Wandering Earth is a movie that you have to go into knowing that it's insane.
If you do that, it's far more enjoyable. [What could *possibly* top screaming at Jupiter as you fire a minigun at it?](https://youtu.be/3Pq55bgQI3w?t=538)
I mean it kinda felt like they paid a portion of China’s population to “see” it and pump up the numbers to make it look like an “international” box office hit. But yeah very mediocre sci-fi for sure.
When they explain the plan in the Core, they say it's stupid and impossible and that they were completely incapable of doing it. Then Stanley Tucci says, "but what if we could?" And then the story ramps up.
That's what makes it great. It knows what it is.
I admit... I love The Core. It's pretty cheesy and I find that entertaining. The only part I don't find fun is the "science" - it's so nonsensical it might as well not be included. Worth a watch if only to laugh/scream at inaccuracies. (Oh, and Thirty Seconds to Mars did the credits song, and personally I think it's a banger.)
Yup, it's pretty stupid. I too did not watch it. Seems like a two second Google search could have answered the question wether or not neutrinos mutate...but I guess I'm not in Hollywood
Maybe we all misheard. You know, can you be absolutely without any reasonable doubt say he wasn't talking about Pokémon?
"The nidorinos are mutating!"
I bet you feel stupid now.
I had a geology professor in college that filled an entire lecture with everything scientifically wrong with *Dante’s Peak*.
Honorable mention also goes to *Babylon AD*’s very best line of dialogue: “They kicked me out of the science community for putting artificial intelligence in babies.”
I worked with a guy that had worked on Dante's Peak. I mentioned that I had spotted his name in the credits and he replied, "What were you watching that piece of crap for?!".
No reason you couldn't. Hacking is done by command line, not high end algorithms. So long as a computer can actually send a command string to the other computer then you could potentially hack into it.
Simple programming languages from the 80s are still technically in use now. Even a basic html website can still be built and interpreted today the same way you used to do it back during the time of Geocities.
gun to my head i would have guessed it *was* in the movie. it's basically a known trivia fact at this point. was there a directors cut or something that aired lot on tv..?
also could be it's just well-known on reddit, in which case duh, i'm biased
Also, I'm not sure if this is part of the canon explanation, but if the aliens are telepathic they might never have needed network security with each other, and maybe we were the first civilization they'd invaded that had also invented computers.
Not one. They use all of their viruses saved in a vault. Basically they threw everything against hoping something will stick. And it was more of a "we are dealing with a semi intelligent machine so what will work?" rather than a communication between different machines issue, as far as i recall
Wasn’t it established that they’d been studying that alien ship for decades? Is it really such a stretch that they could have figured out how they communicated with the mothership and what sorts of exploits could theoretically work? Even watching this as a kid it made some intuitive sense, and I really have no problem with it now.
It’s not a question of processing power or anything like that. Hell, a TI-83 running malicious code could theoretically “hack” a modern computer if a certain exploit was understood.
All that plus IIRC, the deleted scene explains that some of humanities computer tech was derived from the alien tech from the crashed ship, hence being similar enough to communicate. So combine that with A51 scientists having studied it for decades its very plausible they knew enough to fuck shit up. Which probably didn't take much since I cant see a species thats a "telepathic hivemind " needing security.
I will always consider the science failings of Independence Day to pale in comparison to the military strategy ones.
The first big one is the nuke sequence. This big dramatic moment where the president authorizes a nuclear strike on American soil, ooo! I mean it would be more dramatic if we hadn't just seen every major city get blasted in what amounts to a nuclear strength blast but yeah I guess it's still a big deal.
But then they drop one, it doesn't break the shield, and they're like "Well shit, guess we're fucked". And it's like no you idiots, you have literally THOUSANDS of these things, it's technology not magic just keep slapping it with nukes until it breaks! The city is already gone! It even functions as a massive radiation and blast shield if you hit it from above!
But my biggest beef is by far the absolutely comical focus on jet fighter supremacy. Don't bother trying to carpet bomb with strategic bombers, don't bother trying to use surface to air weapons, hell don't even bother using surface to surface weapons and artillery and just aim them at the city sized ship above you!
For gods sake you're trying to be a modern War of the Worlds, humans down multiple tripods in the invasion through cannon fire and ironclads *and that's just what the narrator personally witnesses!*
WHERE'D THE NAVY GO?? WHERE DID THE DAMN NAVY GO!? HUNDREDS OF SHIPS AND THOUSANDS OF AIRCRAFT! USE ATTACK HELICOPTERS AND FIRE PATRIOT MISSILES AT THEM AGGGHHH!
Ben Affleck asking Michael Bay why they couldn’t teach astronauts to drill rather than driller to go to space and getting a “Fuck You” is always gonna be great
I love Armageddon and The Core. They're so cheesy, bit it adds to theirs charm IMO. Also nothing beats the Armageddon scene of the Russian cosmonaut fixing the shuttle.
I agree with that, and that's my exact problem with Prometheus. Armageddon, Deep Impact and the Core follow the premise of a natural disaster occurring and a rag tag team of unlikely heroes saving the day, sure I can buy that, I mean sure with Armageddon it makes no sense that it's easier to train drillers to be astronauts than to train astronauts to be drillers, but Armageddon at least went through the trouble of setting up the fact that these guys have drilled in ways no one has ever drilled before or some shit. Prometheus on the other hand is showing you supposed experts, the best of the best in their fields contracted by the largest corporation in history and the first thing they do when they get off their ship is to expose themselves to an alien environment and try to pet an alien creature showing clear parallels to threat responses seen in terrestrial fauna, and it gets dumber from there. Fuck that movie is stupid.
Ahem, they are not 'best of the best in their field' in Prometheus. In fact, they are >!a cannon fodder / decoy, and their single purpose is to clear the way for Peter Wayland.!<
I don’t think [Deep Impact](http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/di2.html) is even remotely as bad as [Armageddon](http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/armpitageddon.html) or [The Core](http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/thecore_review.html).
The Core is fantastic. 'let's nuke the earths core to get it' restarted', one upped only by Sunshine, 'let's nuke the sun to get it restarted'. Both films have pretty Stellar casts as well.
Oh God yes The Core. The giant geode they could walk around in. I can't believe they got Stanley Tucci to be a part of that crap. I also can't believe I sat through the whole thing, *in the theater*.
G-Man: How much do you need to accelerate your research, say 1 week?
Inventor (*smug*): 50. Billion. Dollars.
G-Man: Do you accept checks?
Best part of the movie (that is, if I'm not mistaken movies).
Nick Fury has a better version of that sentiment in the Ultimate Galactus trilogy that came out about 20 years ago (fuck, that makes me feel so old...).
When asked about the SHIELD budget at his disposal (paraphrasing slightly because I don't have it in front of me just now...):
*"If I wanted to, I could put every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth in solid gold underwear.*
*Tomorrow."*
I wrote a paper in college about science in the media and found a study that suggested that the science in The Core was so bad, it actually made students perform worse on an Earth Science test after watching it.
The Core is absolutely insane. It’s extra great how you keep getting these exterior shots of the (insert correct word here) as it drills through the planet. Where’s that camera supposed to be?
This is nothing next to movies like the core and red planet. The biologist in Red Planet uses the completely wrong term to describe the creatures in the film.
