Great scott! For this list, we’ll be looking at films that took way too many liberties in bending the laws of science.
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00:00 A few more years development and we won't even have to dig anymore.
00:03 Why is it fun and mad?
00:05 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the top 10 scientifically
00:09 inaccurate movies.
00:10 Careful, Mike.
00:11 Disagree with anything Dr. Barnes says and she'll have you in city council meetings for
00:15 12 months.
00:16 For this list, we'll be looking at films that took way too many liberties in bending the
00:19 laws of science.
00:21 Which movie pseudoscience irks you the most?
00:24 Let us know in the comments.
00:27 Number 10.
00:28 Moon mishaps.
00:29 Moonfall.
00:30 The moon's orbit has shifted.
00:32 I'm sorry?
00:34 Its orbital radius is decreasing.
00:37 Well, that's not possible.
00:39 The moon can't collide with Earth.
00:41 Knowing this, the Moonfall consultants simply reversed the physical implications.
00:45 In reality, the moon is moving away from our planet at a rate of 1.5 inches per 365 days,
00:51 according to NASA.
00:52 So what would happen if it moved towards us instead?
00:55 Well, NASA and I aren't really on speaking terms these days.
00:57 Well, that'll change when you tell them that the moon is out of orbit.
01:02 One thing the movie gets right is the severe rise of tides, causing flooding, and subsequently
01:08 the lack of oxygen in higher atmospheres.
01:10 However, the moon would never get as close to the Earth as it does in the film.
01:14 It would break apart at around 11,470 miles from Earth, due to the Roche limit, the distance
01:20 at which one celestial body will disintegrate in the radius of another due to the force
01:25 of gravity.
01:26 Are we dead?
01:27 No, we are just inside the moon.
01:31 That might be the greatest sentence anyone's ever said.
01:34 Number 9.
01:35 Pandemic Problems.
01:36 Outbreak.
01:37 We'll have the blood tested, Henry.
01:38 I'm sure there's nothing to worry about.
01:40 Well, maybe you should give me gabaglobulin or something.
01:42 I wouldn't want to give anything to my girlfriend.
01:45 Flowers would be nice on occasion, don't you think?
01:47 This movie suffers from what has been called "awful science."
01:51 Many comparisons have been made with 2011's Contagion, which was far more accurate in
01:55 the eyes of science and procedure.
01:58 Outbreak features a number of problems, including inaccurate laboratory practices, a lab tech
02:03 fixing her hair with gloves on?
02:05 Not a good idea, lack of proper decontamination procedures, waltzing in and out of a quarantine
02:12 at will, and so on.
02:13 We have to work together, Sam.
02:17 Are we?
02:18 Are we what?
02:20 Are we working together, sir?
02:23 The virus in the film is, incorrectly, visible through a regular microscope.
02:27 It is compared to Ebola, and hence would only be detectable through an electron microscope.
02:32 Oh, and the "overnight vaccine" seems a little improbable, doesn't it?
02:38 What's wrong?
02:39 Her temperature's coming down, it's working, she's normalizing.
02:42 Come here.
02:43 Why would they use a South American capuchin monkey when the virus originated in Zaire?
02:49 Number 8.
02:50 Planetary Propulsion.
02:51 The Wandering Earth.
02:59 The Wandering Earth's disaster consists of the sun expanding and en route to destroy
03:03 the Earth in 2058.
03:06 Despite presumably advanced technology, the practical thing to do would be to move the
03:10 planet, right?
03:12 The world's governments must come together to build 12,000 fusion-propelled engines to
03:16 push the Earth out of the way.
03:18 No really.
03:19 The UN government has decided to push the Earth out of the solar system and fly to a
03:25 new home 4.2 light years away.
03:27 Oh, and in doing so, the collision of Earth with Jupiter must be avoided, as hitting Jupiter's
03:32 Roche limit - remember that from the Moonfall entry, Gravity Fields? - would have it crumble
03:36 under the pressure.
03:37 Well, in true action movie fashion, the space station team must sacrifice themselves to
03:42 a faulty engine.
03:43 The plan works, and everyone is saved.
03:46 We just needed to get out and push.
