Dustin Hoffman campaigning for better science in science-fiction movies

[ToSeek]

Dustin Hoffman Is On A Mission Of Scientific Awesomeness (http://io9.com/5191030/dustin-hoffman-is-on-a-mission-of-scientific-awesomeness)


Dustin Hoffman is so concerned about getting better science in science-fiction movies, he's helping to sponsor a "dating service" to match movie directors with real scientists.
...
Hoffman, whose science fiction movies include Sphere and Outbreak, has told friends that he's tired of the "silliness" of most films in the genre. He thinks movies can have an entertaining plot and present real science at the same time....

[01101001]

BA Blog: Scientists in the movies (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/03/26/scientists-in-the-movies/)


My old bud Dan Vergano wrote a great article in USA Today, um, today, about how scientists are portrayed in the movies. He talked to a lot of people who make movies, and others who do science, and… me. Hey, cool! I’m in an article with Ron Howard!
Also in there is Jennifer Ouellette — blogger, author, TAM 7 speaker, and person in charge of The Science and Entertainment Exchange, and fellow Hive Overmind blogger (and Jennifer’s hubby) Sean Carroll.

[Gillianren]

Hurrah on both counts!

[JustAFriend]

He definitely needs to make up for "Sphere"....

[flawedprefect]

Totally for this, tho has anyone ever read "The Physics of Super Heroes" by James Kakalios?

It's an awesome book which deals with the science in comics. The Golden Age fo comics actually had very good representations of sound science, but this usually came after the "Miracle" Element. For example: Golden Age Superman was an Alien from Planet Krypton (there's the miracle element right there) but beyond that fantastical start, all physics continued as it would in the normal world: he could only "leap" tall buildings in a single bound, not fly at supersonic speeds (that came later). You could actually calculate (and Kakalios does) his mass, and work what kind of parabolas Superman could leap, what the tensile strength of his thigh muscles were, and what limitations he had as a flesh-and-blood being.

OK - my point: is it still acceptable to have a "miracle" element as the inciting incident of the story, from which springs sound physics, or are we yearning for real world incidents through and through?

[Gillianren]

Lo, these many years ago, I saw Face/Off in the theatre; blessedly, I didn't pay for it. The guy I saw it with said something that I've thought worth noting ever since. He said that every story gets one great implausibility or impossibility. In the case of that movie, it was the concept of face-switching. Okay, we'll pretend that makes some kind of sense, even though it really, really didn't. However, as more and more ridiculous stuff happened (and, no, I don't remember what they were; I have not bothered with the film since that ill-fated date--my then-boyfriend had a thing about people without faces, and the choice of movie was his), it got less and less interesting. I do recall the stupid maximum security prison with the magnetic boots. Not worth the price of admission, and all because they violated too many rules without explanation other than "hey, that's shiny!"

As has been said before, it's internal consistency that matters. On the other hand, that clip in the Wolverine movie from the trailer, where he jumps at the helicopter? I'm perfectly willing to accept the X-Men universe for what it's worth, but that's out of line with the character and therefore the universe's rules.

[A Timeline Of Circles]

Has anyone ever seen cube?

[jj_0001]

Heh, Niven's "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" comes to mind in regard to superman, but that's all I can say on that.

It would be indeed great if we had better science in movies. Things like "the core", "10.5 the big one", and its followups are so excruciatingly silly that they really should be turning people off the whole genre.

[D11011101]

As has been said before, it's internal consistency that matters. On the other hand, that clip in the Wolverine movie from the trailer, where he jumps at the helicopter? I'm perfectly willing to accept the X-Men universe for what it's worth, but that's out of line with the character and therefore the universe's rules.

I don't know why you would say that. Its simply another version of his speedball special where Colossus throws him at various targets. They did that a lot in the comic books. My personal favorites were the one's where Colossus throws Wolverine and Nightcrawler teleports to where Wolverine is headed then grabs Wolverine and redirects him in another direction.

D11011101

[KaiYeves]

I have not read that book, although I look for it every time I'm at a bookstore.

[Gillianren]

I don't know why you would say that. Its simply another version of his speedball special where Colossus throws him at various targets. They did that a lot in the comic books. My personal favorites were the one's where Colossus throws Wolverine and Nightcrawler teleports to where Wolverine is headed then grabs Wolverine and redirects him in another direction.

There's a difference between jumping and being thrown.

[D11011101]

There's a difference between jumping and being thrown.

If you watch the trailer he is riding the inertia of the flipping and exploding truck. He is not jumping. He is basically being thrown from the vehicle which he is riding on top of.

D11011101

[Divine Wind]

He definitely needs to make up for "Sphere"....

LOL. Guilt is always a good motivator for a conscientious person.

[KaiYeves]

I would LOVE to be an archeology consultant on a big movie when I'm older.

[SkepticJ]

Has anyone ever seen cube?

Yes, I hated it. Physically possible SF, sure, but the awful acting and let-down ending killed it for me.

[Graybeard6]

Heh, Niven's "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" comes to mind in regard to superman, but that's all I can say on that.
For the adults, its here: http://www.larryniven.org/stories/Man_of_Steel_Woman_of_Kleenex.shtml

[tnjrp]

Phooey, reality is a crutch for those unable to handle science fiction!

[TRUTHisnotfacts]

I do not agree at all

Movies are not made for facts in books .

science-fiction means human mind at work

Movies are made for Entertainment ...

We could have also said that about twilight zone

[Tog]

I do not agree at all

Movies are not made for facts in books .

science-fiction means human mind at work

Movies are made for Entertainment ...

We could have also said that about twilight zone

Just because it's entertaining doesn't mean it can't also be right. All Mr. Hoffman is suggesting is that movies be as plausible as possible.

Belief can only be suspended so far; after that it snaps into either fantasy or idiocy.

[Paul Beardsley]

Just because it's entertaining doesn't mean it can't also be right. All Mr. Hoffman is suggesting is that movies be as plausible as possible.

Belief can only be suspended so far; after that it snaps into either fantasy or idiocy.

I totally agree.

To my mind, one of the factors that distinguish between a good science fiction film and a bad one is the questions it makes you ask. Good ones make you ask philosophical questions; bad ones make you ask irritating questions, such as, "Why is he going to so much trouble to lift that fallen girder on the spaceship when he can just turn the gravity off?"

[AtomicDog]

I totally agree.

bad ones make you ask irritating questions, such as, "Why is he going to so much trouble to lift that fallen girder on the spaceship when he can just turn the gravity off?"

You may appreciate this scene, then:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=EAF289C32AD44DBA&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&v=4M--u739kKc


Fast forward to 4:40 to 5:08.

[Gillianren]

I totally agree.

To my mind, one of the factors that distinguish between a good science fiction film and a bad one is the questions it makes you ask. Good ones make you ask philosophical questions; bad ones make you ask irritating questions, such as, "Why is he going to so much trouble to lift that fallen girder on the spaceship when he can just turn the gravity off?"

Quite right. Now, I've known movies that had obviously ridiculous science that I was able to enjoy anyway, but I have also had lengthy conversations about what they get wrong.

[Tuckerfan]

Just because it's entertaining doesn't mean it can't also be right. All Mr. Hoffman is suggesting is that movies be as plausible as possible.

Belief can only be suspended so far; after that it snaps into either fantasy or idiocy.

Ding! Ding! Ding! And a movie which sets up a premise and then promptly deficates all over it a few seconds later is one of the worst. Case in point, Peter Jackons' remake of King Kong. In one scene they have a long conversation about why they will not allow a character to have a gun (because he's never used one) and a few scenes later, that same character is using a machine gun to shoot giant grasshoppers off of people!

