bad movie physics

[jack butler]

Just read the review of Superman Returns. Right on. Modern comix assert, metaphysically, that his flying is a matter of "will," not physics. Okay. But if, as the movie states, he can fly "almost" the speed of light--in the first movie, he flies faster, in order to reverse time--why does it take him so long to catch up to the falling plane? This appears to be a narrative trick merely.

Also what happened to those furshlugginer crystals at the end of the movie? They were thrown out of the helicopter. Thought Superman was going to retrieve them?

Also, when he throws the new continent away into space, how come, according to action and reaction, his presumably lesser mass doesn't go zooming off in the opposite direction? Does his will allow him to plug directly into spacetime? Same question as I used to have when, in the early comix, he would push a planet around. Planet outmasses him, right?

Wouldn't it be fun to see a Superman who didn't violate physics right and left and whose capabilities were defined rather than sliding to fit the dramatic situation (he has to strain to lift the new continent--so if it had been just a little heavier, he wouldn't have been able to, right?).

My nomination for the all-time bad science in an sf movie: Total Recall. 1) Wouldn't people who have grown up in a translucent dome either have insured that ordinary bullets wouldn't penetrate the dome, 2) have forbidden the use of projectile weapons, or 3) have a deeply imbedded horror of activities that might breach the dome? But even worse, the scene near the end, when Arnold and friend discover the alien devices and discover that the core of Mars is made of water. What? Maybe ice-fifteen, under 70,000 pressures. A planet whose core is water? Then, just when they are about to suffocate, the atmosphere is restored. Ignoring the question of how they could recuperate from the distortions they were portrayed as experiencing (you try blowing your face up to twice its size and then reducing it and see how you feel), just how much energy would be released by the restoration of a planet-wide atmosphere within a minute or so? Wouldn't that "air" in fact be a superhot plasma?

[Tog]

Hi there.

Superman had a lot more wrong with it than just that. Just about everything in the opening credits was messed up as well

I've always wondered, since his suit was made from his blanket he had on the ship that crashed, and it doesn't burn or got holes in it when he gets shot, how did his mother cut and sew the fabric?

There is an "out" for Total Recall. It's possible that the entire thing this reall is a psychotic episode just like they try to convince him of when he sees that bead of sweat run down the face of that actor that played every funny looking alien on TNG that the guy the play Quark didn't take. If was all in his head then who are we to say what's real.

You'll be hard pressed to find a movie more packed with bad astronomy than Armageddon.

And finally... This need to be moved to small media at large. This section is for actual bad astronomy, not movies or TV shows.

But yeah, I agree with pretty much everything you mentioned there.:)

[Jim]

Moved as suggested.

[mike alexander]

Ma Kent unravelled the blankets and got the young Kal El to cut them to length by concentrating his heat vision on the thread.

[Occam]

Ma Kent unravelled the blankets and got the young Kal El to cut them to length by concentrating his heat vision on the thread.
Well done, that man! :clap: I was about to post the same explanation. Remember the old DC Superman/Action comics? Every once in a while they would publish special issues with "origins" in the them. That particular item appeared lots of times.

[Ronald Brak]

So Superman could like take off his own leg with his heat vision if he wasn't careful?

[Tog]

I asked that same question on the geek boards and got different answers. Something about taking apart the ship and making scissors and a needle.


So Superman could like take off his own leg with his heat vision if he wasn't careful?

How would he blink?

[MG1962A]

There is an "out" for Total Recall. It's possible that the entire thing this reall is a psychotic episode just like they try to convince him of when he sees that bead of sweat run down the face of that actor that played every funny looking alien on TNG that the guy the play Quark didn't take. If was all in his head then who are we to say what's real.


I believe it is safe to assume that Total Recall is all inside his head. At the start of the film one of the doctors loading the progam turns to an assistant and says "Hmm Mars with a blue sky.... that's different"

[Ronald Brak]

I believe it is safe to assume that Total Recall is all inside his head. At the start of the film one of the doctors loading the progam turns to an assistant and says "Hmm Mars with a blue sky.... that's different"

My memory of the film isn't 100%, but don't we see the female lead's face on a screen when they load the program?

[Tog]

My memory of the film isn't 100%, but don't we see the female lead's face on a screen when they load the program?

I don't reacall that, but I do recall that there were a bunch of the images of the control chamber before it was ever seen. Now, possibly that was a suppressed memory from his character's former life, and maybe ot was loaded in as part of the program. I don't think there was ever supposed to be a direct answer one way or the other, from the writer's standpoint. I think that it's much easier to accept it all being a one giant hallucination than it is to accept the events were real.

[Matherly]

So Superman could like take off his own leg with his heat vision if he wasn't careful?

On a related note, there was a fun little throw away scene in Superman: the Animated Series. Clark get up in the morning and starts to get ready for work. In the bathroom, he takes a look at the stubble on his face in the mirror, takes off his glasses, and proceeds to "shave" by relecting his heat vison off of the mirror onto his face. Goofy, and unpractical (the mirror couldn't have reflected 100% so would have been damaged), but funny and as good of an explination as any how the Man of Steel could groom himself :).

[jack butler]

And finally... This need to be moved to small media at large. This section is for actual bad astronomy, not movies or TV shows.

Thanks. Still learning my way around this site.

[jack butler]

Superman had a lot more wrong with it than just that. Just about everything in the opening credits was messed up as well


Agreed, but I thought the review did a good job of demolishing most of the flaws.

[Jim]

.... Clark get up in the morning and starts to get ready for work. In the bathroom, he takes a look at the stubble on his face in the mirror, takes off his glasses, and proceeds to "shave" by relecting his heat vison off of the mirror onto his face. ...

IIRC, one comic book (or maybe a cartoon tv show) episode had Clark getting a haircut by reflecting his heat vision off the barber's mirror and focusing it on the hair the scissors were "cutting".

[jack butler]

There is an "out" for Total Recall. It's possible that the entire thing this reall is a psychotic episode just like they try to convince him of when he sees that bead of sweat run down the face of that actor that played every funny looking alien on TNG that the guy the play Quark didn't take. If was all in his head then who are we to say what's real.

Yeah, I thought of that, and so did all of the people I griped to about the movie. Okay, so the people who thought up the simulations are astronomically stupid (I like the ambiguity in that phrase). That helps? It's an out, but is it a very satisfying out? Does one really assume the movie-makers were so intelligent they deliberately contravened physics, or does it make more sense to think they really didn't know? I ask you.

Besides. I am, though inexpert in many fields, an expert in narrative. And I got to tell you, escape hatches like that are cheap, cheap, cheap. [Vague, thankfully, memories of students saying, Well he could have been . . .]

[Tog]

Besides. I am, though inexpert in many fields, an expert in narrative. And I got to tell you, escape hatches like that are cheap, cheap, cheap. [Vague, thankfully, memories of students saying, Well he could have been . . .]

Hahaha well yeah, it's cheap. Cheap goes back all the way to to old Cliffhager serial films. There is no new thing under the sun. It was an Arnold movie There were guns and explosions... What else would a person expect? In Commando he knew an ambush was coming because he SMELLED the bad guys. I'm actually amazed they got any of it right. In truth, we make up a very small group of people that actually care in even the tiniest way that stuff like that happens. It's not very likley that there will ever be an accurate sci-fi movie. It's being discussed elsewhere in this section, actually.

