Should we criticise Wall*E for bad astronomy?

[mfumbesi]

I enjoyed the movie, but there were some glaring improbabilities/inconsistencies.
The humans left Earth for ~750 years but the streets on Earth are still littered with newspapers with headlines from 750 years ago. I don't know how that worked, surely paper would have decayed in that time, from the rain and sun I think a month would be long enough (for all exposed paper to decay).
Either than that I quite enjoyed the movie with my 7 year old son.

[Starfury]

What I found funny is that Eve, whose purpose is to gather biological specimens, is packing a cannon that looks like it could take out an Abrams tank with one shot.

After watching the film I wondered about what kind of power source Eve had, for a robot of her size to fly at high velocity and power her tactical systems. After thinking about it (strictly from a sci-fi point of view, mind you), I concluded it was likely a zero point energy cell.

[Gillianren]

Come to that, weren't all the robots designed at about the same time? I realize the WALL-E units didn't have to be all that classy-looking, but how come WALL-E doesn't have Eve's super power source? He's on solar panels.

[parallaxicality]

my guess is that the robots continuously redesigned and upgraded themselves.

[Gandalf223]

People who feel the need to worry about the "science" in a cartoon movie like Wall·e, might more profitably spend their leisure time reading...

To paraphrase my daughter: "It's a movie, Dad!"

[Gillianren]

People who feel the need to worry about the "science" in a cartoon movie like Wall·e, might more profitably spend their leisure time reading...

I do read. Quite a lot. However, the writers of such movies might profitably read themselves. Often, when the science in a movie is wrong, there's no need for it to be wrong--it doesn't really change the plot for it to be right. The filmmakers are just lazy. "It's just a movie" is not, to me, an adequate excuse. "It's fantasy" is an excuse, but I don't think WALL-E is intended to be fantasy. Not hard science fiction, but soft science fiction, anyway. We don't need to know how the ship--or even the titular character--works, but a little consistency in some of the places where it failed would have been nice.

[Daffy]

I do read. Quite a lot. However, the writers of such movies might profitably read themselves. Often, when the science in a movie is wrong, there's no need for it to be wrong--it doesn't really change the plot for it to be right. The filmmakers are just lazy. "It's just a movie" is not, to me, an adequate excuse. "It's fantasy" is an excuse, but I don't think WALL-E is intended to be fantasy. Not hard science fiction, but soft science fiction, anyway. We don't need to know how the ship--or even the titular character--works, but a little consistency in some of the places where it failed would have been nice.

But what are the standards for differentiating? Be specific now...I promise not to laugh.

(OK, re-reading that it sounds harsh...didn't mean it that way at all.)

[Gillianren]

Can you take away the science and replace it with magic and have the story still make logical sense? Does anyone ever bother to give any explanation of how any device in the story works? (For example, in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Nemo says that the Nautilus is powered "by electricity," although the specific mechanism is never invoked. This makes it soft sci-fi, not hard sci-fi; had the explanation not been deemed necessary, it might have been fantasy.) Is the driving aspect of the story technology--robots, "exploring new worlds," genetic technology--or magic--the Force, of course, is the prime example. It is, of course, possible to have sci-fi augment fantasy; it's where we get into difficulty with Star Wars. Yup. An awful lot of the trappings are sci-fi. But if, instead of the galaxy, you confined it to one world and had travel happen by sailing ships or dragons or something, and took away the aliens, and made C-3PO a human, and made the Death Star a giant siege weapon, you'd still have the same basic story, because the driving force of the plot is the magical Force. On the other hand, WALL-E depends completely on its robots, its spaceships, its futuristic setting. Changing WALL-E himself into a human changes the entire story.

Then again, as I've said before, it's a spectrum. There is no one place where everyone can agree that, on one side of the line, it's fantasy, and on the other, it's sci-fi. Your Mileage May Vary, in short. But I do think it's a useful spectrum. Take, for example, two of Douglas Adams's works--both Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul are about, well, Dirk Gently. However, DGHDA is powered by aliens and LDTTotS by Norse gods. It is, quite frankly, why I don't separate the sci-fi from the fantasy on my shelves. I wouldn't want to split up the set.

