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The Crappy Science of Comic-Book Movies [Uncertain Principles]
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 a professional physicist, and it’s hard to turn that off completely.
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 and io9 did for The Avengers, 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.
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, 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:
BANNER: How many spectrometers do you have?
SHIELD GUY: We have the cooperation of every university in the country.
BANNER: Tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof, and set them to detect gamma radiation.
(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:
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