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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
 Posted - 04/19/2007 : 8:36:53 PM
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Here's a new one. In The Fifth Element, the Ee-Vill Planet is monitored by Earth ships, who say that one temperature gauge says the planet's temperature is in the millions, and another one says it's "five thousand degrees below zero."
WHONK! Nope. Uh uh. Absolute Zero is -273 degrees Celsius or -459 degrees Fahrenheit. It is physically impossible for anything's temperature to go below that... or for a thermometer to give a reading that low. |
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John Nowak
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1017 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2007 : 09:16:10 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by BradH812
Again, this is nitpicking, but there's another problem in 2001. That centrifuge isn't rotating very fast. I clocked it, and it turns once about every twenty seconds.
Fortunately, this is pretty easy to work out.
If the diameter of the centrifuge is a bit over 30 feet, let's call it 10m. That's a radius of 5m. So, the circumference is 2 x 5 x pi or 31m. If it rotates once every 20 seconds, that's a rim speed of 1.6 m/sec (rounding to 2 significant digits).
Acceleration is v^2 / r, = 1.6^2 / 5 = 0.51 m/sec/sec, which is about 1/19 of one gravity.
Which is way too low.
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We've always been united in stupidity. That's why there is no hope. But, then again, when has that ever stopped us?
-- hbrennan |
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Altair IV
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
Japan
110 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2007 : 11:19:13 AM
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The Discovery centrifuge wouldn't have to spin for a full g, half a g would probably have been enough to protect from the deleterious effects of prolonged weightlessness. Still, it would have had to be going faster than depicted.
BTW, having such a small cylinder rotating that fast would also incur some strange coriolis force effects. If you tried to jump or throw something you would not get a nice, predictable parabolic arch.
quote:
Originally posted by BradH812
Here's a new one. In The Fifth Element, the Ee-Vill Planet is monitored by Earth ships, who say that one temperature gauge says the planet's temperature is in the millions, and another one says it's "five thousand degrees below zero."
WHONK! Nope. Uh uh. Absolute Zero is -273 degrees Celsius or -459 degrees Fahrenheit. It is physically impossible for anything's temperature to go below that... or for a thermometer to give a reading that low.
Who says they were using an Earth-based measurement system? It's quite possible to go 5000° below zero if you set zero to equal the fusing point of hydrogen, lets say.
As for the different measurements, well, two different systems. Or one system measuring two different areas. Hey, who knows? It's THE FUTURE we're looking at here. :-)
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Originally posted by Sardu
I've heard it said (to give the W. Bros. at least a little credit) that the distributed processing idea was actually written in the original script for the Matrix and the studio made them change it because they thought it was too esoteric a concept, whereas everyone gets the battery thing.
That's nice to hear, if it's true. It's heartening to know that they weren't THAT brain-dead when they thought the thing up. So the studio dumbed it down because they thought the audience couldn't handle it. Sounds like par for the course.
It doesn't quite make up for those stupid, unprotected battle-bots in the third episode, though. |
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RossM
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
427 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2007 : 12:30:51 PM
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I have always loved, as they say on Mystery Science Theater 3000, the law of selective gravity. Things float around in space depending on their comic or dramatic value.
The movie Apollo 13 gets most things right. They even filmed the Zero-G scenes in a diving airplane to achieve a real, not simulated effect. The science problem in the movie is the relative speed of the capsule. When they show it in space moving against the moon it is simply moving way, way too fast. Its dramatic, but wholly wrong, and in a movie that gets so much so right, its jarring to see this.
rossM |
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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2007 : 5:30:32 PM
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Apollo 13 also got the gantry arms retracting on liftoff wrong IIRC. it showed them retracting one by one as the camera flew by and not all at once. Again, I guess it made the shot dramatic. Sometimes artistic license must be taken...
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2007 : 6:12:39 PM
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Ross, just chalk that up to dramatic license, same as Apollo 13 depicts space as having sound. *g* By the way, speaking of selective gravity, I can't believe I'm giving credit to The Black Hole — which depicts astronauts floating around outside the spaceship without spacesuits at one point — for a realistic touch. But there was one very nice detail they had early on: in the Palomino's crew compartment, you see a notebook lying flat on a control console, in zero g. And there are two big clamps holding the notebook down. (Another thing I liked about that movie was the layout of the Palomino's control board. Everything looked like it had a purpose. No Christmas tree lights on this console!) I can't help it; The Black Hole is one of my most favoritest movies in the whole world!
Altair, if I remember right, the novel had the centrifuge on Discovery rotating about once every ten or fifteen seconds, enough to give one-sixth of a g. You'd need a really big drum to get a full g, and the novel says that the designers of the ship figured 1/6 g was enough to get by. In the movie's defense, they probably couldn't have that thing spinning any faster than it did. The scene where Bowman and Poole go down the corridor and into the centrifuge must've been pretty tough to film as it was; having that thing spin any faster may have made the scene impossible. (One might say the same about the scenes with the ladder: 1968 FX technology would not allow Kubrick to film stuff like this as it would be for real.)
