Comments on: Great moments in pedantry: Scientists point out flaws in the science of Prometheus

By: NelC

NelC — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 13:55:00 +0000

Worst. Episode. Of Time Team. Ever.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 06:24:00 +0000

With their General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Control Robot?

By: eviladrian

eviladrian — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 05:28:00 +0000

Weyland should have been either Lance Henriksen, or an aged-up but still recognisable Michael Fassbender.

For all the ropey plotlines, I still had fun watching the movie. Shaw’s “baby” was a nicely done bit of birth-horror (on par with Twilight’s dental caesarean). I would have liked to see a bit more focus on her and the tentacle-baby, like if it turned out that the creature really liked her and she was stuck on the lifeboat with this strangely affectionate monster that she couldn’t bring herself to reject.

By: eviladrian

eviladrian — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 05:17:00 +0000

And the way Dr House can pull out half your organs and drug you to the edge of death, but as long as the very last thing he tries works, you instantly return to perfect health.

By: eviladrian

eviladrian — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 05:17:00 +0000

Maybe the probe samples the ambient carbon-14 levels for a baseline ;-)

By: thepolishpen

thepolishpen — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 05:06:00 +0000

A flamethrower doesn’t just shoot out fire. That fire is launched with flaming fuel or goop. The suits probably could withstand the extremes of heat and cold (that’s why the Captain told those stuck in the cave overnight to put their helmets on–it was going to get cold).

But a burning fuel is a different story.

By: oasisob1

oasisob1 — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 00:52:00 +0000

Best line in one of the linked articles, ever:
“And WTF fuck does the head explode?”

*WTF fuck*

By: thepolishpen

thepolishpen — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 23:39:00 +0000

This movie was more “philosophical/theological” first, then sci-fi. But I’m by no means stating that it was deep in either mode of thought or genre.

It’s an obvious set-up film for more to come. It was very entertaining. Better than most of the garbage that’s been released recently.

I don’t think it needed to be scientifically sincere in order to work.

Also, we all knew it was written by the LOST guy, so we knew what to expect as far as M.O. is concerned.

I thought is was beautiful to watch and interesting to see the irony and folly play out, no matter how far Vickers thought they were from Earth.

By: thepolishpen

thepolishpen — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 23:34:00 +0000

Yes, Kirk, the one who ended up with his shirt ripped open/off in each episode.

Also, these people are set in a time not far off from ours. What’s so hard to believe about there being idiots in space?

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 21:25:00 +0000

There’s a difference between imagining new technologies and not being able to tell your own ass from a hole in the ground.

By: Melinda9

Melinda9 — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 20:56:00 +0000

Yes, the original Alien films aren’t scientifically accurate, but they had good stories, so nobody bothered to pick them apart. Shows like Red Dwarf and LEXX are fun to watch even though full of improbable happenings.
I thought the story in Prometheus was boring and the pacing was leaden. I agree Michael Fassbender did a great job portraying David, but I couldn’t wait to get out of the theater. If I hadn’t been there with someone else, I would’ve left.
And there was also the whole ‘drag this flimsy idea out over however many sequels’ thing.

By: Daemonworks

Daemonworks — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 20:40:00 +0000

You say this as though most people A: know html and B: realize that it would actually work in the comments here, unlike many other forums and the like where they are disabled.

By: Culturedropout

Culturedropout — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 19:04:00 +0000

On the other hand, the Enterprise wasn’t crewed by a group of borderline-psychotic kamikaze “git ‘er done!” types, either. Except maybe the security guys, and that was in their job description…

By: thepolishpen

thepolishpen — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 18:29:00 +0000

This is the worst kind of criticism. Attacking science fiction from the field of science. Star Trek was a far cry from reality as well, but many, many future scientists were inspired by the show and have used it as a guide for new technologies.

I find this article a useless exercise in the expertise of the impossible, chortle-chortle, snot–you can’t do THAT in science. Pfff.

By: bishophicks

bishophicks — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 18:25:00 +0000

Scientists don’t like the way scientists and science are handled in the movies? What makes them so special that we’re always hearing about this? Movies and television don’t portray ANYTHING accurately. Ask anyone who is an expert in their field and I guarantee, whether the field is science, art, dance, music, business, politics, computer programming, medicine, ANYTHING, that the person has issues with how their profession is portrayed on screen. Get over it, already.

By: bishophicks

bishophicks — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 18:17:00 +0000

At 5% growth (3% real + 2% inflation), in 78 years the GDP of the United States would be something like 675 Trillion dollars. So spending 1 trillion on a project then would be like spending 22 billion today.

