Bad "science" lines.

[Ash]

I've always liked:

"Check the angular vector of the moon!"

(Dr. Zarkov in Flash Gordon)

[AndyC]

Brother Ragnarok wrote:

> "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!"
> *he said, having been too lazy to read the other posts and
> hoping no one has already covered it*

Somebody did :)

[Andrew]

I think that just about every line uttered by John Carradine fits this criteria and, to me, that man was the king of techno-babble.  In fact, from "Vampire Men of the Lost Planet" comes this one:

"It's dangerous, but you can use them. We're merely rearranging her brainwaves, electromagnetically."

Yeah, that would mean they are using the brain equivalent of a bulk eraser on her head.  Great stuff and John always had the delivery just perfect.

[Menard]

The more syllables in any word John Carradine uttered the better. Yes, it might take him a while, but it was worth it. (:

[Eirik]

There was an awful post apocalyptic movie with George Kennedy about a monster that can only reproduce by raping very recently pregnant women and having it's sperm take over the egg.  The doctor figures this out as he watches a computer screen showing the human sperm implanting in the eg and then a large "monster sperm" following it in shortly afterwards.  

So um...  where did THAT footage come from?  Does the girl's uterus have a security camera?

[Scott H]

When The Core came out in theaters, I took a date to see the movie. I didn't have many intentions towards her, but wanted to find out if she was the kind of girl who actually enjoyed watching stupid movies like me. Hey, she actually sat through it, gotta give her that much. Anyways, in the credits is a little listing that caught my attention. It read "realistic physics consultant" or something like that, and three names of three doctorates came along as those people.

MEANING they must have consulted, if only briefly with some people who knew what they were talking about in the physics world.

Can we assume it is possible for the Earth to stop spinning and that it is possible to get it started again? With nuclear blasts? By melting the inner crust? And this will bounce around the inner layer creating inertia? Or something like that. Where do they get this crap from. Some less-than-genious physics student who has an overactive and somewhat apocalytic imagination?

WHAT second-rate physics doctorate would let these kinds of massive mistakes into a movie?

This reaches further back in film history to the new beginnings of CGI, back to Star Wars and the outer space fights. All the space fighters had wings on the ships..... and this seems wrong to me because there is no point of wings where the is no wind- or air for that matter. Why didn't anybody catch there gigantic oversights? Or are they not oversights, but allowed into the movie due to a lack of care for further thinking?

The lack of appropriately thought out ideas seems to be the cause of careless movie science. If people fully developed an idea to where there were no holes in the idea, that idea may become good. The Core was not thought out and it defintitely wasn't good.

No more of this.... THERE ARE GOOD MOVIES OUT THERE TOO!!! I think I'll watch....... I'll watch....... umm, there aren't any good.... well........ I don't seem to have any good movies. Maybe I'll turn on the tv. Oh---boy---Ricky---Lake. Gaaahh.............

[ulthar]

I found this site

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/

a couple of months ago (no tellin' what I was surfin' for), and I think it is pretty good.  Scroll down near the bottom, and there are some links to some reviews from the Physicist perspective.

The key point, imo, is that physicists CAN enjoy a movie on it the merits of what it's supposed to be - entertaining - not always fretting over if the science is 'right' or not.

[odinn7]

"This reaches further back in film history to the new beginnings of CGI, back to Star Wars and the outer space fights. All the space fighters had wings on the ships..... and this seems wrong to me because there is no point of wings where the is no wind- or air for that matter. Why didn't anybody catch there gigantic oversights? Or are they not oversights, but allowed into the movie due to a lack of care for further thinking?"

Just to touch on the issue of having wings on space fighters...I figure they've got wings for 2 reasons: A) If you recall, they do fly through the atomosphere of planets now and then B) Wings make the ships look cool. How stupid would a Tie fighter look if it was just a ball? What about the X-Wing fighter...what would they call it if it had no wings...the No-Wing fighter?
Ah, just some points to ponder.

[AndyC]

I agree. I loved Carradine's delivery of the line in The Unearthly, where he talks about making some necessary sacrifices.

[Fearless Freep]

I just always assume that movies take place in a parrallel universe that's usually quite a lot like ours but has slight differences in the laws of physics...and occasionaly logic. Helps me sit through a lot.

[raj]

I vote for the latter.

[Eirik]

The X-Wing fighter's wings were not aerodynamic in purpose at all, they were weapon mounts that afforded it a wider arch of fire than the narrow-gunned tie fighter.  I think the X-Wing was a superior design, though visibility would have been rotten.

And for the record, they weren't called wings, they were called "S-Foils."  Some of you may recall the words of the brave Red Leader: "Lock S-Foils in attack position."  By spreading the wings, they placed the four guns into a wide rectangular kill box - making air-to-air gunnery easier.  Yeah, I'm a geek.  So?

[Menard]

You still ain't getting on the list. (:

[ulthar]

The aerodynamic issue was brought about the Viper on Battlestart Galactica.  I remember in school reading a pro-con article (yes, I actually got to read articles about BG as school assignments!); the guy that wrote the con article complained about the wings for a space fighter.  The counter arguement was, of course, they also fly in the atmospheres of planets.

The Viper's wings, if anything, are even LESS efficient as lift producers than the X-wing.  I think of it as a ballistic stability thing, more like fins on a rocket; the Viper is so fast, and its engines powerful enough, that lift is not important.

With the X-Wing figther in SW, well, it just LOOKED COOL.  (Ditto the Viper, btw).

[raj]

Eirik wrote:


> And for the record, they weren't called wings, they were called
> "S-Foils."  Some of you may recall the words of the brave Red
> Leader: "Lock S-Foils in attack position."  By spreading the
> wings, they placed the four guns into a wide rectangular kill
> box - making air-to-air gunnery easier.  

Don't you mean vacuum-to-vacuum gunnery?