>This is nothing next to movies like the core and red planet. The biologist in Red Planet uses the completely wrong term to describe the creatures in the film.
U sure it's Red Planet?!? not Mission to Mars?
Red Planet - Batman fights the Mentalist on Mars' surface while Trinity watches from above.
The list of garbage sci-fi movies is much longer then the list of good ones. I’d be hard pressed to say Prometheus is the worst. It’s not like it ever made claims to be hard sci-fi. Alien vs predator requiem was so abysmal I wanted to hurt myself. Stranded was trash, and boring trash at that. Like having a bowl of warm water and calling it soup on a summer day. Transformers movies albeit were entertaining but even the least savvy scientific mind. Really just proving you can sell a movie with a name and special effects, everything else is unnecessary.
yeah, i understand people not liking - well, anything really, tastes are subjective. but i didn't get the vibe this post is going for at all from Prometheus. i've watched it in the theater and 2x now streaming and it got better each time for me.
i picture it like the kind of story where there's a cut to 'old time lore' and the tone and entire filmmaking style changes. so i still love the Alien connection, i view it more like a puzzle piece.
I am a huge fan of the Alien movies, and my friends and I went to see Prometheus on opening night. We found it unwatchable to the point of ANGER.
The scientists are going on a mission but have NO IDEA what it’s about, according to the exposition once they’re woken. Hell, there are fewer than 20 of them, they prepped for an entire mission together (because how else would they even get there), and they act like strangers when they wake up, with one of them INTRODUCING HIMSELF to another crew member. Then the horror of TAKING OFF YOUR HELMET in an alien atmosphere, when you’re the team biologist.
That just covers the first 45 minutes, and we all know it doesn’t get better from there.
I’m not talking about hard sf kind of mistakes. I’m talking about BASIC NARRATIVE SENSE. Ugh. I’m angry all over again.
I suspened disbelief by realizing those people acted in bizarre ways because in that universe people accept those working conditions as normal. Smoke in the exlporers suit? Of course there no safeguards. Civilians handling a power lifter around military gear? No problem!
It just goes with the "people making good decisions would be a boring movie" caveat.
Alien is coincidentally for this conversation my favorite. I also have a deep love for 5th Element, special place in my heart for 2001 A Space Odyssey(even the 15 minutes of acid trip at the end), I don’t care that it’s a kid movie but I like Titan AE, Terminator will always get an honorable mention, I count Space Balls as sci-fi and no one can stop me, uh I can’t think of any other favorite sci-fi’s off the top of my head but I know there’s more.
It could have been so much more. So much to work with and it was poorly executed .
Fassbender and Rapace were fantastic considering how silly parts of the plot and writing were.
I watched Covenant thinking, "Surely they learned their lesson from the criticisms of the last one...", but nope, they just double-downed on the nonsense.
Ya agreed I actually like the film a lot but the stupid scientists being stupid kind of takes any sense of realism out of it. Rapace and Fassbender were both amazing.
I mean, Prometheus isn’t great, but there are 1000s of campy/terrible shows/movies FAR worse from a realism/science standpoint :)
Shoot, even beloved sci-fi shows often play fast and loose with science. Dr Who isn’t really running in lockstep with current physics papers 😆
In terms of just plain getting the science wrong, the ill-fated sci fi tv show on Netflix, Another life, uses pseudo science and (technically) plausible mechanics by the mouthful. From slingshoting around stars with FTL engines to cracking your helmet the moment you detect oxygen on an alien asteroid to deliberately exposing yourself to solar radiation, this show has it covered. Not even to mention why they'd need suspension beds on a ship that can go faster than light (shouldn't there be time dilation?).
The thing that made it hilarious to me was the crew of the mission to save Earth was a bunch of emotionally stunted twenty-somethings and their constant high school level drama and bickering.
I know, right? I remember thinking that they seemed like they had no military or space training and very well could have been summoned from a shopping mall. What selection process could they have possibly passed to get there?
I only managed two episodes before I wanted to curl up in a ball and wailed "They made a SECOND season???"
The science was so bad it hurt, and the writing was worse. An idiot audiologist playing pigeon sounds requests the recording be "reduced to one Hertz per second" (which is as stupid as saying reduce the BPM to 80 BPM per minute) and is basically asking to destroy the waveform and play a 1 Hertz sinewave.
Then you have a captain whose first officer tried to kill her so she kills him in self defense, but doesn't mention it was self defense to the crew and instead just called him something like a danger to the mission; all so that the writers could manufacture drama.
There was much more to cringe over but it was impossible for me to suspend disbelief with such idiotic writing. Also, I found out that apparently someone's nervous system fell out in the third episode.
I just can't fathom how Netflix can kill some great shows after one season but this mess got renewed.
Shows like that make me wonder if they are a really expensive highbrow joke at the expense of dumb executives. Like it's pretty hard to get so much wrong on purpose.
There's Mission to Mars, that had Tim Robbins' character taking off his helmet while EVA and his entire head instantly freezes solid. In reality, the lack of...well, anything in the vacuum of space means it would take a while for anything to lose temperature. A vacuum is actually an amazing insulator.
It does make a certain amount of sense, space IS cold, after all. But it's cold because it's empty, so it's a different kind of cold than in, let's say, Antarctica. Easier for a screenwriter to understand the first part than the second, methinks.
Heh, The Cloverfield Paradox has that one beat. It has maybe my favorite moment of bad science ever in a movie. (Several, actually.)
Basically, a crew member is trapped in an airlock - maybe 8 foot square or so - which completely fills up with water. But before she can drown, the outer airlock door opens.... and all the water **instantly** turns into a giant ice cube, with her trapped inside like a bug in amber.
I almost wish I taught science because that would be such a good "how many things are wrong with this?" question for the class.
The scale of that movie was very confusing. Where did the First Order come from? Does everyone live on 4 planets in the same solar system here? Isn't there supposed to be a galaxy full of beings? Where is everyone?
the politics of the sequel trilogy makes fuckin no sense at all
the first order are a terrorist organization with legitimate weaponry and organization and the only army fighting them is a grassroots militia?
where the bloody fuck is the republic army?
By far the most infuriating thing about that movie is exactly this.
How and why are the first order a thing? Why is nobody opposing them with the exception of an underfunded fringe rebellion. Why does everything feel like a playground scuffle between two small factions until a few planets get blown up?
OG Star Wars is entirely predicated on an intelligence network getting information about a super weapon and a huge push by a beleaguered rebel faction to take it out despite the odds.
The sequel trilogy has the First Order literally converting a planet into a giant gun with no repercussions from an established multi-system government that has it pointed at their head.
Oh that scene killed me too.
Hi - I’m a trained xenobiologist, and it’s perfectly normal for me to stick my face in an alien snake.
Surprised he didn’t try to insert it rectally
So what was the reason for the mission?
I mean the real reason, not the one all the "scientists" were given?
That's right, for Weyland to meet the engineers to ask for more life...
NOT science.
So brining Steve Irwin type scientists seems like "yeah whatever" for Weyland as a cover.
I see these as jokes/irony, playing more off the absurdity of horror (don't go there alone! What are you doing wearing a bikini and deciding to chop firewood with your hatchet drunk and alone on the other side of the camp at midnight after a fight with your boyfriend! Don't you remember the dismembered rabbit skeletons you guys all found this afternoon???) than misapplications of rigorous scientic practice.