I can buy a giant gorilla, I can buy giant grasshoppers, I cannot, however, buy a guy with no firearms experience being able to skillfully shoot a weapon, especially after other characters in the film have said the same thing!

I wish Dustin Hoffman all the luck in the world, and I hope he's successful.

[RAF_Blackace]

I make films, had a few in awards and won quite a few over the last few years.

One thing I can say for certain is that Science and Filming are totally incompatible. The only close attempt to make a film reasonably scientific was 2001 a space odyssey. This was fine for the enthusiasts, but most did not enjoy or even understand the plot. It was indeed a flop at the box office only to have a resurgence as a cult classic later on.

Films need to entertain, with the rules of physics being so well known and fixed it is almost impossible to make any kind of film that applies them to the letter of the law and make it entertaining at the same time.

Even non science fiction films break the rules. Every fight scene would have a doctor cringing in agony at the punches thrown, the guy should be dead, but he gets up and asks for more.

A great pity and an honest crusade. But if we need to try to get films to include more science I am afraid Dustin is not the man for the job. Sphere Argghh.

I saw Cube. Excellent idea, well executed (forgive the irony).

[Paul Beardsley]

I make films, had a few in awards and won quite a few over the last few years.
Tell us more!


One thing I can say for certain is that Science and Filming are totally incompatible. The only close attempt to make a film reasonably scientific was 2001 a space odyssey. This was fine for the enthusiasts, but most did not enjoy or even understand the plot. It was indeed a flop at the box office only to have a resurgence as a cult classic later on.
We're not asking for physics lecturers, we're just asking for films that are not obviously, in-yer-face, egregiously wrong. All we're asking for is some films that don't demand that you leave your intelligence at the door.

And 2001 was not the only one. Solaris, Blade Runner, and even Jurassic Park spring to mind.


Films need to entertain, with the rules of physics being so well known and fixed it is almost impossible to make any kind of film that applies them to the letter of the law and make it entertaining at the same time.
As has been said many times, nobody minds if you suspend a law if it is in the interest of a good story. Audiences - including highly intelligent ones - accept faster than light travel, time travel and things like that. Our complaint is with the sort of disregard that actually damages the entertainment for anyone with an average education.


Even non science fiction films break the rules. Every fight scene would have a doctor cringing in agony at the punches thrown, the guy should be dead, but he gets up and asks for more.
Agreed. This is one of the reasons why lengthy fight scenes are so boring. They depart from reality, but the fantasy they move into is not actually interesting.


A great pity and an honest crusade. But if we need to try to get films to include more science I am afraid Dustin is not the man for the job. Sphere Argghh.
You may be right.

I liken it to spy fiction. Everyone (well many) likes James Bond films. They're totally implausible and utterly removed from what spies really do, but everyone going to see them understands that.

On the other hand, for those who would prefer realistic spy fiction, there are occasional adaptations of the John Le Carre books.

By comparison, there are plenty scifi films that might have been adapted from kids' comics from the 1950s (with contemporary references and lots of swearing shoehorned in) but there are hardly any examples of movie equivalents of literary SF.


I saw Cube. Excellent idea, well executed (forgive the irony).
Yes, and a good example of doing imaginative science fiction on a low budget.

[Tog]

Welcome to the board. Make sure you hit up the FAQ at the top and give the rules a skim. This isn't like most forums.



One thing I can say for certain is that Science and Filming are totally incompatible. <snip>

Films need to entertain, with the rules of physics being so well known and fixed it is almost impossible to make any kind of film that applies them to the letter of the law and make it entertaining at the same time.

Even non science fiction films break the rules. Every fight scene would have a doctor cringing in agony at the punches thrown, the guy should be dead, but he gets up and asks for more.

That goes back to what I said above about the limits belief can be suspended.

There is junk in most movies, sure. To say that movies and science can't be compatible is wrong. Take most of the works of Alfred Hitchcock. Most of his films were entertaining and few if any were not plausible.

James Bond is another example. With the exception of From Russia with Love, all Bond films stretch plausibility to the limit, and maybe a little beyond [cough]Moonraker[/cough. We can nitpick them to shreds, but in the end the fun outweighs the "yeah right" factor enough that we don't care. If James were to, say, suddenly leap in to the air and fly off like Superman, there would be a problem. When he uses a jet pack to do it, we take it in stride.

Star Trek 6 was another one. Put just about any degree of thought in to it at all, and the whole film falls into one of it's many plot holes. But it was still one of the best ones, and remains one of my favorites, even given the idiocy.

Heck, look at Apollo 13. Sure there were liberties taken, but one of the key dramatic bits was finding a start up sequence that didn't blow out the electronics. As far as I can tell that was done with reality in mind, if not in the same room. The objection most of us here have are the vast number of movies where the solution would be to put a fuse in backwards so the current gets less resistance, and Poof, even the microwave works again.

There was one movie that someone talked about on here where the Sun was swelling up and the effects were basically cooling the Earth. At the last moment, the Handsome Male Lead realized that someone had used a + instead of a - in an equation. As soon as he fixed that mistake, the world was safe.

Polly Sue falls off a bridge but Super Sam is there to grab her arm as she falls past. His arm stays in socket because he's a super mutant and we all accept that. What made HER arm so strong?

Stuff like that takes things too far.

2/3 of the phrase "Plausible Science Fiction" is "Plausible Science". Why can't the movies be that way too?

[RAF_Blackace]

Welcome to the board. Make sure you hit up the FAQ at the top and give the rules a skim. This isn't like most forums.

Thanks Tog_, and yes I will. I would hate to upset anyone on my first day at School.


Tell us more!

Oh I just make the odd animated movie. I have won several awards for them though and had one shown at last years Cambridge film festival. Nothing special though.

As a director of little repute, making movies is not as easy as you would think. There is a hell of a lot of ground work that goes into something that may turn out to be a flop if the basic rules are ignored or bent too much.

Nearly all directors follow a set of rules, they are not set in stone, but they are used as a guideline for what works and what does not.

All plots fall into the 36 rules for dramatic situations written by Georges Polti. Screenwriters use these rules to decide what a plot should be. This then forms the core of the films story.

Actually shooting a scene causes the director to again follow the basic rules of camera work, blocking and staging. Stepping outside of these rules will not ruin the film, but it will make the film look cheap and unprofessional. Not many directors deliberately break the rules, but there are a few notable exceptions. Tarrentino for one.

The golden rule for filmaking is "Entertain". To this end the old adage is to "start and end in, a big bang". If you do this the audience will tend to forget everything in-between.

Yes, the audience is who you are trying to entertain, and you have to be very careful about this as they are so fickle you can lose them in an instant. Another generally followed rule is to never have a cut longer than 3 seconds, you will find that on average you get 14 cuts per minute.

The reason for this is that it was found that audiences brains stopped being interested in any image if it was presented to them for longer than 3 seconds and they tended to look away from the screen.

Now the words entertainment and audience draw me to the conclusion as to why Science is poorly followed in mainstream films.

Unfortunately most of your audience is not science literate. They do not want to have to think about what they are seeing, they want to be entertained and not challenged by things they are unfamiliar with, it makes them uncomfortable.

A well known director once said, you must think of the audience as a six month old child sitting in front of you in a room full of performing clowns. It is your job to keep the child looking at you and to stop it being distracted by the clowns. Now you get an idea of how hard it can be.

