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]

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.