{"id":7074,"date":"2012-05-08T11:18:03","date_gmt":"2012-05-08T15:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2012\/05\/08\/the-crappy-science-of-comic-bo\/"},"modified":"2012-05-08T11:18:03","modified_gmt":"2012-05-08T15:18:03","slug":"the-crappy-science-of-comic-bo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2012\/05\/08\/the-crappy-science-of-comic-bo\/","title":{"rendered":"The Crappy Science of Comic-Book Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

I go back and forth about the whole question of scientific accuracy in tv shows and movies. On the one hand, I think that complaining “Explosions don’t make noise in space!” is one of the worst forms of humorless dorkitude, and I’m generally happy to let bad science slide by in the service of an enjoyable story. On the other hand, though, I am<\/em> a professional physicist, and it’s hard to turn that off completely.<\/p>\n

Weirdly, one thing that tends to push me toward complaining about the science is when people start doing “The Science of ______” pieces, as both MSNBC<\/a> and io9<\/a> did for The Avengers<\/cite>, and when movie people start patting themselves on the abck for having consulted with scientists. Because, you know, if you’re going to talk up the fact that there’s science behind the movie, you’re asking to be held to a higher standard.<\/p>\n

And, really, most of the recent spate of comic-book movies have had scenes of technobabble that are every bit as dumb as anything produced in the days before consulting scientists. One of the worst was an exchange in The Avengers<\/cite>, where the team’s scientists, Bruce Banner and Tony Stark, are trying to help S.H.I.E.L.D. track down Loki and his stolen energy source:<\/p>\n

\n

BANNER: How many spectrometers do you have?<\/p>\n

SHIELD GUY: We have the cooperation of every university in the country.<\/p>\n

BANNER: Tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof, and set them to detect gamma radiation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(That’s paraphrased a bit from memory.) This is one of the stupidest science-type lines I’ve heard in any recent movie. To give you an idea of how stupid it is, here’s an analogue in more everyday terms:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

BANNER: How many vehicles do you have?<\/p>\n

SHIELD GUY: We have the cooperation of every transportation service in the country.<\/p>\n

BANNER: Have them put all the vehicles on the roof, and set them to be helicopters.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

“Spectrometer” is a general class of instrument for measuring the intensity of radiation over a range of frequencies. This encompasses a huge range of highly specialized devices designed to measure optical, infrared, microwave, ultraviolet. x-ray, and gamma ray sources, in the same way that “vehicles” encompasses cars, boats, trains, planes, and helicopters. There isn’t a toggle switch on the front of the shiny “spectrometer” box to pick between visible and gamma-ray settings, any more than there’s a button to turn your car into a helicopter.<\/p>\n

This is a significant problem for the movie, because as many reviews have noted, the back-and-forth between Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo as Stark and Banner is otherwise excellent. The problem is, every time they say something that’s supposed to sound science-y, they sound incredibly stupid, and no amount of on-screen chemistry can fix that.<\/p>\n

And the really sad thing about it is that it wouldn’t take much to fix:<\/p>\n

\n

BANNER: How many gamma-ray spectrometers do you have?<\/p>\n

SHIELD GUY: We have the cooperation of every university in the country.<\/p>\n

BANNER: Have them look for a peak at 1337 MeV.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It doesn’t take any more time on screen, involves one more technobabble term, and isn’t egregiously stupid. If you don’t like the use of MeV, throw in some other term– “K-band lines” or some such.<\/p>\n

So, you know, if you’re going to get scientists to consult on your movie, consult them. Throwing in the occasional topical reference to “dark matter” or “Einstein-Rosen bridge,” or getting someone from Fermilab to help you dress the accelerator set is nice, and all, but doesn’t offset gross stupidity elsewhere.<\/p>\n

(This is, of course, a problem for any kind of science fiction, on-screen or off, but it’s particularly bad for comic books, many of which are burdened with a continuity stretching back to a time when “gamma radiation” really was a mysterious and poorly understood thing. They’re sort of stuck with these dippy origin stories, and the need to keep the archaic terminology that the fans expect ends up infecting everything else.)<\/p>\n

(Other than the really dumb technobabble, the movie was… fine. It’s good spectacle, which is mostly what I was after, but it wasn’t a transcendant experience, or anything. It was a good, competent summer blockbuster, fun while I was in the theater, and not anything I’m dying to see again.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I go back and forth about the whole question of scientific accuracy in tv shows and movies. On the one hand, I think that complaining “Explosions don’t make noise in space!” is one of the worst forms of humorless dorkitude, and I’m generally happy to let bad science slide by in the service of an… Continue reading The Crappy Science of Comic-Book Movies<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265,35,7,37,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in_the_media","category-movies","category-physics","category-pop_culture","category-science","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}