The 20 worst science and technology errors in films

[snopes]

A far-from-definitive list of the 20 most annoying science and technology errors in films, from slow-moving lasers to extraterrestrials who use Windows Vista.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/f...-in-films.html

[James G]

Bloody hell, the telegraph linked TV tropes! Although they would have been better linking Interspecies Romance.

ETA:Oooh, and Bad Science!

EETA: Multiple links in fact.

[RivkahChaya]

That was good, but I can't believe they left off Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, where Rick Moranis' character explains that his machine works by leaving all the persons molecules intact, just decreasing the space between them. Yet, the tiny kids still walk across his Cheerios, as though they do not weigh, say, 60 lbs apiece.

[jimmy101_again]

This could be fun.

Many of the points are arguable, so of course I'll argue.

Who says a human (actually a Jedi) can't block a laser beam? Granted a person can't move fast enough to block if they wait till the shot is fired before moving. But a Jedi using the force may well be responding to the thoughts of the opponent. If that is the case then blocking is trivial. Indeed blocking would be easier with a projectile moving at light speed (like a laser beam) since that essentially removes a couple of variables. Blocking a bullet is more difficult mathematically than is blocking a laser.

Who says an explosion doesn't make any sound in space? I suspect that if you were to hang a generic microphone out in space and explode something within a few miles that the mic would indeed detect a "sound". The common definition of sound is certainly terrestrial, so air, water, Twinkies etc. are all capable of transmitting sound. But if sound is what is recorded by a microphone then an explosion in space makes "sound", or at least it makes something that is detectable by sound recording equipment. Furthermore the "sound" is a pressure wave just like it is in air, water, Ho-hos etc.

[RobDBlackwolf]

I like the list, but... (not intended to start a discussion if such things would work, but here some canon explanations, its not OUR reality, remember).

1. Aliens look like humans with silly foreheads:
In the Star Trek Universe many planets were seeded by a progenitor race. Link to the DITL.org website with the canon information

2. Antigravity love songs
see 1.

5. Slow-moving lasers
I think the weapons in Star Wars are not meant as simply bundled light, but a "highly compressed, focused high-energy particle beam" (still silly but thats what the canon sources say).

6. Invisible force fields that stop visible laser beams
Again, they are not laser in the sense of our modern earth laser.

7. In space, no-one can hear an elephant scream
True that. But since its a propulsion system, can it be possible that energy emissions from the engine (nozzle, whatever) are hitting external sensors that are then translated into the characteristic sounds? Why would they do that? To warn the pilot of the ship that the other ship is there. Audio clue, similar to a horn on a car.

9. Dead before you hit the ground
Reinforced armor absorbed the shock instead of the flesh and bones of the one who wears the armor?

10. Science friction
Impuls engines are equipped with a "space-time driver coil" which creates a sub-warp cochrane field around the ship, reducing the mass of the ship (in relation to the "outside"), allowing for higher velocity.
When the engines are diabled the field collapses, which means the mass of the ship returns to normal, however the kinetic energy is the same. And due to natural laws, if the kinetic energy remains constant but the mass is increased it indeed lowers the velocity.
Same goes for Warpengines who create a field around the ship, making it more or less without mass. Remove the field, mass returns, kinetic energy remains the same, ship stops.
(On that note, in at least one episode the Enterprise was trapped where the trap would sap energy from the engine. The more energy used, the more energy was drained. The solution was to create a warpfield around the ship and use small bursts only, letting mass handle the rest)

and here my petpeve

SONAR doesnt go round and round and goes ping!
A modern US Navy sonar screen looks quite like a TV screen without reception: snowy (though not that chaotic moving).
Also if an enemy ship is detected it doesnt automatically tell you the name, class, speed, course and toilet paper used in the heads.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Le sigh: while some of these objections are valid, others simply show an unfamiliarity with the sf premise. And one or two are simply foolish (#3, below, for instance.)

2: Spock is half Vulcan, half human: all of the species in this region of space were seeded by "preservers." This is why we have American Indians in space, and why Vulcans are so closely akin to Romulans. Obviously, all humanoids in the region have a common ancestor. (This also explains why aliens are humans with funny foreheads.) (Also, I believe Star Trek mentioned that technological assistance was needed for Spock's fertilization.)

