How much legit does the science have to be in your sci-fi TV/movies?

[valkyrie013]

I do think a modern audience, especially ones that watch science fiction are a more learned than ones from decades ago, so you have to atleast try to get the science right because we can now spot the bad science and say.. uh.. no? That's not how that works..

 

[Christopher]

Those aren't mutually exclusive concepts in Lucas's eyes, and never were. The force was always suppose to be a real, tangible thing that existed within the universe, and was always meant to interact in a real, tangible way. As mysterious as it is, it's still just meant to be a mechanism of how the universe works, just like gravitation, magnetism, and quantum physics. So yes, biology was always a factor. That never changed.

I love the idea of midi-chlorians, since they're such a clever analogy for mitochondria. Mitochondria are symbiotic organelles that generate the energy living things depend on for our life, and midi-chlorians are symbiotic organelles that connect living things to the Force that unites all life. People who think that it somehow takes away from the spirituality of the Force are looking at it in Western terms, the Cartesian dualism that the physical and spiritual are separate, incompatible things. But Lucas based his ideas on Eastern spirituality, in which the physical and spiritual are unified and inseparable, like the way martial arts and acupuncture are believed by many to be physical ways of channeling spiritual energy. Okay, Yoda's "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter" sounds pretty Cartesian, but maybe Lucas's ideas evolved in the intervening decades (and he didn't write or direct that movie anyway).

Not to mention that it's misreading the text to believe that midi-chlorians "explain" or "cause" the Force. Rather, they're simply the interface with it, the antennae that allow living beings to make contact with it. They were a handy plot device to measure a character's Force sensitivity, that's all.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Lucas had basically nothing to do with print media. He didn't really care. Publishing did their own thing based on what they thought would sell. That's it.

1980s/90s Lucas still greenlit any ancillary material based on his films, and had some control over its contents, as in the case of Marvel's monthly comic (1977-86); early on, if certain writers introduced ideas he felt were not in keeping with his vision, or paralleled ideas he considered placing in the movies, he (or his LFL representatives) gave Marvel a set of "do's and don'ts". The same applied to everything from authorizing technical manuals to character descriptions on the backing cards of action figures.

Those aren't mutually exclusive concepts in Lucas's eyes, and never were. The force was always suppose to be a real, tangible thing that existed within the universe, and was always meant to interact in a real, tangible way.

Eh? In TESB, Yoda made a clear distinction between the significant shortcomings of a mind thinking of the Force in the way one would a measurable perception of effort and energy in relation to the physical realm and its true nature: the intangible, supernatural realm which would only be reached through giving oneself to pure faith, hence Yoda's "That is why you fail" reply to Luke's "I don't believe it". Luke--though not the disbelieving hard-head like his friend Solo--still thought of accessing the Force as something almost through the perception of the physical, like a mechanic making an effort with a tool, until Yoda had to show through example--and weighty criticism--that he was not understanding the Force at all ("Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.").

Lucas never attempted to explain the Force via blood tests in the OT and did not need to. The audience understood through dialogue that Luke inherited some power / potential from his father, and in TESB, his growing power--only accessible though belief--was considered a threat to the empire. It is doubtful that kind of dialogue was misunderstood, or required character perform some sort of space-CBC in order to realize the Force potential in anyone, or how its accessed.

 

[Reverend]

1980s/90s Lucas still greenlit any ancillary material based on his films, and had some control over its contents, as in the case of Marvel's monthly comic (1977-86); early on, if certain writers introduced ideas he felt were not in keeping with his vision, or paralleled ideas he considered placing in the movies, he (or his LFL representatives) gave Marvel a set of "do's and don'ts". The same applied to everything from authorizing technical manuals to character descriptions on the backing cards of action figures.

Rubber stamps that basically say "OK FINE WHATEVER, SO LONG AS THERE'S NO SWEARING" and a bunch of memos with "YES/NO" questionnaires for him, don't exactly constitute a particular interest on his part as to the specific content.

Eh? In TESB, Yoda made a clear distinction between the significant shortcomings of a mind thinking of the Force in the way one would a measurable perception of effort and energy in relation to the physical realm and its true nature: the intangible, supernatural realm which would only be reached through giving oneself to pure faith, hence Yoda's "That is why you fail" reply to Luke's "I don't believe it". Luke--though not the disbelieving hard-head like his friend Solo--still thought of accessing the Force as something almost through the perception of the physical, like a mechanic making an effort with a tool, until Yoda had to show through example--and weighty criticism--that he was not understanding the Force at all ("Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.").