If you are educated, and you do really want to think when watching a movie, look away from the big studios. You will never find what you want there. Start looking at Art house and independent filmakers. They are more inclined to provide the high brow stuff with good science as they are aiming for a target market and not simply trying to shotgun the public to get bums in seats.

I really enjoyed the film "Apollo 13". Having read the book and studied the electrical engineers reports it was a very good attempt at telling the true story. Yes there were liberties taken, in the story and in the science. But where do you draw the line as a director. When do you say, I can get away with this, the scene will still carry ?

For example, these bloopers from Apollo 13 would never even be noticed by most people away from these forums.

Near the end, from one window of the spacecraft you can see a full moon. From the other window, there is a "full Earth." If you're between the moon and the Earth, one or the other would not be full.

The astronauts are shown taking their suits off before docking, but in real life they were not allowed to do this, in case of sudden cabin depressurization.

When the cabin temperature drops, an astronaut's breath is visible. His visible breath rises as he exhales. This is an effect of gravity.

And one for the real critics.

When Lovell's daughter is complaining that the Beatles have broken up, she slams the album Let It Be into her rack. The scene takes place on the day of the explosion, April 13th, 1970. Let It Be was not released until May 9th, 1970.

[saturn4b]

Just because it's entertaining doesn't mean it can't also be right. All Mr. Hoffman is suggesting is that movies be as plausible as possible.

Belief can only be suspended so far; after that it snaps into either fantasy or idiocy.

I'll buy that. I think it is something that Walt Disney referred to as 'the plausible impossible'. I don't mind suspending belief to an extent - I enjoyed the Hitchhiker's Guide (radio series and books) and so on - it's done on the right level.

What gets me is stuff like that film Armagedon where they send up two shuttles. Apart from them weaving about like aircraft as their wings grip on nothing (!) they are doing it to avoid a storm of rocks rushing by at high speed. These rocks came from where??? If they had that relative speed to the asteroid, they'd have vacated the area (or should that be volume) a very long time ago.

When you have some knowledge of basic science, some errors are so glaringly bad they distract, I find. I guess everyone has a different threshold but I find film-makers have an atrocious knowledge of science in the main. As has been said in the thread, you can have a gripping plot and film without having to totally abandon any attempt at reality.

[Gillianren]

Another generally followed rule is to never have a cut longer than 3 seconds, you will find that on average you get 14 cuts per minute.

Blessedly, Hitchcock had more sense than that.

[Tuckerfan]

Blessedly, Hitchcock had more sense than that.

As did Orson Welles.

[Paul Beardsley]

RAF_Blackace, thank you very much for your reply.

I find myself shaking my head in horror and nodding my head sagely - sometimes both at the same time, physical possibility notwithstanding!

Much of what you say confirms my belief that decent science fiction is more-or-less impossible in film - the demands of satisfying the "average movie goer" rule out any possibility of doing any of the things that intelligent SF does.

On the other hand, oriental film makers - or for that matter, French film makers - don't seem to be so constrained.

I find most of Hollywood's output utterly formulaic and boring to the point of being unwatchable. Fortunately, science fiction is well served in other medias - in the written word, and in the largely forgotten medium of sound.

Anyway, this is me thinking out loud. I hope the discussion continues.

[RAF_Blackace]

Blessedly, Hitchcock had more sense than that.


As did Orson Welles.

Yes. As I said, the truly talented Directors do not follow the general rules. It is because they define the rules the rest of us try to follow. Unfortunately if we tried to do what they carry off so well, it never seems to work quite right.

So the rest of the directors stick to the tried and tested and get by.

Unfortunately this can make for very predictable films and television. Especially when you have spent many years studying filmaking and know exactly what the director is doing.

To be honest. The knowledge I gained from taking a master directors course has ruined films for me. Every time I see a scene I am more interested in the directors perspective and what he is doing with the blocking and staging than the film itself. I cannot now watch a film and enjoy it. I can know what the camera is going to do even before it does it.

However, every now and then there is a really good piece of work that I can enjoy. Thank heavens for small mercies.

If you actually watch a film you can clearly see what standard the director is at. Nearly all TV is standard shots with standard blocking and staging. Poor films are no better.

The deficit in the science aspect is an offshoot from this. If the director cannot break out of the standard mould, how good will he be at being truthful to science ?


On the other hand, oriental film makers - or for that matter, French film makers - don't seem to be so constrained.

I find most of Hollywood's output utterly formulaic and boring to the point of being unwatchable. Fortunately, science fiction is well served in other medias - in the written word, and in the largely forgotten medium of sound.

Yes. So watch Art House and independent films. As I said, the people making these are more inclined to bend the rules and get it right. Hollywood will always cater for the mass audience.

For myself, I have broken some rules of science in my films. But I have NEVER shown a spaceship banking :) But, where does one draw the line ?

[Paul Beardsley]

But, where does one draw the line ?
Where the story says.

[Tuckerfan]

The deficit in the science aspect is an offshoot from this. If the director cannot break out of the standard mould, how good will he be at being truthful to science ?I'll point to Apollo 13 again. Technically not science fiction, but its handicapped by being a film about an event which everyone already knows the outcome and was directed by Ron Howard, who is not a top-notch director by any stretch of the imagination. (His Frost/Nixon film follows the same formula of Apollo 13. So much so, I kept expecting Tom Hanks to show up. :p)

Put it up against Armageddon, which had a better director than Howard. (BTW, I'm no fan of Michael Bay's work, by any means, and I loathe Armageddon.) Both movies are considered to be "exciting" and have some of the same fans. One of the things that sent me over the edge about Armageddon was the scene where the shuttle gets pasted by the asteroid fragments. None of the shuttle crew were wearing helmets, which is just plain wrong. Bay's supposedly said that they did this because if the actors were wearing helmets, the audience wouldn't be able to see the actors' faces. Apparently, Bay's never seen such movies as 2001, Outland, 2010, and The Abyss (to name but a few), where actors spend a good deal of time wearing helmets and the audience can see their faces just fine!

I don't expect a director to get things right that only a professional scientist would know, but if an "average idiot" such as myself can spot a problem, then the director needs to be kicked in the head. Repeatedly.

[Tog]

I stuck with Armageddon for most of the film. The point where I finally gave up on it for good was near the end. They have a scene where the Oil Guys are tossing out everything they won't need from the car things. When they get up there, the car things are not only armed witha 20mm cannon BUT IT'S LOADED! (sorry, Gillian). Seriously, what did they think they would need to shoot with a 20mm cannon on an asteroid?

[Tuckerfan]

I stuck with Armageddon for most of the film. The point where I finally gave up on it for good was near the end. They have a scene where the Oil Guys are tossing out everything they won't need from the car things. When they get up there, the car things are not only armed witha 20mm cannon BUT IT'S LOADED! (sorry, Gillian). Seriously, what did they think they would need to shoot with a 20mm cannon on an asteroid?

You don't know many NRA members, do you? ;) (Their philosophy seems to be that you always need a gun.)

[RAF_Blackace]

Micheal May, oh dear, I feel I'll.

Ron Howard is a much better Director in my humble opinion but he is very predictable. I think his best work to date was "A Beautiful Mind" . He certainly likes the DocuFilm format. Maybe he cant find a decent fictional script.

I wish I could put my finger on why producers and directors do these things. There really is no justification in some instances. I can understand many shortcuts for the reasons I have stated, but this does not cover the sins of many other films.

My Children grew up thinking that Michelangelo was a green ninja turtle and not a great artist. Maybe today's children are being brainwashed into believing this bad science.

But as I said, there are directors that do know the science, and go to the trouble of making sure it is right.

