4 Science Mistakes Star Wars: Episode VII Needs to Fix
- Thread starter Rhykker
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As crazy as it sounds, #2 is not a completely valid complaint. The Kessel Run IS a well-known smuggling route in the Star Wars universe. The reason is because near Kessel is a large cluster of black holes, called the Maw. Needless to say, black holes are very dangerous and should be avoided at all costs, so all ships flying in the area give them a WIDE birth. This is because most people are smart and cautious.Rhykker said:
Han Solo is not that smart and certainly not cautious. Instead of flying the long way around the Maw (along the circumference) he obtained a map of the individual holes' gravitational fields and flew through it (across the diameter). This may not be what George Lucas originally meant (point #1, bad writing) but the jargon makes sense. If it weren't for the "Fast ship?" line, Han would not be boasting about speed but his ingenuity in never getting caught.
half the circumference ~= 12 parsecs
diameter < half the circumference
diameter < 12 parsecs
That's well-put, and when fully explained, it's no longer a mistake. I feel as though the Expanded Universe really addresses a lot of the "issues" with Star Wars, but unfortunately, what's seen in the movies is what's seen in the movies. The audience can't possibly intuit that explanation given what little context was presented.TiberiusEsuriens said:As crazy as it sounds, #2 is not a completely valid complaint. The Kessel Run IS a well-known smuggling route in the Star Wars universe. The reason is because near Kessel is a large cluster of black holes, called the Maw. Needless to say, black holes are very dangerous and should be avoided at all costs, so all ships flying in the area give them a WIDE birth. This is because most people are smart and cautious.Rhykker said:
Han Solo is not that smart and certainly not cautious. Instead of flying the long way around the Maw (along the circumference) he obtained a map of the individual holes' gravitational fields and flew through it (across the diameter). This may not be what George Lucas originally meant (point #1, bad writing) but the jargon makes sense. If it weren't for the "Fast ship?" line, Han would not be boasting about speed but his ingenuity in never getting caught.
half the circumference ~= 12 parsecs
diameter < half the circumference
diameter < 12 parsecs
So in sum... The EU did a great job at making Han's line make sense. But it's still a mistake in the movie, because it doesn't come across like that. I'd be cool with Han giving the explanation you outlined in Ep 7
Yup, but good luck ever getting them to sit down and actually talk science. The EU tweaks and explains a lot of really cool things, but not only has it been sidelined, but as you stated most people don't know it exists. Any movie should be able to stand on its own anyways.Rhykker said:So in sum... The EU did a great job at making Han's line make sense. But it's still a mistake in the movie, because it doesn't come across like that. I'd be cool with Han giving the explanation you outlined in Ep 7
I'd be interested to see how many ideas from there leak into the new canon. Picking and choosing would certainly cause an uproar among fans, but Disney has to at least recognize that canonizing stuff such as Boba Fett escaping the sarlac pit is an excuse to print free mone- er.. I meant new Boba Fett toys and games >.<
And then Harry Potter said "Abracamurder!" and all the bad guys in the universe died. What do you mean he's breaking the rules? It's magic.jaibryan said:
Just because it's a sci-fi movie doesn't mean they can spout confusing gibberish, especially when it costs nothing for them not to.
I think there is a reasonable way to save the midi-chlorians. Instead of being force enablers, merely have them as force sensitive organisms that multiply in a force sensitive host. That way, it still makes sense for Obi Wan to test Anakins blood and notice his high midichlorian count indicating high force sensitivity, but we aren't left with tricky questions like why you can't breed these things in a vat and inject them into anyone who wants them.
See, now you're confusing two unrelated concepts: Factual errors and bad storytelling. Harry Potter saying "Lumos!" and having a piece of wood light up makes as much sense as saying "Abracamurder!" and having the plot be resolved. You or I can't do either one, after all since Magic isn't real in the real world.Clowndoe said:
Correcting errors if you notice them is all well and good, but if ignoring them makes for an entertaining story that looks cool (SEE: Fighter plane dynamics on space planes) then may as well ignore them.