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2007 : 6:14:38 PM
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And to make it official, since I mentioned it above...
The Black Hole — there is one scene where a rupture in the Cygnus's hull creates a vacuum that nearly sucks Our Heroes out of the ship. But there is one scene before and one after where the characters go outside the ship without space suits, with no ill effects. |
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Altair IV
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
Japan
110 Posts |
Posted - 05/09/2007 : 09:17:24 AM
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I recommend watching the 'making of' video they include on the Apollo 13 DVD. Yes, they took a few liberties in depicting people and effects, but the really amazing thing was how little of that they did. Ron Howard really went all-out to give the movie a realism that probably hasn't been seen since 2001. Take the liftoff. Yes, they did the gantries wrong, but they did have the flame plume come out, then get sucked back in, in spite of the fact that viewers would naturally think it wrong. It's that kind of attention to detail that makes Apollo 13 one of my all-time favorites.
BTW, they finally got around to broadcasting the "breaking and entering" episode of Mythbusters here yesterday. That episode was quite different from their usual formula and very entertaining. I love how they busted all the movie myths. It was interesting to note how unsuitable the visible lasers were (to the point that they are non-existent in real-life), but how difficult it was to even detect the infrared ones.
I still think wide-area motion sensors are a better defense though. Better yet, how about some super-sensitive microphones tuned to detect the subtle sounds of a human heartbeat? Let's just see if a person can stop his own heart beating for long enough to bypass that one!
The biggest problem with scenes like this though is that they all depend on the infiltrator knowing ahead of time exactly where and in in what form the security systems are. Without near-perfect (and up-to-date!) intelligence, I'd say anyone trying to break into one of these super-secret fortresses would be royally screwed.
Finally, the penultimate Mythbusters challenge of cracking the safe reminds me of another show I watched a while back (More Than Human?) where they featured a man whose fingers were so sensitive that he could open just about any safe in minutes entirely by touch. Now that's incredible. Occasionally the superhuman things you see on film pale compared to real life. |
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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
Posted - 05/09/2007 : 10:34:51 AM
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You make a good point- Apollo 13 does deserve an "attaboy" for getting as much right as it does, especially the weightless scenes, of course- can't get any more real than, well, real!
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo |
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John Nowak
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1017 Posts |
Posted - 05/09/2007 : 11:45:39 AM
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Yeah -- it is worth pointing out that more space was spent on this thread talking about 2001 than Matrix. I think that's because 2001 got so close to getting it perfect that you have to work to find subtle problems with the science; with most other films, the errors are less interesting.
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We've always been united in stupidity. That's why there is no hope. But, then again, when has that ever stopped us?
-- hbrennan |
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Altair IV
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
Japan
110 Posts |
Posted - 05/09/2007 : 12:57:58 PM
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[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13_(film)"]Wikipedia[/url] has a good page on Apollo 13 and some of the things it got right and wrong.
What I really can't understand is how the 1995 Academy award for best visual effects went to Babe(!) instead. I mean, a few animatronics and cgi mouth movements were worth more than the most detailed and accurate sfx and model work in years? We wuz robbed! This is one of the main reasons I stopped paying any real attention to the Oscars.
Oh, and in my last post, I meant 2001 the movie, not 2001 the year, obviously. Just thought I'd make it clear. |
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 10/08/2010 : 3:08:04 PM
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Any movie involving man-eating/man-killing plants where one of the characters scream, "The plants are alive! The plants are alive!" easily counts as a science gaffe. What did you think the plants were before?
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Flangepart
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
2329 Posts |
Posted - 10/22/2010 : 06:55:57 AM
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Well, 'The plants are mobile, the plants are mobile!' would be more accurate, but it would sound funny.
"I'm not insane, I'm reality impaired" -Flangepart
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2010 : 10:19:40 PM
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| "The plants are sentient!" maybe? The plants are awake? Actually, this is a goof that can show up in the best of movies. The Two Towers had Pippin note that the trees were "alive." Oops. (I'd love to take on a vegan and remind him or her that plants are alive too, and we have to kill them to eat them. But then I tend to enjoy baiting people too much.) |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2010 : 03:50:05 AM
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Not only plants are alive, but arguably there are far more living entities in a dish of beans in tomato sauce (let's say 25) than in a T-bone steak (1/40?).
That particular argument in favour of veganism always has sound stupid to me because of this reason. However, I have yet to find a vegan that is one for ideological reasons. Most vegans out there don't like meat or think their way of life is healthier. |
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