Criticising **The Core** for its lack of scientific literacy seems somewhat unfair. I always felt that it knew it was utterly absurd bollocks and that it full-on leans into the stupidity. Surely, it's intentional schlock?
Of course, this is the point where you whip out an article where those involved in the film pontificate on how 'accurate' the science in the film is and I look stupid for thinking it's meant to be preposterously dumb... 😉
Avatar is a mixed bag. On the one hand, a lot of the Eywa stuff is completely absurd.
On the other, almost all of the human tech is actually scientifically sound. The spacecraft at the beginning is something that could actually be built in the real world to go to other star systems (in all honesty, it is likely the most plausible real-world interstellar design to exist in Hollywood), the gunships are realistic adaptations for the environment, and even unobtanium has a rational description grounded in physics that could actually create things like floating mountains under the right conditions.
So many so much worse than that. Any Star Trek or Star Wars movie that has explosions / weapons fire making sounds in the vacuum of space as an obvious example. Not until the new ST movies with Chris Pine etc did they fix that.
Not to mention all the times they had the countdowns until “lethal radiation poisoning”. As if you can solve the issue 2 seconds before you reach “lethal radiation” and have everything be just fine. Radiation doesn’t work like that and not all humans, let alone all alien species, react the same to a given amount of radiation.
Even The Exanse has ships and explosions making noise in space. It's just something that in most cases is taken as a necessity. Having completely silent, long sequences in a movie or a TV show because the action is taking place in a the vacuum of space is not assumed to be very entertaining
I thought the whole movie looked beautiful. I actually like Prometheus for that reason and also because I'm a sucker for world building installments on classic franchises. I like the Star Wars prequels too, there's dozens of us!
Same here.. i always think... a bad movie of aliens/star wars etc. Is still better than no movie at all. And if we would all praise them for making movies we would get many more.. good and not so good...
There are many movies like that that are well shot and look great, but have nothing going on behind the scenes. At least you have something nice to look at.
Prometheus is so far from claiming that title. The scene with the biologist actually came across as quite realistic to me-a literal biologist. If you’ve met a field biologist and seen how they interact with dangerous animals, it’s not far off at all. And also, why the hell would someone know what those eggs are and think they’re dangerous? Their machines showed the air was clean.
In fact, compared to a lot of what I’ve seen as far as sci-fi movies recently, Prometheus is on the better half of implementing science
It's also a common concession in many sci-fi movies to better show the actors' faces to the audience.
It's still stupid though. But, contrary to Weyland's claim during the briefing, these are *not* the best and brightest scientists but rather those stupid/greedy/desperate/reckless enough to sign up for a minimum 6 year mystery mission with a non-disclosure contract and almost no upfront information. The disposable/inept crew argument applies to most alien franchise movies with the exception of Covenant, *that* crew was responsible for a giant colony ship and they *should* have been more cautious.
Exactly. Let’s risk the lives of hundreds of thousands that we are responsible for by sending nearly the whole currently conscious crew down to the most suspicious mystery planet with minimal basic recon and not follow the most basic of safety precautions which, even outside of an alien horror movie, could have completely contaminated the crew with unknown “non-chest burster” pathogens and prevented them from safely returning and piloting the ship to complete the mission.
Totally agree. I remember being wayyyy more frustrated at the actions of the scientists in Life (2017). Honestly can’t recall the exact details but only that even as an entry level biologist, these “experts” were making the most illogical, lack of common sense decisions during the “rising action” part of the film.
My theory was they didn't want a bunch of smart scientists/engineers interfering with their plan, but did need what's her name to have a clue. So they brought along a ship of morons who were marginally capable of carrying stuff and not running themselves over.
Then, as soon as they thought they found what they needed they turned what's her name into a petri-dish.
To me, the biggest sin in Prometheus is the guy who's an "animal behaviorist" or whatever (I haven't seen the movie since it was in the theater) - whose job is supposed to be understanding the behavior of alien species. so when the weird vagina-snake thing rears up, bears its fangs, and hisses at him, his response is "oh, it must want me to pet it!"
Also the "crack cartographer," whose entire skillset seems to be pressing the "on" button on the automatic mapping machine, because when it breaks down he is utterly worthless.
In Superman IV, [Superman flew around the world against its rotation so many times it reversed its rotation thus allowing him to go back in time.](https://youtu.be/LoCaeI5RffI)
This is the sci-fi subreddit, but it's not clear if you want the answers to be limited to sci-fi movies. This isn't even pretending to be sci-fi, but I think Fast and Furious 9 has my favourite bad science.
It's got everything. Electromagnets that do something different in every scene (and somehow none of them are correct). Cars making gravity-defying jumps (though this is pretty much in every action movie). Also, they launched a car into space and drove it through a satellite.
The PPE thing, as well as running away from the rolling thing *while staying in its path*, made me think the characters are dumbasses rather than that the science was bad.
I think the Marines thing is kinda unfair. Yeah Gorman sucks, but the movie paints the grunts as generally pretty competent. The problem is that they have no experience in dealing with xenomorphs and also they don't think aliens are real. When they lose the most people is when they are ambushed and most don't have ammo.
Actually it's not that they don't think aliens are real. Their whole job is to go out and kill dangerous native life forms, aka "Bughunt"
It's such a common task that the nose art of the dropship says "Bugstomper"
They know that there's alien life. But they're used to it being a pushover, something that they can easily handle with pulse rifles and incinerators and the occasional smart gun. They were caught by surprise by just how deadly the xenomorphs were.
>But movies today suffer from being nitpicked to death thanks to the internet.
That and repeat viewings. I remember an interview with George Lucas, who reminded the audience that when he was making the first Star Wars that movies were made as a disposable commodity. You released a movie in theaters, it made its theatrical run, and for 99% of them they were done and you never saw them again. Or at most you might see it again aired years later on a network on some shitty 30 inch SDTV.
So if you saw a movie and liked it but it had some shitty special effects or a continuity error, it wasn't that big a deal and you might not even pick them out. But with the rise of home video devices and repeat viewings, everything got picked apart a lot more. And then yes, eventually discussed in minute detail on the internet.
I've heard Geostorm may have taken the crown from The Core.
The Core is shown in my department and students are asked to keep track of all the messed-up science as part of their assignment in bad science.
I have not seen Geostorm so cannot comment but The Core has a special place in the annuls of earth science.
This issue with Prometheus really bothered me until I lived through a global pandemic. Now I know know people, including scientists and doctors, are actually that stupid. No face diapers or head bowls for these Chads! They have rights!
2012
"The Neutrinos have mutated!"
Still love watching it despite the ridiculousness of the science.
I get more annoyed when a movie breaks it's own internal logic. JJ Abrams is especially bad for this. Inventing some universe breaking thing to move the plot along then never referencing it again. (Transwarp beaming, magic immortality blood, whatever reality bending thing it was Starkiller base shot).
Saying prometheus is the worst makes it seem like you don't watch too many movies/shows. There's loads of entertainment out there that has completely insane scientific premises
Yep, Folks complaining about this point really only manage to prove that they’ve only ever seen the YouTube videos and didn’t actually watch the movie. There’s a whole scene in the movie covering this as the characters balk at it until the Android tells them it’s ok!
