March 6th, 2007

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Movies, Science, Television
6 Comments »

Nine Movie Myths

I have an unhealthy affection for Mythbusters. The show’s hosts are such enormous nerds, and their experiments are such science-lite, how can you not like it?

I believe that Adam and Jamie have busted several of the myths described in this Neatorama post:

Sparking bullets are relatively recent invention in movie special effects. The gimmick provides a way of letting the audience know that the bullet just barely missed its target. In real life, sparks do occur when you scrape steel or other hard metals on hard surfaces (such as brick) because little pieces of brittle materials are heated to glow and fly off. The problem here is that bullets are generally made of lead because it’s dense and soft, and you don’t want the bullets scarring the steel of the gun barrel. Ever notice that no sparks fly from the front of the gun? That’s because you’re seeing lead bullets.

This is not really a myth, but I had a small eureka moment while watching early episodes of Battlestar Galactica. Yes, there was sound in space, but during combat the small ships would actually rotate on any axis, ignoring (as one does, in space) inertia. As a kid who grew up on the ‘dog fight in space’ model of Star Wars, this was kind of a shock.

UPDATE: Coincidentally, I just listened to a Metafilter podcast interview with Mythbusters host Adam Savage. Savage is apparently a fairly regular contributor to Metafilter. Here on a couple of choice quotes. First, on being himself online:

I spend a lot of time–actually, 3 or 4 times a year, removing fake profiles for me from MySpace.

And on the somewhat notorious Fark.com:

We have a joke here on the show…we’re always happy when Mythbusters gets mentioned on Fark.com, because the site gets a bunch of hits. There’s no single mention of Mythbusters on Fark that doesn’t, within five comments, deteriorate to people wanting to have sex with Kari.

Comments: 6 Responses so far

Derek K. Miller
March 6th, 2007
9:58 am

I think you’re thinking the opposite: in space, you’re ruled by inertia, and there aren’t the usual forces (gravity, drag) opposing it. So yes, space motion is counterintuitive for us, but that’s because inertia is almost all you’re dealing with.

[Reply]

darren
March 6th, 2007
10:02 am

Derek: I’m very likely wrong, but here’s what I mean: in most space movies, the spaceships seem to be rendered as they would in atmosphere. That is, they fly and face in the same direction.

In BG (and, I take it, a few other sci-fi pieces), a Cyclon raider might be carried by its inertia in one direction, but can re-orient so that it faces (and fights) another. Make sense?

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WCG
March 6th, 2007
4:03 pm

In “All Good Things…”, the last ST:TNG episode, it totally made me jump with glee when the “new” Enterprise came in vertically from the bottom of the screen, moving upwards into a ship that was sitting there in the “normal” horizontal orientation. Keen! Also, I am a giant nerd.

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Metro
March 7th, 2007
4:20 am

The first series I saw that included this was Babylon 5. There are some great shots of the Star Fury ships strafing bigger vessels by setting themselves in motion and then changing their orientation around their own axes as they drift past.

Why do we regard the Newtonian motion model as more thrillingly “accurate” in science fiction? I mean, if I can swallow Cylons, stellar empires, matter transporters and the like, why do I balk at ships that behave like aircraft in vacuum?

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Jack Ruttan
March 7th, 2007
5:14 pm

I’d really like stuff in space movies to fly around the way it does in the Asteroids videogame. But in three dimensions, and minus the boop-boop sound effects. I think audiences can take it. Maybe producers can’t.

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Jody
March 8th, 2007
3:53 am

> I have an unhealthy affection for Mythbusters.

There are only two shows I watch on television: Battlestar Galactica, and MythBusters. I wish I could only get the science-fiction and discovery channels in my cable package. Oh, and Treehouse, for the kids.

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