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| SCIENCE |
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MOMENT |
SPOILERS
AHEAD!
!!!SCIENCE
MOMENT 2000!!!
BEWARE
THE SCIENCE FROM THESE TITLES OF THE
2005
BATMAN BEGINS - 2005
Part of the plot depends on a microwave beam weapon meant to vaporize water (supposedly so the military can "destroy
an enemy's water supply"). The basic idea is sound - in fact that's how your microwave oven works. The microwaves are tuned to heat water. But the way the beam weapon is shown in use is just plain wrong.
A powerful microwave beam could certainly vaporize water but it wouldn't start a "chain reaction" in the water supply. And it wouldn't just produce steam - it'd produce super-heated steam which is nearly invisible and very dangerous.
I also must mention that your body has lots of water in it and the people in the path of the beam should have, well, exploded. |
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LAND OF THE DEAD - 2005
One of the cool things about all the Dead movies is that exactly
why the zombies have appeared is never explained. I was hoping after
twenty years that Romero would at least drop a few hints but that
doesn't happen, so all I can do is speculate.
I don't know how you could provide enough energy to maintain bodily animation after death
(and after the resulting cellular damage from lack of oxygen), especially since the zombies don't breathe and hardly ever eat (most people are long gone and yet months or years later the zombies are still walking around). Some people like to wave their arms and shout "nanotechnology"
but that's not a workable answer. Nanotech isn't magic and though
it can do many things, it can't supply limitless energy from nothing.
In fact, magic is the only answer I can think of. |
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WAR OF THE WORLDS - 2005
At one point a character says, "This isn't a war, anymore than
there's a war between men and maggots." But the alien technology
is just advanced, not god-like, and really not even all that advanced.
Maybe a century - certainly not much more than that. |
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CUBE ZERO - 2005
The traps in CUBE were diabolical but perfectly believable. Here
they're more cartoonish. For example, the flesh eating bacteria
is plenty nasty but nowhere near as fast acting as we see in CUBE
ZERO. None of them stretch my suspension of disbelief to the breaking
point, but they come pretty close. |
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THE ISLAND - 2005
The central theme is out of date. Research into adult stem cells
will very shortly make the whole plot here obsolete and that's all
I'll say about that.
The only other thing I want to mention is that
the reason Lincoln turns out to know more than he should know under
the circumstances is never explained and could only happen by magic,
not science. |
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THE CAVE - 2005
SCIENCE MOMENT BY
KELLY PARKS
I must admit that the parasite as the cause is mostly believable. Parasites are
quite capable of altering their hosts to suit their own needs (Read
"PARASITE REX: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures " by Carl Zimmer to find out just how weird parasites are). That being said, the idea that a parasite
would alter its human hosts into large predators in order to survive
in a cave doesn't really make sense. Turning them into big moles
would have fit the environment better (like in THE MOLE PEOPLE). Giving them wings was just over the top but I can let that go. What I can't let go is the implication at one point in the movie that the parasite is intelligent and that
it has "plans." That's just silly.
A lot of other small details bothered me, like the way we hear the cavers talking
to each other by radio while diving even though they have regular
diving equipment, not air-tight helmets like Cameron invented for
THE ABYSS. So how are they talking with a big piece of rubber in
their mouths? It also bothered me when we see the special effect
meant to represent the monster's sonar vision, because the monster's
sonar is apparently bouncing off the beams of light from their flashlights.
It obviously shouldn't have "seen" the lights. |
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A
SOUND OF THUNDER - 2005
I could write a book about everything this movie got wrong. It's
almost an anti-science lesson. Virtually every time a character
opens their mouth and says something even remotely scientific it's
not just wrong - it's way wrong. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle
is completely misstated, the many mentions of evolution don't even
come close and their descriptions of the rules of time travel within
the movie are contradictory.
A few examples:
First, they shoot the dinosaurs with "gauss rifles". This implies
the rifles are rail guns: they use electromagnetic force to fire
a projectile. But their bullets are frozen nitrogen (so
they'll evaporate and thus leave no trace behind, which is stupid
because you still leave nitrogen molecules from the 21st century
behind whether they're in solid or gaseous form) which is
quite useless in a rail gun since it's not remotely magnetic. That's
why rail guns use metal projectiles.
Second, they make it clear that if they can fix the problem with the timeline
they won't remember that history has been changed back. That makes
sense. But then why are they aware that history has been altered
in the first place? When history gets screwed up everybody notices immediately.