[mike alexander]

I remember those 'origin' stories too, Occam. In another one, they explained the hair/beard problem by saying the Supe's hair does not grow in Earth's atmosphere. No blowtorching necessary.

[Delvo]

I used to explain bad movie physics in terms of viewer familiarity with the physical rules that a given scene used. After all, a lot of physical rules are followed quite well in movies, arguably most of them. Stellar aging, we're not familiar with, but cars driving on roads, we are, so that's why we can have stars suddenly go dead but not cars flying. We can have a rocket launched from a planet reach the sun a few seconds after it's out of view but we can't have cellphones shatter the sidewalk and set the nearby windows on fire when dropped, because we don't have a natural feel for rockets and space travel but we do have a natural feel for what happens when you drop few ounces of plastic and metal.

But that explanation doesn't work anymore. Now movies defy even the laws of physics that everybody already knows from experience. We've all seen car accidents or the scenes where car accidents had happened shortly before, and seen that they didn't explode... and we've all seen fights, and seen that punches and kicks don't propel human bodies through the air a dozen yards away horizontally... but movies are doing those things routinely now anyway. :(

[Dr Nigel]

... and we've all seen fights, and seen that punches and kicks don't propel human bodies through the air a dozen yards away horizontally... but movies are doing those things routinely now anyway. :(

Ah, yes, but have you seen kung fu in real life?

All the best kung fu movies portray it as something mystical and a little bit supernatural (e.g. Iron Monkey, which contains the original King Kong Palm to which Drew Barrymore alludes in Charlie's Angels).

[jack butler]

Hahaha well yeah, it's cheap. Cheap goes back all the way to to old Cliffhager serial films. There is no new thing under the sun. It was an Arnold movie There were guns and explosions... What else would a person expect? In Commando he knew an ambush was coming because he SMELLED the bad guys. I'm actually amazed they got any of it right. In truth, we make up a very small group of people that actually care in even the tiniest way that stuff like that happens. It's not very likley that there will ever be an accurate sci-fi movie. It's being discussed elsewhere in this section, actually.

Yep. I'm one of that small group whose members care, however, and I aint backing off these guys.

[Sleepy]

and we've all seen fights, and seen that punches and kicks don't propel human bodies through the air a dozen yards away horizontally... but movies are doing those things routinely now anyway. :(Even in films where the protaganist isn't a standard issue human they get it wrong in that, allowing for our super strong fighter, hitting someone else that hard is going to push the attacker back, and even if they are braced for it, often they are standing on dirt so they would slide away in reaction to the kick.

Another bugbear is that I suspect that an impact to the chest by a foot/fist would break a number of ribs, leaving the vicitim in severe pain, bleeding internally, and gasping for breath with a punctured lung. Hitting a human that hard is almost certainly going to kill them if they aren't taken to hospital within an hour.

[jack butler]

I used to explain bad movie physics in terms of viewer familiarity with the physical rules that a given scene used. After all, a lot of physical rules are followed quite well in movies, arguably most of them. Stellar aging, we're not familiar with, but cars driving on roads, we are, so that's why we can have stars suddenly go dead but not cars flying. We can have a rocket launched from a planet reach the sun a few seconds after it's out of view but we can't have cellphones shatter the sidewalk and set the nearby windows on fire when dropped, because we don't have a natural feel for rockets and space travel but we do have a natural feel for what happens when you drop few ounces of plastic and metal.

But that explanation doesn't work anymore. Now movies defy even the laws of physics that everybody already knows from experience. We've all seen car accidents or the scenes where car accidents had happened shortly before, and seen that they didn't explode... and we've all seen fights, and seen that punches and kicks don't propel human bodies through the air a dozen yards away horizontally... but movies are doing those things routinely now anyway. :(

Or for example in one of the Die Hard movies, I forget which, when the protagonist is outrunning a flood down a water tunnel in a truck going 45 miles an hour, climbs on top of the truck and grabs a steel ladder that leads up an outlet to the surface. Anybody want to volunteer to hit a steel ladder at 45 mph?

Or the aerodynamics in that Harrison Ford movie in which he is the President and they send a rescue team up a chute from a smaller jet to Air Force One while both planes are in flight?

[Tog]

Even in films where the protaganist isn't a standard issue human they get it wrong in that, allowing for our super strong fighter, hitting someone else that hard is going to push the attacker back, and even if they are braced for it, often they are standing on dirt so they would slide away in reaction to the kick.

Another bugbear is that I suspect that an impact to the chest by a foot/fist would break a number of ribs, leaving the vicitim in severe pain, bleeding internally, and gasping for breath with a punctured lung. Hitting a human that hard is almost certainly going to kill them if they aren't taken to hospital within an hour.

There are a few things I disagree with in this post, but I do agree with the overall statement.

I have studied several martial arts, and there are many things that they almost all have in common. Without a good stance, they are nothing. Looking at a side kick, which is one most likely to be used in a movie to send the opponent flying, the attacker raises their leg, turns the hips away from the target while rolling the knee back and down across the front of the pelvis until the knee is pointed mostly down at the floor. Then the leg is extended, with the focus on the heel of the foot and the intent of stopping that force about 2 to 3 inches inside the surface of the target. This is what the average person will see if they really pay attention. Parts that the average person misses, is what the other foot is doing. Not only it is no longer up on the ball of the foot to improve mobility, it is as flat to the ground as possible. The grounded leg is pushing off and into the target increasing the force of the blow from not only leg itself but a good deal of the body mass as well. This is to prevent being pushed backwards and off balance as much as it is to do more damage to the target.

Even a standard punch should be done by pushing off of the ground with both feet, while turning the hips slightly to add a rotational mass to the force of the strike. This is why it's so important to actually hit something when you practice. You can't really ever get the proper form by doing things in the air.

Now, a popper kick or punch should not push the target back at all. Ideally, the arm or leg remains very relaxed throughout the strike, and only stiffens up at the moment of contact. It should then be relaxed again and pulled back away from the target just as fat as it went in. This is called snapping the punch. Any force used to push the person away is considered wasted in a striking style. You don't want to chase them. Soft styles, like Aikido and Tai Chi are different. The goal there is to make the person too tired of getting up and running back to you to keep up the fight. Well, Tai Chi has a good deal of actual attacks in it as well, but the majority of the power for those attacks is taken from the force of the other person. There is a technique in Aikido which I learned as "static inertia". Segal does it in a few films, though I can't recall any specifics. Basically the attack comes in and the defender holds up an arm that the attacker runs into. The arm is held up straight out in front, as if signaling "stop". I got to be the crash test dummy the night this was introduced. I stepped in with an attack, with force. He held up his arm, braced by his body position and down through his feet. I hit his hand with my chest and bounced off, staggering back about 8 feet before I hit the wall. Hitting the wall actually hurt more. There was no real damage, and of we'd have been outside, there would have been none at all. It didn't even knock the wind out of me. Because I was moving, I did not have a solid stance, he did. If someone had seen that happen, they would have though I'd been hit with a car.