For example, Peter Jackson is an aviation enthusiast, he owns his own fleet of vintage aircraft. When he did "King Kong" he was very pedantic that the flying scenes were correct in every detail, and they were. Pity he was not so pedantic in other areas. Nothing against Peter, he wrote a critique for one of my films, quite an honour really. Mind you, he did help in the production of it in some places.

Maybe it just shows the ignorance of some directors/producers that they do these things ?

[TRUTHisnotfacts]

I think fiction means not real

[Gillianren]

I think fiction means not real

I think that's a simplistic definition.

[matthewota]

Since it's inception, Hollywood film producers were interested in entertaining the public, not educating them. Even the most revered western genre films have a lot of falsehoods in them. In other genres, such as the latest version of the Pearl Harbor attacks, it is so far from actual events and history as to be laughable.

It would be nice for SF films to be more accurate, because the audiences seem to be of a higher intelligence level. I doubt if many SF fans are also into, say WWF wrestling....

[geonuc]

I doubt if many SF fans are also into, say WWF wrestling....
The World Wildlife Fund has wrestling? ;)

[HenrikOlsen]

Films need to entertain, with the rules of physics being so well known and fixed it is almost impossible to make any kind of film that applies them to the letter of the law and make it entertaining at the same time.
I would disagree strongly.

It's the limits and striving to overcome them that makes for a good story, if you treat all rules, including those of physics, as arbitrary, there's no longer a need to strive and nothing to engage the audience.

I would go so far as to say that it isn't the audience that is stupid, it's the movie makers who deliberately treats them that way.

As for the 3 second cut, that's a device to hide incompetence of a filmmaker who hasn't reached the level of "passable" yet and doesn't strive to achieve even that lowly level of competence.

[RAF_Blackace]

This might be an interesting exercise.

If you were a director, How would you overcome these things in Science Fiction Films and still make a good convincing camera shot ?

No sound in space, so no engine noises or explosions. How would you get around this limitation when you have to portray a fast and furious battle scene ?

Laser beams. In space you cannot see them, but would you show the beam ?

No engines burning away once forward momentum is established, and no stars moving. Without this how would you as the director give the impression of forward motion ?

Gravity, never there, but it nearly always is onscreen. Would you have it or not, and if you did, how would you justify it ?

Would you still have warp drive and teleporters ? After all, neither are credible or believable. Star Trek more or less introduced these concepts because of a low budget and the cost of building more sets, also it was easy to get around the universe in the 45 minutes they had.

How would you show a ship moving around in space, with thrusters, or banking like a plane, if you chose the former, how would you show the audience which direction the ship is moving in or the object it is heading towards in just a few seconds ?

You can add others if you wish, state the problem, and then explain how you would produce the clip sequence staying within the basic rules of physics.

It would be interesting what the replies are. After all its no good complaining about something without offering an alternative.

[Paul Beardsley]

This might be an interesting exercise.

If you were a director, How would you overcome these things in Science Fiction Films and still make a good convincing camera shot ?

No sound in space, so no engine noises or explosions. How would you get around this limitation when you have to portray a fast and furious battle scene ?
I learnt the answer to this one while watching the UFO episode "Survival". Interceptors roared through space, things exploded with loud bangs... but it was also made clear that the characters were not hearing these noises. The no-sound-in-vacuum was put to very strong (at the time) dramatic effect as injured astronaut Paul Foster tried to tell his rescuers that there was an alien nearby but they weren't to hurt it because it had saved his life - but his radio was broken, and when they touched helmets his rescuers could only hear the word "alien" so Foster had to watch helplessly as they went off and killed it.

In other UFO episodes - notably "The Dalotek Affair" - they slightly overdid the "characters not hearing sounds in space" thing. Some people failed to react to an explosion only a few dozen yards away, but in fact they would have felt it through the ground.


Laser beams. In space you cannot see them, but would you show the beam ?

No engines burning away once forward momentum is established, and no stars moving. Without this how would you as the director give the impression of forward motion ?
All these things are story-telling conventions. Not unlike having a character stumbling about in total darkness - we need some light to see what they're doing, but we also realise that they aren't getting the light.

Lasers - yes, I'd show the beam (assuming my film was about a space battle, which is not the only sort of space story one can tell). It's a means of conveying to the audience what is going on. Not unlike having a broken line appear on a map to show someone's route - nobody assumes that giant dashes are appearing on the ground!

But I'd make sure that the characters are not seeing the beams, unless they are something other than lasers.

Engines burning - that should be kept realistic. Moving stars - hmm, I do understand that Kubrik surrendered to the need to show movement. It's difficult to find the right compromise between the dullness of moving through space and the excitement you want to convey. Of course, simply having the spaceship move purposefully past the camera can be enough.


Gravity, never there, but it nearly always is onscreen. Would you have it or not, and if you did, how would you justify it ?
Avoid gravity as far as possible. Where's the point in having a story set in space if the one aspect of space travel that would have its biggest impact on you is completely absent?

Babylon 5, which was far from perfect, deserves a lot of credit for at least trying to convey a gravityless environment. On the station itself, people could walk around because it was spinning; Sheridan's leap from the axial train made good use of the fact that he wasn't falling in the terrestrial sense. When they did use artificial gravity, it was on ships built by people with advanced technology.

I'd rather see people make an effort to convey zero gravity (and overlook a few lapses) than see yet another space cowboy stomping about in his low-tech crate.

Another way around the gravity issue is to stop making starships into flying 5 star hotels. Those corridors and suites on the Enterprise are ludicrous. In my show, the living space on spaceships would be small, and when characters are not strapped in, they'd be moving about the cramped space with the aid of various grab handles, making it very easy to convey weightlessness. (I'd even consider going the Ophiuchi Hotline route and have characters replace their feet with extra hands!)

Characters could spend time in VR - not for silly filler-episode holodeck games, but because it would provide an environment for communicating ideas, visualising where they are and so on.


Would you still have warp drive and teleporters ? After all, neither are credible or believable. Star Trek more or less introduced these concepts because of a low budget and the cost of building more sets, also it was easy to get around the universe in the 45 minutes they had.
In the remake of Blake's 7 - done for radio - there was no narrative need for teleportation, so they ditched it. And quite right too! I was hoping the remake of Star Trek would ditch it too, but no.

I don't think there is any need for teleportation when you can simply show a shuttle on the planet's surface. You don't even have to show the landing and taking off every episode - simply make it clear that it does!

As for warp drive, that is necessary in a way that teleportation simply isn't. Unless you want to tell an Alastair Reynolds-type story (in which people accept that their trip to another star will mean coming home decades later) you want some means of getting to other stars within a manageable timespan. FTL may or may not be possible in the future, but in terms of storytelling, it's justifiable.

Going back to teleportation for a moment, it's acceptable as an aspect of imaginary science providing it's treated consistently - as many others have pointed out. By all means work out its limitations in advance, and then explore the dramatic implications. Do not have it allow people to duplicate themselves one week, rejuvinate people another week, turn people inside out a third week, heal the hero's wounds the fourth week, fail to heal the minor character's wounds the fifth week, and so on.

Right, my pizza is cooked. I'll be back!

[RAF_Blackace]

There you go. You are drawing a personal line in the sand at some things but are willing to accept others. Films simply draw the line at different limits depending on their target audience.

Funny though, the one thing that no one ever seems to complain about is the sound of a bang some distance away arriving at the camera viewpoint at exactly the same time as the explosion. This applies for any film, it is wrong, it is against the laws of Physics, but everyone accepts it.