[Daffy]

Can you take away the science and replace it with magic and have the story still make logical sense? Does anyone ever bother to give any explanation of how any device in the story works? (For example, in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Nemo says that the Nautilus is powered "by electricity," although the specific mechanism is never invoked. This makes it soft sci-fi, not hard sci-fi; had the explanation not been deemed necessary, it might have been fantasy.) Is the driving aspect of the story technology--robots, "exploring new worlds," genetic technology--or magic--the Force, of course, is the prime example. It is, of course, possible to have sci-fi augment fantasy; it's where we get into difficulty with Star Wars. Yup. An awful lot of the trappings are sci-fi. But if, instead of the galaxy, you confined it to one world and had travel happen by sailing ships or dragons or something, and took away the aliens, and made C-3PO a human, and made the Death Star a giant siege weapon, you'd still have the same basic story, because the driving force of the plot is the magical Force. On the other hand, WALL-E depends completely on its robots, its spaceships, its futuristic setting. Changing WALL-E himself into a human changes the entire story.

Then again, as I've said before, it's a spectrum. There is no one place where everyone can agree that, on one side of the line, it's fantasy, and on the other, it's sci-fi. Your Mileage May Vary, in short. But I do think it's a useful spectrum. Take, for example, two of Douglas Adams's works--both Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul are about, well, Dirk Gently. However, DGHDA is powered by aliens and LDTTotS by Norse gods. It is, quite frankly, why I don't separate the sci-fi from the fantasy on my shelves. I wouldn't want to split up the set.

Hmmm...maybe. But let's take Wall-E. Here we have artificial intelligence. Under your system that would be considered science fiction...and yet we have no reason whatsoever (at this stage) to imagine that self aware robots are anything but a fantasy. My point being that there is no objective way to differentiate.

The Lord of the Rings I think we can agree is Fantasy. And yet it takes place on this earth (Middle Earth is just an expression)...where (as Tolkien said), "miles are miles." So, shall we criticize his rather blatantly inaccurate geography? Or just enjoy the story?

Again, I come back to criticizing all or none. The line still seems arbitrary to me.

edited to add: Btw, I totally love the Dirk Gently novels.

[Neverfly]

Again, I come back to criticizing all or none.

Criticize what needs criticism and admire what doesn't require criticism.

[Daffy]

Criticize what needs criticism and admire what doesn't require criticism.

No movie requires it. Except slasher movies, of course.

[Neverfly]

No movie requires it. Except slasher movies, of course.

Yes. Like "Sunshine."

[Gillianren]

Hmmm...maybe. But let's take Wall-E. Here we have artificial intelligence. Under your system that would be considered science fiction...and yet we have no reason whatsoever (at this stage) to imagine that self aware robots are anything but a fantasy. My point being that there is no objective way to differentiate.

We can extrapolate from the technology we have now. Robots exist. No, self-aware robots don't exist, and with current technology, they cannot exist. Ditto the ship on which the humans live. We have no known technology for that. However, we can look at the technology we do have and follow a logical progression, albeit one with no evidence for each step's possibility, and get to the place where we have self-aware robots and a giant spaceship filled with all the comforts of home. How, exactly, can you follow a logical progression that brings you to, oh, Elves? The Banshee as seen in Terry Pratchett's Going Postal?

The Lord of the Rings I think we can agree is Fantasy. And yet it takes place on this earth (Middle Earth is just an expression)...where (as Tolkien said), "miles are miles." So, shall we criticize his rather blatantly inaccurate geography? Or just enjoy the story?

