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    Top 10 Scientifically Inaccurate Movies

    http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/collections/gallery/903/top-10-scientific-inaccurate-movies

    I am shocked!

    I watch sci-fi shows purely for entertainment. But I always believe the science in serious sci-fi shows. I expect that the science is at least theoretically possible. How naive of me.

    I enjoyed all the shows in the list. Except for Starship Troopers. I've never disliked a movie so intensely as this one. Good thing I saw this for free.

    1. Armageddon
    We could put together a long list of all the things wrong with Michael Bay's feel-good ode to global destruction, but NASA has already and they counted at least 168 mistakes. But perhaps the biggest problem is that the plot itself -- splitting a Texas-sized rock in two with a single nuke -- has a Texas-sized hole in it. We don't have a nuclear bomb anywhere near powerful enough to do the job. As strange as it might seem, this is a case of a Michael Bay movie not having a big enough explosion.

    2. Independence Day
    That mammoth mothership hovering over the earth in geostationary orbit would be doing more than just freaking out the world's population. Because of its close proximity and mass -- 1/4th that of the moon, according to the film -- the flying saucer's gravitational pull would cause massive tidal waves, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. The aliens wouldn't even have to roll out their anti-matter ray to blow up the White House -- it would already be underwater.

    3. Starship Troopers
    Could a band of cave-dwelling, preverbal giant insects really have the sophisticated mathematics and technology to hurl a rock millions of miles through space to crash into Earth? Plus, 70% of the planet's surface is covered in water, so they only had a 3 out of 10 chance at even hitting solid ground, let alone a major city like Buenos Aires.


    4. The Day After Tomorrow
    Roland Emmerich brought his trademark academic rigor to the realm of climatology and the result proved to be so silly that NASA refused to help with the filming of the movie. For one thing, it would require most of Antarctica to melt in order to submerge New York City to the level it is in the movie. If all the rays of the sun were directed at the South Pole, its ice would melt in about two and half years. This ridiculousness drove Duke University paleoclimatologist William Hyde to publicly state, "This movie is to climate science as Frankenstein is to heart transplant surgery."


    5. The Core
    In the movie, the Earth's inner core -- a nickel-iron mass about 1500 miles in diameter -- stops rotating, causing the planet's magnetic field to collapse and microwave radiation from space to blast through the atmosphere. But microwaves aren't affected by magnetism, and the radiation that comes from space is too weak to damage anything here. What's more, if the core did stop rotating for whatever reason, we'd have more to worry about than that. The energy stored in the core would have to go somewhere, and the effect on the planet would be equivalent to five trillion nuclear bombs going off at once.


    6. The Matrix
    Much in the way of physics in the Matrix -- like dodging bullets and running up walls -- gets a pass because it's all within a massive virtual world. But in reality, our supposed robot overlords are a bit dim. Humans are a remarkably inefficient energy source. Instead of turning the human race into Duracells, the machines would probably get more energy just setting those goopy people pods on fire.


    7. Jurassic Park
    Having a wildlife park full of dinosaurs would be a really cool idea if it weren't for a few problems. No, not imperfect security or the possibility of spontaneous lizard sex changes. The problem is that it would be almost impossible to clone the dinosaurs based on DNA pulled from the guts of a 25 million-year-old mosquito. The dinosaur DNA's double helix most certainly would have been broken down into individual chunks, mixing together with whatever else the mosquitoes might have eaten along with some of the insect's own genetic material. Any creature constructed from that mess might be the stuff of nightmares, but probably wouldn't look like a T. Rex.


    8. Total Recall
    The red planet's gravitational pull is roughly 1/3rd that of the Earth's. So if, for example, an Austrian bodybuilder were to visit Mars, he would be bounding across the room like Michael Jordan. Another problem: when exposed to the thin atmosphere of Mars, like bad guy Cohaagen at the end of the movie, you would likely suffer from a raging case of the bends and you would asphyxiate -- both of which are plenty lethal -- but your head wouldn't bulge out and explode like an overused stress toy.


    9. Outbreak
    A monkey threatens a small town with a virus that kills everybody in less time than your average DMV visit, and only Dustin Hoffman can stop it. The trouble with a disease that virulent is it kills the host too fast to spread. Otherwise, we would be dead from the Ebola virus. Also, it generally takes longer to make a cure from monkey serum than it does to make a latte. Dustin Hoffman does look great in a hazmat suit, though.


    10. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
    Indiana Jones has survived a lot of improbable adventures, be it fleeing ancient spherical boulders or fighting off cult members while dangling off a rope bridge. But few scrapes have tested the bounds of believability more than Indy's escape from a nuclear bomb blast thanks to a lead-lined fridge. The problem is that, even if he didn't get flattened, horribly burned or suffocated (kids, don't hide in refrigerators), Indy almost certainly would have gotten a lethal dose of radiation from the fallout. And that's a lot scarier than snakes.

    #2
    twister.

    even F5 tornados don't stay on the ground overnight. I knew i was in trouble in the beginning and Jo's father says 'there's an F3 headed our way'...you don't know the rating of a twister until after it's over since the F rating is devined from the damage caused by said twister...and i don't think the Fujita scale even existed back in the 60's, or was common knowledge.