Great answers though. These are just examples of course, but I would love to hear your pet hates and how you would fix them and still make the film interesting and visually stimulating.

FYI my pet hates are. The Drop sequence in Alien 2 (Bad Gravity). Sounds in space. The complete disregard for distances/time involved. Every Alien being able to speak English. A complete disregard for Fuel requirements. No explanation for the continuous existence of Oxygen, Water and fresh food for many years. And many more.

[Paul Beardsley]

There you go. You are drawing a personal line in the sand at some things but are willing to accept others. Films simply draw the line at different limits depending on their target audience.
No, this is just wrong.

As I've said time and again, something that serves the telling of a story is given priority over something that does not. And as I and others have said time and again, fantastic elements are acceptable if they are treated consistently.

Most of us who take part in these discussions are not film makers, but many of us are able to articulate our response to what we see. Sometimes our response is, "Well that's not really right but I can see why they did it." Other times our response is, "That's just rubbish."

In other words, we are generally aware of when we are being arbitrary and subjective, and when we simply recognise something as bad.

You ought to check out some of the other threads where SF in general is discussed - not just TV/film stuff.

And, as regards storytelling conventions, let's consider language. We know that the characters in I, Claudius spoke Latin. Am I going to complain that the classic BBC series had everyone talking in English? No, of course not! It is understood that the language has been translated. However, if a character who did not speak Latin was seen to be eavesdropping, and understanding what people were saying, that would not be acceptable.

This is why the English-speaking apes in Planet of the Apes is a fatal error.


Funny though, the one thing that no one ever seems to complain about is the sound of a bang some distance away arriving at the camera viewpoint at exactly the same time as the explosion. This applies for any film, it is wrong, it is against the laws of Physics, but everyone accepts it.
Now that you've mentioned it...

But again, it depends on the story. If one of the characters is a genius who is able to make a good estimate as to the distance to the explosion by comparing the flash with the bang, then you'd hope they get it right.

Incidentally, this reminds me of a really worthless Doctor Who spinoff novel called Illegal Alien which was set in London in 1940, during the Blitz. There's a scene where someone - probably the Doctor - declares that an explosion was too loud to have been a mere bomb, so it must have been something more. How the heck do you decide a bomb was too loud without knowing how far away it was? Had the authors not been so hostile to the idea of doing actual research, they might have considered making dramatic use of the delay - "That must have been half a mile away yet it sounded as if it was in the next street!" gasped the Doctor once Ace's ears had stopped ringing.


Great answers though. These are just examples of course, but I would love to hear your pet hates and how you would fix them and still make the film interesting and visually stimulating.
Thank you.

I really do hope you stick around. I think you are going to annoy the heck out of me at times, but I'd rather get into a blazing row with someone as intelligent and articulate as you than... well, than some of the trolls who haunt the internet.


FYI my pet hates are. The Drop sequence in Alien 2 (Bad Gravity). Sounds in space. The complete disregard for distances/time involved. Every Alien being able to speak English. A complete disregard for Fuel requirements. No explanation for the continuous existence of Oxygen, Water and fresh food for many years. And many more.
I've already mentioned people falling 30 feet face down onto solid rock and then getting up again as if they'd fallen 3 feet onto a mattress.

I am really tired of the "exposition" character being routinely portrayed as a genius in every field but who has no social skills.

I am tired of anything that is done simply because the last similar film did it that way.

I hate it when the "creative" team show open contempt for science, or take the attitude, "It's only science fiction so it doesn't have to make sense."

Most of all, when the "creative" team ditch known science, then have to spend valuable storytelling time informing the audience of the fictional dangers which are vastly less interesting than the real dangers that they chucked out.

I hate it when "characters" go all self-referential and start addressing the fourth wall (as if it's still a new idea!) and say things like, "This is the part where I announce my great plan."

More later.

Incidentally, that was a really good pizza.

[RAF_Blackace]

Well there is a greater consideration for ANY film maker, that is the budget.

I think every director would love to make Science Fiction films without gravity, (and no matter how hard the CGI artists try, they cannot seem to get it to look good) The problem is of course the cost. A Zero G flight costs a lot of money. I should know, I had the pleasure of experiencing one myself many years ago during some tests for the international space station (Nothing fantastic, just testing a Zero Gravity Tig Welder). The cost of making some stuff realistic can be inherently inhibitive.

If you watch "Solaris" for example, there really was not a lot to get wrong, the sets were fairly cheap and there were very few exterior views, hence it appears to be fairly consistent with scientific fact. One CGI image passing by the set window every few minutes was enough to convince everyone they were in space. The Exterior space shots were standard CGI which you can get very cheap these days.

In Apollo 13 they did actually use the Vomit Comet (No I didn't, but it was a very strange feeling I can tell you) to get zero G. Now that was only for certain shots and it would be an incredible expense to roll film for 20 minutes for that kind of realism.

I think most of the gripes here are not with the science aspect of films, but the general treatment of the audience by the film maker.

That is a difficult one to explain (I can not justify it), but let me have a stab.

Unfortunately there is always a target market for a film. You want them to watch it, appreciate it and talk about it afterwards to their friends, this is how you get bums in seats.

Most mainstream films these days are aimed at shotgun audiences, that is they try to pull people in from all walks of life and all ages. So they include stuff for everyone. But they want to pull in the most people so the biggest cinema going target market is aimed at slightly more than others. That is not the hi-brow scientist or even the reasonably educated individual. It is the guy working 10 hours a day at the car factory, his kids, and his wife who stacks the shelves at Tescos.

By far the biggest paying audience for films comes from the lower middle and working classes. So scientific laws are not high on the agenda when you are making a film aimed at someone who's knowledge is limited to what he reads in the Sun every day. That is the target market for Hollywood films.

This was not always the case of course, I am talking recent films made in the last 25 years or so. The fact you are disgruntled by the poor quality of science in these films should really be something you can be proud of. You are above the standard the film was made for and are clearly not happy to be treated like an idiot. If the day ever comes when scientifically educated people are in the majority, I am sure you will see a much greater attempt to conform to science fact by the film making community.

Until then, just be comforted in the knowledge that you are walking out of the cinema because of your higher understanding of the way the universe works.

BTW. I am already enjoying the company here. I love a good discussion even when people completely disagree with me. After all, if we all thought the same, life would be so boring. Hoping we can have many more on various topics over the coming future.

[RAF_Blackace]

Very strange. The post I just made will not be viewable until a moderator has approved it. I thought I had got past that stage.

This one got posted straight away. Odd.

[Ronald Brak]

Just a guess, but the board might be having a reaction to the words vomit, bums, shotgun, idiots or a combination of them from a new poster. And welcome to BAUT.

[Ronald Brak]

Funny though, the one thing that no one ever seems to complain about is the sound of a bang some distance away arriving at the camera viewpoint at exactly the same time as the explosion. This applies for any film, it is wrong, it is against the laws of Physics, but everyone accepts it.

This is against the laws of physics, but not quite against the laws of human biology/psychology. Humans routinely perceive two seperate events happening at the same time, just to simplify things I guess. For example if you watch someone pinch your toe you will feel it at the same time that you see it, but in reality the nerve signals from your toe can take a quarter of a second to reach your brain and you see the toe pinch before you feel it. People will often report sights and sounds happening at the same time even though we know that from the distance there must have been a delay. Of course film makers combine things such as the sight of an explosion and the sound that would be perceived much more than quarter of a second apart, but this doesn't really bother me. I just want them to get a move on. I'm more likely to be bothered by the fact that things in movies explode so easily in the first place. I think in the movie universe they must have tried to cut costs by molding control panels out of surplus plastic explosive.

