There are a couple of interesting articles on The Guardian regarding Sidney Perkowitz’s proposals to limit the number of times science in a film breaks the laws of physics.
I’m with Adam Rutherford on this one though. As much as I would like to see better science in films, we’re missing the point. These aren’t teaching materials, they’re entertainment. They’re first, and indeed only, requirement is to entertain.
I love the quote about The Core, which Perkowitz didn’t like:
The Core did not make money because people understood the science was so out to lunch.
I think he’s giving most movie audiences too much credit there. The Core didn’t make any money because it was a crap idea poorly executed. By way of an example, take the asteroid movies Armageddon and Deep Impact.
The latter was by far the more scientifically accurate (although it still took liberties) but may much less money that the scientific cowboy that was Armageddon. Why? Plot and characters.
Science is cold, detached and generally boring, it’s not something to get people hooked on. Just look at how many liberties are taken with historical facts (U-571 anyone?)
I agree that it can ruin the suspension of disbelief, it does it in any medium. I’m not a cryptographic expert, but when, in Digital Fortress, Dan Brown introduces use to a computer which uses massive parallel processing to brute force break passwords even I was well aware that with the combined processing power of the entire World it would take longer than the universe has existed to crack it (most ‘cracks’ are done by guessing commonly used passwords, therefore cutting the odds, if you have a random string it’s basically impossible).
Having said that, most audience members aren’t familiar with anything more than basic science, so understanding the crushing pressure of the core or that giant bugs don’t exist because they would weigh too much (and couldn’t breath with their rudimentary respiratory system if I remember my Biology correctly).
So, why bother limiting it? Watch practically any movie about soccer (i.e. made in the US) and you’ll notice people being subbed on and off several times. If they can’t get the basics of sport correct what hope have we got for physics? The fact is, it’s not important as far as the story is concerned.
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