More important then ≠ separate from.
The crude matter, still performs a function for 99.99999999% of beings that use the force. It kind of has to.
Also; that line can just as easily be applied to scientific reality too. After all; are we just bags of mostly water held upright by calcareous sticks? Or are we the interactions of patterns of electrons that jump between and through neurons? Obviously we're both. The one doesn't exist without the other; just as it is with the living and the cosmic force. There's no separation. It's all one universe.

Well, I haven't seen the film in going on 12 years now, so all I can say is that I didn't pick up on the idea that these were all supposed to be woo-woo irrationals at the time. I just could not believe how idiotic Abbot and Costello (I can't remember the characters' actual names) were being -- it struck me as not meeting even the minimum threshold of what a believable researcher would do, and only seem to resemble the behavior of a very ignorant person. Maybe the movie would work better for me if I rewatched it with that in mind next time.

I had the same reaction the first time around, but on a second watch through it made a lot more sense, once you understand what's actually going on. And I don't remember their names either, nor have a watched the movie in going on eight years.

 

[Christopher]

Lucas never attempted to explain the Force via blood tests in the OT and did not need to.

I repeat: Midi-chlorians are not the cause of the Force, merely a means of interfacing with it. In Qui-Gon's words, "Midi-chlorians are a microcopic lifeform that reside within all living cells and communicate with the Force... Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to you, telling you the will of the Force." The spiritual nature of the Force is unaltered. Midi-chlorians simply explain why some living beings are more sensitive to it than others. Indeed, they codify the idea that this spiritual energy is intrinsic to life itself, that life couldn't exist without the ability to connect to the Force.

And Lucas didn't "need to" include blood tests in the OT because that wasn't the story he was telling. It was set after the fall of the Jedi, when they'd been all but eradicated and forced into hiding. TPM was set in their prime, when they were an established institution with fuller resources at their disposal. The difference was the point, to show how knowledge and capabilities were lost when the Republic fell and the Empire's destructive tyranny took over.

 

[Set Harth]

I just could not believe how idiotic Abbot and Costello (I can't remember the characters' actual names) were being -- it struck me as not meeting even the minimum threshold of what a believable researcher would do, and only seem to resemble the behavior of a very ignorant person.

My usual go-to excuse for some of that stuff is that they didn't know they were in an Alien movie. It's the first movie in the timeline chronologically, so no one had any idea that kind of weirdness was out there.

Also: Fifield and Milburn!

Lucas never attempted to explain the Force via blood tests in the OT and did not need to. The audience understood through dialogue that Luke inherited some power / potential from his father, and in TESB, his growing power--only accessible though belief--was considered a threat to the empire.

But if Luke inherited potential from his father, as opposed to deriving it purely from belief, then there's a biological factor, and it is not unreasonable to suggest that it can be scientifically measurable. Back in 1994, when EU authors only had the OT to go on, there were paddles that detected your Force potential. Midichlorians > paddles.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

But if Luke inherited potential from his father, as opposed to deriving it purely from belief, then there's a biological factor

One which needed no explanation from Lucas to the movie going public of 1977-83 in the form of blood tests, so it was not needed with Anakin in TPM, either. Further, Luke may have inherited potential from his father, but he had to be trained to open his closed mind to pure belief--faith--in order to access it, otherwise he would be no more adept at sensing / accessing / controlling the Force as he had been on Tatooine. Obi-Wan's "Stretch out with your feelings" / "Use the Force, Luke! Let go, Luke!" was Kenobi stressing Luke break his reliance on what he believed he could control physically, which prevented him from connecting to / using the Force. Aboard the Falcon, he had to stop relying on his sense of sight to "see" the remote with the blast shield covering his face by opening his mind to belief in that intangible power which--contrary to Solo's mocking--controlled everything. In the Death Star trench, again, Kenobi implored Luke to stop relying on that which was tangible--the X-Wing's targeting computer (which failed all others only minutes before) and believe in the Force--the higher power--to allow him to do what no programmed device used by a pilot ever would ever be able to.

On Dagobah, again, Luke is repeatedly told to believe (have faith) in the Force--to divorce his mind from the secularized perceptions of the physical world in order to access, bond with and use the Force, otherwise he would fail time and again by clinging to essentially a disbeliever's perspective of / approach to all acts as being a measurable, physical effort in the corporeal world, leading to one result, or, as Yoda so pointedly put it, "That is why you fail".

 

[Set Harth]

Lucas never attempted to explain the Force via blood tests in the OT and did not need to.

But midichlorians do not explain the Force. They only explain why some people are naturally better than others at using the Force. The Force itself remains undefined in TPM, almost as if the viewer is expected to have already seen ANH and TESB.

One which needed no explanation from Lucas to the movie going public of 1977-83 in the form of blood tests, so it was not needed with Anakin in TPM, either.