Well, if we're going off of technicalities, then Clowndoe is right. Science Fiction is fiction where everything can/should be explainable scientifically. Fantasy is making shit up because it's neat. Most Sci-Fi certainly does blur the lines, though. I mean, that is the sole reason that the SciFi channel changed their name to SyFy. Science-Fantasy means they get to be scientific when they want while still making shit up because it's fun.jaibryan said:
Star Wars has incredibly outlandish things, but it really tries to stay in the former. They took the coolest magical idea they had and retconned a scientific explanation to it almost for this very reason. (cough, midichlorians, cough) Also because of Point #1: they suck at writing.
Ehh, not misusing jargon would be nice, but I'm really not convinced that fixing either of the first two would really make it a better movie. The problem with Star Wars has never been scientific faux pas, it's been wooden character portrayal and mediocre script. (And some would argue an inconsistent tone [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLyNMSkTiGg]; but I think that's one of it's strengths)
More focus on the combat tactics? And explaining (or worse, not explaining) an unintuitive physics system to the audience? Not really what the series needs, at least in my opinion. (Never mind that having the rules of physics change between movies is probably a more jarring issue than the original issue to begin with)
And the fourth? I'm not going to defend midi-chloreans, by any means, but they're hardly a "science mistake".
More focus on the combat tactics? And explaining (or worse, not explaining) an unintuitive physics system to the audience? Not really what the series needs, at least in my opinion. (Never mind that having the rules of physics change between movies is probably a more jarring issue than the original issue to begin with)
And the fourth? I'm not going to defend midi-chloreans, by any means, but they're hardly a "science mistake".
The way I heard it, Han Solo's line really is a misuse of jargon - a deliberate, in-universe mistake. In the fourth draft of the original script, Obi-Wan is literally described as reacting "to Solo?s stupid attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation," and even in the final draft the paranthesis attached to Han's line are "obviously lying". Han is a bullshitter trying to pull the wool over the eyes of a couple of out-of-town rubes.
To be fair with regards to the Earth gravity thing, it is pretty likely that humans would only settle in large numbers on planets with gravity close to 1g. We're not really built for living in heavier gravity for very long, and settling in low gravity or zero g has it's own set of problems, and would make it extremely difficult to transition back to more normal gravity for even a short period of time.
Though I will wholeheartedly agree that when we see things like Han and friends landing inside of an asteroid, it's either one damn big asteroid that has been inappropriately classified as such, or they should be bouncing around the place at the very least. But going from Tatooine, to Hoth, to Coruscant? Not a big surprise if those places have similar gravity.
Though I will wholeheartedly agree that when we see things like Han and friends landing inside of an asteroid, it's either one damn big asteroid that has been inappropriately classified as such, or they should be bouncing around the place at the very least. But going from Tatooine, to Hoth, to Coruscant? Not a big surprise if those places have similar gravity.
But on the other hand, hiding out on a forest moon that doesn't have enough gravity to make humans feel comfy seems like a perfect, non-intuitive place to build a secret Rebel base. If people think that only teddy bears can live there happily, they won't look for a base. Meanwhile, the Rebels set up the base with whatever gravity-creating machines they have on their spaceships and are as happy as clams.Vivi22 said:
Anyways, interesting article.
That last one doesn't really gel with the rest of them; first you offer suggestions on how Star Wars can be more scientifically-accurate, then you go onto say it needs to ditch the pseudo-science and go back to being magic fantasy. Part of the charm of Star Wars is that it's mostly rule-of-cool nonsense.
Besides galaxies are vast. Our galaxy has up to 300 billion stars. Let's say about 40% of those have planetary systems (it's an estimate I got from an old Extra Credits episode who got it from NASA), that means 120 billion star systems. Let's be conservative and say only one per mil of those star systems has only one planet with gravity similar to earth's. That's still 120 million planets. How many planets does the complete (now defunct) Star Wars canon including expanded universe feature? I don't know, I'm not into that... But I doubt it's much more than 500.Vivi22 said: