing comedy which shows the social, economic and personal consequences of a scientist inventing a miracle fabric.](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/man_in_the_white_suit/) Small, perfectly formed, and thankfully, it has never been remade with Eddie Murphy or Adam Sandler in the title role. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2018, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/83 "2018-01-17T21:03:55Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > …Think about it a little more and you’ll remember that the original crime is that the head of the mining operation is giving drugs to the miners to enhance their performance, with the unfortunate side effect that some of them go crazy after too much of it. I think that puts it back in the science fiction category. Isn’t giving dangerous drugs to your workers to enhance their performance something that could happen in any era? Or was there something interesting about the drugs, I can’t remember? The fact that it _was_ a remake of Western tends to make me think the science wasn’t significant at all. ---
**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:** [January 17, 2018, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/84 "2018-01-17T21:10:38Z")
A few more… I, Robot (they may be doing interstellar travel, but it has nothing to do with the plot) Flash Forward Elysium ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2018, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/85 "2018-01-17T21:49:48Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t understand your objection, **wolfpup**. Wormholes are FTL, and are subject to all of the same complications as any other method of FTL travel. They’re more plausible than just “step on the gas and accelerate until your speed exceeds c”, but only in incidental details, and they’re not any more plausible than (say) the Alcubierre drive. Well, I have myself suggested that a wormhole would violate causality just like FTL, but on this subject I’m out of my depth, though ISTM that Kip Thorne disagrees with the idea that all wormholes are (necessarily) FTL. He does touch on the time travel issues in the book but suggests that we know almost nothing about how quantum gravity might resolve causality paradoxes, and I’ve heard that Brian Greene has advanced similar ideas. What seems clear is that special relativity equations break down at speeds \> _c_, while general relativity leads to at least the theoretical possibility of wormholes. This may turn out to not be the case at all, but we’re discussing the plausibility of movie science, and the point is it’s a lot more plausible than Star Trek warp drives. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2018, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/86 "2018-01-17T22:37:46Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I haven’t seen it, but I suspect the 1935 film **Transatlantic Tunnel** would qualify, as well I’ve seen it - yes, it would definitely qualify as hard SF. It was a good movie from a story standpoint, too, if you can get a copy I suggest watching it. Sure there are some strange details like the “radium drill” but they never get into the specifics of it, and in real life to drill the Chunnel we needed some specialized drilling equipment designed specifically for the project so, yeah, take it in that sense. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2018, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/87 "2018-01-17T22:56:30Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > This has always bothered me. Low and zero gravity _can_ be filmed, and can be done so without expensive effects work – especially now that we can digitally composite images and create images with CGI. A lot can be done with how the shot is staged and set up and by having the actor move as if in low G. Heck, Destination Moon did it with wire work, Operation Moonbase did it with camera tricks, mainly. 2001 did it with wire work and rotating sets. There’s no reason it couldn’t be done more. _Apollo 13_ did it by using a vomit comet, which means it was actually shot in real free fall for some scenes (free fall is different from microgravity in the details but for movie shooting purposes is an adequate doubling technique). Of course, that did have the problem of freefall side effects, like vomiting camera men. For that matter, OK Go shot a music video in a vomit comet, too. If I recall, the video they made about making the video mentioned 58 “vomit episodes” among the crew. Admittedly, vomit comets do add to the expense and for a lot of work CGI is probably cheaper. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2018, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/88 "2018-01-17T23:20:22Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > This has always bothered me. Low and zero gravity _can_ be filmed, and can be done so without expensive effects work – especially now that we can digitally composite images and create images with CGI. A lot can be done with how the shot is staged and set up and by having the actor move as if in low G. Heck, Destination Moon did it with wire work, Operation Moonbase did it with camera tricks, mainly. 2001 did it with wire work and rotating sets. There’s no reason it couldn’t be done more. > > And I want to see them treat low gravity – as on the Moon and Mars – properly, too. Not even _2001_ tried to show lunar gravity properly. I don’t any Mars movie that ever did (aside, ironically, from the definitely non-hard-sf _[John Carter_) You are referencing movies. In TV, try to sign an actor to an open-ended deal where they have to do wire work on _every single scene_. Then try to cast it where all the actors do wire work _every single scene_. The cost would be insanely prohibitive, the casting impossible. That is why it isn’t done. Same thing with CGI. It’s really not as cheap as you imply, especially for television, especially if you have to CGI _every single scene_. So the decision to give most space-based television sf normal gravity isn’t because the producers hates science, it’s because to do otherwise adds a vast amount of complexity and cost to the production. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2018, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/89 "2018-01-17T23:21:59Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Oh, and what about _The Matrix?