Do Movies Misrepresent Science as Fact?

[siddharth]

I was browsing through some movie channels on TV, and there was this movie called "Ice Princess" where Michelle Trachtenberg's character was talking about the physics of ice skating and said "tucking in your arms will increase your moment of inertia and make you spin faster"

If they're going to go to all the trouble of including physics talk on the conservation of angular momentum in a movie, atleast make it right?

 

[ZapperZ]

I hope you've read this to add to your collection of movie physics mistakes. :)

http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.1167

Zz.

 

[ank_gl]

lolzzzzz they are movie stars. they are suppsed to be dumb

 

[ank_gl]

awesome pdf link zapper. all the movie stuff is crap. movie people think that they know more. well they dont.
why look so far for mistakes?? think of superman. dude flying high, running like light, beating up a thousand thugs alone, fire coming out from the eyes and all crap. what's the physics behind it?

 

[ank_gl]

now the latest one i saw.
spiderman 3, first that experiment which turns sandman into "sandman". what is it?? so large machine in open?? what are they doing??
n if you spin something very fast around you, you end up being of the same material lying around you?? guess i ll try water myself, lolzzz
how could the producers even think of us believing that crap??
how come so many people believe it?

(i am sure there is a lot more physics involved in this, haha)

 

[neutrino]

ank_gl, there is a difference between science and science-fiction.

 

[Danger]

ank_gl, there is a difference between science and science-fiction.

Wrong. Science fiction gets the science as correct as it can be while still allowing for the story. If it doesn't, it's fantasy.
Anyhow, as Siddharth demonstrated, there's more bad science in 'mainstream' movies than in science fiction ones. Just check out any of the Die Hard series, or anything with a car surviving a jump.
Thanks for the link, ZZ; now I have something to do with the rest of my day.

 

[neutrino]

Wrong. Science fiction gets the science as correct as it can be while still allowing for the story. If it doesn't, it's fantasy.

Sorry. I may have used incorrect terminology, but I was just telling ank_gl not to take Superman and Spider-man too seriously.

 

[Danger]

True. In that regard, I think that 'mainstream' movie errors are potentially more dangerous than those in a comic book or fantasy genre. People expect something that they see in an action movie to be realistic because there's no hint that it's impossible without special effort, such as the aforementioned car jumps. Several people per year are injured or killed as a result of trying to duplicate stunts that they see in the theatre without understanding what's really going on. I can't cite a source on that, but I keep reading and hearing about them.

 

[G01]

I hope you've read this to add to your collection of movie physics mistakes. :)

http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.1167

Zz.

Zz,

Where is this article from? Was it published in a journal. I can't seem to find anything that tells me where it came form. Maybe I'm just blind... Can you help me out?

 

[berkeman]

What about the TV show Jeopardy lately? Man, they usually have high standards for info, but just in the last two weeks they've had a couple science bloopers.

** They show a picture of eight encyclopedia books in a stack, where each book overhangs the one below it by about a third. They want to know that the structure is called a "cantilever". But the answer starts out, "Over half of the weight of these books is on the table..." Over half?! Well yeah, 100% is over half I guess!

** The question they want is "What is a refrigerator?", But the answer is "The coils inside this keep the contents cold..." Inside?!

 

[Moonbear]

now the latest one i saw.
spiderman 3, first that experiment which turns sandman into "sandman". what is it?? so large machine in open?? what are they doing??
n if you spin something very fast around you, you end up being of the same material lying around you?? guess i ll try water myself, lolzzz
how could the producers even think of us believing that crap??
how come so many people believe it?

(i am sure there is a lot more physics involved in this, haha)

What makes you think you're supposed to believe it? Really, I don't think anyone walks out of a spiderman or superman movie thinking, "Gee, I wonder if I spin around really fast, if I can do that?" At least nobody over the age of 6 would think that. It's entertainment, an escape from reality. If you want reality in your entertainment, stick to documentaries...you're allowed to complain if those get their facts wrong. But the entire reason something is called "fiction" is because it isn't real, and doesn't pretend to be.

 

[siddharth]

What makes you think you're supposed to believe it? Really, I don't think anyone walks out of a spiderman or superman movie thinking, "Gee, I wonder if I spin around really fast, if I can do that?" At least nobody over the age of 6 would think that. It's entertainment, an escape from reality. If you want reality in your entertainment, stick to documentaries...you're allowed to complain if those get their facts wrong. But the entire reason something is called "fiction" is because it isn't real, and doesn't pretend to be.

