Comments on: Hollywood gets science wrong — and that's okay

By: katenonymous

katenonymous — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 00:41:00 +0000

Here’s the thing: it’s great to say “Oh, maybe the entertainment value will get kids interested in science.” But what’s happening right now is that juries don’t understand science, and think that if you’re not showing them what they saw on CSI, your case is invalid.

By: Jerril

Jerril — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 20:38:00 +0000

Objects that move wrong (like the bus in Speed) definitely are my bugaboo. My mother’s kryptonite is visible power outlets or wires in period dramas.

By: Jerril

Jerril — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 20:37:00 +0000

Romans thought torture, training animals to rape prisoners, and death sports were fabulous entertainment.
Their society was based on continual conquest and slavery.
They used pure unlined lead pipes for all that drinking water, and didn’t have for most of the history of the empire. Soap isn’t necessary for hygiene, it just makes it simpler.

By: Jerril

Jerril — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 20:32:00 +0000

Definitely agreed.
This is connected to what bothers me about the interviewees not being terribly bothered by the scientists not shouting “Holy shit it’s headed straight for us!” or some other more realistic line of dialogue: scientists are un-people, who say and do un-people things, and are never right.

By: Maurizio Pescatori

Maurizio Pescatori — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 12:29:00 +0000

“Technologically savvy Romans were barbarians compared what is deemed civilised nowadays”
Were I a Roman, I’d feel offended by this comment. Romans had Codes of Law and Tribunals, and their Juridical infrastructure was so sound it became the british, then the American Judicial System. They had paved roads in 200 BC when in 1600 AD Queen Elizabeth’s London was a muddy quagmire after a rainstorm. They had acqueducts and sewers and public baths and public surgeries whereas in many “modern” nations people will go on day after day after day without so much as a hint of soap.
Technologically savvy Romans were such because, first and foremostm their society was sound.
End of story.

By: Goodfella

Goodfella — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:22:00 +0000

When the bus in Speed jumped the bridge and defied gravity that was it for me. A movie has to be beleivable.

By: geech

geech — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 05:31:00 +0000

how nice to see Boris on boingboing.

By: Andrew Planet

Andrew Planet — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 23:30:00 +0000

How funny,”and its only function is to move us a little closer to the enemy so we can throw bits of metal at them. It’s so primitive.” How true! I think that really there must come the time that an intelligent exo-species becomes so evolved that it would just avoid any other nascent intelligent technological species still projecting any hint of primitive aggressive antagonism. Technologically savvy Romans were barbarians compared what is deemed civilised nowadays

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 23:02:00 +0000

nurses and doctors complain about medical movies

The most unrealistic thing there is the idea that doctors marry nurses. They marry other doctors. Or lawyers.

By: euansmith

euansmith — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 22:38:00 +0000

Not everyone with a High School Education would be appalled by the treatment of Evolution… some High Schools use those Creationist “Science” Books :D

By: euansmith

euansmith — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 22:35:00 +0000

Sounds cool… almost a cool as Boris Karloff’s haircut at the top of this thread.

By: Robert Drop

Robert Drop — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 22:30:00 +0000

The science mistakes are often so egregious that they’re basic things that most people should know. If you look at how evolution is treated in sci-fi programs, for instance, it’s presented in a way that anyone with a high school education should be appalled by. That, in the US at least, they generally aren’t is an indication of how poor the science education is.

By: Jonathan Badger

Jonathan Badger — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 21:23:00 +0000

There’s a relatively new (or not so new if you want to count things like Sinclair Lewis’ Arrowsmith from the 1920s) genre called “LabLit”, which is fiction about science and scientists rather than spaceships or monsters.

Probably the best one I’ve read is Allegra Goodman’s “Intuition” about cancer researchers and the temptation to read more into data than what can be legitimately concluded and how it’s a slippery slope from that to actual fudging the data. I highly recommend the book.

By: Tynam

Tynam — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 20:29:00 +0000

Ah; I misunderstood the referent for “It’s”; you were talking about the scene. (Sudden lightbulb.) Caught on now, thanks.

True (and typical) that one frustrating thing about movies is how often they touch on some genuinely interesting bit of maths (or science), then misclassify it or ignore it in favour of a dumber example, or both.

By: vonbobo

vonbobo — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 20:27:00 +0000

You are correct, but what I got from the article is that writers/directors generally don’t care because they are writing a story and they don’t want science to get in the way of the narrative, even when they know the correct answer. And I don’t believe general audiences, excluding the small group of long winded bloggers, care either- they want to be entertained and have fun. You call yourself a layman, but you still may be in a small minority of people who even caught the error, and then even a smaller set of people that cared.