_ (The Terminator franchise, with its similar premise, is nixed due to the time travel element.) My initial impulse was to defend the bonafides of the first movie, since the “mystical” abilities shown are only within a computer simulation. But then I remembered that the ostensible reason the machines keep humans around (as batteries) makes no sense scientifically. Oh well. You could make a (moderately fanwank) argument that since that reason is told to one of the characters _by_ one of the characters, it doesn’t have to be correct. The machines are keeping the humans alive and busy being simulated in goop pods for _some reason_ but who knows if it’s really the reason the renegades think? It apparently was otherwise in the original script (exactly what it was isn’t clear) but was allegedly changed because some suit figured that audiences were too dumb. I like to assume that it’s sort of a First Law of Robotics gone awry. Yes, the humans are fine. Perfectly safe in their goop pods and false reality. Does the rest of the movie hold up to the OP’s rules? Probably. You can do anything you want in a simulation, right? ---
**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:** [January 17, 2018, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/90 "2018-01-17T23:36:38Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > Does the rest of the movie hold up to the OP’s rules? Probably. You can do anything you want in a simulation, right? The problem is that Neo was able to shut down the HK spermbots in the real world, after they got out of the hovercraft. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2018, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/91 "2018-01-17T23:42:42Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > The problem is that Neo was able to shut down the HK spermbots in the real world, after they got out of the hovercraft. Wait a minute, was the hovercraft actually full of eels? ---
**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:** [January 17, 2018, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/92 "2018-01-17T23:54:17Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Wait a minute, was the hovercraft actually full of eels? Flying robotic ones, with lasers, but yeah… ---
**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:** [January 17, 2018, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/93 "2018-01-17T23:54:48Z")
FYI, _ **The Martian** _ is on FX in about 5-10 minutes. First broadcast on cable, they are saying. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/94 "2018-01-18T01:37:38Z")
There can’t be any serious doubt that the tech in _Alien_ included faster-than-light travel. There’s an explicit line that the planet they’ve been diverted to is “ten months” from Earth, and the news is received with annoyance. Needless to say, even _at_ light speed, ten months isn’t going to get a ship from Earth to even the nearest star system. By the time of the sequel, a fast military ship like the _Sulaco_ could make the journey in significantly less time, though evidently it still took long enough that putting the crew in hypersleep was preferable to trying to maintain life-support for them the entire way. ---
**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:** [January 18, 2018, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/95 "2018-01-18T02:16:11Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Broomstick** : > > Apollo 13 did it by using a vomit comet, which means it was actually shot in real free fall for some scenes (free fall is different from microgravity in the details but for movie shooting purposes is an adequate doubling technique) To the extent that there’s any difference between “free-fall” and “microgravity”, the correct term for what astronauts experience is free-fall. Microgravity is a terrible term for that, since it implies that there’s some gravity, just not very much, and there’s no sense in which that’s true. The only difference between what you get on the Vomit Comet and on the ISS is the duration. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/96 "2018-01-18T02:22:02Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Microgravity is a terrible term for that, since it implies that there’s some gravity, just not very much, and there’s no sense in which that’s true. Sure there is. There is a small amount of acceleration from both atmospheric drag and tidal forces (on the order of 10[sup]-6[/sup] g for the ISS, so “micro” is apt). Acceleration is acceleration, so there’s no sense in which you can’t call that gravity. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/97 "2018-01-18T02:22:52Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > Not just primitive savages. I recall reading an article in the mid-sixties that supposed a target drone fell into a time-displacing worm hole and wound up in 1945. Bereft of any control signals, it goes into safe mode and orbits for a while until it runs out of fuel then comes in for a hard landing that leaves it intact, if somewhat bent up. The article then went on to ask what conclusions researchers and engineers analyzing of the remains would come to. [Here](http://www.free-culture.ir/Analog_1948_Nov_No_copying_allowed.html) is an editorial by John Campbell from 1948 on the same theme - and I swear I saw a similar one in the early 1960s. > [@](#): > > Several aspects were covered but the one I remember is how their vacuum tube technology would be utterly at a loss to explain how the solid-state circuit boards could work. Resistors would be familiar to them as would capacitors but the transistors would leave them baffled. If they sacrificed one they would conclude that the speck within was pure silicon – the doping would be less than they could detect – and pure silicon doesn’t do anything interesting no matter what voltages you apply to it. > > The article concluded that the researchers could only surmise that the strange object came to them from hundreds, if not thousands, of years in the future, not just twenty. Imagine what they would conclude if they got their hands on a smart phone with millions of transistors they can’t even see without an electron microscope – which they don’t have – in an area the size of your fingernail. My favorite example is not so sophisticated. Why not go back in time 300 years or so and hand Bach an iPhone with his music on it, stick the earbuds in his ears, and hit play. Magic would be his very best explanation for how an orchestra got into that tiny box. