2000 AD Online Forum

 
    I know someone who knows a lot about  science.          

 I know virtually nothing about it so i cant comment.

   A good example was that recent film    Sunshine.

     I didnt bother seeing it as this person said dont bother as the science in the film regarding the sun was all wrong so i didnt bother as i was put off it.

  It seems that half the point of Sci Fi is to speculate as to what could be possible rather than what is.        No problem with that at all.

   But if a film is dealing with  the sun and  the solar system and all that isnt there enough known or plausible science to build a plotline around for a film ?

    Is known scientific theory too boring for a film ?

    Do the scriptwriters know nothing about scientific theory  ?

    D

o they think that the audience doesnt ?


     Am i missing the point ?
     
      Does it matter ?

                                                  Peter.

Well,I think the point is what sort of sci fi film is it trying to be?

If it is trying to portray 'hard' sf,it would have to get the real science right,plus any speculative parts would have to be based on extrapolation of current scientific theories or paradigms eg 2001.

On the other hand,if it's 'space opera',the scientific accuracy could be forgiven for a ripping yarn eg The Terminator.

I think it's both the scriptwriters and the viewers tbh-most people don't want to watch a lecture,so why write one?Most peoples idea of sf is popcorn space opera eg Armageddon-which there's nothing wrong with-but there are films out there that would be closer to the spirit of sf eg Solaris.

I haven't seen Sunshine myself-what was your friends objection to it?

M.

   I havent seen it so i dont know.      I have seen the core and films like that and i enjoy them for what they are.      I was just wondering if hard science could be as exciting as something that isnt.    

             The person  i know is a bit of a cleverdick but necessarily in a bad way but he takes it all seriously rather than just enjoying it for what it is.     Or if you just watch a film and then say       That isnt  possible   !!    then it can get in the way of things.

Can stories including hard science be interesting? I think the answer to that is 'yes' if you've got decent characters and plot.  Then again I think the same can be true for stories that don't include hard science. It's the story and characters that are the important point.

I think it's ok to take liberties with the science of a story as long as you keep it consistent (within the world of the story) and it's not too out there. For example you have methods of interstellar travel in a lot of films, and whilst the science behind it is spurious in the real world it's acceptable within the laws of the world of that story. However, a bloke somehow tuning into a mind controlling signal at the point when lot's of people say his name causing him to rejuvenate... I think that's an example of taking things too far.

On the other hand if the world of the story is based completely on real science, that doesn't mean the story need be boring since the science just dictates how the world itself works, a small part of the story as a whole.

As for Sunshine, I haven't seen it so I can't really comment on the science of that story.

I enjoyed watching Sunshine and didn't notice any of the problems until long after it ended. Looking back, you can pick all sorts of holes in it, but since they didn't get in the way of the story I don't mind.

It only matters when they do something so outrageous that it interrupts your enjoyment of the film, because you get that jarring moment when your "suspension of disbelief" collapses and you realise the script sucks.

The main science issues with Sunshine (not really a spoiler, as this is how it's trailed) are a) the sun is going out very soon and b) it can be reignited by an outrageously large bomb. If that premise is unacceptable then there's no film. I don't have a problem accepting that premise, as it's clearly fiction. Everything else seemed to flow from it reasonably plausibly (ignoring the human dimension of course).

     Seems there is a time and a place for analyzing  and not during the film thanks.

I thought The Core had the most ridiculouse crap science ever in it(The Earths stopping spinning because we vibrated its core with sonics causing all kind of catastrophies(er..how) so to get it going we'll drill to the core and let off some Nukes of an exact size to start it spinning again(would this just not blow the planet apart?) as they miscalculated they have to trail the bombs around and set them off an exact way to make it spin(how?) and dont even get me started on how they get back out of the core.  However I still enjoyed this load of crap imensly as it had the best Penis shaped Drill Ship ever :) I'm easy to please sometimes.
other examples of mind bendingly dumb science in movioes any one enjoyed?

CU Radbacker

> other examples of mind bendingly dumb science in movioes any one enjoyed?