Well, for one thing, I'm not exactly advocating ripping WALL-E and his friends all to bits. I liked the movie quite a lot; I gave it a ten, as I recall. I do, however, accept that it is more reasonable to point out the scientific failings there than on Middle Earth. Obviously, the oliphaunts as depicted in the movie (I confess, I could not get through the books) cannot exist on any kind of non-magical world, but it is a magical world, so we let that slide. On the other hand, if Middle Earth is intended to represent faithfully the geography of our Earth, yes, it's fair to complain when and where it doesn't. That complaining, however, does not mean the same thing as not enjoying the story.

Maybe it's my field that makes me see that so clearly--as an English major, I once wrote an entire paper, some thirty or forty pages, delving into the historical accuracy of the Civil War section of Gone With the Wind, which is one of my favourite books. That part of the book is actually astonishingly accurate, to the surprise of most, but the reason I only covered the Civil War parts was that I knew how inaccurate the Reconstruction parts were certain to be, because I knew the author's bias and educational background. She thought she was being accurate; she was wrong. I still really like the book--and the movie--but you can't argue that she got Reconstruction right. One of my favourite sci-fi books, Rinn's Star, by Paula E. Downing, is a pretty good story with the great implausibility of a mutation's having caused telepathy. Yes, it's implausible, but I had a boyfriend once who said that any story can have one great implausibility, and more than that, the story starts to fall apart. At any rate. I really, really like the book, but there's one bit that always throws me out of the story. Rinn and her shipmates are mining on an alien world, and the narrator describes the minerals they're encountering. One mention is of tourmaline in a radiant blue colour, which is unusual because (I'm paraphrasing, but pretty closely) on Earth, even gem-quality tourmaline is grey or brown. Which means, clearly, the author never heard of watermelon tourmaline.

Again, I come back to criticizing all or none. The line still seems arbitrary to me.

That's because you persist in seeing it as a line. Rinn's Star is softer sci-fi than Dune; it's harder sci-fi than Dirk Gently. Dirk Gently falls on the sci-fi side of the spectrum, but just barely; Tea-Time falls just barely on the fantasy side. Star Wars is farther down; Lord of the Rings is even beyond that. Where you choose to start criticizing is up to you, but I still don't think it's entirely arbitrary. And, indeed, everyone but the retconners pick on at least one line in Star Wars that gets the science wrong, as surely you know.

edited to add: Btw, I totally love the Dirk Gently novels.

Well, you see, that's because they're awesome.

[Neverfly]

At the start of this thread, much of the commentary seemed to give the impression of saying, "It's just a movie. I liked it. Stop picking on it."
It seemed a sharp contrast to the usual nitpicking of errors and details that often happens with movies discussed- especially the not so well liked ones like umm...
Sunshine

No, actually, I liked Sunshine. Seriously. The opening credits were very good. It was just the ending that followed the opening credits that annoyed me.

[Daffy]

At the start of this thread, much of the commentary seemed to give the impression of saying, "It's just a movie. I liked it. Stop picking on it."
It seemed a sharp contrast to the usual nitpicking of errors and details that often happens with movies discussed- especially the not so well liked ones like umm...
Sunshine

No, actually, I liked Sunshine. Seriously. The opening credits were very good. It was just the ending that followed the opening credits that annoyed me.

And that seems to be the bottom line: do not criticize bad science in a movie if you like the story. Ah, well, at this point I would just be repeating myself. Again.

Gillianren, let's focus on the positive: the Dirk Gently novels really are awesome. I envy anyone who gets to read them for the first time.

Oh, as an aside (this has nothing to do with the debate), Tolkien (according to his own letters) really did intend his stories to take place on this earth, albeit in a very, Very VERY ancient time. Middle Earth is actually an expression from hundreds of years ago that simply means, well, Earth. The place between Under Ground and Over Heaven. Just a bit of lit'rary trivia for you.

[Neverfly]

And that seems to be the bottom line: do not criticize bad science in a movie if you like the story. Ah, well, at this point I would just be repeating myself. Again.

Yes, that's why I typed that in a response to Gillianrens direct commentary above.