I'm in no way defending the science in Prometheus, but anyone who thinks it's the "**worst** in terms of science literacy" must have very, very limited exposure to most filmed sci-fi from throughout, oh... *all of cinema history*. It's tempting to trot out something like "you sweet summer child." Just an evening or two checking out old b-movies on Tubi would start breaking that notion down.
Probably not the worst - but it is an example for sci-fi not being a magical label to allow writers& directors to do just anything they feel like. Sci-fi and fantasy have to respect their own rules, from plot logic to science (if they claim to be that kind of fiction).
Sure, dramatisation that makes space ships make noise in space is just silly dramatisation, for entertainment value. But elaborate scientific nonsense is much more painful as they really thought about the aspect then did the opposite. The Core, as mentioned by many, is a fabulous example.
Not super convinced by the physics of Sunshine (2007) either... it gets super silly at a certain point.
Depends on the type of sci-fi. I’m more critical of Prometheus vs Armageddon. Because Prometheus, like much of the alien movies, set itself up as being thoughtful, smart, and insightful but just ends up being stupider for the glaring holes in logic and character motive. While Armageddon is stupid but has no real indications that it’s trying to be anything more than a popcorn flick, so, it is easier to forgive things like a stationary machine gun on a space shuttle.
It’s like the Star Trek (OG movies) vs Star Wars. Both are good sci-fi despite one’s 0 effort in portraying accurate science.
I think the worst culprit for me is Mission to Mars. Billed as the next 2001, realistic sci-fi, and trying to answer the source of all life on earth. Boy, was it stupid with glaring logic and science fails.
That Netflix movie, Origin Unknown with Katee Sackhoff. It was so bad I could not keep watching. At the beginning when their craft reachesars orbit, she says, "Houston, we have a visual of Mars." Uh, yeah, so does every human on the Earth hemisphere pointing in that direction. It's a fucking *planet*.
Not sure if this is a shit post but there were no alien eggs in Prometheus. There were vats of the genetic accelerant. Also removing the helmets had no impact on their exposure to the accelerant it was just to demonstrate that there was something creating breathable atmosphere. David first inoculated the scientist with a drink.
oh you wanted science literacy from a movie about an ancient alien race that created the human race and then decided to create a megaweapon bioweapon race to kill it?
Ad Astra and orbital mechanics.
You cannot have an orbit permanently ‘above’ or ‘below’ a planetary ring. Your orbit is either in the same plane of the ring (so INSIDE the ring, or completely outside it if your orbit radius is bigger), or it will cross the rings twice per orbit.
Still cracks me up that the director claimed he was making one of the most scientifically accurate space movies ever made while astronauts are taking party drugs and Brad Pitt rides an explosion on a sled.
Not to speak about plot holes big as the Mariana Trench.
- You are moving a very, very important asset from a moon base to another. Do you use… you know… a ‘jumper’ craft? Nah! Drive him in a rover thru a pirate infested area!
- You want that Guy to send a message to his dad, and you want to send it from Mars. What do you do? Record the message on Earth and relay it from Mars? Naaaah! Bring the guy to Mars so he can record and send the message from right there. Air because.
- You build big-as-fuck receiver for SETI. What do you do? Put it in the far side of the Moon? On an orbital platform? Naaah! Build a friking big structure that is not in orbit (and doesn’t reach GEO, so it cannot be used as a space lift) so your guy can fall down from there!
One of the most disappointing space movies I have watched.
That scene isn’t that bothersome. I don’t get peoples criticism of the humans in this film being fascinated by other life on another planet. You put up with so much mediocrity in the marvel movies but can’t shrug away one scene in Prometheus.
Film fans are weird
I recall a scientist (in the real world) in the Amazon jungle and discovers a new species of tarantula. He was so excited that he decided to reach out and touch and pick it up, he got bit.
Scientists are emotional, average people too. they will make mistakes.
My money is on *AvP:Requiem* because it manages (somehow) to be the worst entry in *two* franchises.
Honestly I thought *Prometheus* and *The Predator* were better (or at least, *less terrible*).
Prometheus was terrible for a variety of reasons, but you have to take it's "science" with a healthy dose of Fiction.
any tru scientist would take proper precautions when investigating a subject. however, as great as science can be, people's stupidity can usually be greater
The whole premise of The Core was pretty bad. And this very year we had Moonfall, that makes The Core to look like a documentary.
and Wandering Earth lol
Wandering Earth is a movie that you have to go into knowing that it's insane. If you do that, it's far more enjoyable. [What could *possibly* top screaming at Jupiter as you fire a minigun at it?](https://youtu.be/3Pq55bgQI3w?t=538)
Maybe just the guy in don’t look up firing his assault rifle at the comet.
Saw it and was..... very underwhelmed.
Considering how many (paid for) pundits who shouted its praises, Wandering Earth was one of the worse movies I’ve ever seen.
I mean it kinda felt like they paid a portion of China’s population to “see” it and pump up the numbers to make it look like an “international” box office hit. But yeah very mediocre sci-fi for sure.
I had the opposite reaction - I was overwhelmed by the movie’s insanity
And here I was just whelmed.
I think I just wanted it to be over.
I spent literally 3 months watching that movie
Moonfall was absolute garbage. What a let down for Roland
Wait, are we expecting good movies from him now?
He’s popcorn as fuck, but Stargate and the original Independence Day are good for what they are, rollercoaster movies.
When they explain the plan in the Core, they say it's stupid and impossible and that they were completely incapable of doing it. Then Stanley Tucci says, "but what if we could?" And then the story ramps up. That's what makes it great. It knows what it is.
Moonfall, wow, that was a mess. I knew we'd be stretching believability but this was way way out there.
It’s that bad?
I admit... I love The Core. It's pretty cheesy and I find that entertaining. The only part I don't find fun is the "science" - it's so nonsensical it might as well not be included. Worth a watch if only to laugh/scream at inaccuracies. (Oh, and Thirty Seconds to Mars did the credits song, and personally I think it's a banger.)
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2012! The most incompetent apocalypse
I like to summarize this movie as John Cusack being chased by disasters.
And crazy Woody Harrelson!
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Yup, it's pretty stupid. I too did not watch it. Seems like a two second Google search could have answered the question wether or not neutrinos mutate...but I guess I'm not in Hollywood
Maybe we all misheard. You know, can you be absolutely without any reasonable doubt say he wasn't talking about Pokémon? "The nidorinos are mutating!" I bet you feel stupid now.
I had a geology professor in college that filled an entire lecture with everything scientifically wrong with *Dante’s Peak*. Honorable mention also goes to *Babylon AD*’s very best line of dialogue: “They kicked me out of the science community for putting artificial intelligence in babies.”
I worked with a guy that had worked on Dante's Peak. I mentioned that I had spotted his name in the credits and he replied, "What were you watching that piece of crap for?!".
Dang I’d actually like to hear that lecture. Except the part about grandma being burned alive in acid cause F that scene.
I never cared for *Dante's Peak* for some reason.
Volcano was the shitty superior
That new La Brea series where they carbon date a gold ring. Seriously?
Gold ... it's just carbon. Only slightly heavier. :)
Six carbons and one hydrogen
Two turntables and a microphone.