Another time I was sparring a guy that was about 60-80 pounds heavier than me. I was a higher rank, and sneakier, so I thought I show him that brute force can be overcome by technique. I had sparring for 3 months, and didn't have the technique. He had two kicks in his arsenal. One was the side thrust described above. I had planned to hit his leg down and to my right, stepping in behind it and coming right up his chest to catch him under the chin with a strike called a ridge hand. Basically a chop but with the thumb side of the hand. He threw his kick, I did my down and outward block to his leg. My hand stopped dead, his foot went right into my side, and he extended. It lifted me off of the ground and pushed me back about 3 feet in the air. It pushed me hard enough that I ended up taking about 3 big steps and two complete rolls to get stopped. He had kicked me right above the crest of my hip just at the lower end of the ribcage. Over the next week I had an ache that slowly moved through my abdomen from the right to left side. but nothing was broken. I can't say if he moved back or not as I had more pressing matters on my mind at the moment. ;)

With Tai Chi, force is stolen from the attacker by deflecting it mostly away and rotating with it. An example needs two people, but is simple and fairly safe Bob is the attacker. He tries to push Jill by aiming his right hand hand at her sternum. Jill is very relaxed about the waist, and when the push comes, she brings up her left hand and guides his push to her left shoulder. At the same time, the friction from his push against her arm drives her left shoulder back which pivots her left hip the same direction. This bring her right hip forward, which brings her right shoulder forward, which is timed with the extending of her right hand to Bob's sternum. Bob's line of force for his stance went through the heal of his rear foot and the toe of his lead foot, Directly above this line was the path of his attack. When the attack was deflected to his right, it pushed him slightly back onto the heal of his right foot. Jill's counter push is almost perpendicular to this line. Bob is going away, and Jill put very little of her own force into the push. If she had extender her legs and pushed like she was performing a shot put, Bob may well have been airborne for a bit.

One last thing on the broken rib bit. Ribs are funny critters. In my time I've broken two, neither mine. In both cases, neither person felt that they were struck hard. In the first case I had pads on and did it with a punch. As soon as I hit him we both stopped and looked at each other. He said he felt a pop. On my end, it just felt like something very odd happened. As it turned out, it was just a matter of me happening to stumble on an instant of very good form. The force used probably wouldn't have broken a nose. The other guy was a kick. Since there are no pads on the bottom of the foot gear, you have to be especially careful with certain kicks. Like the first one, neither of us felt that it was a hard kick at all. It just happened to be a very "right" kick, where everything lined up well. Nearly everyone down there had been kicked much harder than that with no problems at all. Any kick that actually sent a person flying would be less likely to break something. The body isn't absorbing the force of the impact if it moves away. Like I was always told before test firing my dad's newest giant rifle. "Little guys fly further, don't drop it."

My nitpick this time comes from Spiderman. Given his superhero nature, I'm okay with him being able to fall of a bridge and grab cable to stop his fall. But, when he reaches out and grabs MJ's arm to stop her from falling, what keeps her arm from being ripped out of the socket? For that matter, when he does the same thing with the web, why doesn't the skin get ripped away?

[Sleepy]

Tog interesting post, however I don't think your points regarding what humans can do is so readily applied to the super strong movie fighters.

I've never seen a human kick/punch someone so that they fly back 30 feet or more with enough momentum to crash into a wall. A quick google finds that a human punch contains 1.2KJ [Rocky Marciano had his punch measured at a USA military base in 1955] The KE of a human flying back [100Kg, 15m/s] from a superhuman blow is 11KJ, its 10 times more powerful.

Likewise the momentum of the target is 1500 Kgm/s so assuming that the attacker takes 0.1s to overcome this they exert a horizontal force acting through the interface of their feet/ground of 1500/0.1 = 15KN Friction is going to be about 1KN [1x100x9.81] Any horizontal component of force is going to be a fraction of the vertical component. Our super human is literally going to have to jump into such a blow else they will end up flying backwards much like their target.

As to the effects of a broken rib, again the superhuman is going to deform the rib by a much larger amount, given that a danger of CPR is breaking a rib and piercing a lung its not beyond reason that a superhuman could punch someone that hard.

[Tog]

Tog interesting post, however I don't think your points regarding what humans can do is so readily applied to the super strong movie fighters.

I've never seen a human kick/punch someone so that they fly back 30 feet or more with enough momentum to crash into a wall. A quick google finds that a human punch contains 1.2KJ [Rocky Marciano had his punch measured at a USA military base in 1955] The KE of a human flying back [100Kg, 15m/s] from a superhuman blow is 11KJ, its 10 times more powerful.

Likewise the momentum of the target is 1500 Kgm/s so assuming that the attacker takes 0.1s to overcome this they exert a horizontal force acting through the interface of their feet/ground of 1500/0.1 = 15KN Friction is going to be about 1KN [1x100x9.81] Any horizontal component of force is going to be a fraction of the vertical component. Our super human is literally going to have to jump into such a blow else they will end up flying backwards much like their target.

As to the effects of a broken rib, again the superhuman is going to deform the rib by a much larger amount, given that a danger of CPR is breaking a rib and piercing a lung its not beyond reason that a superhuman could punch someone that hard.

I do actually agree with all of that. The punches as depicted in the movies are going to play out just about like you've stated. What I was presenting were real life examples that could be used as a basis of comparison, mainly because it didn't seem that you were taking into account the effect of pushing off of the ground. Just as no one would realistically push a car with just their upper body, no one (trained) would try to punch while airborne. Circular strikes being a notable exception.

When Jill hits Bob in the chest as he's off balance, the distance he was actually moved will be nothing compared to the stories the other bar patrons will recall the following night. By the time the story gets around town, she may have knocked him up to to the second story. Real storytellers would then need to make up something equally fanciful to compete with the "reality", and Chinese Opera is born. By the time western budgets get hold of it... well, it ends up here.;)

Again, one last thing on the rib. A lot of it depends on the speed of the transfer of force. I have fired a lot of guns, some very big. The 577 Nitro Express weighed 11.5 pounds and fired a 650 grain bullet at 1850 feet per second. This hurt a great deal less than a 20 gauge shotgun I had, despite the fact that even though I was leaning into it, it would stand me up straight, then knock me back two full steps. It was a huge push. The shotgun was not a push. It was a sudden, sharp impact. I think that if our super strong person were to deliver a full strength punch with proper form and focus, the target wouldn't move back at all. It would have to be scraped off of the attacker's arm.

By my way of looking at things, anytime the target is moved back by an impact, it was a push, not a strike.

[ad hominem]

is this for movies with bad physics or for bad movies with physics

[HenrikOlsen]

The 577 Nitro Express weighed 11.5 pounds and fired a 650 grain bullet at 1850 feet per second.
And now consider the nutters (http://www.pfeifer-waffen.at/cms/html/index.php) who make a .600 Nitro Express 5-shot revolver. (http://www.pfeifer-waffen.at/cms/html/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=15) :)

[Tog]

And now consider the nutters (http://www.pfeifer-waffen.at/cms/html/index.php) who make a .600 Nitro Express 5-shot revolver. (http://www.pfeifer-waffen.at/cms/html/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=15) :)

:eek:

Granted is loaded down quite a bit, and is heavier than that rifle, but still... no.