As was said above:

And Lucas didn't "need to" include blood tests in the OT because that wasn't the story he was telling. It was set after the fall of the Jedi, when they'd been all but eradicated and forced into hiding. TPM was set in their prime, when they were an established institution with fuller resources at their disposal.

The Jedi in the era of the Republic having a scientific method of screening for potential Jedi candidates makes sense for that time period, while the surviving Jedi during the Empire are in a totally different situation.

 

[BK613]

The Jedi in the era of the Republic having a scientific method of screening for potential Jedi candidates makes sense for that time period, while the surviving Jedi during the Empire are in a totally different situation.

Not really. The fall of the Jedi to the fall of the Emperor is less than thirty years (as measured by Luke's life, from his birth up the his age in The Return of the Jedi).

 

[JD]

Well, I haven't seen the film in going on 12 years now, so all I can say is that I didn't pick up on the idea that these were all supposed to be woo-woo irrationals at the time. I just could not believe how idiotic Abbot and Costello (I can't remember the characters' actual names) were being -- it struck me as not meeting even the minimum threshold of what a believable researcher would do, and only seem to resemble the behavior of a very ignorant person. Maybe the movie would work better for me if I rewatched it with that in mind next time.

Even smart people can do stupid things without thinking when they're in a new situation. I like to think of myself as a fairly intelligent person, I even have a higher than average IQ, but my first reaction when I saw my first rattlesnake on a bike ride a few months ago was to pull my phone out and walk right up to it. It didn't occur to me until I'd hopped back on my bike and taken off, that I was probably well within striking distance if it had gotten pissed. I kept an eye on it's body language, so I did at least think enough to be somewhat cautious.

 

[Set Harth]

Not really. The fall of the Jedi to the fall of the Emperor is less than thirty years (as measured by Luke's life, from his birth up the his age in The Return of the Jedi).

It's not a question of years but of differing circumstances. On the one hand you have a procedure for identifying previously unknown Force sensitives in the Republic population; on the other, Yoda and Obi-Wan placing their hopes in certain individuals already known to be highly midichlorianated.

 

[NCC-73515]

In Prometheus, they tried to "trick the brain into thinking it's alive" while that brain was mummified
In Disco, Saru said he realized Spock's fake murder video was holographic because the bodies showed no heat in UV (which should be the opposite, IR)
They also have filters in the 32nd century that let all unknown substances in, IIRC
In DS9, Bashir of all people repeated the 10% brain function myth, but maybe he did that to conceal his augment status
Those things do annoy me in the moment because they are easily avoidable and obviously stupid. If a film is full of them, it'll drag the overall impression down a lot. If it's just a detail that they got wrong, but the rest is fine, it's no big deal.
B'Elanna once looked at DNA atoms and saw markings on an electron shell (as if the atoms are not connected, and could somehow be marked with a stationary label), then said she's no microbiologist (she probably meant biochemist, microbiology is about bacteria), but that made sense because she is an engineer and therefore can get bio subfields mixed up.
Kelvin Bones mixed up words in a funny way: Deceased tissue of a necrotic host. Should be the other way, the host is deceased and has necrotic tissue, but apparently no one noticed it and it stayed

 

[JirinPanthosa]

They can make up as much fake science as they want but it bugs me when they get real science wrong.

One example that bugs the hell out of me is in Star Trek 2009. A black hole with the mass of a few drops of liquid should have the gravitational pull of a few drops of liquid, not suck up an entire planet in a few seconds.

They could have made up their own planet destroying thing and it would have been fine, but if you go with black holes, you better get black holes right.

 

[fireproof78]

They can make up as much fake science as they want but it bugs me when they get real science wrong.

One example that bugs the hell out of me is in Star Trek 2009. A black hole with the mass of a few drops of liquid should have the gravitational pull of a few drops of liquid, not suck up an entire planet in a few seconds.

They could have made up their own planet destroying thing and it would have been fine, but if you go with black holes, you better get black holes right.

Star Trek has never gotten black holes right.

 

[Nerys Myk]

What's the mass of a drop of Red Matter?

 

[JirinPanthosa]

What's the mass of a drop of Red Matter?

Definitely not the mass of a sun.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Red Matter is a fake thing.

 

[The Wormhole]

I know John Scalzi sure loves going off about Red Matter, as well as Trek XI in general. Indeed, in the foreword to his novel Fuzzy Nation, he says his intention was to do a Trek XI style reboot of Little Fuzzies "but with much better science."

IIRC, Orci claims he had a more scientifically plausible alternative to Red Matter in early drafts of the script, but Abrams overruled him on it feeling it "wasn't cool enough."

 

[fireproof78]

What's the mass of a drop of Red Matter?

Pretty massive.

Otherwise people massively underestimate it.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

... but Abrams overruled him on it feeling it "wasn't cool enough."