Bad Movie Science

[JunkMonkey]

Movie science and real world physics part company all the time but sometimes... sometimes the gap between them is so big it can only be measured in MegaWTFs?

For your consideration: From Battle in Outer Space (1959)

The story so far: A series of inexplicable disasters have rocked the world. The world's leading scientists gather to tell each other things so the audience can hear them:

- It is clear from an examination of the circumstances resulting from these three disasters that there was a common force at work in each instance. The fact that the survivors were severely frostbitten is of particular significance indicating that extremely low temperatures were somehow produced. Now, what does this imply? Simply that by rapidly lowering the temperature of a certain object, its gravity would also be decreased.

-But isn't it impossible to remove gravity from a stationary object or a certain place?

- Yes, you are right. You see, it's been considered impossible up to now. But now it has happened here on Earth. My colleagues, Dr. Adachi and Major Katsumiya have a brief analysis of some very interesting data on this subject which I will ask them to explain to you.


- As you know, the cause of gravity is the motion of atoms. When the atoms of an object have no movement, its gravity is correspondingly diminished. At the temperature known as absolute zero, the atomic movement of an object is reduced to a state of rest and it becomes weightless. Owing to the centrifugal force of the revolving Earth itself, the object thus affected would rise up into the air. We are sure that the recent disasters were caused by a operation from space of some sort of freeze ray, which, by reducing temperatures abruptly was able to destroy the gravity.

Holy Moly!

What's your favourite really awful bad movie science moment?

 

[paranoid marvin]

Battle Beneath The Earth

Used to be on all the time when I was a kid (or so it seemed). Rogue Chinese general burrowing under US cities to place atomic bombs. Cue cops getting called to a 'listening disturbance' (really!?) with a scientist with his ear to the sidewalk claiming that he can hear tunnelling noises "Just like ants".

 

[BAYLOR]

Journey To The Far Side of the Sun 1969 also knows as Doppelgänger This film for its time has great special effect production values . Roy Thinnes plays n astronaut sent on mission to land a nuke dissevered habbitla planet which shares a twin orbit with Earth and is co pilot get ther crash-land the co plot dies and the rescuer is maiznginly Huamn and sudden the astronaut finds himself face to face with his mission boots who asking him why he came back and he consumed because as far he knows he arrived this mysterious planet. The send him home with his wife and while he drive he goes of the road because he thouhgthr the an oncloong car in his path, He get home he's in room pouring what happened and then glad in mitre and see something with writing reflected in the glass and he see that the writing which erring seen any mirror is receded but in this case its not he very quick find that al the ppasper and reading material he see is revised and when he hold it up to a miiii it isn't. He final figure what happened to him , he did make to that planet , It's exact mirror image of Earth literally and also on his earth there also a mirror version dupicate of him who has discovered that he too is on the wrong earth.

The premise of this is beyond loopy.

 

[Matteo]

Actually...

...I quite like that one

 

[Ori Vandewalle]

The cold stuff there reminds me of The Day After Tomorrow, where at one point the characters are literally attempting to outrun the cold as it chases them.

 

[AnRoinnUltra]

Watched Message from Space (Kinji Fukasakau, 1978) thanks to a post here. At one point the gang park up the spaceship and go for a swim to catch space fireflies. The breaststroke and a light frog kick seemed to work best for outer space. (loved the film, but my 1980's Marist Brothers level science could easily spot the flaws)

 

[BAYLOR]

The cold stuff there reminds me of The Day After Tomorrow, where at one point the characters are literally attempting to outrun the cold as it chases them.

The scene where Jack stooding on top buried Restaurant with his unconscious associate Dash . The air suddenly clears , Jack looks up into the sky sees he's standing in the middle of the eye of the storm which means certain death from instantaneous freezing and yet, Jack isn't frozen instantly , he runs for vent on roof and as he about table in with Dash , A nearby fluttering Flagg freezes solid. jack and Dash should have died instantly like the Mammoth in the New Natural history that froze to death( and it had a much thicker coat) or and Sam and his friends . the went on the Russian boat to get medicines and supplie, The to see the eye of the storm and the window in the skyscrapers freeze down to the ground. They running from the frost which means that the air cold enough to freeze lung tissue . They too should have diedlong before they reached the safety that room and fireplace.

 

[BAYLOR]

Watched Message from Space (Kinji Fukasakau, 1978) thanks to a post here. At one point the gang park up the spaceship and go for a swim to catch space fireflies. The breaststroke and a light frog kick seemed to work best for outer space. (loved the film, but my 1980's Marist Brothers level science could easily spot the flaws)

That film was called the Japanese answer to Star Wars and , it really wasn't a great answer at all. it hadmemeobalt bad acting and such Pulitzer Prize winning dialogue as " Im a Human Bing from the Planet Earth " and " They don't Call me Kamikaze for nothing " This film is a positive joy to watch,

And did you know they did a Message from Space Tv Series ?Also done in Japan and it ran for 28 episodes , I think

 

[AnRoinnUltra]

That film was called the Japanese answer to Star Wars and , it really wasn't a great answer at all. it hadmemeobalt bad acting and such Pulitzer Prize winning dialogue as " Im a Human Bing from the Planet Earth " and " They don't Call me Kamikaze for nothing " This film is a positive joy to watch,

And did you know they did a Message from Space Tv Series ?Also done in Japan and it ran for 28 episodes , I think