[Dr Nigel]

Going back to martial arts, I once saw some video footage of Bruce Lee's "one inch punch". To illustrate the power of it, they wrapped a fellow in cushions (to make sure he didn't break anything), then Bruce "punched" him from a very short distance away. He was lifted off his feet briefly and fell over about 6 or 8 feet away from Bruce. Obviously, it would have been relatively easy for Bruce to cause him to overbalance (which is probably what caused most of the lateral movement), but that was still pretty impressive.

[NEOWatcher]

...He was lifted off his feet briefly and fell over about 6 or 8 feet away from Bruce. Obviously, it would have been relatively easy for Bruce to cause him to overbalance (which is probably what caused most of the lateral movement), but that was still pretty impressive.
I don't know if that would be possible, but the simple fact that this is not done with an inanimate object makes me suspicious that the target didn't help in the movement.

[Tog]

There is a trick to the "one inch punch". The way I was shown it was to touch the target with your finger tips, similar to the way one might shake hands. In one motion, the fingers are folded in to make a fist and the rest of the hand follows into the strike. The whole point to it is to not pull back away from the target before striking.

The "trick" is that you don't punch with just your arm. You also pivot your hips into the strike as well as lowering your center of mass by bending your knees. It all goes back to stance. In Wing Chun (the main style upon which Bruce Lee based Jeet Kune do) the stance has both feet a little less than shoulder width apart, knees slightly together and the feet a bit pigeon toed; that is to say pointing in towards each other. It almost looks like a bathroom emergency. It should be mentioned that there are very few kicks in Wing Chun, and the few that do occur are done with the lead foot and aimed below the waist. Well below, like the knees and thighs. Most are actually "stops" to disrupt the other person's balance or deflect a strike by forcing their body out of position. Anyway, the one inch punch is easier to visualize with a more open stance. The rear foot is angled away from the target about 45 degrees. The lead foot it pointed somewhere between 45 degrees (parallel to the rear foot) and having the toes point at the target. A line drawn from the heel of the rear foot through the ball of the lead foot is called the "heel-toe line", and should point directly at the opponent's centerline. Because of the alignment, the lead hip is to the outside of this line. When the strike starts, the hip turns in and acts like a cam, along with the shoulders, to push the whole arm forward with the strength of the legs driving it. The lead leg bends at the knee while the rear one extends. This pushes the body mass forward and adds even more to the force of the strike. The faster this motion happens the more "pop" there is to it. with perfect timing and a good pop, you can hit with pretty much the force of your fully body mass behind that punch that moved about 4 inches from start to finish.

It's kind of like lightning though. Even when you know how it works, it's still wicked cool to see happen.:D

[Tog]

I don't know if that would be possible, but the simple fact that this is not done with an inanimate object makes me suspicious that the target didn't help in the movement.

Which is the case with a lot of martial arts demonstrations. We had a guy in one class that could make anyone look good. A lot of it is very good timing, and a lot of balance based physics, but the really impressive stuff has a good bit of acting to go along with it.

If you get a guy back on both heels, then give a bit of a push, it can take a really long time for him to get his feet under him again. Either that or a single backwards roll.

[Sleepy]

I don't know if that would be possible, but the simple fact that this is not done with an inanimate object makes me suspicious that the target didn't help in the movement.I've seen footage of the one inch punch and its very impressive but the movement of the target mostly comes from them stumbling backwards from the force and trying to remain upright.

[Trantor]

Last night, I did something that I normally don't do. I had nothing better to do and there was one of those incredibly bad Sci-Fi Channel movies on. It was called "Earthstorm", and it was pretty horrible. There was just so many bad physics to this movie, that I simply don't have the space or time to go into detail. They even had a nuclear powered space shuttle, that seemed to have Star Trek like artificial gravity.

If anyone really wants to see some bad physics, check out "Earthstorm".

[Dr Nigel]

What I meant was, after the fellow landed (still quite close to Bruce), he staggered backwards, failed to regain his balance and fell down. I was not trying to say he flew 6 feet through the air.

[HenrikOlsen]

In many martial arts, balance is crucial.
That's why, if you want to cast someone for a movie who has to do martial arts, it works best if you cast a dancer as they already know their body and understand balance.
Summer Glau as River in Serenity is a good example of when it works.

[Tog]

In many martial arts, balance is crucial.
That's why, if you want to cast someone for a movie who has to do martial arts, it works best if you cast a dancer as they already know their body and understand balance.
Summer Glau as River in Serenity is a good example of when it works.

Mostly agreed. I'd change that "many martial arts" to "all". I'm really critical about the way fights are done in movies and she was incredible in Serenity.

[Dr Nigel]

... I'm really critical about the way fights are done in movies and she [Summer Glau] was incredible in Serenity.

Agreed.

[Noclevername]

My nitpick this time comes from Spiderman. Given his superhero nature, I'm okay with him being able to fall of a bridge and grab cable to stop his fall. But, when he reaches out and grabs MJ's arm to stop her from falling, what keeps her arm from being ripped out of the socket? For that matter, when he does the same thing with the web, why doesn't the skin get ripped away?


Actually, that movie scene is (loosely) based on a similar scene in The Death of Gwen Stacy from the comic book (1973); in that issue, the physics was gotten RIGHT and the falling Gwen, snagged by Spidey's webbing, snapped her neck and died.

The movie Spider-Man flings a number of people around in physically unlikely was that in real life would lead to major injuries. But then, the second film shows a trainful of New Yorkers all knowing his secret ID and all KEEPING the secret. Far more unbelievable than getting spider-powers!

[SeanF]

But then, the second film shows a trainful of New Yorkers all knowing his secret ID and all KEEPING the secret. Far more unbelievable than getting spider-powers!
Uh, they saw his face, but that's a far cry from knowing who he is. Peter Parker is no Bruce Wayne.

Most of the people on that train probably didn't even know each other's identities.

[mike alexander]

Wait. I distinctly remember the Green Goblin snickering at Spidey that Gwen was dead BEFORE he caught her. Evidently she died from fright, or something.

[Krel]

Uh, they saw his face, but that's a far cry from knowing who he is. Peter Parker is no Bruce Wayne.

Most of the people on that train probably didn't even know each other's identities.

There was a great scene in "The Flash" tv series. The Flash is on the ground, knocked-out, and the bad guys lift up his mask to see his face.

Bad Guy one: Who is he? :surprised
Bad Guy two: I don't know. :confused:

I loved that show.

David.

[Tucson_Tim]

You'll be hard pressed to find a movie more packed with bad astronomy than Armageddon.




Boy, ain't that the truth! I can watch Deep Impact over and over but 5 minutes of the "A" movie makes me ill. Especially the part where they make astronauts out of those giant guys - no way! :surprised It would be far easier to teach astronauts to drill than to teach drillers to be astronauts.

Tim

[Noclevername]

Wait. I distinctly remember the Green Goblin snickering at Spidey that Gwen was dead BEFORE he caught her. Evidently she died from fright, or something.

Yeah, but villains lie. Especially when trying to hurt the hero. Years later, Stan Lee admitted that what he originally wrote about her already being dead "from the shock" was unlikely, and that in fact if he'd followed real-world physics she would indeed have died from the sudden deceleration.