That's because you persist in seeing it as a line.

The line seemed drawn by the thread at the beginning.
I figured I would offer it up as clarity.

[Gillianren]

And that seems to be the bottom line: do not criticize bad science in a movie if you like the story. Ah, well, at this point I would just be repeating myself. Again.

And I would, too, when I disagreed with you, as in my GWTW example above, or Rinn's Star.

Gillianren, let's focus on the positive: the Dirk Gently novels really are awesome. I envy anyone who gets to read them for the first time.

Definitely.

Oh, as an aside (this has nothing to do with the debate), Tolkien (according to his own letters) really did intend his stories to take place on this earth, albeit in a very, Very VERY ancient time. Middle Earth is actually an expression from hundreds of years ago that simply means, well, Earth. The place between Under Ground and Over Heaven. Just a bit of lit'rary trivia for you.

Huh. Well, pick on the geography away, then! (I did know that the Norse used the term, but that didn't necessarily mean that Tolkien meant his Middle Earth to be exactly analagous to our Earth.)

[Daffy]

Huh. Well, pick on the geography away, then! (I did know that the Norse used the term, but that didn't necessarily mean that Tolkien meant his Middle Earth to be exactly analagous to our Earth.)

I will find the exact quote...but, yeah, the whole thing was part of his greater creation mythology that was meant to be about this very planet. He also said himself in a number of letters that one of his greatest regrets was that he pretty much ignored geography. Most of The Lord of the Rings takes place in what is now Europe. If memory serves (don't quote me until I've checked), Gondor was more or less where modern Venice is located.

Edited to add: My mistake...it was Florence.

[parallaxicality]

"Middle Earth" was only one of three continents in Tolkien's primeval world, which was called Arda. The first, Valinor, was taken off the Earth so that only Elves coulod go. The second, Middle Earth, eventually became Europe, Asia and Afrca. The third, the Sunlands, became North and South America. Tolkien, much like a lot of creationists, sped up coninental drift substantially in his mythos.

[Daffy]

"Middle Earth" was only one of three continents in Tolkien's primeval world, which was called Arda. The first, Valinor, was taken off the Earth so that only Elves coulod go. The second, Middle Earth, eventually became Europe, Asia and Afrca. The third, the Sunlands, became North and South America. Tolkien, much like a lot of creationists, sped up coninental drift substantially in his mythos.

Arda was Earth. All the action took place in Europe, Asia, and Africa, but that was not the whole of "Middle Earth." Not sure what you are basing the Sunlands on, but my understanding was that was more or less Africa, where Tolkien was born, specifically Bloemfontein, South Africa. He never (to my knowledge) mentioned continental drift at all. Irrelevant, in any case, since the action, while many thousands of years in the past, was certainly not far enough back for continental drift to be a factor. The only "drift" was the drowning of Numenor and removal of Valinor (sort of) by direct intervention of Illuvatar...but the whole story (by his own words) was intended as myth, not any sort of defense of creationism. And he directly, many, many, many times rejected the notion of any allegorical meaning in his stories.

Now you are forcing me to find his exact quote. It's in "The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien," edited by Humphrey Carter. He definitely was a Christian, although I have never seen any writings of his that indicated he was a creationist (or not); certainly he would not have used that term, since he died in 1973.

[Gillianren]

. . . Certainly he would not have used that term, since he died in 1973.

Since the term "scientific creationism" debuted in the '60s, that doesn't necessarily follow. I'm not saying whether he was or wasn't; I don't know enough about the man to say. All I'm saying is that "creationist," which predates "scientific creationist," is not outside his experience.

[Daffy]

Since the term "scientific creationism" debuted in the '60s, that doesn't necessarily follow. I'm not saying whether he was or wasn't; I don't know enough about the man to say. All I'm saying is that "creationist," which predates "scientific creationist," is not outside his experience.

I stand corrected. Still, I have read a LOT of his letters and interviews have personally never seen him use the term. But I guess it's possible. My bad.