Well, there's wacky fiction, like superman flying and all that. But there's also really bad physics even allowing for all the fiction.

For example, superman flying is ok in an entertainment movie, cause it's clear it's fiction. However, later in that movie, the director tries to use the principle of conservation of angular momentum when superman flies around the Earth the other way to slow it down and then somehow relates it to time going backwards.

That's the stuff I don't like, explicitly trying to use physics as a plot element, and then botching it up so bad that you can only laugh.

 

[russ_watters]

Spiderman and Superman are comic books turned into movies. That makes them fantasy. Talking about physics in a fantasy film/comic book shouldn't be taken to imply that it is no longer fantasy.

 

[ZapperZ]

Zz,

Where is this article from? Was it published in a journal. I can't seem to find anything that tells me where it came form. Maybe I'm just blind... Can you help me out?

The Comment say:

"Comments: includes 28 pictures; invited article for the German journal Praxis der Naturwissenschaften Physik "

So that's all we have.

Zz.

 

[FredGarvin]

now the latest one i saw.
spiderman 3, first that experiment which turns sandman into "sandman". what is it?? so large machine in open?? what are they doing??
n if you spin something very fast around you, you end up being of the same material lying around you?? guess i ll try water myself, lolzzz
how could the producers even think of us believing that crap??
how come so many people believe it?

(i am sure there is a lot more physics involved in this, haha)

So...you're OK with a guy that is part spider, that walks on walls and shoots webs out of his wrists, but these details are just too far fetched? Is that what you're saying?

 

[Chi Meson]

One of my favorite websites is http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/"

I am a proud owner of a second-hand copy of "The Core," one of the finest accidental comedies known to mankind.

 

[FredGarvin]

The only good part of that movie was the 5 seconds of footage of CH-47s. Other than that, the movie was horrible.

 

[ank_gl]

nah. i am not really ok with all those superhero movies. i just had to watch spiderman 3 coz of some reason. they all really suck.
as moonbear pointed out, i stick to documentaries(fahrenheit 911(not trying to offend any US people) and blood diamond being my fav)

 

[ank_gl]

So...you're OK with a guy that is part spider, that walks on walls and shoots webs out of his wrists, but these details are just too far fetched? Is that what you're saying?

now i can't take names of every superhero. they all equally suck

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

I think if your going to watch a fantasy film, then you have to suspend your sense of belief, after all we don't watch Wile E Coyote and think there's no way he could of fallen that far and survived, and then been hit by that rock afterwards, and appear in the next scene, alive but flat as a pancake. Same if I watch Batman or Spider man, I don't say aw come off it that's just silly the gravitational force would mean that for Spiderman to...

I didn't watch the scene in Lord of the Rings where Gandalf fights the Balrog and falls for days through the mountain, without acknowledging that if he had he would probably end up some distance into the upper mantle. No I watched it and enjoyed it because I was caught up in the story not the details.

Not that I don't mind thinking about the details, but I think they can wait until after reality has reintroduced itself

Thinking about it I'm pretty sure when Gandalf falls they don't spend the whole time falling, after all the Balrog can fly, and don't get me started on the laws of gravity: a 30 tonne monster flying

Why doesn't Gandalf get burnt up by the Blarog (it's magic)? And after all that it is on fire and how can a creature be on fire and survive intact?

 

[Chi Meson]

I didn't watch the scene in Lord of the Rings where Gandalf fights the Balrog and falls for days through the mountain, without acknowledging that if he had he would probably end up some distance into the upper mantle. No I watched it and enjoyed it because I was caught up in the story not the details.
...
Thinking about it I'm pretty sure when Gandalf falls they don't spend the whole time falling, after all the Balrog can fly, and don't get me started on the laws of gravity: a 30 tonne monster flying

If you listen to the commentaries on the DVD, Peter Jackson himself laughs at the fact that Gandalf and the Balrog have fallen about 20 miles. He also explains the bit about Gandalf's staff, as in "why did he not use any of his magic during the battle?" Turns out the staff's batteries ran out, and there weren't any more in Minas Tirith.