3: Hoth and Endor are not necessarily entirely ice and jungle. We've only seen those parts that are ice and jungle. Does the movie "Sahara" imply the whole earth is a desert?

5: Star Wars characters shoot "blasters," not "lasers." We don't know how fast a "blaster" bolt travels. On screen, you can see them move, so they're clearly not as fast as light.

6: We don't know how those force fields work. Maybe they trigger to stop very high energy densities. i.e., they let a flashlight beam through, but stop a high-energy laser. There are materials in the real world that let low levels of sound pass, but which block off (at least in part) high levels of sound.

10: When a Star Trek ship loses its engines, it loses its ability to generate a warp field, and thus is "slows down" by moving at lower and lower warp numbers. This isn't "friction" in the Newtonian sense, because warp space isn't Newtonian space. If a jet aircraft loses its engines, it doesn't begin to fall because of friction!

Where's Isaac Asimov when we need him most? He knew science and science fiction!

Silas

ETA: Spanked while typing by RobDBlackwolf. Total agreement, M'sieu!

[RobDBlackwolf]

(Also, I believe Star Trek mentioned that technological assistance was needed for Spock's fertilization.)

I know that Jadzia Dax (Trill) approached Dr. Bashir in DS9 because she and her husband Worf (Klingon) are wanting kids and they need medical assistance.

[A Turtle Named Mack]

Originally Posted by RobDBlackwolf

1. Aliens look like humans with silly foreheads:
In the Star Trek Universe many planets were seeded by a progenitor race. Link to the DITL.org website with the canon information

Originally Posted by Silas Sparkhammer

2: Spock is half Vulcan, half human: all of the species in this region of space were seeded by "preservers." This is why we have American Indians in space, and why Vulcans are so closely akin to Romulans. Obviously, all humanoids in the region have a common ancestor. (This also explains why aliens are humans with funny foreheads.) (Also, I believe Star Trek mentioned that technological assistance was needed for Spock's fertilization.)

And yet, Vulcans' oxygen-carrying blood component is based on copper, rather than iron, as in every vertebrate on Earth. That's some peculiar change to be wrought by the 'preservers' - sounds like Intelligent Design to me.

[Mycroft]

Originally Posted by Silas Sparkhammer

Hoth and Endor are not necessarily entirely ice and jungle.

To be fair, they are stated several times to be the Ice Planet Hoth and the Forest Moon of Endor.

It is perfectly possible for a planet to have an overall cold (Hoth) or arid (Tatooine) climate (and as far as we know the area of Hoth where the Rebels are based could be the tropics)

[Avril]

Also, not all of the Star Trek aliens were played by humans. I remember one particular alien played by a dog. (It was supposed to be frightening but all I could think was how cute the dog looked in his alien costume.)

[Insensible Crier]

The ones that get me are the ones that violate basic physics. For example:

- You will not be hurt from a fall from any height as long as you land in water.
- You will not be hurt from a fall from any height as long as someone catches you. Any they will be able to catch you without injury to anyone.
- Car crashes at any speed cause only minor injuries, even without seat belts.
- You can survive an explosion if you jump at the last second.
- Guns have no recoil.
- Guns are not loud when fired so numerous sub-machine guns and shotguns can be fired indoors with no problems.
- Ice doesn't float. (That's for you G.I. Joe.)

[Sjö]

Movie explosions get me. Just two things that especially annoy me:

1) You can't outrun an explosion like Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson do in The Long Kiss Goodnight. The blast and the debris or shrapnel move at a few miles per second, so just forget it.
2) Explosions with modern explosives (grenades, shells, C-4 etc) don't have fancy billowing flames or little sparkly things that shoot up in the air and leave pretty smoke trails.

[RivkahChaya]

Originally Posted by Insensible Crier

The ones that get me are the ones that violate basic physics. For example:

- You will not be hurt from a fall from any height as long as you land in water.
- You will not be hurt from a fall from any height as long as someone catches you. Any they will be able to catch you without injury to anyone.
- Car crashes at any speed cause only minor injuries, even without seat belts.
- You can survive an explosion if you jump at the last second.
- Guns have no recoil.
- Guns are not loud when fired so numerous sub-machine guns and shotguns can be fired indoors with no problems.
- Ice doesn't float. (That's for you G.I. Joe.)