Independence Day:

The guy from Taxi: "You'll get a cold sitting on the floor like that."

The guy from The Fly: "A cold... My god! That's it! We'll connect our Apple laptops to the alien invaders' computers and upload a virus that'll completely cripple their ships!"

The guy from Taxi: "Er... You'll what now? I mean, leaving aside the fact that the aliens' computers are likely to be protected by a firewall, and that the likelihood of them actually having computers that are capable of understanding and running your machine code is next to zero, how the hell are you going to even find a compatible cable? Do you know how hard it is to get a Mac to talk to a PC even though they're practically identical? What the hell kind of a scientist are you, anyway?"


Oh... Wait a second... You said "enjoyed" didn't you? Sorry - I thought you said "thoroughly despised."

-- Mike

I always thought that due to the fact the aliens are using our Satelite systems they'd left themselves open to it(they would've had to re-cofigure their computers to work with our crappy tech and maybe they just forgot a firewall?).
I liked ID4 the first couple of times I watched(for the spectical) but on sudsiquent veiwings it kinda sucked.

CU Radbacker

I enjoyed 28 Days Later, even though I had to suspend disbelief over the rapidity with which the virus took effect. A virus with no incubation period whatsoever. Bearing in mind that viruses don't have a nucleus and therefore cannot replicate their own DNA, they work by injecting it into host cells which become viral DNA factories. It would take more than mere seconds for someone infected with the virus to become a rabid, slavering monster.

I think it's okay to bend the rules of science in movier if:-

One: It's much cooler to do it this way. For example 'StarWars' uses sounds and explosions in the vacuum of space. Though, if it didn't the movie would suffer.

Two: When it's plausible, even if the rules of science are still bent without being broken. Perhaps the physics equation hasn't been met. For example The film 'Time-Line' where Michael Crichton comes up with a interesting theory for sending people back through time. Since it's already been proven in theory that a wormhole to the past can be created. The only other problem that needed solving was that the wormhole was so tiny. The corrupt scientists working in the secret underground facility somewhere in the New Mexico desert had come up with a way to shrink people down to their most basic particles or physically destroy them. Send whats left of them through the wormhole and rebuild them or reconstitute them on the other side.  It's based on Fax technology.  They fax people through.

 I was by intrigued this. Though the obvious question from me here is how did they did they get recieved and re-contituted on the other side. ( In the television series 'Quantum Leap', The recepient gets swapped with another person from the time period he randomly travels to.)
 Well, they had all these mirrors on that completly enclosed them the people that were going through. My guess is, that they were projected through time as information, light reflecting through the mirrors and then through the wormhole. Well, they also had had about 32 billion ( Or just a million.) computers working together. I would say thats enough to build a big virtual reality duplicate of the French/English meidevel time they were sent back to.  Anyway, if thats wrong though, then, how were they recontituted on the other side. Well in the movie they landed in the river and swam ashore almost getting run over by a troupe of robber knights on horse back. They had these remote controls that to send temsleves back back. My guess here is that their bodies were reconstituted out of water. Aren't we made mostly from water anyway. I know it does sound silly but it's my only explantion for something that wasn't really explained in the film.

Though the book explains and describes this scientific experiment from the recipients point of veiw. Where everything around them gets bigger and bigger as they shrink down into nothing. Falling through the floor and the fabric of space time and being redirected through the wormhole. But there is more. It goes on to say that they fell into the quantum sea. Which is supposedly made from mercury ( Quantum Froth. This, I thought was interesting  and I wanted to see this for myself in the movie. But alas it was not included.) and then they are suddenly standing on a pathway in a forest.

Well, some of it sounds really far fetched and some of it sounds plausible. Given the circumstances.

Link: Here's my other idea of plausible theories!

Without spending too much time mulling over films that I've seen...I enjoyed as a kid Silent Running which is 'kind of' a hard science movie.

The site linked below is quite entertaining for it's real-life analyses of movie physics.  The movie reviews are, er, thorough.

