My favorite blunder, which I've seen several times, is when the sky shows a slim crescent Moon sitting "on its back" in a dark sky and one of the characters will state that the time is midnight (or something close to midnight). Now, I guess you could see a crescent moon at midnight at the North Pole in northern-hemisphere summer or the South Pole in southern-hemisphere summer, but the sky wouldn't be dark...

Or the command "All stop!" from Captain Jean Luc Picard. What does "All Stop!" mean exactly in interstellar space?

Also, how many times have you heard "light years" used as a measurement of time?

May I suggest reading Phil's book, Bad Astronomy? He talks about it there. Also, this particular thread would be better served in Small Media at Large.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Indeed. So moved.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Tim, don't set me off!

I'm a great believer in doing science fiction properly - that is to say, educated science fiction is generally more satisfying than the sort where they come up with lame excuses such as, "Hey, it's just fiction, we're not doing a physics lecture, man!"

I hate it when the writers ignore basic science. (There's a term for this sort of writer. The term is "Doctor Who writer".)

Exposure to vacuum is usually a good one!

As is sound in space - i.e. the whooshing sound when objects go past the camera (a hum isn't quite so bad, as it could be some sort of interference!).

I don't want to plug a particular site. If you search for them, though, there are plenty of sites that discuss movie errors (which have more than physics and astronomy ones).

I am not up-to-geek, but I'm pretty sure 'All Stop' has a specific meaning in the Star Trek Universe, same as their speeds and headings. All of these navigational terms are in reference to some standard. What that standard is, I don't know, sorry.

Yes Paul. It's a shame we can't have quality sci fi movies like "2001" - a not-so-far-in-the-future movie so that they can't "make up" new science to explain away the laws of physics...

Yep. Sound in space. That one has bugged me since I was a teenager....

Do YOU really want to go over to imdb.com and "discuss" sci fi movies in the context of "good science" with the folks over there? I sure don't.

I wasn't thinking of IMDB though. Sorry! Here, if you're interested, I'll mention some names. I'm not involved with any of these sites:

nitpickers
insultingly stupid movie physics

You can google them.

I keep interpreting the deep throbbing hums as EM interference in badly shielded microphone cables, and have no problems with them at all, it's the highpitched ones that doppler I find irritating.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

I'll check them out.... Thx.

On the other hand, they are primarily producing an entertainment form, and have you ever tried watching things like the space battles in Star Trek and Star Wars without the sound? More realistic, perhaps, but definitely lacking something in the excitement stakes.

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"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: They don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views." The Doctor, Doctor Who: The Face of Evil.

I remember a Gerry Anderson film, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (aka Doppelganger) which got around the sound problem by doing the rocket noises as musical soundtrack.

They did the same thing with "Moon Zero Two", you only heard noise in the vehicles, music was used for all the other sound effects. The gunfight using only music for sound effects was very good. They also didn't have stars in space, but I'm willing to bet that, that was a budget decision.

David.

Yes. It's called Firefly.

(Matherly shakes his first at Fox for cancelling Firefly... and shakes it again for cancelling Drive)

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Carl Matherly

Offical Battlestar Galactica Apologist

Named Time Magazine's 2006 "Person of the Year"

Yes! I thought they did an very good job - and NO aliens!

Well, there was the alien in The Message.

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And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

I remember that episode - but I don't recall any aliens. Please elaborate because I'm too damn lazy to get out by DVDs and check it.

Yes, there was an alien, but in the style of Barnum's "Feejee Mermaid"

(Simon & Kaylee are looking at the 'alien' in a glass jar)

Simon: Yep. That's a cow fetus.
Kaylee: Guess so... Does seem to have an awful lot of limbs...
Simon: It's mutated. Most of the breeding on the outer planets was done by shipping DNA scrip instead of animals. The first herds were grown in labs, then set loose. Every now and then...
Kaylee: But cow? How do you figure?
Simon: It's upside down.

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Carl Matherly

Offical Battlestar Galactica Apologist

Named Time Magazine's 2006 "Person of the Year"

Yes, I now remember the "alien" in the glass container. I cry FOUL and repeat: No Aliens!

Ironically, according to the DVD commentary, it was actually the right way up...

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If our brains were simple enough for us to understand, we'd be so simple we couldn't

QQR

I mentioned this somewhere else, but one time I caught the last 10-15 minutes of a TV movie about Los Angeles being heated up by a solar flare, or something (You could tell it was a flare, because all the outdoor scenes were kind of contrasty and red-filtered, like in The Angry Red Planet.

But it rains or something and saves the day, with the fadeout shot showing LA with a huge rainbow arching over it, from foreground to the vanishing point in perfect perspective.

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

Oh, right... one o' them solid rainbows.

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Relight the Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)