03:53 Number 7.
03:54 Erroneous Eruption.
03:55 Volcano.
03:56 And find me a scientist, geologist, somebody tell me what the hell is going on!
04:00 Hollywood loves to put natural disasters where they don't belong, and 1997's Volcano is no
04:06 exception.
04:07 A volcano spontaneously forms under Los Angeles, throwing the city into chaos and the quest
04:13 to find a solution.
04:14 The idea of a volcano forming out of nowhere is impossible, as formation takes millions
04:19 of years, and possible volcanic zones are carefully monitored.
04:23 In the film, lava is found flowing beneath the city, and panic ensues only when considering
04:29 the red stuff reaching street level.
04:31 Magma can find one of those fissures and rise up through it.
04:35 What's magma?
04:36 Lava.
04:37 Lava?
04:38 Uh, here in LA.
04:39 Again, this is an odd choice, as the lava would already have caused extensive damage
04:44 underground, making the street level damage superficial.
04:47 It has been said that the only thing relevant to volcanoes that the movie got right was
04:51 the presence of lava and ash.
04:53 Well, we now have a name for this crisis.
04:56 It is, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, a volcano.
05:00 Number 6.
05:01 Evolutionary Errors.
05:03 After Earth.
05:04 Do not attempt to land.
05:05 Repeat, do not attempt to land.
05:08 It's not possible.
05:11 Some aspects of sci-fi are expected to maintain some accuracy, such as the realistic evolution
05:17 of planet Earth and its fauna.
05:19 After Earth gets this wrong, according to a number of experts.
05:23 In the film, a spaceship crash-lands on Earth, 1,000 years after it is rendered unlivable
05:28 due to multiple disasters and the air becoming unbreathable.
05:32 They find the climate greatly changed in the future.
05:35 This is a class 1 quarantined planet.
05:38 Everything on this planet has evolved to kill humans.
05:41 However, this would not be the case, as humans are the main cause of climate change.
05:46 Thus, an Earth abandoned by humans wouldn't have continued to suffer the change so rapidly.
05:51 Also, plants and animals would not have evolved to live in the altered atmosphere so quickly,
05:57 since on average, such evolution takes anywhere from 500,000 to 5 million years.
06:03 That sucked.
06:06 That is correct.
06:07 Number 5.
06:08 Dino DNA Discrepancies - Jurassic Park
06:10 Dr. Grant, my dear Dr. Satchel, welcome to Jurassic Park.
06:18 We're all familiar with Jurassic Park.
06:21 Scientists have managed to isolate dinosaur DNA and clone the beasts.
06:25 It's all described in the dated 1990s cartoon in the film thanks to the intellectual talking
06:30 DNA strand.
06:31 And sometimes animals that went extinct millions of years ago, like dinosaurs, left their blueprints
06:38 behind for us to find.
06:39 However, in reality, the process would not be so easy.
06:43 Firstly, DNA isn't so resistant to the elements and breaks down over time.
06:48 The oldest found DNA so far, 30 years after the movie was released, is around 2 million
06:53 years old.
06:54 This is quite far from the Jurassic period, which was approximately 200 million years
06:59 ago.
07:00 DNA is also very fragile and easily lost if not properly handled.
07:04 The way in which the DNA is extracted, the needle through the sap, would likely result
07:08 in loss of the sample.
07:10 Using sophisticated techniques, they extract the preserved blood from the mosquito and,
07:16 bingo, dino DNA.
07:19 Number 4.
07:20 The biggest brain claims, Lucy.
07:31 Have you ever heard that we only use 10% of our brain?
07:34 Well, it's completely untrue.
07:37 The origin of the myth is a mystery, and we actually use most of our brains most of the
07:41 time.
07:42 In the movie Lucy, the 10% myth pseudoscience is the central idea.
07:46 Lucy, a drug mule, has a bag of substance open in her stomach.
07:51 Following this, she opens up the rest of her brain, resulting in superior physical and
07:55 mental capabilities, such as the loss of pain receptors and telekinesis.
08:00 Has it been proved scientifically?
08:02 For the moment, it's just hypothesis, I confess.
08:05 The problem is in the perpetuation of the myth.
08:08 Director Luc Besson claims to know of the bogus claim, but said that we do only use
08:13 15% of our neurons at a time.
08:16 Unfortunately, this is untrue as well.
08:24 Number 3.
08:26 Silly science, The Core.
08:33 The Core has been scientifically criticized to the core.
08:37 Pun intended.
08:38 The premise of the film is that a team must drill to the stagnant Earth's core to set
08:42 off nuclear bombs in order to jumpstart the rotation.
08:46 Should they fail, the Earth's magnetic field will collapse, exposing all to solar radiation.
08:50 "I need you to confirm my results, sir."
08:53 "Young man, do you have any idea who I am?"
08:56 "Yes, I do, sir.
08:58 Please read this."
08:59 "What's it about?"
09:00 "It's the end of the world."
09:03 The film shows several electronic malfunctions as a result of the weakening field, which
09:08 wouldn't actually affect electronic devices.
09:11 The ship breaks through the Earth using ultrasonic waves, which, according to experts, would
09:15 require so much energy that there's no way a small vessel could carry it.
09:20 The plan to restart the rotation of the core is also nonsense, as there's no way to control
09:25 the outcome of a nuclear explosion.
09:27 We're doomed.
09:28 "The core of the Earth has stopped spinning.
09:33 How could this have happened?"
09:35 Number 2.
09:36 The last freeze, the day after tomorrow.
09:38 "Janet Takata, this is Jack Hall.
09:40 Janet's a hurricane specialist with NASA.
09:43 Jack's a paleoclimatologist, and I have absolutely no idea what he's up to."
09:47 Climate change is a frequently discussed issue, and we should worry about it.
09:50 The idea of abrupt climate change is something that is actually feasible.
09:54 But "abrupt" means the time span would be decades rather than centuries.
09:58 So having North America completely freeze over a couple of days is nonsense, thankfully.
10:03 "If these people go outside, they will freeze to death!"
10:07 "Okay, what is this nonsense?"
10:09 "It's not nonsense."
10:10 The science behind the film isn't completely off, but the speed is.
10:14 The film mentions the sudden collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulations
10:19 — basically, deep currents in the Atlantic that transport heat, affecting weather patterns.
10:24 And though the flash freeze part isn't plausible, the actual AMOC is currently experiencing
10:28 some problematic changes.
10:30 Also, you can't outrun the cold or possibly stay warm at those temperatures, especially
10:35 if you get wet.
10:36 "It's too late for that.
10:37 The storm is just going to get worse.
10:38 It's going to turn into a massive blizzard with an eye in the centre of it, just like
10:43 a huge hurricane.
10:44 Only the air is going to be so cold you could freeze to death in seconds."
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11:04 Number 1.
11:05 Science Schmiance - Armageddon
11:07 "Japan's gone.
11:09 Australia's wiped out.
11:11 Half the world's population will be incinerated by the heat blast, and the rest will freeze
11:15 to death in nuclear winter."
11:16 Don't want to close your eyes?
11:17 Well, you probably should if you're looking for accurate science in this movie.
11:21 In Armageddon, a crisis ensues when a huge asteroid is found to be on a direct trajectory
11:26 with Earth, striking in 18 days.
11:29 Firstly, how come no one detected this before it became a dire emergency?
11:34 Asleep at the telescope, NASA?
11:35 "Dottie, I'm onto something big here.
11:37 I don't know what this is, but it looks like something's burning up there.
11:40 Go get my phone book, will you?
11:42 Get my phone book.
11:43 Get those names, those guys from NASA."
11:44 In the film, the plan is to blow up the asteroid using a nuclear bomb.
11:49 Astronomer Phil Plait pointed out that the energy needed to accomplish this would be
11:52 equivalent to that emitted by the sun.
11:55 He also pointed out that such a weapon would be far more dangerous than the asteroid itself,
12:00 as following its use, you would now have a "radioactive" asteroid.
12:04 "I know the president's chief scientific advisor.
12:06 We're at MIT together.
12:08 And in a situation like this, you really don't want to take the advice from a man who got
12:12 a C-minus in astrophysics."
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12:21 [END]