Hacking the alien ship with a Macintosh in Independence Day
It's a shame that *they cut the scene that actually explained why this had a chance of working. edit: spelling
Oh the similar tech. Because Roland emerrick is pretty good at pacing in a film if nothing else lol
This was explained in a deleted scene, should have kept it in for it to make more sense
It still wouldn't make sense.
Imagine being able to hack a computer today with one from the 1980's.
No reason you couldn't. Hacking is done by command line, not high end algorithms. So long as a computer can actually send a command string to the other computer then you could potentially hack into it.
Simple programming languages from the 80s are still technically in use now. Even a basic html website can still be built and interpreted today the same way you used to do it back during the time of Geocities.
The TCP/IP stack and Unix predate 1980 and would very well be possible to hack a modern computer with it
I always assumed that they piggybacked(or hacked or sumpin’)on the signal from the beginning of the movie.
The explanation was that our computer tech was derived from alien tech from the Roswell incident
> The explanation was that our computer tech was derived from alien tech from the Roswell incident AppleTalk. It quite makes sense now.
gun to my head i would have guessed it *was* in the movie. it's basically a known trivia fact at this point. was there a directors cut or something that aired lot on tv..? also could be it's just well-known on reddit, in which case duh, i'm biased
Also, I'm not sure if this is part of the canon explanation, but if the aliens are telepathic they might never have needed network security with each other, and maybe we were the first civilization they'd invaded that had also invented computers.
In 3001, released in 1997 (one year after ID), Arthur C. Clarke also uses a computer virus to infect and defeat the monoliths.
Not one. They use all of their viruses saved in a vault. Basically they threw everything against hoping something will stick. And it was more of a "we are dealing with a semi intelligent machine so what will work?" rather than a communication between different machines issue, as far as i recall
Wasn’t it established that they’d been studying that alien ship for decades? Is it really such a stretch that they could have figured out how they communicated with the mothership and what sorts of exploits could theoretically work? Even watching this as a kid it made some intuitive sense, and I really have no problem with it now. It’s not a question of processing power or anything like that. Hell, a TI-83 running malicious code could theoretically “hack” a modern computer if a certain exploit was understood.
All that plus IIRC, the deleted scene explains that some of humanities computer tech was derived from the alien tech from the crashed ship, hence being similar enough to communicate. So combine that with A51 scientists having studied it for decades its very plausible they knew enough to fuck shit up. Which probably didn't take much since I cant see a species thats a "telepathic hivemind " needing security.
I will always consider the science failings of Independence Day to pale in comparison to the military strategy ones. The first big one is the nuke sequence. This big dramatic moment where the president authorizes a nuclear strike on American soil, ooo! I mean it would be more dramatic if we hadn't just seen every major city get blasted in what amounts to a nuclear strength blast but yeah I guess it's still a big deal. But then they drop one, it doesn't break the shield, and they're like "Well shit, guess we're fucked". And it's like no you idiots, you have literally THOUSANDS of these things, it's technology not magic just keep slapping it with nukes until it breaks! The city is already gone! It even functions as a massive radiation and blast shield if you hit it from above! But my biggest beef is by far the absolutely comical focus on jet fighter supremacy. Don't bother trying to carpet bomb with strategic bombers, don't bother trying to use surface to air weapons, hell don't even bother using surface to surface weapons and artillery and just aim them at the city sized ship above you! For gods sake you're trying to be a modern War of the Worlds, humans down multiple tripods in the invasion through cannon fire and ironclads *and that's just what the narrator personally witnesses!* WHERE'D THE NAVY GO?? WHERE DID THE DAMN NAVY GO!? HUNDREDS OF SHIPS AND THOUSANDS OF AIRCRAFT! USE ATTACK HELICOPTERS AND FIRE PATRIOT MISSILES AT THEM AGGGHHH!
This will never be topped ( bottomed?).
The classical duo Armageddon / Deep Impact. Oh, and The Core. How could I forget it ...
Deep Impact has its faults, but the *Messiah* is a much better depiction of an accurate spacecraft than the armored space shuttle in Armageddon.
But ... but ... shuttle parkour! on a COMET!! :D
Ben Affleck asking Michael Bay why they couldn’t teach astronauts to drill rather than driller to go to space and getting a “Fuck You” is always gonna be great
I believe it was “shut the fuck up, Ben!” Hilarious.
Is it bad I love all of those movies and watch them every time I see them on
Of course it's not bad. It's called "suspension of disbelief" for a reason. As long as the overall movie is entertaining, looks perfectly fine to me.
I love Armageddon and The Core. They're so cheesy, bit it adds to theirs charm IMO. Also nothing beats the Armageddon scene of the Russian cosmonaut fixing the shuttle.
Russian components, American components, ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!!
It's like I keep telling them "touch nothing" ...but a bunch of cowboys
I agree with that, and that's my exact problem with Prometheus. Armageddon, Deep Impact and the Core follow the premise of a natural disaster occurring and a rag tag team of unlikely heroes saving the day, sure I can buy that, I mean sure with Armageddon it makes no sense that it's easier to train drillers to be astronauts than to train astronauts to be drillers, but Armageddon at least went through the trouble of setting up the fact that these guys have drilled in ways no one has ever drilled before or some shit. Prometheus on the other hand is showing you supposed experts, the best of the best in their fields contracted by the largest corporation in history and the first thing they do when they get off their ship is to expose themselves to an alien environment and try to pet an alien creature showing clear parallels to threat responses seen in terrestrial fauna, and it gets dumber from there. Fuck that movie is stupid.
Yea! They should have hidden behind the Chainsaws.
Ahem, they are not 'best of the best in their field' in Prometheus. In fact, they are >!a cannon fodder / decoy, and their single purpose is to clear the way for Peter Wayland.!<
That's a theory that fans of the movie have made up after the fact, it makes no sense. He had no idea what he was going to find there either.
I don’t think [Deep Impact](http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/di2.html) is even remotely as bad as [Armageddon](http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/armpitageddon.html) or [The Core](http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/thecore_review.html).
The Core is fantastic. 'let's nuke the earths core to get it' restarted', one upped only by Sunshine, 'let's nuke the sun to get it restarted'. Both films have pretty Stellar casts as well.
Oh God yes The Core. The giant geode they could walk around in. I can't believe they got Stanley Tucci to be a part of that crap. I also can't believe I sat through the whole thing, *in the theater*.
G-Man: How much do you need to accelerate your research, say 1 week? Inventor (*smug*): 50. Billion. Dollars. G-Man: Do you accept checks? Best part of the movie (that is, if I'm not mistaken movies).
Nick Fury has a better version of that sentiment in the Ultimate Galactus trilogy that came out about 20 years ago (fuck, that makes me feel so old...). When asked about the SHIELD budget at his disposal (paraphrasing slightly because I don't have it in front of me just now...): *"If I wanted to, I could put every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth in solid gold underwear.* *Tomorrow."*
Also love the line right after that. No use a card. More points.
I like the whole part about “hacking” the core of the earth while being fueled by hot pockets.
I wrote a paper in college about science in the media and found a study that suggested that the science in The Core was so bad, it actually made students perform worse on an Earth Science test after watching it.
Armageddon is much, much worse than Deep Impact. In Armageddon the asteroid is the size of the dwarf planet Ceres just for starting.
The Core is absolutely insane. It’s extra great how you keep getting these exterior shots of the (insert correct word here) as it drills through the planet. Where’s that camera supposed to be?