Class, must try dig them up sometime -yeah the whole thing was fun with loads of seemingly unexplained madness (the space police/ interstellar Dukes of Hazard bit had me in knots laughing)

 

[JunkMonkey]

Here's another cold related one: From my 2008 Film Diary
Manhunt in Space More Rocky Jones TV episodes nailed together into the rough simulacrum of a movie. The prestigious JunkMonkey SuperScience Gizmo of the Month Award goes to Professor Newton's Cold Light Device, explained, almost thusly, by heroic Rocky Jones to his comedy side-kick 'Winky'

"The filament in the vacuum tube is quickly bought to a temperature of about minus 342 degrees centigrade. Heat can affect us so that images that can't normally be seen, can be seen by the human eye - like the mirages that appear in a hot desert. Intense cold can have the opposite effect and blot out images that are actually there. When this is switched on, the rays sent out by the terribly cold light will surround the spaceship and make it invisible."

Why this incredibly cold ray doesn't freeze the tits off anyone within a couple of miles, or coat the ship in a frosting of ice when it lands on a planet with atmosphere is never explained - though it may be the reason I can never find anything in my freezer when I'm looking for it.

 

[BAYLOR]

Warning From Space 1956 Japanese science futon movie in which aline from the planet Paira the opposite side of the Sun who, look like giant starfishes with an eyes in the middle of their bodies come to earth with a warning that earth is about to be destroyed an approaching rogue planet which will destroy both their planet and Earth . The first problem they run into is that their physical appearance scares earth people so what they for is use their advanced science turn themselves perfect copies of Human to facilitate better communication . The one way to destroy the earth is massively power weapon millions of times more powerful then Hydrogen bomb. Initially their mission was to came earth and destroy the formula for the weapon created by the earth scientist (which thye did) so earth wouldn't develop this terrible weapon. The Pairians had in the past and destroyed all knowledge of it .The problem for them them is for all their advanced scientific knowledge need the help of the earth scientist because they can't figure out how to recreate formula for this weapon( which makes no sense whosoever ) And now their last hope is this scientists who with their help are. able to recreate the formula to create the weapon and take out the planet which, is what happened. , The problem is the rogue planet get veyr close rto earth and one has to wonder why the Earth want showered by global killing asteroid debris from the now shattered rogue planet. Also it look like this planet went past the Roche limit and it didn't dramatically shift the earths access or Earth orbit. The pale was also bring like a sun and heating up the earth and one has wonder what thatdidpermnetly screw up the celibate or met the ice capsor cause massive world wide 9.5 or higher earth quakes.

 

[CupofJoe]

I love Geostorm [2017 Dean Devlin]
It looks at the rules and science and says "Nah... We go for the rule of cool"

 

[Rodders]

As enjoyable as they are, I think the mere existence of Kaiju monster fits this category.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

Bad movie science? How about in Star Trek where the aliens on far away planets are usually humans. I accept that sometimes they make them blue or green. Or sometimes they have a little antenna on their heads. But basically human.

Also giant creatures. Insects for example. When you double the dimensions of an object its cross sectional area is quadrupled and its volume is multiplied by eight. The strength of a limb is determined by its cross sectional area. So a huge insect would have a mass that has increased by a greater factor than its strength. It wouldn't be able to stand up!

 

[BAYLOR]

Bad movie science? How about in Star Trek where the aliens on far away planets are usually humans. I accept that sometimes they make them blue or green. Or sometimes they have a little antenna on their heads. But basically human.

Also giant creatures. Insects for example. When you double the dimensions of an object its cross sectional area is quadrupled and its volume is multiplied by eight. The strength of a limb is determined by its cross sectional area. So a huge insect would have a mass that has increased by a greater factor than its strength. It wouldn't be able to stand up!

And they In Breads and Circuses they find a planet where Rome never fell and had both Caesar and Christ , The Omega Glory and world in which World War III was fought and one the two waring factions had a word for word copy of the Constitution and American Flagg And Miri in which they find an exact duplicate in every detail Earth with Children who are 100;s of years old.

Scientifically, all of these are impossible.

 

[Droflet]

Star Wars. Take your pick. They all ignore the rules of Newtonian physics. They're still fun, though. Sometimes.

 

[BAYLOR]

Star Wars. Take your pick. They all ignore the rules of Newtonian physics. They're still fun, though. Sometimes.

There is neither atmosphere not airflow in outer space , therefore no sound nor space craft doing loop the loops. Image how dull the film would be if they fixed that?

 

[JunkMonkey]

Bad movie science? How about in Star Trek where the aliens on far away planets are usually humans. I accept that sometimes they make them blue or green. Or sometimes they have a little antenna on their heads. But basically human.

Also giant creatures. Insects for example. When you double the dimensions of an object its cross sectional area is quadrupled and its volume is multiplied by eight. The strength of a limb is determined by its cross sectional area. So a huge insect would have a mass that has increased by a greater factor than its strength. It wouldn't be able to stand up!

The Star Trek Pan Galactic Humanoidisation thing was addressed in a later series of TNG (Season 6: “The Chase”) where it was discovered that a Progenitor species had seeded life in its own image(ish) throughout the, then dead, galaxy:

 

[mosaix]

Bad movie science? How about in Star Trek where the aliens on far away planets are usually humans. I accept that sometimes they make them blue or green. Or sometimes they have a little antenna on their heads. But basically human.

Be fair, Christine! Sometimes, they had different hair styles.

 

[Matteo]

And less clothing...