Or, guns just make a "fft" sound if you use a homemade silencer consisting mainly of an empty plastic Coke bottle.

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

To be fair, they are stated several times to be the Ice Planet Hoth and the Forest Moon of Endor.

It is perfectly possible for a planet to have an overall cold (Hoth) or arid (Tatooine) climate (and as far as we know the area of Hoth where the Rebels are based could be the tropics)

Yeah, I don't get how this is a science or technology error. An interesting style and story choice, perhaps, but it's neither here nor there on science.

[Tabbyclaw]

Originally Posted by RobDBlackwolf

I 7. In space, no-one can hear an elephant scream
True that. But since its a propulsion system, can it be possible that energy emissions from the engine (nozzle, whatever) are hitting external sensors that are then translated into the characteristic sounds? Why would they do that? To warn the pilot of the ship that the other ship is there. Audio clue, similar to a horn on a car.

Which is explicitly stated to be the case in the Star Wars universe. And it's not a retcon; this was in the manual as far back as the novelization of the first film.

-Tabby
the princess with claws

[effo5231]

The one that bothers me is the whole "guy gets shot with a 9mm and flies backward through a window... My knowledge of physics isn't great but wouldn't the person firing a gun that could fling a person backwards also be flung backwards everytime they pull the trigger?

[Casey]

Originally Posted by effo5231

The one that bothers me is the whole "guy gets shot with a 9mm and flies backward through a window... My knowledge of physics isn't great but wouldn't the person firing a gun that could fling a person backwards also be flung backwards everytime they pull the trigger?

While the impact of the bullet knocking the person back is of course an exaggeration, there's something else in play.

Springs. Firing a revolver with essentially zero springs to eat the recoil is a wholly different experience than firing an automatic pistol with springs to whittle away at it. Thus, the shooter receives less incident force.

[jimmy101_again]

6. Invisible force fields that stop visible laser beams
Again, laser beams are light. Visible light. Anything that stops visible light will stop them – anything visible light can pass through, they can pass through. So how on Earth do they get knocked aside by invisible deflector shields? Mr Lucas? Sir?

Actually, this one is just plain wrong and displays a flawed understanding of basic science. (If you are critiquing something on a scientific basis you really should get your science correct. )

Lasers are often visible light but do not span the entire, or even a significant, part of the light spectrum. A typical laser's light is about as close to a "single color" as you can get with light. To block laser light you only need to block that very narrow frequency range. If you block that narrow band of light and allow all other colors through then the "shield" would be basically invisible. It would still pass the rest of the visible spectrum. Removing a very narrow band of color would be imperceptible to the human eye. Just as the human eye perceives narrow bands of red + blue + green light as being a complete white light spectrum the human eye will also interpret white light that is missing a very narrow band of color as still being white.

Indeed sun light is missing several very narrow bands of color but the human eye can not tell that those "colors" are missing. (see Fraunhofer lines)

So a laser shield could be invisible to the human eye. The shield would probably be most efficient if it was a monochromatic (invisible) filter.

[bjohn13]

Originally Posted by jimmy101_again

Indeed sun light is missing several very narrow bands of color but the human eye can not tell that those "colors" are missing. (see Fraunhofer lines)

Just out of curiousity....

Is it possible, then, that those colors exist, but the human eye has not evolved to be able to see them? Hypothetically speaking, could an alien race from a different sun potentially choose one of these colors as a standardized color for, say, their uniforms or space craft? And if they did, what would the human eye see when confronted with these colors? What would the alien eye see when donned with these colors under direct sunlight (where I assume the colors would not be relfected)?

Sorry, but this kind of piqued my interest.

[FullMetal]

Originally Posted by A Turtle Named Mack

And yet, Vulcans' oxygen-carrying blood component is based on copper, rather than iron, as in every vertebrate on Earth. That's some peculiar change to be wrought by the 'preservers' - sounds like Intelligent Design to me.

actually, they didn't just plunk down their exact genetic makeup, they inserted some of their genetic make-up into the existing species on the planet, into apes on earth, and other native animals to give them the ability to evolve into the intelligent space-faring races they did. They didn't seed the planets with life, they seeded the planets existing life with parts of their genetic make-up to speed up evolution. it's entirely possible that Vulcan evolved the copper based hemoglobin early in it's own planetary evolution.