Re: the crowd--- In real life, someone would have at least described his face and age to the tabloids, more likely camera-phone pictures of him would be all over the web.

[Gillianren]

I loved that show.

Bleah!

The husband of the woman who owns one of our local comic book stores knows a guy who worked on that show. They do not discuss it; the guy who worked on it will not speak of it.

[Noclevername]

The Flash TV show suffered from the fallout of being produced right after the success of the first Batman movie; with characteristic unoriginality, they took one of brightest four-color characters of the Silver Age and tried to make him "dark and gritty". Even his costume looked like the Batsuit from the film-- about as far from an aerodynamic running suit as you can get.

Bleah, indeed.

[Tucson_Tim]

"Pitch Black" is on cable at this moment and there's the scene where the eclipsing planet is rising over the horizon. It has two rings: One around the equator, where it belongs, and one at a higher latitude which doesn't circle the planet above a geodesic. Very bad physics.

[ASEI]

Well, assuming you had a gas giant with a score of moons, you could have multiple collisions forming multiple rings. I don't know how long they would last if some of the rings were inclined above the equator, but in the short term, as long as they aren't intersecting ....

[Tucson_Tim]

Well, assuming you had a gas giant with a score of moons, you could have multiple collisions forming multiple rings. I don't know how long they would last if some of the rings were inclined above the equator, but in the short term, as long as they aren't intersecting ....

Rings are orbiting debris - they HAVE to orbit above a geodesic (great circle). Multiple rings could occur, maybe, over other geodesics than the equator - but not over, say the 30 degree latitude line. In Pitch Black, the planes of the two rings are "parallel" to each other - not possible.

[ASEI]

Oh.

BTW, it does seem that all the rings in the solar system are in plane with the rotation of the planet. Any reason why that would be? (oblateness? some sort of extremely weak gravity term due to the rotation rate of the planet?)

[Tucson_Tim]

Oh.

BTW, it does seem that all the rings in the solar system are in plane with the rotation of the planet. Any reason why that would be? (oblateness? some sort of extremely weak gravity term due to the rotation rate of the planet?)

ASEI,

I don't know the physics behind it but it seems that, as you mention, all the rings dioscovered in our solar system are orbiting above the equatorial geodesic plane. Maybe someone here can explain it - or wikipedia. I'll look later...

[Maksutov]

[edit]Also what happened to those furshlugginer crystals at the end of the movie?...It sure is nice to see such a wonderful word being used in appropriate context.

:clap:

Meanwhile, Sledge Hammer! (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090525/) lies dormant, awaiting the return of the commie throng...

[Noclevername]

"Pitch Black" is on cable at this moment and there's the scene where the eclipsing planet is rising over the horizon. It has two rings: One around the equator, where it belongs, and one at a higher latitude which doesn't circle the planet above a geodesic. Very bad physics.

Must be an old planet, it's asteroid belt is pulled up too high:D

[Dr Nigel]

"Pitch Black" is on cable at this moment and there's the scene where the eclipsing planet is rising over the horizon. It has two rings: One around the equator, where it belongs, and one at a higher latitude which doesn't circle the planet above a geodesic. Very bad physics.

There are other things wrong with Pitch Black, more to do with ecology than physics (if those critters only come out to feed once every 50-odd years, how do they survive in the meantime?). Mind you, I still enjoyed the movie (and have it on VHS). Half the fun is trying to work out who'll survive to the end credits.

[SkepticJ]

There are other things wrong with Pitch Black, more to do with ecology than physics (if those critters only come out to feed once every 50-odd years, how do they survive in the meantime?).

Really deep hibernation, maybe? Ectothermic ("cold blooded") organisms can live for a long time without food, even without hibernating. Some crocodiles and snakes can go a year or more without food.

[Delvo]

Some insects on Earth stay inactive underground for 17 years or more at a time and then come out for just a few weeks. And these cave critters could have positioned themselves to passively take in dripwater or seepage water, or occasionally roused while underground to grab some other food down there. A worse ecological problem, anyway, would be the apparent lack of anything else of significant size for them to eat but each other, but I took that (among other things like the giant skeletons of animals that were never shown live) as a sign that the planet's life had just had some disaster within the last few centuries and was all going extinct, and they were one of the last things left to die.

[Noclevername]

Wait. I distinctly remember the Green Goblin snickering at Spidey that Gwen was dead BEFORE he caught her. Evidently she died from fright, or something.

Wasn't it the Jackal, in the original comic, rather than GG?

[Tucson_Tim]

Must be an old planet, it's asteroid belt is pulled up too high:D

Good one! :lol:

[Noclevername]

Good one! :lol:

I can't claim credit, that one's from Futurama.

[Tucson_Tim]

I can't claim credit, that one's from Futurama.

I'm going to have to check out "Futurama". Never heard of it before I came to this forum.

[Dr Nigel]

Some insects on Earth stay inactive underground for 17 years or more at a time and then come out for just a few weeks. And these cave critters could have positioned themselves to passively take in dripwater or seepage water, or occasionally roused while underground to grab some other food down there. A worse ecological problem, anyway, would be the apparent lack of anything else of significant size for them to eat but each other, but I took that (among other things like the giant skeletons of animals that were never shown live) as a sign that the planet's life had just had some disaster within the last few centuries and was all going extinct, and they were one of the last things left to die.

All sounds vaguely plausible, but is a bit of a retcon. Well, except that last bit: if an ecosystem has suffered some major disaster, the top predators will certainly not be the last ones left alive in significant numbers.

[Dr Nigel]

I'm going to have to check out "Futurama". Never heard of it before I came to this forum.

It's what Matt Groening moved onto after the Simpsons had become a cultural icon.

[Delvo]

the top predators will certainly not be the last ones left alive in significant numbers.They could if their life cycle had them sleeping through most of it... especially if they could then cannibalize each other given the lack of anything else to eat, which isn't sustainable but could prolong the population's inevitable diminishing for several more cycles.

[Damien Evans]

maybe there's more underground that we just don't see?

Btw, did you realise that there is only 10 characters in that whole movie?

[Dr Nigel]

They could if their life cycle had them sleeping through most of it... especially if they could then cannibalize each other given the lack of anything else to eat, which isn't sustainable but could prolong the population's inevitable diminishing for several more cycles.

I guess that's possible, but it does not feel very satisfying.

The ecosystem of that world looks as though, if there was some major disaster, the disaster was not very recent. I.e. there was no soil, no rotten remains of plant life or anything - the only sign of previous life was the skeletons of very large animals, that could be any age. In such a situation, the concept of a top predator hibernating for years does not strike me as very plausible. Our only experience of life (i.e. life on Earth) suggests that hibernation is mainly a strategy of small creatures. AFAIK, the only large predators to hibernate are bears, and they tend to not live in high-density populations. Try to imagine a colony of 100 brown bears that hibernate every winter, then try to picture what they would do to their environment every autumn. Additionally, they do not hibernate for very long periods of time: just a few months is usual.

In other words, what did they eat before they went into hibernation? And how do they survive during a long (equivalent to many years, judging from the state of the ecosystem) hibernation?