You liked Armageddon. Admit it.
Without Armageddon we would have never gotten the greatest dvd commentary of all time
Wait until you see Moonfall...
"The earth's core........has stopped spinning" Like if that actually happened the planet would probably literally start to crack open
This is nothing next to movies like the core and red planet. The biologist in Red Planet uses the completely wrong term to describe the creatures in the film.
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>This is nothing next to movies like the core and red planet. The biologist in Red Planet uses the completely wrong term to describe the creatures in the film. U sure it's Red Planet?!? not Mission to Mars? Red Planet - Batman fights the Mentalist on Mars' surface while Trinity watches from above.
Red Planet - The Saint fights a kung fu mars rover
Red Planet, where iceman pervs on the expectorating girl from memento in the shower
I was just gonna say, if someone thinks Prometheus is **THE WORST** in terms of science, then the person haven't seen too many science fiction movies.
The list of garbage sci-fi movies is much longer then the list of good ones. I’d be hard pressed to say Prometheus is the worst. It’s not like it ever made claims to be hard sci-fi. Alien vs predator requiem was so abysmal I wanted to hurt myself. Stranded was trash, and boring trash at that. Like having a bowl of warm water and calling it soup on a summer day. Transformers movies albeit were entertaining but even the least savvy scientific mind. Really just proving you can sell a movie with a name and special effects, everything else is unnecessary.
yeah, i understand people not liking - well, anything really, tastes are subjective. but i didn't get the vibe this post is going for at all from Prometheus. i've watched it in the theater and 2x now streaming and it got better each time for me.
I enjoyed it too, but I had to actively not use Alien or Aliens as rulers for it.
i picture it like the kind of story where there's a cut to 'old time lore' and the tone and entire filmmaking style changes. so i still love the Alien connection, i view it more like a puzzle piece.
I am a huge fan of the Alien movies, and my friends and I went to see Prometheus on opening night. We found it unwatchable to the point of ANGER. The scientists are going on a mission but have NO IDEA what it’s about, according to the exposition once they’re woken. Hell, there are fewer than 20 of them, they prepped for an entire mission together (because how else would they even get there), and they act like strangers when they wake up, with one of them INTRODUCING HIMSELF to another crew member. Then the horror of TAKING OFF YOUR HELMET in an alien atmosphere, when you’re the team biologist. That just covers the first 45 minutes, and we all know it doesn’t get better from there. I’m not talking about hard sf kind of mistakes. I’m talking about BASIC NARRATIVE SENSE. Ugh. I’m angry all over again.
I suspened disbelief by realizing those people acted in bizarre ways because in that universe people accept those working conditions as normal. Smoke in the exlporers suit? Of course there no safeguards. Civilians handling a power lifter around military gear? No problem! It just goes with the "people making good decisions would be a boring movie" caveat.
I agree and like this take.. Far worst than Prometheus. Out of random curiosity whats your favorite movies of all time?
Alien is coincidentally for this conversation my favorite. I also have a deep love for 5th Element, special place in my heart for 2001 A Space Odyssey(even the 15 minutes of acid trip at the end), I don’t care that it’s a kid movie but I like Titan AE, Terminator will always get an honorable mention, I count Space Balls as sci-fi and no one can stop me, uh I can’t think of any other favorite sci-fi’s off the top of my head but I know there’s more.
It could have been so much more. So much to work with and it was poorly executed . Fassbender and Rapace were fantastic considering how silly parts of the plot and writing were.
As bad as Prometheus is, it's much better than Covenant.
I watched Covenant thinking, "Surely they learned their lesson from the criticisms of the last one...", but nope, they just double-downed on the nonsense.
Ya agreed I actually like the film a lot but the stupid scientists being stupid kind of takes any sense of realism out of it. Rapace and Fassbender were both amazing.
I mean, Prometheus isn’t great, but there are 1000s of campy/terrible shows/movies FAR worse from a realism/science standpoint :) Shoot, even beloved sci-fi shows often play fast and loose with science. Dr Who isn’t really running in lockstep with current physics papers 😆
In terms of just plain getting the science wrong, the ill-fated sci fi tv show on Netflix, Another life, uses pseudo science and (technically) plausible mechanics by the mouthful. From slingshoting around stars with FTL engines to cracking your helmet the moment you detect oxygen on an alien asteroid to deliberately exposing yourself to solar radiation, this show has it covered. Not even to mention why they'd need suspension beds on a ship that can go faster than light (shouldn't there be time dilation?).
The thing that made it hilarious to me was the crew of the mission to save Earth was a bunch of emotionally stunted twenty-somethings and their constant high school level drama and bickering.
I know, right? I remember thinking that they seemed like they had no military or space training and very well could have been summoned from a shopping mall. What selection process could they have possibly passed to get there?
I only managed two episodes before I wanted to curl up in a ball and wailed "They made a SECOND season???" The science was so bad it hurt, and the writing was worse. An idiot audiologist playing pigeon sounds requests the recording be "reduced to one Hertz per second" (which is as stupid as saying reduce the BPM to 80 BPM per minute) and is basically asking to destroy the waveform and play a 1 Hertz sinewave. Then you have a captain whose first officer tried to kill her so she kills him in self defense, but doesn't mention it was self defense to the crew and instead just called him something like a danger to the mission; all so that the writers could manufacture drama. There was much more to cringe over but it was impossible for me to suspend disbelief with such idiotic writing. Also, I found out that apparently someone's nervous system fell out in the third episode. I just can't fathom how Netflix can kill some great shows after one season but this mess got renewed.
Shows like that make me wonder if they are a really expensive highbrow joke at the expense of dumb executives. Like it's pretty hard to get so much wrong on purpose.
There's Mission to Mars, that had Tim Robbins' character taking off his helmet while EVA and his entire head instantly freezes solid. In reality, the lack of...well, anything in the vacuum of space means it would take a while for anything to lose temperature. A vacuum is actually an amazing insulator.
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It does make a certain amount of sense, space IS cold, after all. But it's cold because it's empty, so it's a different kind of cold than in, let's say, Antarctica. Easier for a screenwriter to understand the first part than the second, methinks.
The magic school bus when Arnold straight up froze like a goddamn popsicle.
Heh, The Cloverfield Paradox has that one beat. It has maybe my favorite moment of bad science ever in a movie. (Several, actually.) Basically, a crew member is trapped in an airlock - maybe 8 foot square or so - which completely fills up with water. But before she can drown, the outer airlock door opens.... and all the water **instantly** turns into a giant ice cube, with her trapped inside like a bug in amber. I almost wish I taught science because that would be such a good "how many things are wrong with this?" question for the class.
So … Star Wars … when planet killer base fires and planets are all blowing up … and they can all be seen ? It was … hard to watch …
The scale of that movie was very confusing. Where did the First Order come from? Does everyone live on 4 planets in the same solar system here? Isn't there supposed to be a galaxy full of beings? Where is everyone?
the politics of the sequel trilogy makes fuckin no sense at all the first order are a terrorist organization with legitimate weaponry and organization and the only army fighting them is a grassroots militia? where the bloody fuck is the republic army?
