Vista level Bonehead mistakes in movies.

[JunkMonkey]

Robinson Crusoe on Mars was a rare movie and a classic as far as i'm concerned. The sound in a vacuum thing has always bothered me. 2001 addressed it well, while it's sequel, 2010, although a decent film had rocket noises while orbitting Jupiter.

I agree, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, was far above the usual dross of its day. It actually looked like someone in the production team had read some SF. Both Ib Melchior (writer) and Byron Haskins (director) had above average, interesting SF movies under their belt before this one.

 

[Ursa major]

I just remembered another of my favourites. Mission to Mars a film that clocks up more than its fair share of 'duh wha?' moments (it could be argued the whole movie was a mistake but we won't go there).

In the film Val Kilmer has walked more than halfway around Mars*, fought off killer bugs, and a psycho robot, and bitter -50F ice storms, and all sorts of other perils to reach the site of an abandoned 30 year old Russian lander that failed to launch its return stage. If he can prize the lid off, empty the rocks out, hot wire the thing, and point it in the right direction he might JUST be able to rendezvous with the mother ship that only has something like 27 and a half turbo-minutes left on the clock before it has to fire the main engines and return to Earth.

Kilmer arrives at the site of the 30 year old piece of s**t Russian lander. He prizes off a panel and fires up the 30 year old Russian computer within. Clickity-click! Aha here it comes now up on the screen...
What?
The Russians not only helpfully labelled everything on the outside of their unmanned Mars lander in big letters for people to read (you know, Martians?), they also built in a 15 inch colour CRT monitor!?

Why?

Why would anyone spend god knows how many gazillion litregallonunits of rocket fuel first launching, and then gently landing, a computer monitor on Mars?



*did you see what I did there?

Yes: you gave the wrong film title.

Mission to Mars starred Gary Sinise, not Val Kilmer, and lacked a Russian spacecraft. You may have been thinking of the film, Red Planet.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Nuts! You're right. I initially wrote Red Planet, thought it was wrong, double guessed myself, didn't check, and changed it. Mission to Mars is the one where they all form a conga line and jump onto a passing satellite isn't it? I watched them both around the same time and they get mashed up in my head.

Why is it all first manned missions to Mars go horribly wrong? Robinson Crusoe on Mars is another, then there's: World Without End, Capricorn One, Rocketship X-M - okay that one was only supposed to be going to the moon and missed - Stranded, Battle Beyond the Sun, etc.

 

[Metryq]

The sound in a vacuum thing has always bothered me. 2001 addressed it well, while it's sequel, 2010, although a decent film had rocket noises while orbitting Jupiter.

People love to dump on this one for some reason. As I pointed out in another thread, this "scientifically accurate" film 2001: A Space Odyssey featured a "moon bus" cruising linearly over the surface rather than making ballistic hops, "fill light" in Discovery's shadows in deep space, the AE-35 communication antenna rotating like a radar, and suspended animation chambers inside the centrifugally accelerated portion of the ship.

As noted in Stephen Whitfield's The Making of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry opted to put a "swish" in the soundtrack as the Enterprise zips past in the opening titles because the shot looked dead without it. Similarly, he knocked crewmen out of their chairs for "near misses" during battle sequences. (Although one might argue that some kind of EMP from the weapon momentarily upset the ship's artificial gravitation—whatever.)

Back to 2001, that hallmark of scientific accuracy: the filmmakers deliberately left off Discovery's radiator panels because they figured the audience might think they were wings. 2010's Leonov featured radiator panels, but they were still very small.

Many "mistakes" in movies are deliberate for the sake of drama, or because the audience can't be expected to know things like nuclear engines needing radiators. Sparks from bullets ricocheting off non-ferrous surfaces is a common dramatic license. Cars surviving long-jump landings that would have bent the frame and destroyed the suspension is another. One of my favorites is the hero unflinchingly moving through a room that is positively engulfed in flames.

The industrial steam-in-the-face was a good gripe, but the sound-in-space thing is nitpicking. One might as well complain about the musical score. (Why can't the hero spot the bad guy by listening to the evil music? It's so simple for the audience!) Movies are made for people. Even Shakespeare had lots of murder and infidelity to appeal to the peanut gallery.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Even Shakespeare had lots of murder and infidelity to appeal to the peanut gallery.

At the risk of being over pedantic (can one be over pedantic?) It was hazelnuts and the galleries were the expensive seats. The hoi palloi were on the ground near the stage.

Totally agree with you on the sound in space thing. I think of it as non-digetic soundtrack and the problem goes away.

 

[Metryq]

It was hazelnuts and the galleries were the expensive seats.

You're right. It's been so long since I saw Will's troupe on stage that my mind is slipping. Although "peanut gallery" was the term for vaudeville, "groundlings" for the Globe.

Totally agree with you on the sound in space thing. I think of it as non-digetic soundtrack and the problem goes away.

2001 also had breathing noises for exterior shots of the pod, or an astronaut on EVA. "Throat mics" would not trigger for such sound, and unless the camera POV is from inside the helmet, the breathing noises are just as inappropriate. Aesthetically, the breathing sounds in 2001 are startling and impress the sense of vastness and isolation. When HAL takes control of a pod, the breathing becomes the stuff of classic horror—especially when it stops.

Now, if the engines of a ship could be heard from inside another, then the Vacuum Noise Pollution demonstrators would have a relevant point. Otherwise, even the hard silences in 2001 are artistic.