[HenrikOlsen]

This might be an interesting exercise.

If you were a director, How would you overcome these things in Science Fiction Films and still make a good convincing camera shot ?

No sound in space, so no engine noises or explosions. How would you get around this limitation when you have to portray a fast and furious battle scene ?

Laser beams. In space you cannot see them, but would you show the beam ?

No engines burning away once forward momentum is established, and no stars moving. Without this how would you as the director give the impression of forward motion ?

Gravity, never there, but it nearly always is onscreen. Would you have it or not, and if you did, how would you justify it ?

Would you still have warp drive and teleporters ? After all, neither are credible or believable. Star Trek more or less introduced these concepts because of a low budget and the cost of building more sets, also it was easy to get around the universe in the 45 minutes they had.

How would you show a ship moving around in space, with thrusters, or banking like a plane, if you chose the former, how would you show the audience which direction the ship is moving in or the object it is heading towards in just a few seconds ?

You can add others if you wish, state the problem, and then explain how you would produce the clip sequence staying within the basic rules of physics.

It would be interesting what the replies are. After all its no good complaining about something without offering an alternative.
Watch the Firefly series and Serenity movie to see most of those things done right.

[Paul Beardsley]

...

Well there is a greater consideration for ANY film maker, that is the budget.
Granted.

I think every director would love to make Science Fiction films without gravity
I doubt that many of them even realise weightlessness would be the norm. After all, "down is towards the floor" seems to be the rule in virtually every film set in space.

I listen to a lot of Big Finish's range of Doctor Who audio plays. In audio it would cost nothing to "film" in zero g. But every spaceship has Earth-normal gravity, even powerless derelict alien ships abandoned in deep space. This is (I believe) because the teams' only "knowledge" of space is from TV and films.

The problem is of course the cost. A Zero G flight costs a lot of money.
But as I already mentioned, it's comparatively easy to convey zero g if the pilot is strapped in most of the time, and clambering about a confined space the rest of the time. It would also save budget!

I should know, I had the pleasure of experiencing one myself many years ago during some tests for the international space station (Nothing fantastic, just testing a Zero Gravity Tig Welder).
Sounds fantastic enough to me! You lucky thing...

If you watch "Solaris" for example, there really was not a lot to get wrong,
I take it you mean the remake. In the Tarkovsky version, it actually felt as if we were orbiting an ocean planet. In the remake, it didn't look like anything. And that terrible, terrible line: "Solaris is taking on mass." I hate the thought that some people might think that nonsense was in Lem's novel.

I think most of the gripes here are not with the science aspect of films, but the general treatment of the audience by the film maker.

Partly, but mostly... the story!

But to clear a point about science, I think most of us have a healthy respect for known science. But in a story set on board an advanced spaceship, we can assume that new science has been discovered - things that seem impossible now may be possible then. It would, in fact, be unrealistic to suppose that science has not advanced.

Does that mean there should be a free-for-all in science fiction? Absolutely not! If imaginary science is to feature in a story, it must be presented in a way that lets the audience know it was a creative decision rather than a mistake.

Sometimes it's enough for a character to mention hyperspace. That word is shorthand for, "We know faster than light travel is impossible but we're assuming future technology has found a way around it."

But if it appears that the film makers don't realise you can't travel faster than light (or, more likely, don't even realise that stars are lightyears apart) then it's bad science fiction.

Unfortunately there is always a target market for a film. You want them to watch it, appreciate it and talk about it afterwards to their friends, this is how you get bums in seats.

I appreciate that, but it does sometimes seem as if they are intentionally alienating audiences with an average education. (I don't think they are; it just seems that way.)

Until then, just be comforted in the knowledge that you are walking out of the cinema because of your higher understanding of the way the universe works.
I'd be more comforted by an intelligent SF film!

BTW. I am already enjoying the company here. I love a good discussion even when people completely disagree with me. After all, if we all thought the same, life would be so boring. Hoping we can have many more on various topics over the coming future.

I'm glad you feel this way, and look forward to further discussions.

[RAF_Blackace]

Sounds fantastic enough to me! You lucky thing...

Just for you, here is my account of the experience..

I used to work at a place called Marchwood Research Laboratories near Southampton. We had a contract to do test welding using a TIG welding robot in zero gravity. The reason for the test was that astronauts sooner or later would need to be able to weld in space, we needed results to show it was even feasible. No one knew how a weld pool would behave in zero G, especially as the only possible kind of welding that could be carried out was TIG (Tungsten in Argon Gas) and this kind of welding depended on the high current arc remaining completely stable as well as the weld pool.

The Research officer was called Richard Wilgos, he was a very straight man and took everything very seriously, as most research officers did in those days. He was a product of Eaton with the high class accent, he was in dire need of a charisma transplant.

On the day of the first tests we arrived at Farnborough and were driven out onto the tarmac where we waited for the pilots to turn up. The aircraft was a modified Boeing 727, it looked just like any other aircraft from the outside.

Shortly after, a Jeep drove up and just like a scene from the damn busters, 2 pilots leapt out, they looked so young, one looked about 18 and the other about 25 (Later we were to find out that they were the best test pilots the RAF had). Richard was aghast at their age, he was not a good flier and was worried about the safety.

The pilots greeted Richard by saying. "Hi, you must be Dickie".

"Er, Richard Wilgos is the name".

"Right, Dickie it is then" The pilot replied.

Richard then questioned the safety aspects of the flight first by asking how many flights like this had they done, and how many times had this particular aircraft done Zero-G Flights.

"This is our first time Dickie, never done one before. Come to think of it neither has this aircraft". The Pilots said.

Richard looked horrified. On seeing his reaction the pilot said.

"No need to worry Dickie, we phoned the maker (Boeing) last night from the hotel and asked him if it was OK for this aircraft to do Zero-G. They said the would not guarantee the airframe at all, but if we were going to do it don't exceed more than 10 seconds because they had no idea what would happen after that".

This did not relax Richard at all.

"So, we are going to take up a whirly gig then". The pilot quipped.

"It is a zero G Robotic TIG welding capsule captain". Richard replied.

"Right, a whirly gig". The Pilot responded.

We boarded the aircraft, all of the bulkheads had been removed with just one remaining aft of the cockpit. Just 2 seats were on board and our test capsule was bolted right in front of them. Everything was clean and white, padding was everywhere.

We took off and headed for the test area over the Isle of Wight. We climbed and got ready for the first test. The pilot would tell us over the RT headsets which we both wore when to start the test. The pilots would decide when to terminate the experiment.

As we headed over the top for the first test we hit Zero G, we were strapped very tightly into our seat so we were not going anywhere. But as soon as we hit zero G the air suddenly became cloudy, almost like decompression. I realised this was dust that had suddenly risen form everything and was now suspended in the air. I was surprised at this as it appeared to be totally clean when we came on board. A 2" bolt drifted past my ear and banged into the bulkhead in front of us, they missed that one.

The pilot came onto the RT.

"Right Dickie, you can light your whirly gig up now".

"Striking an arc now captain" Richard replied.

All we had to do was press the start button, the test was completely automatic.

The co-pilot was watching the instruments and counting off the seconds. After 10 seconds they pulled up and we were returned to normal gravity.

After confirming that everything was aright the pilots went up for another drop.

Four times we went over the top, each time we spent longer and longer in Zero G.

During the last test the count reached 24. At this moment alarms suddenly came from everywhere. Apparently the instruments just went haywire.

The pilots called for a priority emergency landing back at Farnborough.

