When creating spectacular movies, filmmakers often neglect the laws of natural science. Let’s analyze three well-known films from the scientific viewpoint.
Scientific Inaccuracies in Hollywood Blockbusters
If you look closely, you can find mistakes in any movie. From the scientific point of view, perfect movie stories do not exist. The more movie directors try to impress us, the more they get carried away and forget about reality and science. In fact, the lack of sound scientific knowledge is an Achilles heel of all Hollywood screenwriters and film directors.
First of all, filmmakers aim to impress their viewers with exciting scenarios and the characters’ handling of extreme situations. Science, technology, and space represent in most cases an exotic surrounding which is invented for promoting the plot and raising some unusual problems. If you ever wanted to explore this question in-depth but didn’t know how, the best thing to do for you would be to hire a custom writing service and avoid any academic-related problems.
Of course, such films are not aimed at enlightening the public, nor are they based on reliable facts. However, the obvious blunders and scientific inaccuracies in popular sci-fi and disaster movies are severely criticized by many experts and skeptics. And it’s easy to see why. They simply want the films to adhere to the basic laws of physics, mathematics, biology, and geology.
After reading our analysis of three science fiction films, you’ll see how famous Hollywood directors sacrifice scientific accuracy for the sake of entertainment.
1. Armageddon (1998)
Directed by Michael Bay, Armageddon is one of the highest-grossing Hollywood blockbusters. The movie earned more than half a billion dollars and was nominated for 4 Oscars. The plot is briefly as follows: an asteroid the size of Texas is on a collision course with the Earth. A team of astronauts is to blow up the rogue celestial body and thus avert the impending disaster.
You might think that a movie about the approaching end of the world should be serious. Well, Michael Bay did not think so. He shot an adventure melodrama that aims to entertain the viewers, and not inform them. No scientific basis can be found here, nor is it possible to learn about the scientific background of the possible events.
NASA used this film was for training purpose — its employees were offered to find scientific blunders in it. More than 160 scientific inaccuracies were detected, from gravity on the asteroid to the presence of an oxygenated atmosphere (how else would you explain the burning wreckage of a crashed shuttle?).
For example, the fact that scientists noticed an asteroid only at the last moment is extremely doubtful. If it were heading towards the Earth, astronomers would have noticed it long before it approached dangerously close. Also, a hole of 800 feet in depth is unable to split an asteroid of 870 miles in width and 1,400 miles long, even if a super powerful nuclear bomb was used.
Moreover, asteroids of such sizes don’t exist in the Solar system. We are told that it consists of iron but the oil rig workers have no trouble drilling it with their stone-cutting tools. Before the launch of the space shuttle, people from all over the world eagerly anticipate the event in front of their TVs. But how come it is broad daylight in absolutely all countries? Whatever happened to time difference?
When the space shuttles fly around the Moon, their crews experience an overload of up to 12 G- at least, that’s what their monitors show. However, an untrained person cannot talk or shout at such overloads – they will simply faint. Also, at the end of the film, the asteroid’s debris falls down to Earth at different angles, whereas each of the pieces should have an identical trajectory.
In one interview, Michael Bay admitted that the film looks implausible, but this confession does not make Armageddon any better from the scientific point of view. Interestingly, the identically called documentary claimed that some of the invited consultants had insisted on changing some of the scenes to make them look more realistic.
2. The Core (2003)
This disaster film by Jon Amiel is also a record breaker in terms of ridiculous blunders and scientific inaccuracies. The catastrophic events on Earth begin to unfold when the outer core of our planet stops spinning. How can a 1,900-mile thick core consisting of molten iron and nickel stop spinning? Physics and common sense tell us that one of the two things could happen – either the liquid outer layer cools down and becomes solid, or the Earth itself stops rotating.
A geophysicist named Dr. Josh Keyes tells us about a series of weird occurrences — birds cannot use the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate, the Golden Gate Bridge is damaged, and pacemakers of people with heart problems malfunction. It is assumed that the geomagnetic field has disappeared, but for some reason, some kind of ‘hole’ shows up above San Francisco. If it could exist, there would be strong microwave radiation which would interact with the upper layers of the atmosphere and cause them to be beautifully colored.
In an attempt to save our planet, the movie characters drill the core of the Earth to find voids filled with giant amethyst crystals. There are two scientific inaccuracies here — an incredibly strong pressure in the mantle will in no way allow for the formation of voids, while the amethyst is not able to crystallize into the mantle.
During the expedition, a team of terranauts encounters a lot of large diamonds. However, there is not enough carbon in this layer of the Earth’s core and the temperature and pressure are not sufficient for diamonds to be formed. The next absurdity is related to the fact that the team decides to make the liquid outer core rotate again by detonating a nuclear device. And this is just the pinnacle of absurdity!
3. 2012 (2009)
Directed by Roland Emmerich, this movie violates practically all laws of mechanics, nature, and logic. According to it, the Earth is ravaged by a series of powerful earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis in 2012. Of course, the screenplay writers meant the Mayan calendar which predicts a total apocalypse by the year 2012.
The filmmakers also tried to explain the cause of the natural disasters scientifically. An astrophysicist from India discovers that a massive solar flare has caused a sharp rise in the temperature of the Earth’s core. With a frightened expression on his face, he tells us that the neutrinos in it have mutated. However, neutrinos are neutral particles which do not interact with any physical matter and cannot mutate into other kinds of particles.
The temperature of the blast wave from the volcano is so high that people on the plane would fly out of that cloud and be burned to death. The amount of energy required to heat the inner core of the Earth, which is already in a liquid state, is almost unbelievable. The heroes break through to the center of the Earth and even return in the rocket made of a unique material. However, a vehicle with a hole in it would immediately be filled with red-hot magma.
Melting of glaciers causes global flooding, but all the water on Earth is not enough to trigger such a massive natural calamity. The height of the tsunami wave in the film is one and a half mile. How then is it capable of washing over the Himalayan Mountains and destroying a monastery there?
If Yellowstone were to erupt, the sun’s rays could not penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere for many years. However, the sky is crystal clear two decades after the disaster. An ark of enormous size moving at breakneck speed makes a complete stop in a few seconds. And this happens despite the fact that the flood waters continue to move across the continent very quickly.
Well, these are just some of the scientific errors Emmerich’s movie is so replete with. That said, the plot is not that bad, while the special effects are realistic and impressive.
Entertainment vs. Scientific Validity
To sum up, Hollywood movies are full of scientific and technological inaccuracies. However, we can’t expect filmmakers to correctly show events from a scientific point of view. Nor should we take everything shown in the movies as Gospel truth.
An interesting movie is always better than dry and lifeless science. Therefore, the presence of errors, both minor and gross, does not necessarily prevent us from enjoying it.
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