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Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR
6

Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

(OP)

It's a good movie as things go these days. Actually if you didn't notice the science problems
you might love the movie. So I expect the lay people to like it as they should.

Here is what bothers me.

The science problems could have been mostly fixed VERY easily and still make just as interesting
script for the screen. Supposedly they had scientific consultants.

But how can you excuse or fail to rewrite a sub plot line where the crew descends to a planet surface
and returns in 3 days to find 21 years has passed on their orbiting mother ship.

And there are dozens of dozens of good points raise on the internet about the weak science.

The weak science was obvious and surely could have been fixed with minor script changes.

Well I will play my card. Is there a conspiracy to dumb down the public WRT science??

Consider that a movie like 2001 a space odyssey would never get made in todays world.
And that makes me really really sad...

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

"Is there a conspiracy to dumb down the public WRT science?"

The public seem to be getting there without any need for a conspiracy.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

Quote (2dye4)

Is there a conspiracy to dumb down the public WRT science??

Quote ("Hanlon's razor")

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert"
Arthur C. Clarke Profiles of the future

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

I was (as always) frustrated by the lack of any realistic treatment of orbital mechanics. Maybe I should bury that one and just try to enjoy the multiverse explanations of paranormal phenomena.

Steve

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

I'm appalled by movie prices so I didn't see it.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

I think this is the first time I've ever actually seen a popular movie portray the nature of time being less-than-constant in space. I'd say it's a leap ahead in intellectual progress in movies.

It's a bitter, bitter person who takes a look at a movie that is miles better than its predecessors in intellectual content and complains about a couple remaining errors. I applaud the film and its achievements. It's cannot be easy to make a popular movie that profits in today's market while still making it scientifically engaging and groundbreaking. The vast, vast majority of scientific outlets I've seen speak about the movie were all quite flattering. The ones who pointed out errors or criticisms did so in good nature and without detracting from their overall praise.

Your tin foil hat needs calibration.

_________________________________________
NX8.0, Solidworks 2014, AutoCAD, Enovia V5

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

They got relativity backward. The orbiting ship would experience slower time due to its speed. That is, unless the gravity on the planet was bone-crushingly high...

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

Star Trek was rife with errors. Didn't stop it from making all sorts of advances in story telling.


As for 2001, that was a Kubrick film, so comparison to ordinary directors is really not possible.

TTFN
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RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

Some times I wonder if the movie going public understands the concept of fiction. I always assumed that engineers were above that.

Now I'm not so sure.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

I can understand it quite simply-3 days with my mother-in-law seems like 21 years.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

2
It's science-fiction.

If this sort of thing prevents you from enjoying a movie, then don't go see them.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

@TenPenny,

To paraphrase what is likely a completely butchered quote by Mark Twain:
'The only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible.'

(which, maybe he never actually said that, which would be all the more fitting)

_________________________________________
NX8.0, Solidworks 2014, AutoCAD, Enovia V5

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

Isn't this a Christopher Nolan trait. He goes for the feeling of something rather than having a tight plot. Batman Begins I think is the only movie of his that felt like it had a tight plot.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

They might have exaggerated the time dilation for story telling but there would be time dilation given the black hole.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

Quote:

They got relativity backward. The orbiting ship would experience slower time due to its speed. That is, unless the gravity on the planet was bone-crushingly high...

Sure if the ship was orbiting the planet, but it wasn't. The ship and the planet were both orbiting the black hole. The planet was closer to the black hole, and it was that proximity to the supermassive object that caused the difference. I doubt Nolan did the Lorentz Transform to prove it, and I honestly question whether many in here could do it. And if you did, you'd discover one of the greatest discontinuities in special relativity - that the relative time approaches an asymptote at the event horizon when you're falling in, so you never quite get there. Or rather, the clocks out in orbit reach infinity before your clock ticks again. He couldn't have fallen into the black hole at all, if Einstein was correct.

If you're looking for silliness in the movie, you don't have to dig very deep. The very idea that some famous scientist stranded on an alien planet doesn't know how airlocks work should be enough to plant your tongue firmly in your cheek. Or solid methane crystals that aren't subject to gravity for some reason. Not to mention how the entire plot hinged around the (quite famous) Bootstrap Paradox. In the end, as with all movies, you have to suspend disbelief. I did so, and I rather liked it. If nothing else, for their depictions of the accretion disk.

For what it's worth, Christopher Nolan screws up time in just about every movie he does. In the last Batman movie, basically no time elapses in the outside world while Batman rehabs a broken spine for a month or two. Memento was told completely backwards in time. Inception played very loose with time.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

I think that while time could do that near a black hole, to get a 2557x ratio, the gravity differential would really gigantic. The GPS satellites, as a point of reference, are faster by 45 microsecond/day

TTFN
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RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

This reminds me of an inter-discipline event that my university put on each year for E-week (Engineering Week). They would sit us all down in the theater for a science-fiction movie and each department was challenged to pick out how many engineering/science errors were made in the film. One year we watched The Core (where they drilled into the earth and let off a few nukes to re-start the inner flow of the earths magma). It was entertaining to say the least, every department was into the hundreds of impossibilities... Good times.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

Well, the first error to be pointed out should probably always be the improbably high average level of attractiveness of the cast.

However, that goes for almost any genre of film except ones about their own industry or modelling etc.

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RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

Quote (beej67)

The very idea that some famous scientist stranded on an alien planet doesn't know how airlocks work should be enough to plant your tongue firmly in your cheek.

Its not an error at all. The entire movie is a criticism of much of modern science and alarmist movements.

