Theme: Bad Science

Bad Science refers to principally science-fiction films that operate in flagrant disregard of basic science. It is worth here drawing a line between ignorance of science and handwave science. Handwave science involves some plot sleight of hand to get around known limitations. For example, science precludes travel faster than the speed of light or time travel (because of causality) but the genre gets around this with inventions such as warp drives and time machines and has created many great stories involving such.

The following is a list of common bad science errors in films. Bad science does not necessarily make for a bad film – Star Wars (1977) is a perfect example of a film remaining enjoyable despite numerous instances of bad science – although a failure to research the basics can often be a source of ridicule.

Bad science can include:-

– Sound heard in space

– Spaceships acting like airplanes and banking and flying in a vacuum

– Insta-clones where the cloning process produces duplicates of an individual with the same age and features even sometimes the same clothing as the donor

– Giant insects (insects operate on a pressure-based breathing system and wouldn’t be able to breathe), while most other giant animals would in reality be unable to support their own weight

– Miniature humans – when people are shrunken in size all the mass has to go somewhere

– Lightsabres ie. a physically coherent beam of light of fixed length

– Prehistoric stories featuring humans and dinosaurs co-existing when it reality they were separated by 64 million years

– Planets where aliens are encountered and prove to be humans that speak English without the use of any universal translators

– Spatial distances – such as rocketships conducting intergalactic voyages in a matter of days or the confusion of the differences between a solar system, a galaxy and a universe

– Action films that allow people to outrun explosions or break falls from great heights without damage

– The idea of a hollow earth

– Depictions of other planets of the Solar System with breathable atmospheres and Earth-like conditions

– Depiction of the asteroid belt where the rocks are at a clearly visible distance from each other

– Blatant misuse of scientific and technical terms thrown together as meaningless technobabble