[Noclevername]

That's assuming the creatures were top predators; maybe they were the local equivalent of rats, and the ones that died out were large-dinosaur sized. With no other predators around, the hammerheads overbred and devoured all available food sources, just before those tasty humans arrived...

[Dr Nigel]

You're right. I was assuming they were top predators. Given how effective they were at killing people, I think this is a reasonable assumption.

Another thought just occurred to me: how did a photophobic life form evolve on a planet that only has night once every 50 years?

[Noclevername]

Another thought just occurred to me: how did a photophobic life form evolve on a planet that only has night once every 50 years?

That's bad movie biology, not physics.;) Need to start a new thread for that.

[Gillianren]

But do we really want to get me started on predator-prey ratios in King Kong again?

[Noclevername]

Or the oxygen-producing "nematodes" from Red Planet.

[Forskern]

Or the alien growing from adder to human-size before it eats anything?

[frenat]

I thought in King Kong that they mentioned that the island used to be bigger and had only recently shrunk due to earthquakes.

[Gillianren]

I thought in King Kong that they mentioned that the island used to be bigger and had only recently shrunk due to earthquakes.

I don't remember it (I think I may have blacked out, or maybe just fallen asleep), but it doesn't solve the problem.

[Maksutov]

I'm going to have to check out "Futurama". Never heard of it before I came to this forum.You're in for a treat. If possible get the DVD set(s). Lots of stuff in there that Fox censored.

It will make you look at pizza delivery people in a different way.

Look out for apartment # 1BDI.

Meanwhile, re bad movie physics, I'm still waiting for the CGI "masters" to get acceleration of mass in a gravitation field right.

[NEOWatcher]

Meanwhile, re bad movie physics, I'm still waiting for the CGI "masters" to get acceleration of mass in a gravitation field right.
I'd be happy if they just didn't bank the ships when they turn.

[Delvo]

There was an accurate de-orbit in "Stargate: Atlantis" recently. The rocket exhaust was shown being directed forward, not down.

[Noclevername]

There was an accurate de-orbit in "Stargate: Atlantis" recently. The rocket exhaust was shown being directed forward, not down.


That's one...

Actually, I do remember one from, of all places, the old "Ghostbusters" cartoon! The GB's were in a space ship, and they mention that the "ghost" was trying to fire the main rocket forward, slowing them down and dropping out of orbit. I remember as a kid being delighted about that one bit of real science in my cartoon about ghosts.:doh:

[Dr Nigel]

That's bad movie biology, not physics.;) Need to start a new thread for that.

Apologies.

If I ever have the time to start a "bad biology" thread, I'll do just that. The trouble is, my OP in such a thread would be big. Really big. Much bigger than that, in fact. Really, "wow, that's big" time...

[Noclevername]

I don't remember it (I think I may have blacked out, or maybe just fallen asleep), but it doesn't solve the problem.

Only the predators made it to shore. The prey all drowned. If they'd arrived a week later the movie would've been called "Empty Island"...

[Dr Nigel]

Possible, but it smacks heavily of a retcon.

[Maksutov]

Apologies.

If I ever have the time to start a "bad biology" thread, I'll do just that. The trouble is, my OP in such a thread would be big. Really big. Much bigger than that, in fact. Really, "wow, that's big" time...Not to worry. Anything so big would be cut down to size here on the BAUT.

Even to the point of


Whoa, look at all those genetic molecular strands floating around here!Prune!

[mr obvious]

You could also cut down the list size by focusing on something that's both biology and physics. In Mission to Mars (I think) there's a scene where one of the astronauts (they are in space at this time) made a DNA model from M&Ms in mid-air (zero-g). He says it's his template for a perfect woman or some such. Of course, it's nonsense because it couldn't have been more than 30 base pairs (that's barely enough for 10 amino acids).

Even funnier, the DNA model is floating in mid-air, and appears to be slowly rotating; undoubtedly to showcase the double-helix model [NB - because the clip was short, this is arguable, but that's the impression I got]. Problem is, the M&M's aren't tethered to anything, so there's no reason to rotate about a common axis. Double score!

[weatherc]

Or the alien growing from adder to human-size before it eats anything?If I remember correctly, the novelization of Alien mentioned that the xenomorph raided the ship's food storage before they found it later in its much larger, scarier form. It was just never mentioned in the movie itself.

[Ronald Brak]

If I remember correctly, the novelization of Alien mentioned that the xenomorph raided the ship's food storage before they found it later in its much larger, scarier form. It was just never mentioned in the movie itself.

I vaugely remember calculating an estimate of how much heat an organism would generate catabolizing and anaboloizing fast enough to grow that big so quick. The alien should have cooked itself. But maybe it doesn't digest food as we do. Maybe it's full of Drexler's nanobots.

And it's supposed to have "molecular acid" for blood. Not many acids around that aren't made of, you know, molecules. Maybe it was just packed full of H+ ions, but they ain't gonna come out as a yellow liquid. More nanobots I figure. Drexler made that alien creature and just left it lying around to scare the hell out of everybody for no adequately explained reason.

[hhEb09'1]

Even funnier, the DNA model is floating in mid-air, and appears to be slowly rotating; undoubtedly to showcase the double-helix model [NB - because the clip was short, this is arguable, but that's the impression I got]. Problem is, the M&M's aren't tethered to anything, so there's no reason to rotate about a common axis. Double score!What if the model is still, and the ship is rotating about it? :)

[Tobin Dax]

What if the model is still, and the ship is rotating about it? :)


[T]here's no reason to rotate about a common axis..

[Forskern]

If I remember correctly, the novelization of Alien mentioned that the xenomorph raided the ship's food storage before they found it later in its much larger, scarier form. It was just never mentioned in the movie itself.

Then if the crew had acted quicker, they could have caugth the little critter with its hands in a cookie jar, literally? Okay, that would have destroyed some of the horror mood :P

[hhEb09'1]

Tobin Dax
Problem is, the M&M's aren't tethered to anything, so there's no reason to rotate about a common axis. Double score!The context was that there was no physical connection between them that would have caused them to rotate about each other--but they wouldn't have had to be tethered, if the station rotated about them. If the station rotated at all, the only way he could have built the model would be at the center of the rotation--which supplies the reason :)

[Tobin Dax]

Tobin DaxThe context was that there was no physical connection between them that would have caused them to rotate about each other--but they wouldn't have had to be tethered, if the station rotated about them. If the station rotated at all, the only way he could have built the model would be at the center of the rotation--which supplies the reason :)

I gotcha, Grapes. That's what I get for making half smart-alec comments in text.

Still, getting the helix to be aligned along the same axis would take some work (especially since they'd have to get the M&M's moving relative to the ship in the first place).

[mr obvious]

Perhaps I need to see the movie again (unlikely that I will, though). If I recall the DNA model was floating in midair right between the two astronauts. The DNA model appeared to be revolving along its long axis; the astronauts were not revolving about the same axis (they didn't appear to be revolving at all). You can see a picture here:
http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/touchstone_pictures/mission_to_mars/_group_photos/gary_sinise7.jpg

So, if the ship/station were rotating, to generate gravity, there are two problems - first that the M&Ms aren't falling (since they form a 3D structure, they cannot be all in the middle axis where there's no weight). Second, the axis of revolution is up and down (relative to the astronauts' bodies, that is - see the linked picture), while gravity is most likely up and down also. Thus it cannot simply be the camera attached to the ship rotating whereas the candy is not - the axis of rotation is all wrong to generate gravity.