"“We’re sort of in this moment in which humans are obsessed that we’ll prove our own undoing—that we’ll poison the planet, we’ll destroy ourselves, and all these things,” Jonathan says early on in an interview that accompanies the screenplay. “But I thought it would be more interesting to find a slightly less personal Armageddon, or the idea that the universe obliterates you or the planet turns itself toxic because it doesn’t care about you and me because we’re an accident in outer space.” (Emphasis mine.) Later on, he drives this point home: “That’s the fascinating question of why is it that humans are so obsessed with not just the idea of their own Armageddon, but their own culpability.”

As Christopher notes later on in the interview, man’s obsession with his own self-destruction is, at least in part, a function of ego. “Every generation believes they’re the last generation on Earth. Maybe one generation will eventually be right. I certainly hope it’s not ours,” he says. Interstellar rejects that idea. “It’s about the way in which human beings adapt and transcend natural movements—apocalyptic type movements.”

Dr. Mann is a famous scientist but that does not mean he is a good scientists. Manny famous scientists are only famous because they are media personalities. Dr. Mann is a typical post normal scientists. He is willing to lie, cheat, and in this case kill to keep from living his life in obscurity.

"Dr. Mann: No. I tried to do my duty, Cooper. But I knew, the day that I arrived here, this place had nothing and I resisted the temptation for years. But I knew that if I just pressed that button, then somebody would come and save me."

Dr. Mann dies doing something so stupid to show that just because a scientist is famous in this media age doesn't mean he is a particularity good or relatively smart scientist.


RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

Thank you all for living up to the reputation that we engineers have fought hard to obtain.

Live long and prosper

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

I was not too bothered by the science issues of Interstellar. I did appreciate their no-sound-in-space style. But,I was bother by the overpowering orchestration in the theaters that drowned out the voices. At least on the DVD/BlueRay release this is more balanced.

The orbital mechanics presentation of Gravity was ridiculous. Not to mention that their view of LEO space was more densely packed than a Los Angeles freeway during rush hour.

I am still irritated by The Core. They pre-marketed to the engineering community through the industry magazines and through technical magazine editors. As far as I'm concerned they stole my a money at the theater.

There are some science-fiction movies that technically hold up well, like 2001 and Contact.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

Interstellar, which I had been long looking forward to seeing, went off the rails for me about half way through.

Saw Ex Machine, which I had never even heard of, on the same trans Atlantic flight, and loved it.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

The references to Newton III were thought-provoking, even if they were meant to be allegorical. "Fuel" is just crap that you fling out.

Steve

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

You should see "The Core." It will definitely reset your expectations for scientific accuracy in film.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

The thing that bugged me the most is that the waves didn't break on the ocean planet. Waves couldn't be that tall with the shallow water (especially with the increased gravity). Maximum wave height would be shorter than the height of a person.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

Is nobody going to mention the absolutely genius characters that were the robots? Screw the rest of the movie, I watched it for those guys.

Maine Professional and Structural Engineer. www.fepc.us

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

I don't think movies for the most part care about accuracy (like that is a surprise).

My GF is a research scientist, she has ended up screaming at the TV set over something they've depicted in the lab or how fast they get results on say a DNA test smile

My ex is a nurse and she used to get equally upset over a lot of "medical" shows and what they would depict. "House" was one of her particular hot buttons and what he could do and routinely get away with.

They just want to make a movie that makes them a lot of money. If they have to take liberties with the truth or flat out kill the truth, it's just collateral damage and totally okay as long as the movie is a success.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

Hollywood productions ≠ scientific presentations. They are more enjoyable if one can simply take them at face entertainment value. We don't expect marketing departments to accurately portray the facts, how much less we should expect of Hollywood.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

2dye4,

I am appalled by the history errors in 300: Rise of an Empire. Where do you want to go with this.

--
JHG

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

I am appalled by the objectification of women, history mistakes, 'macho' culture, dumbness, excessive violence, etc, in movies.

Still watch them all the time.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

My husband pretty much reads the riot act to me before we sit down to watch a movie. I am not allowed to point out the plot holes and science errors while watching the film.

One of my biggest pet peeves...anyone remember Megatron getting frozen at a planet pole? Meanwhile Autobots and Decepticons can travel through the frigidness of space without issue?...le sigh. But I still love Transformers movies, I just need to live in suspended reality for a time.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

You mean, you don't care how something that's three stories tall can compress down to a Camaro? winky smile

Suspension of disbelief is no different than being in proposal mode; "Sure, we can make that half-dead horse talk up a storm; just come back in 2 years..."

TTFN
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RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

kacarrol, ah but in space there will be minimal gases or water vapor or ... while on the pole there would be. Maybe ice formed in Megatrons joints causing the issue. As there' wouldn't be enough moisture to freeze in space perhaps not an issuewinky smile

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RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

My wife is a construction estimator, but used to be an on-site PM for a pretty large GC. She screamed bloody murder at the opening sequence of the newest Casino Royale Bond flick, with the guys free-running through the construction site smashing it up.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

(OP)
can I post now

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

What stopped you before?

_________________________________________
NX8.0, Solidworks 2014, AutoCAD, Enovia V5

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

@TehMightyEngineer , I liked the robot too - they looked so "out-of-the-box" that they might actually be a guess to how a worable robot might appear.

Best regards, Morten

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

For those that have a problem with this movie, I dare you to see Fast and Furious 7.

B+W Engineering and Design | Los Angeles Civil Engineer and Structural Engineer http://bwengr.com

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

2dye4,
You now have permission to post.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

For a realistic, futuristic movie, I would recommend Idiocracy.

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

urgross, I had to star that recommendation... unfortunately we are already living the prequel to Idiocracy!

RE: Anybody appalled by the science errors in the movie INTERSTELLAR

Technically we're living the prequel to every movie set in the future of this world. :)

_________________________________________
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