While you're at it you should be asking Mary Shelly why she didn't get the science of biology right in Frankenstien, ignoring the fact that it's one of the greatest works of literature in the 19th century.
This comparison fails on so many levels, I hardly know where to start.
Why do my questions in my original post compel me to ask anything about Frankenstein? As stated before, I'm not demanding that all films (or works of fiction in general) adhere to the workings of nature in all detail, I'm simply raising the question why do most (if not all) science fiction films as well as a lot of non-sf films do not?
Why would asking questions about a work of fiction require ignoring its merits as literature? I'm no expert on literature, but I'd say that having the ability to make people think and discuss is a good quality in literature.
I'm don't know what was known and what wasn't known about human biology at the time Shelley wrote her book, but as far as I can judge she did in her book exactly what science fiction does as a rule: take a scientific concept, stretch it just that little bit beyond what is known, and follow that 'what if' scenario in an otherwise as realistic fashion as possible.
You get where I'm comming from?
That would be a 'no' then, as explained above.
Hollywood, hell, most works of fiction, aren't obligated to give a science lesson.
Whether they are obliged or not is not the point under discussion here. Film makers aren't obliged to put anything in their movies (except for the names of the people involved and the product of the sponsoring companies I guess) nor do I claim that they are or should be.
If scientific accuracy was paramount, works like the aformentioned Frankenstien, Buck Rogers, just about every comic book, Star Wars, and, yes, even Star Trek, wouldn't exist.
Your taking the question to an ridiculous extreme. There is a difference between trying to depict nature/reality in an accurate manner, with perhaps a little "what if" sf premise thrown in, and claiming that 'scientific accuracy' is paramount. In many cases there is just no good reason for claiming that the 'unreal' way out (like sound in space) would be more dramatic or enjoyable than the real thing.
All there would be left is 2001: A Space Oddessy. And while it's a great film in its own right, I can count the times I've seen it on one hand. While I've lost count with the many times I've seen Star Wars and Star Trek.
I'm thinking hard at the moment to think of any film I've seen more than 5 times. I can't think of any right now. Not that that matters anything for the discussion here btw.
I think your point here is that you like the Star Trek and Wars films better than 2001, or at least you feel that they have greater review value? And that I'm supposed to generalize this into "people like non-accurate (wrt reality) movies better than accurate ones"?
That might be true, but since the balance between scientifically accurate and non-accurate movies is so skewed in the favour of the latter I hardly think there is enough evidence for that. There are only a handful of films the people here can come up with that fall in the accurate camp. You even claimed that 2001 was the only one. Now that film is somewhat of an acquired taste even in style and pacing with or without the science I'd say. But if the public has only one (or a handful) 'accurate' films to choose from against thousands of inaccurate ones, then it's hardly surprising that more people view the latter ones, right?
So once again, I don't want or need or want to force all films to be scientifically accurate documentaries. I'm just posing the question why the balance is so extremely skewed and as an extension of that question why there would be any reason that scientific inaccuracy leads to more exciting films.
Only the geek minority is concernced with scientific accuracy.
You're buying the Hollywood stereotype. These kind of reactions are exactly why some people might be concerned. Science is not something that a couple of geeks do for their own fun hidden away in universities. Granted, there probably are these people as well, but science is everywhere in our world, in our society and we grow ever more dependent on it day by day. Glorifying scientific illiteracy (don't take this ---or anything I wrote really--- as a personal attack; it's a societal thing) in world like ours is a dangerous thing.
Since Carl Sagan already made his appearance in this thread allow me to throw in two quotes by him
We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.
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We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
But more importantly, if the characters and believable and relatable, and the story is good, who gives a flying frak about the science.
If there is no reason to depict nature in an unrealistic way, why do it?
It's science-FICTION and not science-FACT.
Firstly, it's not only in science fiction films that this matter arises. And secondly, I think I addressed this in my original post already, but by the same token you can say it's science FICTION, I can say its SCIENCE fiction. What does capitalizing part of the term prove?
I would like to take issue with the idea that a no-sound-in-space battle between spaceships would necessarily be boring. If sound is ABSOLUTELY needed, just have a musical soundtrack underscoring the action. You can also have lots of shots from inside the spaceships; the audience would then hear the spaceship engines and perhaps audio communications from other ships. Imagine a shot from inside one ship looking out a window or viewscreen at another ship that is sending an audio message. The ship sending the message is hit, and as we watch it explode, we hear the passengers scream and the roar of the flames for a second or two... followed by static. See? Dramatic!
But forget sound; I can imagine a completely silent spaceship explosion being quite dramatic or even poignant if filmed skillfully. Imagine the hero's look of sadness or perhaps horror as he watches the soundless destruction of his best friend's ship.
Obsessing over scientific accuracy might get in the way of good storytelling, but it's silly to worry about that when 99.99% of science fiction films never come close to obsessing over scientific accuracy. There is a lot of room between the extremes of "100% Accurate" and "Ignore Science Altogether", and I wouldn't mind if the pendulum swung a little more in the direction of "accurate".
Well spoken. I agree and hope that, if my own words above haven't, yours might clarify some of the points raised.
^No--it's your position that's ridiculous.
That's like saying "Stephen Baxter's Voyage would have been a much better novel if he'd just left out all that boring technical exposition and just concentrated on the story. Including all that rocket-science was a purely artistic decision."
When, of course, the technical exposition and rocket science were the whole point of the story. Voyage was a novel about solving the scientific and technological problem of sending human beings to Mars using Apollo-era technology.
Anyone who isn't interested in that sort of thing probably shouldn't be reading it. They definitely shouldn't try to read it, and then complain about how boring it is.
There is of course a difference between depicting nature or technology in a realistic way and making it the focus of your story.
Take the following analogy: I make a movie in which all the (human) characters that appear don't have human heads, but giraffe heads. I don't address this in the movie, it's not important to the plot, I don't even acknowledge that it's weird in any way. If you see my film you will wonder about the giraffe heads. Even if my film is not a documentary about the human head, you're still expecting that the humans in the film have human heads and not giraffe heads, at least not without good reason. Now replace in the argument above the 'humans with giraffe heads' with 'sound in space' or 'freezing vacuum' and ask yourself why we do accept these inaccuracies, even if they have no bearing on the plot whatsoever.
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