Bad "science" lines.

[trekgeezer]

It's basically a western in space, at least that's what I've heard it compared to many times. A good classic good vs. evil story can usually be told in any setting.

[trekgeezer]

Does that hand held camera movement make you whoozy? I think they were going for the Saving Private Ryan look, but it does get a little irritating sometimes.

[Eirik]

I had a science teacher who did something like that, only with him, it was Gumby.  If he was explaining how the digestive system worked, Gumby got eaten by a lion.  How things melt?  Gumby gets locked in a car on a hot day.  Electricity?  Gumby gets hit by lightening.  Acids?  You get the idea.  He'd always draw Gumby and remind us that he hated the character.

[BoyScoutKevin]

You may not be that far off the mark, Eirik. While I have not seen it, though I did hear about it, there was a television program  from the U.K., in which a camera was attached to a man's sexual organ, which he then inserted into his girlfriend's or wife's sexual organ, so that one got a view of what sexual intercourse looked like from inside the woman. I kid you not.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Since "The Core" has been mentioned. This is my example. Not so much of a 'bad science" line, but of "bad science." Any film where they drill down to the center of the earth and find a lost civilization or, at least, some form of life. "At the Earth's Core"  being one example. Another example being "Journey to the Center of the Earth." Of course, "bad science" does not necessarily make these films or any film unenjoyable.

[Fearless Freep]

Does that hand held camera movement make you whoozy?

Just irritated because it's senseless.  I can almost sorta see it for interior shots to try to get an 'I'm an observer in the room looking from person to person" vibe, but doing it for exterior, long-range shots is just stupid.  If the brain/eye coordination was that bad over distance, wide receivers and outfielders could never catch anything.

The fact that all the external shots are done with computer and they have to intentionally prgram that shakiness into it is *really* inane.

Heck, I've seen more stable World War II aerial footage

[Scott H]

What about C.H.U.D.s? Or Mole People. They may be mean spirited, but I'm sure they're just misunderstood. And they don't live in the center of the earth. Just below its surface. And they are completely illogical, unscientific creatures. Still, I look down drain covers for them every time I pass over one. Maybe one day.......

[Ozzymandias]

What about that whole schpeel that Eros goes through in Plan 9 from Outer Space ? He lost me on the stuff about heat from the sun.

[peter johnson]

Noise in space . . . Air in space . . .
Star Wars came out 11 years after the silent space of 2001.  Star Wars is/was more memorable apparently, as today all space operas feature loud noise in the vaccuum of space.
How very scientific . . .
Very little actual science exists in the modern science fiction film.
Eg:  All robot movies.  
The hardest thing to do in modern robot science is to have any robot navigate any given course & recognize anything blocking its way.
Every single robot movie has them all running around & negotiating tables & chairs like a regular person.  This ain't even nearly possible yet -- not for decades to come in the real world of science.
peter johnson/denny crane

[Mr Hockstatter]

http://www.culttvman.net/assets/images-EVENTS-2004/jjorlando2003Howwude.jpg

[AndyC]

Ozzymandias wrote:
> What about that whole schpeel that Eros goes through in
> Plan 9 from Outer Space ? He lost me on the stuff about
> heat from the sun.

"First was your firecracker, a harmless explosive. Then your hand grenade. They began to kill your own people a few at a time. Then the bomb, then a larger bomb. Many people are killed at one time. Then your scientists stumbled upon the atom bomb. Split the atom. Then the hydrogen bomb, where you actually explode the air itself. Now you bring the destruction of the entire universe, served by our sun. The only explosion left is the solaronite."

So, the first explosive invented was the firecracker, followed by the hand grenade, and then the atom bomb. And it looks like we've completely misunderstood the way the H-bomb works. And let us not forget that the entire universe is served by one sun.

Classic stuff. And later in the same speech when he explains that "a ray of sunlight is made up of many atoms." Brilliant. But who could forget the highly scientific explanation of the solaronite:

"Take a can of your gasoline. Say this can of gasoline is the sun. Now you spread
a thin a line of it to a ball, representing the Earth. Now, the gasoline
represents the sunlight, the sun particles. Here we saturate the ball with the
gasoline, the sunlight. Then we put a flame to the ball. The flame will speedily
travel around the Earth, back along the line of gasoline to can, or the sun
itself. It will explode this source, and spread to every place that gasoline, or
sunlight, touches."

The thing I could never figure out is if one solaronite will destroy the universe, how could they know it works? They obviously haven't tested one. How do they know, for a fact, that it would destroy the universe? Oh, I forgot. 'Cause they're so advanced.

[ulthar]

trek_geezer wrote:

> Ships in space
> can be a lot more maneuverable because they don't have to deal
> with that pesky atmosphere or gravity.
>

Okay, I've never actually FLOWN a ship in space, but I have played around with
the orbiter simulator:

http://www.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/~martins/orbit/orbit.html

Many, many a cpu cycle I've burned up playing this one.  Gameplay is not exciting like a first person shooter, but it's a gas.  Try to dock the space shuttle and IIS, or heck, even just get the Shuttle into stable low earth orbit!  

It ain't easy.

There's a sim for a fictional space "tug" called the Firefly, that one might use to move hardware around the spacestation (for contruction, for example).  You have to do all maneuvers by instruments, reading two radar screens that represent  orthogonal views.  Tricky.

I highly recommend this simulator (unfortunately, only for Windows last I checked, so I have to boot Windows to play), but fortunately, it is free.  It's my understanding that the underlying physics are accurately portrayed.



Post Edited (04-11-05 07:14)

[Mr Hockstatter]

Sort of a nitpick more than anything else, but in Star Trek:  The Wrath of Khan, when they're in the Mutara nebula, the Enterprise and Reliant can't see each other because their sensors are screwed up by the nebula.  But in all the external views, it seems that you can see through the nebula with crystal clarity if you just use the naked eye.  So, um, why didn't anybody think to just look out a freakin' window?  Both ships were covered in windows.

[Eirik]

Um... yipes.  I think I may have seen that actually.  But in this movie the doctor doesn't see the girl until several days after the event.

[ulthar]

There was a NOVA filmed back in the early 80's that documented conception, growth of the fetus and birth.  It used the predecessor technology to what is now used in arthoscopic (spelling?) surgery.  Anyway, I wonder if the movie you are talking about used some stock footage from the documentary?