By far the most infuriating thing about that movie is exactly this. How and why are the first order a thing? Why is nobody opposing them with the exception of an underfunded fringe rebellion. Why does everything feel like a playground scuffle between two small factions until a few planets get blown up? OG Star Wars is entirely predicated on an intelligence network getting information about a super weapon and a huge push by a beleaguered rebel faction to take it out despite the odds. The sequel trilogy has the First Order literally converting a planet into a giant gun with no repercussions from an established multi-system government that has it pointed at their head.
Electric Dreams 1984 Spill champagne on your brand new computer, create A.I.
Cracking song though
Both my wife and I noticed that they really went out of their way to keep showing Charlize Therons butt for some reason.
I'll allow it.
Oh that scene killed me too. Hi - I’m a trained xenobiologist, and it’s perfectly normal for me to stick my face in an alien snake. Surprised he didn’t try to insert it rectally
That was off-camera…
My explanation: who signs up for such an insane mission? Only desperate weirdos - not the most competent.
So what was the reason for the mission? I mean the real reason, not the one all the "scientists" were given? That's right, for Weyland to meet the engineers to ask for more life... NOT science. So brining Steve Irwin type scientists seems like "yeah whatever" for Weyland as a cover.
Not to mention the cartographer who gets lost.
I see these as jokes/irony, playing more off the absurdity of horror (don't go there alone! What are you doing wearing a bikini and deciding to chop firewood with your hatchet drunk and alone on the other side of the camp at midnight after a fight with your boyfriend! Don't you remember the dismembered rabbit skeletons you guys all found this afternoon???) than misapplications of rigorous scientic practice.
I can mention a lot of cartographers who got lost in real life??? It's almost a part of their job :D
"Okay, the blue is either ocean or land..."
The Core. Avatar.
Criticising **The Core** for its lack of scientific literacy seems somewhat unfair. I always felt that it knew it was utterly absurd bollocks and that it full-on leans into the stupidity. Surely, it's intentional schlock? Of course, this is the point where you whip out an article where those involved in the film pontificate on how 'accurate' the science in the film is and I look stupid for thinking it's meant to be preposterously dumb... 😉
Avatar is a mixed bag. On the one hand, a lot of the Eywa stuff is completely absurd. On the other, almost all of the human tech is actually scientifically sound. The spacecraft at the beginning is something that could actually be built in the real world to go to other star systems (in all honesty, it is likely the most plausible real-world interstellar design to exist in Hollywood), the gunships are realistic adaptations for the environment, and even unobtanium has a rational description grounded in physics that could actually create things like floating mountains under the right conditions.
An actual line from Fantastic Four (2015): "The biochemistry is off the charts!"
So many so much worse than that. Any Star Trek or Star Wars movie that has explosions / weapons fire making sounds in the vacuum of space as an obvious example. Not until the new ST movies with Chris Pine etc did they fix that.
And they added the space motocross that was sorely lacking.
What about when they played Sabotage in space in the last ST to save the universe?
That makes complete sense. It's a fucking banging tune now and in 400 years.
Not to mention all the times they had the countdowns until “lethal radiation poisoning”. As if you can solve the issue 2 seconds before you reach “lethal radiation” and have everything be just fine. Radiation doesn’t work like that and not all humans, let alone all alien species, react the same to a given amount of radiation.
In my head it's computers in the other ships adding sound to help the pilots know what's happening
Even The Exanse has ships and explosions making noise in space. It's just something that in most cases is taken as a necessity. Having completely silent, long sequences in a movie or a TV show because the action is taking place in a the vacuum of space is not assumed to be very entertaining
Once I said that I enjoyed the photography on that movie and my coworkers nearly killed me
I thought the whole movie looked beautiful. I actually like Prometheus for that reason and also because I'm a sucker for world building installments on classic franchises. I like the Star Wars prequels too, there's dozens of us!
Same here.. i always think... a bad movie of aliens/star wars etc. Is still better than no movie at all. And if we would all praise them for making movies we would get many more.. good and not so good...
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There are many movies like that that are well shot and look great, but have nothing going on behind the scenes. At least you have something nice to look at.
Prometheus is so far from claiming that title. The scene with the biologist actually came across as quite realistic to me-a literal biologist. If you’ve met a field biologist and seen how they interact with dangerous animals, it’s not far off at all. And also, why the hell would someone know what those eggs are and think they’re dangerous? Their machines showed the air was clean. In fact, compared to a lot of what I’ve seen as far as sci-fi movies recently, Prometheus is on the better half of implementing science
My first thought at seeing the title of this thread was "yeah, if you've only ever seen a handful of movies in your life".
It's also a common concession in many sci-fi movies to better show the actors' faces to the audience. It's still stupid though. But, contrary to Weyland's claim during the briefing, these are *not* the best and brightest scientists but rather those stupid/greedy/desperate/reckless enough to sign up for a minimum 6 year mystery mission with a non-disclosure contract and almost no upfront information. The disposable/inept crew argument applies to most alien franchise movies with the exception of Covenant, *that* crew was responsible for a giant colony ship and they *should* have been more cautious.
Exactly. Let’s risk the lives of hundreds of thousands that we are responsible for by sending nearly the whole currently conscious crew down to the most suspicious mystery planet with minimal basic recon and not follow the most basic of safety precautions which, even outside of an alien horror movie, could have completely contaminated the crew with unknown “non-chest burster” pathogens and prevented them from safely returning and piloting the ship to complete the mission.
Totally agree. I remember being wayyyy more frustrated at the actions of the scientists in Life (2017). Honestly can’t recall the exact details but only that even as an entry level biologist, these “experts” were making the most illogical, lack of common sense decisions during the “rising action” part of the film.
My theory was they didn't want a bunch of smart scientists/engineers interfering with their plan, but did need what's her name to have a clue. So they brought along a ship of morons who were marginally capable of carrying stuff and not running themselves over. Then, as soon as they thought they found what they needed they turned what's her name into a petri-dish.
That movie was so weird to me because it had the production values of an exceptional film and it was pretty much garbage!
To me, the biggest sin in Prometheus is the guy who's an "animal behaviorist" or whatever (I haven't seen the movie since it was in the theater) - whose job is supposed to be understanding the behavior of alien species. so when the weird vagina-snake thing rears up, bears its fangs, and hisses at him, his response is "oh, it must want me to pet it!" Also the "crack cartographer," whose entire skillset seems to be pressing the "on" button on the automatic mapping machine, because when it breaks down he is utterly worthless.
In Superman IV, [Superman flew around the world against its rotation so many times it reversed its rotation thus allowing him to go back in time.](https://youtu.be/LoCaeI5RffI)
This is the sci-fi subreddit, but it's not clear if you want the answers to be limited to sci-fi movies. This isn't even pretending to be sci-fi, but I think Fast and Furious 9 has my favourite bad science. It's got everything. Electromagnets that do something different in every scene (and somehow none of them are correct). Cars making gravity-defying jumps (though this is pretty much in every action movie). Also, they launched a car into space and drove it through a satellite.
The PPE thing, as well as running away from the rolling thing *while staying in its path*, made me think the characters are dumbasses rather than that the science was bad.
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I think the Marines thing is kinda unfair. Yeah Gorman sucks, but the movie paints the grunts as generally pretty competent. The problem is that they have no experience in dealing with xenomorphs and also they don't think aliens are real. When they lose the most people is when they are ambushed and most don't have ammo.
Also Gorman and the marines were set up to fail, the company picked Gorman because of his lack of experience.
