Hurtling through the galaxy at impossible speeds is a staple of space adventure tales. From Star Trek to Winnie the Pooh Gets Lost in Space, idiots have traversed the galaxy for decades, breaking all sorts of principles while doing so. The single cloud following Tigger around in The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: Cloud, Cloud, Go Away seems far more realistic by comparison.
Space is the final frontier. It is also governed by various principles of science, nature and physics that remain firmly in place regardless of lazy screenwriting. To that end, the following are five principles flagrantly bent or broken by Hollywood.
Speed
Albert Einstein postulated in his work On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies that the speed of light was an upper limit on velocity and information transmission in non-esoteric situations. What the hell does that mean, you ask? I’ll simplify Dr. Egghead’s conclusions: big, ugly ships with pizza saucers and tampon-shaped engines can’t go nine times the speed of light.
The Enterprise regularly flits across the Milky Way, which is approximately 100,000 light years across. Thus, William Shatner would be about 100,000 years old by the time his “five year mission” was over. Perhaps that explains why he looks and sounds so desiccated.
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— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) May 10, 2019
Intelligent Life
In the Star Wars Chalmun’s Cantina scene, there are some damn weird looking creatures. However, intelligent life is fairly humanoid in appearance: bipedal, with faces and genitals (probably) where we expect them. Even the bizarre Jabba the Hutt strongly resembles Marlon Brando after one too many trips to the all-you-can-eat buffet.
The concept holds true in virtually all other alien depictions. Adding a third breast to the alien female in Total Recall was titillating, but uninspired.
In Barrow and Tipler’s Strong Anthropic Principle, some worlds may evolve conscious life despite adverse conditions. Hence, although we are convinced life must be carbon-based and within the habitable zone of stellar systems, it may spawn from places and in ways we’d never believe possible, consisting of materials we’d never consider an option. Who’s to say intelligent life can’t look or feel like a walking vagina or a ball of phlegm?
Weather
In cinematic and television interpretations, alien planets have habitable weather similar to Earth. Air is almost always breathable and the weather is relatively Earth-like. Sure, Hoth is a bit snowy, but no worse than Buffalo, New York. Feel an aversion to the rain on LV-426? Then don’t live in Seattle.
On extrasolar planet COROT-7b, it may actually rain rocks. On HD209458b, a planet 150 light years away in the constellation Pegasus, winds howl at over 6,000 miles per hour. Even in our own solar system, there are ice geysers (Triton, Enceledus), raging volcanoes (Io, Venus), methane rain (Titan) and an airless oven (Mercury). Imagine Kirk beaming down to a planet and instantly vaporizing in 7,800 degree heat like on KELT 9b. There wouldn’t even be enough enough time for him to gasp, “Spock … I’m … melting!”
Sound
No principle of science, nature or physics is more regularly violated than sound. The sound of a gentle summer breeze is like Megadeth in concert when compared to the airless, noiseless vacuum of space.
The laser cannon blasts you hear in Battlestar Galactica? Impossible. The screaming of the Tie fighter and X-wing engines in Rogue One? Moronic. The Nostromo’s massive explosion in Alien? Idiotic.
Every screen battle should be like watching a Charlie Chaplin movie, minus the organ music.
Spatial Relationships
Pay attention to the next onscreen ship-to-ship space battle you witness. In fact, not just one, but all of them. Note that everything is always right side up.
There is no “up” in space. There’s no ground, no sky, nothing to orient to anything. Hence, in Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan when the Enterprise squares off against the Reliant, there is no reason why they would be on the same plane, much less the same axis. Enterprise could legitimately be upside-down or sideways while blasting away at the pirated Reliant. Imagine the visual communications on screen, with Khan bellowing threats and Kirk and crew craning their necks upside-down to see to him. I’m a doctor, not a chiropractor!
No principles
Lazy writing leads to silly or impossible rule-bending of science, nature and/or the principles of physics. Spielberg invented flying bicycles, Abrams beamed Kirk and Spock across light years of distance, and it’s always sunny on planet Philadelphia.
At least in space, no one can hear you scream. Wait, check that.
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