Astronomy vs The Movies
There is so much bad science out in the world in good to see sites like Brian Dunning’s Skeptoid and Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy. These sites take popular myths and talk about them with real facts and not hear-say. And while I enjoy reading Bad Astronomy, there is one section that I couldn’t help but roll my eyes up at. It’s an examination of some popular films and why the vision they portray about space is wrong.
I mean, we all know that it’s crazy with hear the Death Star blows up in Star Wars, after all, no sound in space, but these films are fiction and meant to be taken that way.
If you want to attack some films as Contact or Deep Impact, ok, these are fiction, but they do sort of look at space in a more realistic way. To make the stories believable, they must be presented in at least a semi-serious way. But on the list of films, Phil takes on Austin Powers, Tomb Raider and Transformers. If you want to take these films seriously, there is plenty of stuff going on that have nothing to do with space or Astronomy.
All that being said, this site is fun, which maybe that was what Phil was going for. If you’d like to read Phil’s take on the movies, click here!
4 Responses to “Astronomy vs The Movies”
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May 21st, 2009 at 1:19 pm
astronomy fact…
etan@ 506… I figured you had to be talking of Tarkosky’s i Solaris. I just wanted to make sure. Having seen both versions was frustrating to me. I’m one of those who wanted to tell Tarkovsky to get on with it, and I thought Soderbergh might tighten…
May 21st, 2009 at 2:21 pm
definition of astronomy…
Who doesn’ t enjoy routine, especially when it comes to their profession? We all like the feeling that comes with knowing what we are doing works just fine, which is why we keep our business chugging along nicely, day after day. But what about branch…
May 21st, 2009 at 7:42 pm
spaceresearcher.net…
Steve, You say: “ Sometimes an analogy everyone has some familiarity with is easier than a detailed argument when I’ m in a rush. I’ m quite aware that Ptomely’ s system was quite sophisticated– the epicentric model, equant motion, etc. (thou…
May 27th, 2009 at 4:05 am
betaversions.net…
LOS ANGELES (AP)— “ Star Trek” has been beamed aboard the International Space Station. Paramount Pictures said they transferred director J. J. Abrams’ sci- fi franchise reboot to NASA’ s Mission Control in Houston. The movie was uplinked to t…