homework help - sci-fi movie related

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Orion

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So, I have a paper that I want to do for extra credit in my Astronomy class. I need to find a sci-fi movie that has some things in it that relate to space and stuff. The catch is that I need to name things in the movie that happened that isnt true to reality or what would really happen. Then I need to find proof online somewhere to prove it wouldnt work.

I dont watch too many sci-fi movies so I thought I'd ask you guys for suggestions. If you could name some specific things that happen in the movie that couldnt really happen in real life, let me know those too.

I only have about a week and a half to complete this so the speedier in the responses, the better. Thanks in advance!

Orion
 
Armageddon, 2001, 2010, Sunshine, Apollo 13 and then we can go to B-movies as I cannot remember others from top of my head. Check them out and think on how the compare against the reality and known scientific facts. Afterwards you could probably watch Babylon 5 and Battle Star Galactiga, because they have some very interesting things going in them.

However, please do tell us why do you think we should do your homework for you?
 
Very few inaccuracies in 2001, though...would make for a short report.
 
ctg said:
Armageddon, 2001, 2010, Sunshine, Apollo 13 and then we can go to B-movies as I cannot remember others from top of my head.
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How would Apollo 13 help if he has to show examples of where the film isn't true to reality - it's a true story (and therefore not Science Fiction)?
 
Well there were a lot of differences between the movie and real events in Apollo13 (although it's still one of the more acurate 'based on a true story' movies) but most of the differences don't relate to bad science just cinematic changes.

Armageddon should be an easy one, it's set in the present, deals with near space travel and I assume most of the science in it is so so bad. Total Recall, or maybe the Aliens series which has a fairly well defined universe.
 
Quokka said:
Well there were a lot of differences between the movie and real events in Apollo13 (although it's still one of the more acurate 'based on a true story' movies) but most of the differences don't relate to bad science just cinematic changes.
Click to expand...

There were? It's based on Lost Moon by Jim Lovell, the Apollo 13 commander. Some elements of the story might have been altered to heighten drama, but they didn't change any of the laws of physics. In fact, they filmed the sections set in space on the "Vomit Comet" so it was as close as zero-gravity (well, micro-gravity) as you could get without leaving the planet.
 
OK a lot might have been overstating it, again it's still one of the more accurate 'true life' films and the changes were because they were making a hollywood movie and not a documentary. So in real life it was a whole team that worked through the problem of the power-up procedure where as in the movie it worked better to have Gary Sinise do it.

The only science error I'm aware of is that during the final burn they used the Sun not Earth as a reference point and when you look at a movie like Armageddon (which admitedly is SF) that's kind of splitting hairs.
 
Let's see... (I'm assuming that you don't want films that got things just a little wrong, but were just downright DUMB)

1) First Spaceship on Venus... "inverted gravity feilds" for one example.

2) Rocketship X-M... which just happens to go out of control, and just happens to end up near Mars... (Yeah, right! You ended up near Mars because of a threatened lawsuit by George Pal, Lippert!)

3) Any of the films made from "Space: 1999" episodes: The moon gets blasted out of orbit, and somehow manages to pass an alien planet every week... (Someone has no friggin' idea of the sheer SCALE of distance in the universe, now do they?)

4) Robinson Carusoe On Mars... the idea that Mars has a dense enough atmosphere that you could survive by slowly adapting to it... nope, sorry. The atmosphereic density of Mars was established back in the 1930's... there was no excuse for their ignoring reality.
 
I would certainly endorse Robinson Crusoe on Mars as being totally silly in any sense of reality. Oddly, I remember a positive review of the movie by either Time or Newsweek when it first came out (And the other magazine panned it).

How about This Island Earth or When Worlds Collide? Fifties extravaganzas that entertained, but had almost no scientific basis for believability.
 
iansales said:
There were? It's based on Lost Moon by Jim Lovell, the Apollo 13 commander. Some elements of the story might have been altered to heighten drama, but they didn't change any of the laws of physics. In fact, they filmed the sections set in space on the "Vomit Comet" so it was as close as zero-gravity (well, micro-gravity) as you could get without leaving the planet.
Click to expand...

There was using a Slide Rule to do addition, but that isn't an Astronomical error, just a very stupid error.

I'd stick with 1950's B movies, you will have much more material to write about.
 
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