[jlhredshift]

Back to OP.

Metaphors:

Humans bad, trashed the planet.
Capitalism bad, took advantage of planet's resources.
Robots good, they attempt to clean up the Human's trash.
Humans bad, they ran away.
Humans are homesick, they send robot to check planet.
Robots find love.
Robots self sacrifice to complete task.
Robots bad, Navigator tries to preserve its power.
Humans and robot join forces to defeat bad robot, the Navigator.
Humans and robots good, return to planet to start over.
Wall E and Eve walk off into sunset.

I loved the movie and kept my mouth shut as I watched it with the family. Primarily because I could see in my Wife's eyes that I should keep my political comments to myself.

[StupendousMan]

Can you take away the science and replace it with magic and have the story still make logical sense? Does anyone ever bother to give any explanation of how any device in the story works? (For example, in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Nemo says that the Nautilus is powered "by electricity," although the specific mechanism is never invoked. This makes it soft sci-fi, not hard sci-fi; had the explanation not been deemed necessary, it might have been fantasy.)

Hmmm. I've just checked some versions of "20,000 Leagues under the Sea," and some do indeed completely omit a mechanism for generating electricity. Others, however, include several passages in Chapter 12, "Everything through electricity," which explain how Nemo does it: he mines coal from the seabed, burns the coal to generate power to extract sodium from sea-water, then uses the sodium to make batteries. The other components of the batteries -- carbon and some sort of acid -- are not consumed by the chemical reactions, so he needs only to produce new sodium to recharge his batteries.

Now, if one were to work out the energetics of the Nautilus and the number of batteries it might plausibly hold, this arrangement might very well turn out to be impractical -- but I'd argue that this is closer to "hard science fiction" than your posting might imply.

[Gillianren]

Now, if one were to work out the energetics of the Nautilus and the number of batteries it might plausibly hold, this arrangement might very well turn out to be impractical -- but I'd argue that this is closer to "hard science fiction" than your posting might imply.

Quite right. I must admit that I haven't read it, myself, and I was going by a, um, Wikipedia search, as I recall.

[Noclevername]

Re: the newspapers, the humans leave Earth sometime in the future when Earth has been stripped of resources, right? Isn't it plausible that newspapers at that time are no longer made of wood pulp (which is already starting to grow relatively expensive) and ink, but rather some more durable materials and printing process?

[Demigrog]

I'm all for criticizing needlessly bad science in any movie, perhaps even especially movies intended for children. Constantly exposing people to good science will eventually teach them something about reality. The 4th-grade reading level types are not going to learn any other way. Instead, we re-enforce their "common sense" notions that are totally wrong.

Is it any wonder that homeopathic medicine sells so well? We see TV and movies all the time where characters embrace alternative medicines. While science fiction (and science fantasy) movies seem to have less day-to-day relevance, I'll bet Apollo 13 inspired more kids to be engineers and scientists than Armageddon did.

Besides, its the needlessly bad science that irks me. As I frequently explain to my less science oriented friends when they complain that I complain too much: they would be just as outraged if a movie about baseball included the line "Strike Four: you're out!"

[Taeolas]

Re: the newspapers, the humans leave Earth sometime in the future when Earth has been stripped of resources, right? Isn't it plausible that newspapers at that time are no longer made of wood pulp (which is already starting to grow relatively expensive) and ink, but rather some more durable materials and printing process?

That's what I'm thinking; that the newspapers were actually something like e-paper which locked into their last display when their power supplies wore out.

[Daffy]

Besides, its the needlessly bad science that irks me. As I frequently explain to my less science oriented friends when they complain that I complain too much: they would be just as outraged if a movie about baseball included the line "Strike Four: you're out!"

What would needfully bad science be?

[parallaxicality]

Things like artificial gravity, faster than light travel, bump-headed aliens to save on makeup effects that sort of thing. I'd even forgive sound in space for the sake of impact.