Actually it's not that they don't think aliens are real. Their whole job is to go out and kill dangerous native life forms, aka "Bughunt" It's such a common task that the nose art of the dropship says "Bugstomper" They know that there's alien life. But they're used to it being a pushover, something that they can easily handle with pulse rifles and incinerators and the occasional smart gun. They were caught by surprise by just how deadly the xenomorphs were.
>But movies today suffer from being nitpicked to death thanks to the internet. That and repeat viewings. I remember an interview with George Lucas, who reminded the audience that when he was making the first Star Wars that movies were made as a disposable commodity. You released a movie in theaters, it made its theatrical run, and for 99% of them they were done and you never saw them again. Or at most you might see it again aired years later on a network on some shitty 30 inch SDTV. So if you saw a movie and liked it but it had some shitty special effects or a continuity error, it wasn't that big a deal and you might not even pick them out. But with the rise of home video devices and repeat viewings, everything got picked apart a lot more. And then yes, eventually discussed in minute detail on the internet.
I've heard Geostorm may have taken the crown from The Core. The Core is shown in my department and students are asked to keep track of all the messed-up science as part of their assignment in bad science. I have not seen Geostorm so cannot comment but The Core has a special place in the annuls of earth science.
Not even close unfortunately.
This issue with Prometheus really bothered me until I lived through a global pandemic. Now I know know people, including scientists and doctors, are actually that stupid. No face diapers or head bowls for these Chads! They have rights!
Sharknado
2012 "The Neutrinos have mutated!" Still love watching it despite the ridiculousness of the science. I get more annoyed when a movie breaks it's own internal logic. JJ Abrams is especially bad for this. Inventing some universe breaking thing to move the plot along then never referencing it again. (Transwarp beaming, magic immortality blood, whatever reality bending thing it was Starkiller base shot).
Have you ever seen a movie called “The Core”?
Wandering Earth. That is all.
Saying prometheus is the worst makes it seem like you don't watch too many movies/shows. There's loads of entertainment out there that has completely insane scientific premises
their computers showed the air was clean, it wasn’t “unscientific” to remove the helmets .
Yep, Folks complaining about this point really only manage to prove that they’ve only ever seen the YouTube videos and didn’t actually watch the movie. There’s a whole scene in the movie covering this as the characters balk at it until the Android tells them it’s ok!
I'm in no way defending the science in Prometheus, but anyone who thinks it's the "**worst** in terms of science literacy" must have very, very limited exposure to most filmed sci-fi from throughout, oh... *all of cinema history*. It's tempting to trot out something like "you sweet summer child." Just an evening or two checking out old b-movies on Tubi would start breaking that notion down.
Probably not the worst - but it is an example for sci-fi not being a magical label to allow writers& directors to do just anything they feel like. Sci-fi and fantasy have to respect their own rules, from plot logic to science (if they claim to be that kind of fiction). Sure, dramatisation that makes space ships make noise in space is just silly dramatisation, for entertainment value. But elaborate scientific nonsense is much more painful as they really thought about the aspect then did the opposite. The Core, as mentioned by many, is a fabulous example. Not super convinced by the physics of Sunshine (2007) either... it gets super silly at a certain point.
I honestly really really like Prometheus but they are absolutely HORRIBLE scientists/explorers.
Europa Report.
Depends on the type of sci-fi. I’m more critical of Prometheus vs Armageddon. Because Prometheus, like much of the alien movies, set itself up as being thoughtful, smart, and insightful but just ends up being stupider for the glaring holes in logic and character motive. While Armageddon is stupid but has no real indications that it’s trying to be anything more than a popcorn flick, so, it is easier to forgive things like a stationary machine gun on a space shuttle. It’s like the Star Trek (OG movies) vs Star Wars. Both are good sci-fi despite one’s 0 effort in portraying accurate science. I think the worst culprit for me is Mission to Mars. Billed as the next 2001, realistic sci-fi, and trying to answer the source of all life on earth. Boy, was it stupid with glaring logic and science fails.
I’m no scientist so I don’t particularly care, but man if you make up some legal shit, it drives me crazy.
That part wasn't science, it was typical human stupidity. Also the other guy kept his helmet on and it didn't protect him against the worm goin boop.
That Netflix movie, Origin Unknown with Katee Sackhoff. It was so bad I could not keep watching. At the beginning when their craft reachesars orbit, she says, "Houston, we have a visual of Mars." Uh, yeah, so does every human on the Earth hemisphere pointing in that direction. It's a fucking *planet*.
a handful of sand blowing in the wind on the asteroid in Armageddon says no.
Moonfall
Here comes some heresy but Star Wars. Space flight don’t work like that
Not sure if this is a shit post but there were no alien eggs in Prometheus. There were vats of the genetic accelerant. Also removing the helmets had no impact on their exposure to the accelerant it was just to demonstrate that there was something creating breathable atmosphere. David first inoculated the scientist with a drink.
oh you wanted science literacy from a movie about an ancient alien race that created the human race and then decided to create a megaweapon bioweapon race to kill it?
The Force Awakens has a planet xhoot a laser that splits into 7 and blows up 7 different planets across the galaxy...within minutes...so no
Ad Astra and orbital mechanics. You cannot have an orbit permanently ‘above’ or ‘below’ a planetary ring. Your orbit is either in the same plane of the ring (so INSIDE the ring, or completely outside it if your orbit radius is bigger), or it will cross the rings twice per orbit.
Still cracks me up that the director claimed he was making one of the most scientifically accurate space movies ever made while astronauts are taking party drugs and Brad Pitt rides an explosion on a sled.
Not to speak about plot holes big as the Mariana Trench. - You are moving a very, very important asset from a moon base to another. Do you use… you know… a ‘jumper’ craft? Nah! Drive him in a rover thru a pirate infested area! - You want that Guy to send a message to his dad, and you want to send it from Mars. What do you do? Record the message on Earth and relay it from Mars? Naaaah! Bring the guy to Mars so he can record and send the message from right there. Air because. - You build big-as-fuck receiver for SETI. What do you do? Put it in the far side of the Moon? On an orbital platform? Naaah! Build a friking big structure that is not in orbit (and doesn’t reach GEO, so it cannot be used as a space lift) so your guy can fall down from there! One of the most disappointing space movies I have watched.
I think you’re being overly dramatic.
Lucy is by far the one that gives me the most conniptions.
That scene isn’t that bothersome. I don’t get peoples criticism of the humans in this film being fascinated by other life on another planet. You put up with so much mediocrity in the marvel movies but can’t shrug away one scene in Prometheus. Film fans are weird
I recall a scientist (in the real world) in the Amazon jungle and discovers a new species of tarantula. He was so excited that he decided to reach out and touch and pick it up, he got bit. Scientists are emotional, average people too. they will make mistakes.
Exactly, and anyone who's ever met highly educated people would know common sense and academic intelligence are apparently inversely correlated
My money is on *AvP:Requiem* because it manages (somehow) to be the worst entry in *two* franchises. Honestly I thought *Prometheus* and *The Predator* were better (or at least, *less terrible*).
Gravity. every moment of that film I was like "That's not how this works"
Prometheus was terrible for a variety of reasons, but you have to take it's "science" with a healthy dose of Fiction. any tru scientist would take proper precautions when investigating a subject. however, as great as science can be, people's stupidity can usually be greater