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/98 "2018-01-18T02:24:04Z")
> [@mazinger\_z](#): > > The problem with the OP’s constraints is that it feels like the confines are to what we know now science and derived science based on what we know-now science. I don’t disagree with you, but if those aren’t the constraints, then what are they? Again, this isn’t about what is legitimately sci-fi or what is good sci-fi and bad sci-fi. Some of my all-time favorites run afoul of many of these constraints. It’s just about a certain category of science fiction, and if we allow science that cannot reasonably be derived from what we know now, then in a way it’s really just a kind of fantasy with space and aliens and stuff. And I’m not against fantasy, as I mostly love _Game of Thrones_. I’m just trying to define genres here. > [@msmith537](#): > > That sort of begs the question of what is “hard science”, doesn’t it? Is it ok to allow wormholes and “ice clouds” and gravity drives and tesseract structures that allow communication back to the past because they are based on some actual theory? Is it “hard science” to pick one or two fantastic elements like warp drives and time travel while the rest of the movie uses realistic effects of relativistic time dilation and ships that look like something NASA will build in 50 years? > Of course Interstellar ignores the very obvious problem of it presumably being much easier to “colonize” a dying Earth with habitats than it would be to move a significant number of humans off world. > > And what was Plan B anyway, assuming they found a suitable planet? The crew of the Endurance was going to raise thousands of embryos to adulthood by themselves? QFT. You killed it! And **wolfpup** , the fact that Kip Thorne enthusiastically supports the movie doesn’t really prove anything. Plenty of respected physicists love Star Trek too, and I’m pretty sure there’s also a book about the physics of Star Trek. > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > The greatest, most-qualifying hard science fiction movie would be _Apollo 13_, if it weren’t based on a true story. Ha, true. _The Martian_ and _Gravity_ are kind of on the fictional side of this coin. > [@JohnT](#): > > I disagree with item 2 of the OP as being a defining indicator of hard/soft science fiction (especially in TV) simply because the production challenges and cost of showing differing levels of gravity would make the show prohibitively expensive. > > I’m sure this has been noted (I only read the OP, so far), but it is a requirement which will make 99% of space-based sci-fi (with the possible sole exception of _Gravity_) fall out of the “hard” category. Again, this is an awesome aspect of _Passengers_ which becomes an important plot point. There is also a spacewalk scene reminiscent of one in _Gravity_, quite possibly inspired by it, but correcting the earlier film’s greatest flaw in terms of Newtonian physics. I don’t see why even relatively low budget sci-fi can’t get this right. The pilot of _The Expanse_ does. And as **Kenobi** notes, so does the middle section of _2001_. > [@Chronos](#): > > You can actually do a pretty good job of simulating low gravity just by slowing down your film by a factor of sqrt(g\_planet/g\_earth). This won’t let your actors make twenty-foot leaps or anything, but if they’re walking around in the cramped quarters of a moon base, they’re probably not trying to do that, anyway. I love that this film trickery itself involves math! Do you know of any examples where this was done? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/99 "2018-01-18T02:31:58Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’ve been getting the sense lately that there is very little consensus on what this term means. > > By the definition I’d use, I find very few movies or TV shows qualify. (Novels and short stories are a whole other matter, but they are also so vast in number and reach such a relatively niche audience, I think we should leave them out of this discussion.) Maybe the easiest way to explain my standards would be to point out some examples that don’t qualify, IMO (although a lot of the content excluded is stuff I nevertheless greatly enjoy): > > (1) Anything with “warp”, “hyperdrive”, or “FTL” travel. That knocks out _Star Wars_ (which has no chance anyway for so many other reasons), _Star Trek, BSG, Stargate, Andromeda,_ and _Interstellar_. > > (2) Portrayal of “artificial gravity” that does not involve acceleration or rotation. Now we also lose _Firefly/Serenity_. > > (3) Instant communications, with no lag. I’m not sure if there’s anything that escaped the above two but gets knocked out here, but it’s another strike against _Firefly/Serenity._ > > (4) Probably the most arguable category: anything where the science gets a little hazy/mystical and slides over into woo. After a promising beginning, this was how _Arrival_ fell apart for me. _2001’s_ middle act is truly excellent hard sci-fi, but everything involving the monolith gets very “woo”. And it’s another strike against _Interstellar_ (thinking here about the sappy ending, although there are some other lesser issues earlier). I realize that you are just talking movies, but this definition means that Stephen Baxter and Hal Clement don’t write hard science fiction. I don’t think that would be a widely held position. ---
**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:** [January 18, 2018, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795/100 "2018-01-18T02:37:41Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Voyager** : > > My favorite example is not so sophisticated. Why not go back in time 300 years or so and hand Bach an iPhone with his music on it, stick the earbuds in his ears, and hit play. Magic would be his very best explanation for how an orchestra got into that tiny box. I’m not so sure. They didn’t have what we call recorded music back then, but they did have mechanical music boxes. Bach would certainly be amazed at how intricate a sound this music box could produce, and wonder at how the parts could be made so small as to fit in that tiny case, but I don’t think he’d think it was magic. The actual technology doesn’t work at all in the same way that he would assume that it does, but I think that he’d still correctly recognize it as technology. Now, some of Bach’s less-educated contemporaries might think it was magic, true. But then again, most people nowadays think that iPhones are magic, too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-tv-shows-qualify-as-hard-science-fiction/806795.md?page=6)