And why is the word “science” used at all? The English Patient isn’t called “medical fiction”. Snakes on a Plane isn’t called an “aviation fiction”. Personally, I feel that 90% of sci-fi movies are incorrectly labeled and should simply be called action, horror, etc. (my answer to this question is that hollywood feels the need to direct general audiences away from the “nerd” movies)

So all movies contain inconsistencies- you know there are flora and fauna experts that know the movie scene isn’t in the right region or country for the story. So why do scientific minded folks feel like they have cornered the market on being slighted in movies?

By: Robert Drop

Robert Drop — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 19:34:00 +0000

Also, in addition to what @euansmith:disqus said, if the science is so bad that even as a layman I’m cringing, then that’s pretty bad. And that happens far too often with films, and for no practical reason (i.e. it wouldn’t have impacted the plot at all to have gotten it right).

By: euansmith

euansmith — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 19:21:00 +0000

That looks fun. Shame the “trailer” acts more like a synopsis.

By: euansmith

euansmith — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 19:18:00 +0000

Its called “Science Fiction” but what we get pretty much without fault is “Science Fantasy” where real science is dumped in favour of magical fiction.

By: euansmith

euansmith — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 19:16:00 +0000

Jet pack? Flying car? Basic Pleasure model? I don’t ask much from life… I’d settle for the Basic Pleasure Model.

By: AnthonyC

AnthonyC — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 18:50:00 +0000

Right, but the situation in the movie was a (potentially iterated) prisoner’s dilemna, not a Nash equilibrium. And Nash is discussing Pareto optima, not Nash equilibria.

By: vonbobo

vonbobo — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 18:42:00 +0000

Great article.

Pilots complain about aviation movies, nurses and doctors complain about medical movies, sailors complain about sailing movies, and I’m sure even entertainment people complain about movies made about the entertainment industry. I never take that criticism as anything more than some sort of boastful smugness, or at the very least some tongue in cheek observation.

Also- it is called science FICTION after all.

By: Tynam

Tynam — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 18:38:00 +0000

Exactly. I can advance suspension of disbelief for just about any premise however silly, but once I’ve accepted that premise the rest of your movie had damn well better follow through on the consequences.

It’s the storytelling equivalent of the Uncanny Valley problem. I don’t mind if your starship has FTL travel, but I can’t stand it when it doesn’t have surge protectors on the bridge consoles.

By: soupcrusher

soupcrusher — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 18:38:00 +0000

I just watched the trailer for ‘Upside Down’ before coming across this article: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkYvYGR7Ys4
Laws of gravity. Pfft.

By: Tynam

Tynam — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 18:34:00 +0000

I wouldn’t want to over-emphasize the abstraction here; all concrete games reduce to abstract mathematical games.

(Whether this is practical is unlikely with many games, but it’s always possible.)

By: Tynam

Tynam — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 18:33:00 +0000

It’s almost exactly the converse of the prisoner’s dilemma.

In a prisoner’s dilemma, each individual benefits if they cheat, but nobody cheating leads to the best outcome for the group as a whole.

In a Nash equilibrium, any individual is worse off if they cheat, so the result will happen even though it might not be the best possible outcome for the group as a whole,

By: kroeghe

kroeghe — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:47:00 +0000

I feel like such a jerk for saying this, but if this guy’s favourite movie really is “The Day After Tomorrow”, then maybe it’s a good thing that filmmakers don’t listen to all of his suggestions… ;)

By: xzzy

xzzy — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:45:00 +0000

I’m fine with movies getting science wrong, what I’m not okay with is it not being plausible “what if” situations. Hackers vs Tron is my favorite example. Tron gets a pass because they asked the question “what would it be like to live in a video game” even though nothing you see in Tron is actually what happens inside a computer. They don’t try to pass it off as anything other than fantasy.

Hackers on the other hand is painful because they were trying to glamorize hacking, using real world equipment. Tape robots are mechanically incapable of fighting over a cartridge, and don’t even get me started on security analysts chasing down a hacker in a virtual environment instead of just yanking the power cable so he can run forensics later.

By: wysinwyg

wysinwyg — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:44:00 +0000

The Nash equilibrium is a condition for some abstract mathematical games. The fact that Nash (the character in the movie) applied this mathematical model to a physical scenario in which it did not pertain doesn’t change the fact that the movie described the abstract condition known as the “Nash equilibrium” rather soundly.

By: AnthonyC

AnthonyC — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:40:00 +0000

I don’t mind wrong science so much, unless it’s done really really badly.

One minor complaint is the way scientists in moves are portrayed. Not the “I can solve this by myself in an hour” problem, but the Spock-like “give 7 sig figs and always be wrong” problem. It teaches the lesson “We can safely ignore science’s predictions and go with our gut instincts.”

By: AnthonyC

AnthonyC — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:37:00 +0000

Right. It’s more like a prisoner’s dilemna