During final approach we could hear the pilots over the RT. The conversation was breaking between the landing check-list and normal converstation. Something like this.

"Oil pressure 110, are you taking Jane to the boat tonight"...

"Yes, she is looking forward to it, Flaps 20"...

We landed safely and the experiment was a success. No one has ever welded in space yet, but when they do I can think I had something to do with it in a small way.

All in all a great day out and one of the best days at work I have ever had.

[Paul Beardsley]

All in all a great day out and one of the best days at work I have ever had.
Sounds like quite an understatement!

Great story. Thank you.

[KaiYeves]

I think I would probably have run right out the door the minute he said Boeing couldn't guarantee the airframe.

You're a lot braver than I am.

[Torsten]

Just for you, here is my account of the experience.

A fun story, thanks for sharing that!

[NickW]

Just for you, here is my account of the experience.

Cool story. I hate flying, but I would love to experience zero g just one....or twice. :)

[RAF_Blackace]

Yes, it is certainly an experience everyone should have at least once in their lives.

That was the best day I ever had in the office.

I will save the story for another day, but one of the worst days I had in the office was when I was in a spacesuit and trapped in a reactor containment building with lethal gas and no air supply to plug into. I had 9 minutes of air in the suit when I came in. I was the wrong side of an airlock that took 5 minutes to get through. Trouble was, I had used up 5 minutes coming through the airlock to start with and another 3 minutes realising the air connectors were incompatible with my suit.

How did I make it out alive ?

This is a true story, I will tell the full story in a more appropriate forum when I get the time to type it up.

[NickW]

Can't wait to hear it!

[RAF_Blackace]

Which forum should I post them in ?

Cant wait to tell you when I was arrested by MI5, incorrectly I must add.

[01101001]

No one has ever welded in space yet, but when they do I can think I had something to do with it in a small way.

I thought I read... but I can't vouch for it:

Wikipedia: Welding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welding)


Welding in space is also possible—it was first attempted in 1969 by Russian cosmonauts, when they performed experiments to test shielded metal arc welding, plasma arc welding, and electron beam welding in a depressurized environment. Further testing of these methods was done in the following decades, and today researchers continue to develop methods for using other welding processes in space, such as laser beam welding, resistance welding, and friction welding.

[Ronald Brak]

I'm guessing the Russian experiments were done on earth.

[NickW]

Off topic babbling would be a good place, I think.

[01101001]

I'm guessing the Russian experiments were done on earth.

Why use the hands of cosmonauts, then? Why the curious Wikipedia wording about welding in space being first attempted?

On the Web, I see plenty of stories about welding in space, like American Welding Society: A pictorial history of welding (page 5) (http://www.aws.org/about/time_by5.html):


In 1984, Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya of the Soviet Union used a hand-held electron beam gun to conduct welding, brazing and spraying experiments in space. To perform these experiments, she spent three hours "extravehicular" from Salyut 7, her spaceship.

Is it a massive hoax -- or real?

[Ronald Brak]

Why use the hands of cosmonauts, then? Why the curious Wikipedia wording about welding in space being first attempted?

<whisper>I want to hear about the trapped in a space suit story before we go into this.</whisper>

[01101001]

We may have different goals.

[RAF_Blackace]

As far as I know, no one has actually carried out welding as a requirement for the mission, all the trials were either done on the ground, in capsules like ours, or in the case of the Russians, done on samples, not on real parts of the spaceship.

Of course I would be happy if it has been done, and I would love to be corrected on that.

What I am talking about were not tests for hand held welding equipment. That is very risky in space and will be almost impossible to do. We were working on a system where you have a small Mouse like robot, placed on a weld prep an "optocator" laser system would cause the mouse to follow any weld prep to within thousands of an inch. The arc length and wire feed would also be automatically adjusted by the robot. This system can follow any weld prep, we used to have the robot writing words during demonstrations.This creates an almost perfect weld with no human hands required. The only thing the human has to do is make sure the mouse doesn't go wandering off somewhere it shouldn't. This would be by far the best solution for welding in space.

I can find evidence that the Russians have done it for real, but they were not welding, they were using the equipment to actually cut through damaged material on their spacecraft.

[technoextreme]

I make films, had a few in awards and won quite a few over the last few years.

One thing I can say for certain is that Science and Filming are totally incompatible. The only close attempt to make a film reasonably scientific was 2001 a space odyssey. This was fine for the enthusiasts, but most did not enjoy or even understand the plot. It was indeed a flop at the box office only to have a resurgence as a cult classic later on.

Films need to entertain, with the rules of physics being so well known and fixed it is almost impossible to make any kind of film that applies them to the letter of the law and make it entertaining at the same time.

Even non science fiction films break the rules. Every fight scene would have a doctor cringing in agony at the punches thrown, the guy should be dead, but he gets up and asks for more.

A great pity and an honest crusade. But if we need to try to get films to include more science I am afraid Dustin is not the man for the job. Sphere Argghh.

I saw Cube. Excellent idea, well executed (forgive the irony).
What a lame excuse. Movies don't just get the science wrong they get the science wrong in such weird ways that would be easy to fix. Jurassic Park couldn't even electrocute someone without breaking the laws of physics.

[Gillianren]

Welcome aboard, technoextreme. Read the rules and stay awhile. I assure you, you'll get no argument from me on the point you've just raised.

[technoextreme]

Welcome aboard, technoextreme. Read the rules and stay awhile. I assure you, you'll get no argument from me on the point you've just raised.
Sorry if that tone was harsh. I didn't mean to cause any disrespect. I agree and yet disagree with RAF_Blackace. The little things sometimes become very annoying. If anyone does not know about the scene from Jurassic Park it involves a person who is in the middle of climbing an electric fence geting electrocuted. The problem is he wouldn't have been electrocuted. If he was standing on the ground while grabbing the fence then he would have been electrocuted. On the other hand if you are complaining about Spider Man's arm not being ripped out because of the forces from swining then you are being pedantic.

[Gillianren]

Sorry if that tone was harsh. I didn't mean to cause any disrespect. I agree and yet disagree with RAF_Blackace. The little things sometimes become very annoying. If anyone does not know about the scene from Jurassic Park it involves a person who is in the middle of climbing an electric fence geting electrocuted. The problem is he wouldn't have been electrocuted. If he was standing on the ground while grabbing the fence then he would have been electrocuted. On the other hand if you are complaining about Spider Man's arm not being ripped out because of the forces from swining then you are being pedantic.

Comic book physics, right. Though interestingly, one of the best examples of what happens when you're caught while falling from a great height is from a Spider-Man comic.

[Tog]

Comic book physics, right. Though interestingly, one of the best examples of what happens when you're caught while falling from a great height is from a Spider-Man comic. But not in the film.

:D

[technoextreme]

Comic book physics, right. Though interestingly, one of the best examples of what happens when you're caught while falling from a great height is from a Spider-Man comic.
Its actually debatable as to whether or not Gwen snapped her neck or just died from the fall (DUMB). I remember reading somewhere that they never actually intended for the snap to be the cause. If Spider Man's webbing was like a rubber band then in fact he shouldn't have killed her. If Spider Man's webbing is like rope then he killed her.

[KaiYeves]

Comic book physics, right. Though interestingly, one of the best examples of what happens when you're caught while falling from a great height is from a Spider-Man comic.
One of the younger kids at Space Camp didn't understand the principle of "Not the fall that kills you, but the stopping", and that was the example I used.

[RAF_Blackace]

I agree and yet disagree with RAF_Blackace.