    And we won't even go into flying cows, self-repairing windshields, windows that roll up by themselves and the impossibility of driving through a house and NOT hitting plumbing

    Good soundtrack, fun way to kill 2 hours...but a comedy when you try to look at it in even a slightly realistic way.
    Where in the World is George Hammond?


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      #3
      Interesting stuff about those movies.
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        #4
        Interesting. Good read.
        Science Fiction is an existential metaphor; it allows us to tell stories about the human condition.

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          #5
          Interesting list. Regarding "The Day After Tomorrow", it's obviously scientifically inaccurate, but I think that works well for it in terms of getting across the point- it's an exaggeration, creating a pretty decent environmental warning story.

          And it was pretty darn freaky.


          As for Starship Troopers.....ugh, I don't want to go near that movie. I too am relieved that I didn't have to pay to see it. I want those two hours back.

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            #6
            Lee got greened.
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              #7
              Originally posted by mappalazarou View Post
              Lee got greened.
              thank you.

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                #8
                Originally posted by Trek_Girl42 View Post
                Interesting list. Regarding "The Day After Tomorrow", it's obviously scientifically inaccurate, but I think that works well for it in terms of getting across the point- it's an exaggeration, creating a pretty decent environmental warning story.

                And it was pretty darn freaky.


                As for Starship Troopers.....ugh, I don't want to go near that movie. I too am relieved that I didn't have to pay to see it. I want those two hours back.
                I enjoyed Day After Tomorrow. I got the environmental message clearly. The scientific inaccuracy was not obvious to me, though.

                I was channel surfing and I accidentally came upon Starship Troopers. You're right about the 2 hours.

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                  #9
                  They left out my favorite part about starship troopers. They mentioned the Bugs throwing the asteroid into Buenos Aires as being stupid for accuracy reasons but overlooked the much larger crime against science looming over the whole thing.

                  The bugs supposedly threw an ordinary asteroid from their home world on the other side of the galaxy and hit Earth with it.

                  Just think about that for a minute.

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                    #10
                    ...

                    Wow.

                    ....

                    I mean they have really good aim.
                    I write articles/features/reviews for I'm With Geek.com now. Check out our stuff if you get a minute!

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                      #11
                      I'd like to meet the person who thought any of those movies were scientifically accurate before seeing this thread, and then thump them over the head a few times with a colouring book. Then we'll move on to elementary science textbooks.
                      "A society grows great when old men plant trees, the shade of which they know they will never sit in. Good people do things for other people. That's it, the end." -- Penelope Wilton in Ricky Gervais's After Life

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                        #12
                        sunshine makes no 1 in my book, skinless guys living for 7 years and not disturbing ANY of the inch thick dust on the ship.................. the fact that light travels about 10 metres per second in the end scene.................. artificial gravity................. the fact that everyone thought they were the best people for the job, yet they were all crazy (mostly the psych officer though).............. that stupid pointless gold suit that never goes in sunlight anyway.................. the body freezing too quickly in space.

                        not ALL science inaccuracies, but they bug me nonetheless

                        Originally posted by Ouroboros View Post
                        They left out my favorite part about starship troopers. They mentioned the Bugs throwing the asteroid into Buenos Aires as being stupid for accuracy reasons but overlooked the much larger crime against science looming over the whole thing.

                        The bugs supposedly threw an ordinary asteroid from their home world on the other side of the galaxy and hit Earth with it.

                        Just think about that for a minute.
                        but SGT zim more than makes that film.................. MEDIC!!!
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                          #13
                          Originally posted by Skydiver View Post
                          twister.

                          even F5 tornados don't stay on the ground overnight. I knew i was in trouble in the beginning and Jo's father says 'there's an F3 headed our way'...you don't know the rating of a twister until after it's over since the F rating is devined from the damage caused by said twister...and i don't think the Fujita scale even existed back in the 60's, or was common knowledge.

                          And we won't even go into flying cows, self-repairing windshields, windows that roll up by themselves and the impossibility of driving through a house and NOT hitting plumbing

                          Good soundtrack, fun way to kill 2 hours...but a comedy when you try to look at it in even a slightly realistic way.
                          Ahh...and in junior high school, it used to be my favorite movie...I now see it for what it is: unbelievable but still enjoyable.

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                            #14
                            yep. It's a fun bit of brain candy...just so full of inconsistencies that i classify it more as a comedy than a drama
                            Where in the World is George Hammond?


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                              #15
                              Originally posted by Ouroboros View Post
                              They left out my favorite part about starship troopers. They mentioned the Bugs throwing the asteroid into Buenos Aires as being stupid for accuracy reasons but overlooked the much larger crime against science looming over the whole thing.

                              The bugs supposedly threw an ordinary asteroid from their home world on the other side of the galaxy and hit Earth with it.

                              Just think about that for a minute.


                              Yeah, the thing they pointed out (accuracy) doesn't really fit with the list. Improbable? yes, but not inaccurate scientifically. I mean, if they somehow have the tech to hit Earth from across the galaxy, I don't think being accurate enough to hit a city would be a problem.

                              But like you said, the distance is the real problem. They probably would have had to send those puppies before Earth existed (or at least before we were of any concern) in order to hit us. I guess we can assume they have some sort of FTL involved in their backswing.

                              (note, I love that movie)

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