re: How much can bad science in Sci-Fi break immersion?

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At about :45

Star Trek Generations

A missile is shot at the sun, and it hits it as if it were hanging a few thousand feet in the sky.

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Action movies also get a bit of a pass - I don't REALLY consider Independence Day a "science fiction" movie in the strictest sense, so I don't mind that Jeff Goldblum wrote a virus that was able to interact with an alien system - on a Mac laptop less powerful than his phone.

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This always drives me crazy. That facility has been connected (via computer) to that alien spacecraft for literally decades. So why wouldn’t he be able to give it a virus?

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That facility has been connected (via computer) to that alien spacecraft for literally decades. So why wouldn’t he be able to give it a virus?

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It wasn't running until the mothership arrived - so only for 2 days at that point.

Not easy writing a virus for a computer that's turned off.

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I just watched Hurt Locker for the first time

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I heard too many bad things, so I ditched it. A lot of military films get it close because they listen to their advisors.

The Gold Standard for me is Blackhawk Down - it didn't get every single detail precisely correct, of course, but Ridley Scott's effort is evident.

For science fiction, I don't like the inconsistencies about how long it takes to get places/travel distances - generally it is whatever the plot requires which is off-putting (and insulting to the intelligence). I don't mind sound in space - for engines, I imagine that's the rumble you hear (and would hear) from inside. Although weapons fire and explosions are no Bueno.

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I do IT for a living. When I hear someone say they've "hacked the first firewall", or they break into private networks (ie: those not connected to the internet in any way) from their home, or "moving satellites into position", or they fix a computer that's not working with like 3 keystrokes... I cringe.

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Same.

My wife literally has to reach out and grab my arm when a TV show starts talking about computers at all because she knows how I'm likely to react.

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For science fiction, I don't like the inconsistencies about how long it takes to get places/travel distances

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That's one of the things I liked about Passengers. Granted, that was the whole plot of the movie. But the ship design, including the debris shielding, and how long it would take to get to the planet were close to what I imagine we will finally come up with when we start interstellar travel.