By: nanuq

nanuq — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:34:00 +0000

Anyone else get hung up on the use of carbon dating in the movie (which shouldn’t have been possible on an alien world with an unknown geological history)?

By: nanuq

nanuq — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:33:00 +0000

Mary Shelley had good grounding in the science of her time. Percy Shelley and his friend Byron were avid science geeks who often attended lectures and shared what they learned with her. Victor Frankenstein was likely based on various real-life scientists as well. There was actually very little hard science in Frankenstein so she could hardly be faulted for plot holes.

http://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2010/12/inspiring-frankenstein.html

By: OtherMichael

OtherMichael — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:15:00 +0000

Yeah, that’s right: I called you a Gernsbacky-fanboy.

You gonna get all scientifiction-y on my ass now?

In your dreams, slan-fan!

By: OtherMichael

OtherMichael — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:13:00 +0000

No, I think it was Space Horror.

There was definitley space, and there was definitely horror (for certain, limited definitions of the term “horror”).

Now, as far as “science” goes…. well, maybe for certain Erik VonDanniken-definitions of “science.”

Which doesn’t bother me in the least.

Stop calling it “SCIENCE” fiction, you Gernbacky-fanboys.

It’s SPECULATIVE fiction.

Fiction about science is BORING, unless you’ve got a glowing Marie Curie wandering about radium-ating Europe, or Edison electrocuting elephants. Or possibly Tesla duplicating hats and magicians.

By: Rotwang

Rotwang — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 15:03:00 +0000

My problem with all the ‘Stupid Human Tricks’ was that they drove so much of the plot. With a little more work, the writers could have written a script where the scientists acted like intelligent people and still have had everything go to hell. There was no reason other than laziness to have the whole story driven by the crew’s stupidity.

By: dnebdal

dnebdal — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:53:00 +0000

Paper-thin theories seldom gets multimillion funding – except possibly in the shadier corners of the pharmaceutical industry, but even there they generally aim for “not worse than the patent-lapsed/cheap stuff we’re going to claim it’s better than”.

By: dnebdal

dnebdal — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 12:18:00 +0000

Incidentally, google chat (at least the javascript/html client) autoconverts *this* to bold, _this_ to italic, and -this- to strikethrough – and I believe Markdown syntax is about the same. It’s not quite dead. :)

By: dnebdal

dnebdal — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 12:14:00 +0000

If you should unexpectedly find yourself with some spare time, a short reminder under the reply box that HTML works here (and perhaps a list of accepted tags) would be most welcome. :)

I tend to forget which sites accept HTML (with or without links)/BBcode/Markdown/nothing, and that leads to conservative fallbacks like, well, underscores.

By: retepslluerb

retepslluerb — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 09:53:00 +0000

70 mph isnt’t fast at all, when on a decent road. Hell, over here some people often drive 120 – 130 mph.
But it’s a wee bit different on rough terrain. On another planet. Thanks guys, drive as fast as you want. I’ll walk. Can I have your stereo in case you break your neck?

By: Palomino

Palomino — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 08:07:00 +0000

BB had a great article dissecting misconceptions about medical shows like HOUSE. What I found most interesting was the skewed survival rates, vastly inflated.

By: Palomino

Palomino — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 08:05:00 +0000

It makes it look scientificy and smartish.

By: Russell

Russell — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 07:42:00 +0000

To be fair, none of the scientists came out with overblown-yet-tantalising claims and demanded additional funding before they could prove their paper-thin theories. I found that quite refreshing, although of course utterly unrealistic.

By: penguinchris

penguinchris — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 07:25:00 +0000

I saw Prometheus opening day and loved it. You’re absolutely right about the characters and their motivations and the fact that the whole mission was a sham from the start. Not sure why it’s so hard for people to accept that… it’s shown very clearly in the film pretty much from the start, though you do have to think about it.

I watched Alien and Aliens again last week and there is indeed a lot of BS that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. But, neither film is as complex/deep as Prometheus and it’s easier to not realize that things don’t make sense (and easier to dismiss things).

To understand and enjoy Prometheus you have to look past what seem like “obvious flaws” and get to the subtext and the important plot points that are only hinted at. Once you do that, of course, then you realize the obvious flaws weren’t actually flaws (not that it’s a flawless film).

By: atimoshenko

atimoshenko — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 06:54:00 +0000

Exactly. You have super-advanced AIs of David’s calibre (capable of learning how to operate alien ships within a few hours), but you have no advanced non-humanoid drones, and populate the mission with heat/light/food/water/oxygen/protection from cosmic rays needing humans.