Do science fiction films need to have realistic science?

[philmophlegm]

“An American physicist is calling for Hollywood producers to tone down the fanciful science in movies - and restrict themselves to just one scientific flaw per film.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8530405.stm

So – how real should the science in science fiction be?

Discuss.

Personally, as long as the fictional setting is internally consistent, I’m not overly bothered by fanciful ‘science’ in science fiction. I think science fiction should be more about the fiction than the science.

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

And one more thing: I'm much more tolerant in cases when the author has apparently gone "No, I know that this probably could never happen... but what if it it did?" than when the author hasn't bothered to do even the most simple research. Lack of research annoys me - e.g. American films (or books) which are set in Britain, but clearly haven't bothered to glance at a map of the place, and have people walking from Scotland to London in a day. Such things are so easy to get right, so getting them wrong shows either laziness, or a "it doesn't matter" attitude.

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

*nods* some more.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Eg landing at Dover, and walking to Nottingham via Hadrian's wall. Or driving from London to North Yorkshire, having a drink and then heading back home.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oooh, now in a nicely bad film I like that sort of thing. It jars in a 'good' film, but in a film that contains suitable numbers of explosions, terrible accents, bad special effects, appalling costumes, dying people in red jumpers and cries of 'we've gotta get out of here' it's nice to have those extra 'bad research' boxes ticked...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

The director who was heard to ask why one of the Tracey brothers in the Thunderbirds film couldn't be black ...

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I read that as "dyeing people in red jumpers". Is this a desperate last-ditch attempt by people in red jumpers to avoid their fate by leaping into a vat of blue dye? Or do captains chuck anyone they consider disposable into a vat of red dye just before the battle, to ensure that they only lose people they can spare?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Me too!

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I'm much more tolerant of that sort of thing in movies, especially when it's something that isn't explicit in the script - i.e. when you only know that they've strolled from Kent to Yorkshire in two minutes if you happen to recognise the places from the scenery. It's like in the TV version of Inspector Morse, when viewers who knew Oxford could tell that the first sentence of a conversation happened in the lodge of one college, the second in the front quad of another college, and the third somewhere else entirely. But I didn't think it really mattered that much, since it was obviously a case of the practicalities of filming and the aesthetics of different places.