Link: Bad Movie Physics

Jesus. They really need to get out more...

Top site! :D

Star Wars is unrealistic???

Well I never, I feel so foolish for falling for their blatant disregard for the laws of physics!

Star Wars really isn't SF, even by Lucas' definition.

I can't think of a single Sci Fi film where the actual science would stand up to much scrutiny, but I really don't spend much time worrying about it. The ones most likely to are the ones where the tech is just a matter of fact backdrop to the world (Blade Runner, Alien) or a way of externalising the emotional core of the story (Solaris.)

I don't think really "hard" SF would make for a particularly enjoyable film. I, for one, can't really imagine somebody making a big budget blockbuster out of a Greg Egan novel.

And returning to the original point, Sunshine was great. Film of the year.

Something I do spend a lot of time worrying about, on the other hand, is why the CIA guys in The Bourne Identity constantly refer to him as Jason Bourne - the name on false passport he picked at random from a whole bagfull - when they know his real name. That spoiled the whole film for me.

    I know exactly what you mean.

    I cant be bothered to get bogged down in all that science as that is someone elses job.

      I dont mind after the film but not before it as you just have to realise its just a film and even then i am not that interested anyway.

    Its like what you said about the name on the passport.  you can relate to it  because it is grounded in reality which you can relate to more easily.

    I would love to time travel but i am not interested in the whys and wherefores of it.   just wether it works or not

 

   Some people are so critical it makes you wonder how they enjoy anything.

...why the CIA guys in The Bourne Identity constantly refer to him as Jason Bourne...

I suppose it beats calling him 'Weapon X' or somesuch.  I was pondering this too (never having read the books), but it was the name on the only passport on the top layer of the safe deposit box (as opposed to the dozens in the lower layer), so presumably it was his 'default' identity, the 'clean' one he uses when not on a specific mission.  I'm settling in to watch the second film tonight, so no spoilers please, but I got the impression that the Treadstone agents have no links with their previous lives, so 'Jason Bourne' is a presumably a constructed or programmed identity, and more valid than his 'real' name.  

Must say though, I only watched this for the first time last week and I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite the odious Matt Damon being somewhat prominent, even if I couldn't help mentally retitling the film "Whatever Happened to Will Hunting?". It's faintly unsettling that many actors thrive in "vacant programmed killer" roles where otherwise they're pretty hopeless.  

By the way, i couldn't help detecting strong oak-ey notes of Bourne in Greysuit.

"Some people are so critical it makes you wonder how they enjoy anything."

Hey,it's one of the drawbacks of being a crazy scientist and a fanboy!

'Worst science ever'

     I dont mind if they are as critical as they want but not during the film otherwise i will just watch on my own.
 
               Its not acceptable in the cinema and its no different here.

       I usually go to the cinema alone but if you go with someone else you can go for a drink afterwards and reflect on the film.

It's faintly unsettling that many actors thrive in "vacant programmed killer" roles where otherwise they're pretty hopeless.

A good example Arnold Swarzenegger. Possibly mispelt.

He was very good as The Terminator. He did that cool emotionless killing machine perfectly... but he isn't much of an actor in anything else.  Don't get me wrong, I like other films he starred in (particularly Predator and Total Recall) but not so much for his acting ability. (Actually he wasn't that bad in predator, but then he was playing a relatively emotionally distant army guy... another killing machine of a sort.)

Bit off topic... but never mind.

As for that Crichton film... I haven't seen it, but I have read the book. The way they explained the people being reconstituted in that book was by falling on the whole parallel universe idea. I.e. "After destroying the peoples bodies and sending their information back we don't have to bother reconstituting them because there's another universe out there that will do it."
Dodgy presumption (or is it assumption?) eh?

Is that something along the lines that everyone and everything exists at everypoint in time and space, and 'all' that they're doing is finding a way of moving your consiousness into another of these people?  

is crichton referring to configuration space from quantum mechanics?

i've wet my knickers!

He's talking about quantum foam or something, if I remember correctly.