[hhEb09'1]

So, if the ship/station were rotating, to generate gravity, there are two problems - first that the M&Ms aren't falling (since they form a 3D structure, they cannot be all in the middle axis where there's no weight). Second, the axis of revolution is up and down (relative to the astronauts' bodies, that is - see the linked picture), while gravity is most likely up and down also. Thus it cannot simply be the camera attached to the ship rotating whereas the candy is not - the axis of rotation is all wrong to generate gravity.No, I wasn't claiming that the ship was generating gravity--but "generating gravity" does not mean that there will be a force field within the confines that extends out from the axis. You would only "feel" generated gravity if you were in contact with the walls or floor.

Still, I'm willing to bet that the moviemakers didn't take that into consideration, and their concept was a freely floating rotating DNA molecule--which would be wrong, as you say.

[Noclevername]

The laws of Product Placement trump the laws of physics in any Hollywood film.

[hhEb09'1]

The laws of Product Placement trump the laws of physics in any Hollywood film.Product Placement Trump, is that his name now? :)

Is that a place holder until the contract is signed, and the rights are sold?

[Noclevername]

Why don't we try to interest Trump in a "who can lift the most mass into orbit" competition? Convince him that having your own space station is the newest status symbol, etc. Given his "look how big my building is" attitude, it might work!

It's worth a shot...

[hhEb09'1]

Yeah! all the scientists at NASA could shave their heads bald if they lost the bet with the Donald!

[Dr Nigel]

Product Placement Trump...

I thought this was an unpublished Roger Zelazny novel...

[Dr Nigel]

...And it's supposed to have "molecular acid" for blood. Not many acids around that aren't made of, you know, molecules.

Actually, the problem is the opposite. Most acids are ionic; there are very few that are made from molecules.

Maybe it was just packed full of H+ ions, but they ain't gonna come out as a yellow liquid...

The closest guess I could make is a concentrated aqueous solution of HF (hydrofluoric acid) mixed with trifluoroacetic acid (TFA). HF is the only substance I know that can dissolve stuff (such as steel) as fast as we see in the films, and TFA is quite good at dissolving organic substances (if you get splashed with TFA, it passes through the skin and kills the nerve cells first - because it partitions into the myelin that sheathes them. This is one reason why it is so dangerous - because it kills the nerve cells before they register the pain, so you do not feel the burn).

[Noclevername]

This is one reason why it is so dangerous - because it kills the nerve cells before they register the pain, so you do not feel the burn).

Rules out TFA, then. The people in the films sure seem to feel pain when the acid touches them.

[Ronald Brak]

Actually, the problem is the opposite. Most acids are ionic; there are very few that are made from molecules.

Which acids aren't molecules? The H+ they donate to the base isn't a molecule, but isn't the acid you start with made of molecules?

[Tucson_Tim]

Rules out TFA, then. The people in the films sure seem to feel pain when the acid touches them.


You don't really think that the film makers / screen writers are as educated as you guys or gave this as much thought? I'm sure it was something like this: "Yeah, molecular acid, that sounds cool."

[Doctor Know]

As long as we're picking on Alien, how about this business of tracking the creature by 'micro-changes in air density.' Don't you get micro-changes in air density with pretty much every breath you take? Not to mention the possible interference from miles of cooling and ventilating ducts it looks like that ship had.

Maybe that's why the film makers worked in Ripley's line: "Micro-changes in air density, my *ss."

[hhEb09'1]

What was Ripley doing with an International Space Station?

[Ronald Brak]

Maybe that's why the film makers worked in Ripley's line: "Micro-changes in air density, my *ss."

Micro changes in air density? Wouldn't that be a phenomenon known as sound? The guy who made them must have worked as a millitary supplier.

[Gillianren]

I caught a couple of minutes of the horrible made-for-SciFi, starring-Stephen-Baldwin "dark matter" movie the other day (I love Graham, but Gods, he has lousy taste!), and the product placement was about the most blatant I'd ever seen. He was using dark matter rays (I think), and he blew up a can of Mountain Dew that the camera lingered on for far too long.

[Noclevername]

Spider-Man, Twister, Mission to Mars all had soda cans featured in loving close-ups at some point. (MissToM had ads on the outside of a Mars rover. Who was going to read them, the rocks?)

[Tucson_Tim]

Allow me to pick on The Matrix for a moment...

How deep was Zion? How deep were all those tunnels leading to Zion?

Here is the deepest hole ever drilled by humans, the Kole SuperDeep Borehole, approx 7.6 miles deep, and the temp reached 180 °C (356 °F).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole

And don't get me started with The Core.

[Maksutov]

So if one assembles enough M&Ms, one gets an acid?

That would explain a former girlfriend's stomach problems. Or was that Skittles?

BTW, the helix only holds if each M&M has the same mass. Ain't gonna happen, even if they weren't peanut.

Still waiting for the CGI folks to figure out how gravity works. Put each one in a slingshot dragster on a 1/4 mile track perhaps?

[Noclevername]

Just put them in a slingshot. Buh-bye!

(And send the Hulk and Jar-Jar Binks with them.)

[hhEb09'1]

BTW, the helix only holds if each M&M has the same mass. Ain't gonna happen, even if they weren't peanut.I need more explanation for that. Is it the gravity of the M&M? isn't that so miniscule that there would be essentially no visible effect.

Yeah, what is the characteristic time of the gravitational attraction of two M&Ms? I think we could get a Journal of Nonreproducible Results award for that one.

[Dr Nigel]

Which acids aren't molecules? The H+ they donate to the base isn't a molecule, but isn't the acid you start with made of molecules?

OK, you have a point. I was considering only strong acids. Weak acids are all molecules, but strong acids are not, generally. HCl and HF gasses are the exceptions. They are molecules when gaseous, but as soon as they dissolve in water, they tend to dissociate fully into ions. It is the concentration of the solvated proton [H3O+] that produces the acidity. Other strong acids, such as nitric and sulphuric acids, are not encountered as molecules, but as dissociated ions.

Weak acids are, by definition, not fully dissociated except at extremes of pH. These I would consider to be molecular acids, but none of them is particularly corrosive. Examples include formic acid (HCO2H), acetic acid (CH3CO2H) and citric acid (HO2CCH2CHCO2HCH2CO2H).

[Dr Nigel]

As long as we're picking on Alien, how about this business of tracking the creature by 'micro-changes in air density.' Don't you get micro-changes in air density with pretty much every breath you take? Not to mention the possible interference from miles of cooling and ventilating ducts it looks like that ship had.

Maybe that's why the film makers worked in Ripley's line: "Micro-changes in air density, my *ss."

Hah! Yes! My thoughts exactly.

[Dr Nigel]

So if one assembles enough M&Ms, one gets an acid?

Not just any old acid, but deoxyribonucleic acid. But, seriously, you'd need tens of millions of 'em in at least 5 different colours (to represent H, C, O, P, N). Although you might be able to get away without modelling the H atoms (as most chemists ignore these when drawing structures anyway).