 

[ank_gl]

well that's why i laugh at wile E coyote. n so do i for all the other superhuman stuff

 

[ice109]

fire in space is a perennial one. has anyone ever seen event horizon? folding spacetime? hell in between?

hey hey who could forgot the flux capacitor and Doc Brown's time machine? i wonder how they came up with 88mph, seems so arbitrary

 

[BobG]

One of my favorite websites is http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/"

I am a proud owner of a second-hand copy of "The Core," one of the finest accidental comedies known to mankind.

I like that website.

Fortunately, one of my favorites, "Terminator", gets a fairly good rating (aside from the time travel aspect).

The write up on "Armeggedon" is hilarious. They provide a more realistic method of preventing armeddon than the movie did. That would have been a creative approach.

Another movie I liked, "Road to Perdition", survived their critique fairly well. I went to high school with the sound editor.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

If you listen to the commentaries on the DVD, Peter Jackson himself laughs at the fact that Gandalf and the Balrog have fallen about 20 miles. He also explains the bit about Gandalf's staff, as in "why did he not use any of his magic during the battle?" Turns out the staff's batteries ran out, and there weren't any more in Minas Tirith.

That's interesting, I've never got round to watching all the makings of videos. Hehe I love that film.

Balrogs are very resistant to magic anyway, being so immensely powerful.

I wanted to add earlier but I knew it would sound geeky, but Gandalf wears the Elven ring of fire Narya which is why he isn't burnt up, unlike the ring of power Frodo carries it becomes invisible when worn, you know Galadriel has air and Elrond has water as demonstrated when he drowns the Black riders at the Ford of Rivendel. Well this is what saves him from being incinerated, it grants him virtual invulnerability to fire, that and being an Istari: Wizards sent to middle Earth as protectors, well except Sauron who was Melkors servant(One of the Valar: Gods) and sent to continue the battle against Middle Earth(Gandalf is also a Maiar as are Sauron and Saruman, like faeries, beings of immense power, but in semi-mortal form, incidently the Balrog is also a Maiar which is why Gandalf says this foe is beyond all of you) His ring also has the power to inspire people to great acts of valour as well, like a sort of morale boost.

Three rings for the Elven Lords under the sky.

IIRC Elrond gifts Gandalf the ring of fire in the second age of Middle Earth, a thousand or so years before the story takes place.

I'll shut up now, God I'm such a geek

 

[ank_gl]

I'll shut up now, God I'm such a geek

yes you are(hey i am just kidding, ok??)

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

no need to apologise, I am a geek about Tolkien and I know it, but then I grew up with it, I read Lord of the Rings when I was Seven and have read it about 8 times

Everyone's a geek about something, it's just my geekery is rather embarrasing, still at least I never learned to speak all the Elven languages as some do.

Did you know he was going to write the book in Elven(Sindarin) Until a friend persuaded him not to thankfully... Ahhhhh I know too much

Mind you he was a linguistics professor at Oxford. *bites tongue*

 

[ank_gl]

yea i agree, everyone is geek about somethings. i admitt, i love to read halo books and play that game over and over again. i finished halo:combat evolved for the 19 times and halo2 three times. hehe

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

yea i agree, everyone is geek about somethings. i admitt, i love to read halo books and play that game over and over again. i finished halo:combat evolved for the 19 times and halo2 three times. hehe

Borrowed my friends PS2 and played the first one 'til I completed it, a very accomplished game, I should get around to the second one, I only played the first levels where you are on the space ship; still that said best not to mention it in polite company unless prompted

I did love the plot though, for a game it was very well done, the idea of a device to kill all life to prevent a spread of a plague creature was quite novel, especially when you realized it was the computers doing all work, and the spawn levels were just so much blazing gun fun. they're everywhere!

Mind you it's like Tomb Raider, some of the game plots were superb, the films sucked hugely IMO. Halo the film *shudders*

 

[ank_gl]

yes that's what i liked about that game. plot is very realistic. no physics banging theory(but halo2 has some, like chief jumping with the bomb on to the covanent mothership and planting it over there and blowing it all up and landing successfully on In Amber Clad(its the ship name, like Pillar of Autumn in halo 1)). only spartan can do the unusual stuff, but that stuff is thoroughly explained in previous novels.
geez.. i am starting to sound like a geek!

 

[ank_gl]

and the spawn levels were just so much blazing gun fun. they're everywhere!

i just love killing the flood

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

i just love killing the flood

Ah that's it the flood, I remember now, probably set the game above the mould because, when you got out of their alive you were genuinely breathing hard Sheez! I think I broke the fire button or my fingers gone numb one of the two.