As do most people :)

I actually met** Dustin Hoffman last year when he was shooting "Last Chance Harvey" at Stansted Airport. If I had any idea at the time he was going to promote better science in films I might not have booed him so much.

**He walked past me within touching distance whilst I was eating a sandwich at Prets, that counts as a meeting doesn't it ?

Who is to say that the fence in Jurassic Park didn't have alternate phases on the wires ?

If so, the director is right to show it how he did.

It probably didn't, but every director has some argument for showing what he does, even it its wrong.

[Gillianren]

It probably didn't, but every director has some argument for showing what he does, even it its wrong.

If the argument is "I didn't think about it," "no one will know the difference," or some such, it's a bad argument and the story is rightly excoriated.

[boppa]

Who is to say that the fence in Jurassic Park didn't have alternate phases on the wires ?

Actually if you look at any electric fence manual, they recommend alternating an active/live wire with an earth wire- this takes away the ground losses involved in a ground return. Its especially recommended for sandy soils and (hehe) larger animals...

(I seriously doubt they would use one of my old bosses electric fence energisers at Jurrasic Park tho... oh and there is mesh made especially for electric fences that appear to be standard wire mesh, but are electically insulated at each crossover point- the ones I've worked with are chicken wire sized mesh for rodent control)

So in this case they were actually using good physics- just some peoples expectations/knowledge are incorrect.

[Elukka]

You can have realistic physics (and other things) without making the movie or show be about physics.

I mean, soap operas generally have very realistic physics, but nobody complains they are akin to a physics lecture. Scifi, whatever it is about, need not be about physics either.

[Paul Beardsley]

You can have realistic physics (and other things) without making the movie or show be about physics.

I mean, soap operas generally have very realistic physics, but nobody complains they are akin to a physics lecture. Scifi, whatever it is about, need not be about physics either.

Very well said.

It really annoys me when people use the "we don't want a physics lesson" line to defend what is really bad drama.

[Gillianren]

In moderately related news, the UK is planning to use its celebrities to try to remove the perception of science as "elitist." Note the person they've chosen to highlight.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jan/28/science-terry-pratchett

[Atraveller]

In moderately related news, the UK is planning to use its celebrities to try to remove the perception of science as "elitist." Note the person they've chosen to highlight.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jan/28/science-terry-pratchett

They also list Bill Bryson. I thought his short history of almost everything was a brilliant science primer - Perhaps required reading for all directors?

Short History of almost everything (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Short_History_of_Nearly_Everything)

[AstroRockHunter]

Just because it's entertaining doesn't mean it can't also be right. All Mr. Hoffman is suggesting is that movies be as plausible as possible.

Belief can only be suspended so far; after that it snaps into either fantasy or idiocy.

Totally! As Mark Twain said:

<H3>FICTION


Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
- Following the Equator, Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar
</H3>

[SolusLupus]

If the argument is "I didn't think about it," "no one will know the difference," or some such, it's a bad argument and the story is rightly excoriated.

Not to mention, "people have to come to expect this, so my film would suffer without it".

Somehow I doubt people would boycott something like Lord of the Rings, just because the swords didn't ring while sliding out of leather scabbards.

[zenbudda]

I dunno. I still think they need to have electrical arcs, clearly defined tornadoes and atomic zoom ins. Just like our forum for photography. Aren't those pictures modified to bring out more contrast in colors and shapes? definitely, on some level, fiction needs to show something a little more entertaining.

there is one thing that bothers me though. drinking empty cups and never eating a full blown meal that was just laid in front of you.

[Paul Beardsley]

I dunno. I still think they need to have electrical arcs, clearly defined tornadoes and atomic zoom ins. Just like our forum for photography. Aren't those pictures modified to bring out more contrast in colors and shapes? definitely, on some level, fiction needs to show something a little more entertaining.
I think most people accept that fiction has to be edited. In real life, people say "um" a lot, and they mishear things so it has to be repeated, and the exciting highlights usually occur amidst a ton of paperwork and visits to the toilet.


there is one thing that bothers me though. drinking empty cups and never eating a full blown meal that was just laid in front of you.
:)

[boppa]

Just had the `pleasure' of watching the new(ish) version of War of the Worlds last night. The EMP pulse that fried every car- but he changes the starter solenoid and bingo its running again.
The list of things wrong with that, as a sparkie, is so long it would probably be bigger than bauts database....

A pulse big enough to fry those windings would have melted every wire in the car- and probably the car body into the bargain- and yet the ECU survived just fine
(and why did he bother to change the solenoid anyways- just push start it if thats all thats wrong)


and people hotwiring cars in movies always get it wrong as well (done plenty in my time as an auto sparkie) and just tapping/ sparking two wires together- no ways- where's the coil/coil packs/injector pump getting their power from? And they never have steering locks either...

(and final moan)
the terrorist bomb- cut the red wire- but dont cut the blue one...
(a `nasty' minded person like me building such a device would deliberately use red where blue was call for and vise versa hehe...)

Is there an `industry standard' for colour coding such devices- and who enforces it?
(Excuse me Sir, I'm afraid I cant allow you to detonate that device at the school until it's been properly rewired to `Terrorist Bomb Wiring Act of 1988, section 2, subparagraph 3)

Or why not just use a single roll of cable for the wiring job- no fat ones, no thin ones and no `cut the red wire' possible

;-)

[HenrikOlsen]

I liked the take on that in one movie, where they knew the bomb and a guy reading the documentation telling the hero which wire to cut, but it was lit by a sodium flare underwater so in the monochromatic light the wires looked exactly the same:D

[lehargasse]

some films try to stay within the explainable; the best ones lose the plot and buckle to special effects after 3/4'th through the film, with a complementary head scratching experience of charictor loops.
Most films make a patsy out of everyone, except the hero, and give up at half time. I accidentally watched "space cowboys"
I could feel the implausability creaping all over me!
and as real as some of the executice producers tried, it died with that cold war pile of ploppy plot; that they made the whole film around.
My favorite sci-fi films are psychological.
"Brazil", "Fight Club" and "12 monkeys"
those got close. I suppose it's easier to write sci-fi as a theam of internal madness, rather than cumulative awareness.
I am surprised there are not more Gore Vidal films.

[Gillianren]

some films try to stay within the explainable; the best ones lose the plot and buckle to special effects after 3/4'th through the film, with a complementary head scratching experience of charictor loops.

That's an opinion. Mine is that you're absolutely wrong. "Buckling to special effects" is generally, to me, a sign that the film doesn't have any imagination. As for "charictor [sic] loops," if I can't follow what a character's going through, why should I care? I follow most of the characters in David Lynch films just fine--fascinating, psychological movies that don't put special effects ahead of the intelligence of its viewers.

[dohbot]

i love both sphere and outbreak, i find those movies far more entertaining than avatar.

[swampyankee]

Blessedly, Hitchcock had more sense than that.

I'm sure you've counted (or tried to count) the number of cuts in the shower scene in Psycho. The only hard and fast rule I've seen in Hitchcock is that he had to be in at least one scene, and that remains part of the fun of watching his films.

[HenrikOlsen]

I think there's one more, he'd bend any rule if the bent result was more effective.

[Gillianren]

I'm sure you've counted (or tried to count) the number of cuts in the shower scene in Psycho. The only hard and fast rule I've seen in Hitchcock is that he had to be in at least one scene, and that remains part of the fun of watching his films.

It's why his cameos started coming earlier and earlier in the film--he felt it broke the tension he was working to build. He probably would have stopped entirely were it not for the people who were looking and looking for him instead of worrying about Jimmy Stewart on top of that tower or what have you.