That would explain a former girlfriend's stomach problems. Or was that Skittles?

I'd certainly not recommend swallowing skittles. Trust me, I'm a doctor. :lol:


BTW, the helix only holds if each M&M has the same mass. Ain't gonna happen, even if they weren't peanut.

Even if they were all the same mass, there'd be much more gravitational attraction from the astronaut assembling the model.

Not to mention all those micro-changes in air density every time he moves...


Still waiting for the CGI folks to figure out how gravity works. Put each one in a slingshot dragster on a 1/4 mile track perhaps?

Nah. They wouldn't get it. They'd go "Yeah, that was kinda fun, but we need to make it bank around some asteroids so it looks like something out of Top Gun"

[Gillianren]

I'd certainly not recommend swallowing skittles. Trust me, I'm a doctor. :lol:

No, no--not "skittles"; "Skittles." An American fruit-flavoured candy. (Well, theoretically fruit-flavoured, anyway.)

[mr obvious]

No, I wasn't claiming that the ship was generating gravity--but "generating gravity" does not mean that there will be a force field within the confines that extends out from the axis. You would only "feel" generated gravity if you were in contact with the walls or floor.

Still, I'm willing to bet that the moviemakers didn't take that into consideration, and their concept was a freely floating rotating DNA molecule--which would be wrong, as you say.

I agree that there's no gravity field, but in the context of the movie, there should be displacement. I believed the rotating part was to generate gravity. If you're holding a wrench and standing on a platform that's revolving around a point [say, above your head] to 'push' you against the platform, and you let go of the wrench, the wrench will appear to fall (really, though, the platform is moving 'up' to meet it, and it won't fall straight, either). I hope I'm describing this at least somewhat clearly. But I also agree this is probably not what the moviemakers were considering. Perhaps they were in fact considering Skittles vs M&Ms far more deeply.

[hhEb09'1]

I agree that there's no gravity field, but in the context of the movie, there should be displacement. I believed the rotating part was to generate gravity. If you're holding a wrench and standing on a platform that's revolving around a point [say, above your head] to 'push' you against the platform, and you let go of the wrench, the wrench will appear to fall (really, though, the platform is moving 'up' to meet it, and it won't fall straight, either). I hope I'm describing this at least somewhat clearly. Your description is clear enough, but that isn't my point. :) If the M&Ms were placed at the center of rotation, they would not have a tendency to "meet the floor". A wrench in your hand that is dropped has an initial velocity--as you rotate up the wall, it will continue in a straight direction and hit that wall near your feet. But an M&M placed near the center of the rotation would not have much of an initial velocity.

[mr obvious]

Ok, I see your point. :) So, the physics isn't as egregious as the biology, but I still take credit away since the axis of rotation is dubious.

[hhEb09'1]

It's only OK in an wildly implausible way--from the sounds of it, it the rotation is fast enough that they should have been exhibiting some effects. But I'm going to make a point of watching the movie (I haven't yet) just because of this thread :)

[mr obvious]

Hmm. If you do see it, don't blame me!

[Maksutov]

I need more explanation for that. Is it the gravity of the M&M? isn't that so miniscule that there would be essentially no visible effect. Not the gravity. Rather the difference in reactions to external forces due to the variance (or better, its square root) of the masses.
Yeah, what is the characteristic time of the gravitational attraction of two M&Ms? I think we could get a Journal of Nonreproducible Results award for that one.As with a lot of other things, it's all a matter of resolution. George Hale might have said "More light!" I say "More detail!"

[Dr Nigel]

No, no--not "skittles"; "Skittles." An American fruit-flavoured candy. (Well, theoretically fruit-flavoured, anyway.)

I know. We have those over here, too. I was deliberately misinterpreting Mak's comment for comedic effect. It does not appear to have worked. :doh:

[Gillianren]

My fault. I assume cultural misunderstanding. I assure you, however, that there are certain varieties of Skittles I don't suggest putting in your mouth, either.

[Alasdhair]

Too right: the yellow ones are ghastly...

[Ilya]

I am surprised nobody mentioned the movie "Speed".

[Wolf1066]

I know. We have those over here, too. I was deliberately misinterpreting Mak's comment for comedic effect. It does not appear to have worked. :doh:
Don't worry, I got it and smirked slightly. Your signature got me laughing though. Brilliant.

I find myself getting really annoyed at the over the top impacts in fights - person punched in face undergoes cartoonesque "knocked backwards, body flies up to be at head height, victim hurtles many feet backwards parallel to the ground, arms and legs flailing wildly and humorously before crashing to the ground" - that completely defy physics and logic (the person instantly gets up and is able to continue the fight despite the fact that their jaw has just borne the brunt of sufficient force to KO an ox).

Seriously, if I want to see action like that I'll tune into the cartoon channel and watch old Tom and Jerry or Looney Tunes episodes - at least they're not meant to be taken seriously and are actually funny.

A cartoonish fight effect in a supposedly serious movie just does not work.

[showboat]

Melting Goo Man Terrorizes Some People in a Very Dark Placehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076191/#comment

'Astronaut Steve West sits in a plastic space capsule, commenting that "you haven't lived until you've seen the sun through the rings of Saturn", all the while the obvious mid-day sunlight is streaming through the window, when suddenly he has a nose bleed. Next, West is back home in some secret hospital, a melting gelatinous mass who goes berserk and causes a chunky nurse to run through a fake glass door. Apparently, West "gets stronger as he melts", which makes about as much sense as anything in this hopelessly purile, adle-brained moovie. Then this dopey "Army Brass", who looks kind of like Coleman Francis (director of many bad moovies) tries to cover the info up, but goo man runs around killing everyone he sees because he is melting. He attacks a bickering old couple because he is melting. He makes one terrible actress scream and moan helplessly for about 10 minutes because he is melting. He is melting because he is melting. The fx by the slumming Rick Baker are supposed to be the star here, but they just look hokey. The film is poorly shot and everything looks so dark and muddled that it's very difficult making out what's what - not that it would help any. MooCow says who cut the cheese with this one?? :=8P ps - "Didn't you get any'
----------------------------------------------

Well the goo man was looking for love but not finding it in the right places.

If he had the right places.

[Kebsis]

The Dark Knight had some pretty wonky physics....(SPOILERS)



....like when Batman jumps out of a window to save the girl who was falling. That looked like at least a thirty story freefall, and they landed on a car which got destroyed by the impact. But Batman and the girl both barely looked winded, let alone injured.

And did anyone notice how the bomb that the Joker set off in the police station seemed to vaporize everybody there except for him and the asian CEO guy?

[Nowhere Man]

And... How did the Joker and his crew so thoroughly bomb the hospital without anyone noticing that there were bombs everywhere?

Fred

[HenrikOlsen]

by dressing them up in hospital gowns?

[NGCHunter]

By using the same Mak'tar stealth haze that the 9/11 conspirators used.
/sarc

[DonM435]

If Superman's super-vision can cut through super-thread from Krypton, shouldn't my "ordinary vision" be able to render wool and cotton and ordinary cloth like that? Well, I never tried it, but . . .