Embrace your geekhood, at least you're not a train spotter

 

[ank_gl]

Embrace your geekhood, at least you're not a train spotter

whats a train spotter

 

[Danger]

whats a train spotter

I don't know, but it certainly derailed this thread.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

whats a train spotter

Pasty fellows with flasks of weak lemon drink or tea, who spend their weekends standing on train platforms across the country trying to spot certain, as they see it, notable trains, like the 3576473 from Bristol to Barnstable, noting them in their books. Sometimes found in groups murmuring wistfully about past glories, like the time they saw the 37726F nr Carlisle better known as the Flying Scotsman.

Uber Geeks.

 

[ank_gl]

i pretty much guessed it, wasnt sure but

 

[daniel_i_l]

I hope you've read this to add to your collection of movie physics mistakes. :)

http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.1167

Zz.

That paper sounds like some kind of conspiracy theory or something.

 

[ank_gl]

conspiracy is against some sort of fact or truth.
that paper is against the dumbness of movies.

 

[makc]

the conspiracy of movie makers to turn their consumers into idiots.

 

[daniel_i_l]

conspiracy is against some sort of fact or truth.
that paper is against the dumbness of movies.

Yes, I was just referring to the way it was written - with all the attention to small and insignificant (from the viewers perspective) details.

 

[ank_gl]

well sometimes they are insignificant(like that green goblin one) but sometime they huge, like superman making time go backward and cars flying over a gap

 

[jostpuur]

I found it particularly annoying when spider man did some backflips, and he didn't even pull his knees close to his chest when he accelerated his rotation. It was so obvious that the angular momentum was not conserving. If he had so strong legs, that he could jump higher than ordinary humans, then he could do that. If he had so strong and sticky hair in his palms, that he could climb a brick wall, then he could do that also. But nothing should enable him to violate conservation of the angular momentum.

Annoying how people don't see the difference. Perhaps there could be some courses of "intuitive physics" in high school? For example they could watch movies and get points for finding mistakes!

That paper sounds like some kind of conspiracy theory or something.

Indeed! That was so crackpottery against the mainstream movie physics!

 

[Chi Meson]

Annoying how people don't see the difference. Perhaps there could be some courses of "intuitive physics" in high school? For example they could watch movies and get points for finding mistakes!

I do that, and I know there are dozens, DOZENS of other physics teachers who use this "spot the mistake" technique to raise interest and awareness of physics.

Unfortunately, "dozens" should be "thousands."

 

[ank_gl]

i got this one from the back of my head. this irritates me more than anything else.
in the end of movie "flight of the pheonix", they put up windscreens all over the wingspan and fly. won't those screens act as spoilers?? its just so much ridiculous.

 

[Danger]

I'm always annoyed by a clone instantly aging to the same as its 'parent', then stopping. Also by it thinking that it's the original.

 

[SpitfireAce]

"I'm always annoyed by a clone instantly aging to the same as its 'parent'"
I think that actually makes sense.. it is believed that the wearing away of telemers (on the ends of DNA strands) is responsible for aging. When one extracts the DNA from the parent to insert into the gamete, the telemeres come too. This defect is replicated and the clone ends up having the same genetic wear and tear as the parent. This is why Dolly the sheep lived for a very short time.

 

[mgb_phys]

I'm always annoyed by a clone instantly aging to the same as its 'parent', then stopping

It saves a lot of money in actors.

 

[Danger]

I think that actually makes sense.. it is believed that the wearing away of telemers (on the ends of DNA strands) is responsible for aging. When one extracts the DNA from the parent to insert into the gamete, the telemeres come too.

I'm not talking about 'wear and tear'; I mean the notion that a clone grows from gamete to 35-year-old person in a few minutes, and has all of the memories of the original. Would you want to be buying the groceries for something with that sort of growth pattern?

 

[gabee]

I was browsing through some movie channels on TV, and there was this movie called "Ice Princess" where Michelle Trachtenberg's character was talking about the physics of ice skating and said "tucking in your arms will increase your moment of inertia and make you spin faster"

If they're going to go to all the trouble of including physics talk on the conservation of angular momentum in a movie, atleast make it right?

I saw that exact same thing the other day!