Third, as history starts changing and new plants and animals begin appearing, Sonia
says humans will be the last animal affected because we were the
"last to evolve." No, we most certainly were not. Evolution
is a dynamic process, taking place constantly throughout nature.
There's nothing special or amazing (from nature's
point of view) about the appearance of our species. Lots
of others have appeared in the 200,000 years since we showed up. |
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THE BEAST OF BRAY ROAD - 2005
I hope I don’t ruin the story for you if I say science doesn’t really apply to the Beast. That’s all I’ll say about that. I do want to mention something that a character in this movie says and that is often said by characters in sci-fi and horror whenever the writer wants them to seem “scientific”. The phrase (often attributed to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes) is, “When you’ve eliminated all the other possibilities, whatever is left, no matter how unbelievable, is the answer.” That’s stupid, because it assumes you are aware of all the possibilities – that you haven’t missed anything. The answer could easily be something you didn’t think of. |
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2006
XMEN III: THE LAST STAND - 2006
EUREKA!
Magneto’s power is the ability to generate powerful magnetic fields and this is always shown by having him move metal around. But magnets can do more than that. There are a lot of experiments going on with TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation). Properly applied magnetic fields can alter the electrical fields in your brain and activate or de-activate specific brain areas. It would take some experimentation, something Magneto is not shy about, but his power should also allow him to alter the emotions of the people around him. Beyond that, very strong magnetic fields are fatal for cordate life forms because your spinal fluid is slightly magnetic. Ouch. |
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THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION - 2006
SCIENCE MOMENT BY
KELLY PARKS
EUREKA!
The basic idea here, taken from the James Tiptree Jr. (aka Racoona Sheldon aka "the real" former CIA agent Alice Sheldon) short story, is brilliant and perfectly workable. A handy way to clear the annoying humans from the planet is to get all the men to kill all the women and then just wait for the men to die of old age. It avoids all the mess of actual invasion.
But could a virus turn a man into a serial killer? Sure, if you assume that the difference between a normal man and a serial killer is some physical deformity of the brain. Once you know the cause, designing a virus that induces it is quite plausible. |
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CHILDREN OF MEN - 2006
SCIENCE MOMENT BY
KELLY PARKS
I’m not going to discuss the worldwide infertility very much, only because it’s never explained so I have no science to criticize. I will mention that I think if this actually happened that a variety of biological techniques (cloning, for example) could be used to prevent our extinction, but that’s a minor quibble.
The science I really want to talk about is demography (Read Mark Steyn's America Alone). Demography is the study of population trends and it’s related to my opening remark about people committing self-genocide. Did you know that Europe is dying? Japan too? No, I don’t mean from pollution (actually the world is quite a bit cleaner than it used to be). I mean that just to maintain a stable population you need 2.1 live births per woman. But for decades now the birth rate in all of Europe and in Japan has been well below that. More like 1.5 to 1.1 births per woman, or about half what you need to keep your population from shrinking.
That means that for every two Italians or Germans or Spaniards that die, only one new one is born. That means that every generation, their population is cut in half. That also means obstetricians are becoming hard to find because why would anyone want to go into a shrinking field like that? |
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THE HOST aka Gwoemul - 2006
Could chemicals dumped into a river cause the fish to mutate? Certainly. Would one of these mutations be a giant amphibious monster that likes to swing from bridge girders? Nope. Not a chance. Mutations do not work that way.
Nor was the director really implying that. This movie has a blatant political subtext along the lines of government indifference (specifically, American government indifference) toward the damage done to the environment deserves punishment. And nature will deliver this punishment by rising up and smiting innocent bystanders who never dumped anything anywhere. Or maybe that’s just my take on it. |
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ALTERED - 2006
EUREKA!
ALTERED passes the Science Moment hurdle like it wasn't even there. An impossible feat for the overwhelming majority of Hollywood Scifi movies.
How did they do it? Simple! Writers Jamie Nash and Eduardo Sanchez didn't try to act like they knew something they didn't know. If there was something scientific that they couldn't explain, they didn't try to fake it with a scientifically ignorant explanation, they just let it go.
Science is the observation of reality and as such, is filled with theories, hypothesis, and educated guesses. Sometimes the smartest thing you can say when faced with the unknown is, "I don't know."
So let me comment on what I do know.
Continued
at !!!THE SCIENCE MOMENT!!!/Altered. |
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