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  • - I'm totally cool with having light sabers

  • and all kinds of stuff,

  • because it makes a super exciting movie,

  • and besides, that's my favorite movie,

  • so it definitely gets a pass.

  • I'm Andy Howell.

  • I'm a staff scientist at Las Cumbres Observatory

  • and a Professor of Physics

  • at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

  • I'm also the host of Science vs. Cinema.

  • Today, we're gonna be reviewing some space

  • and science scenes in film.

  • [upbeat music]

  • This is "Ad Astra," directed by James Gray.

  • In this scene, Roy is forced to jump

  • from an antenna at a really high altitude.

  • [rocket whooshes]

  • Okay, so this scene starts off "Ad Astra,"

  • and it's a pretty cool idea of,

  • you think Brad Pitt's an astronaut,

  • but then he goes outside and he's actually on a tower,

  • and then he falls off this tower,

  • and the shot is really cool,

  • and it's an amazing way to start a movie.

  • The problem is it's just not justified at all.

  • What I like about it, though, is it's based on reality.

  • There was a test that the Air Force did

  • of high altitude parachute jumps back in the 50s.

  • And this guy, Joseph Kittinger, actually did a,

  • not a fall off a tower, but a fall off,

  • I think it was a balloon,

  • to see what it would be like to do

  • that exact stunt that was done in the movie.

  • What happened was the air was too thin

  • and he started spinning and he spun so fast

  • he actually lost consciousness.

  • - [Roy] General McBride.

  • I'm in the spin.

  • Atmosphere's too thin to stabilize.

  • - So I really like basing that kind of thing on reality,

  • sort of subverting our expectations

  • into thinking he's just a regular astronaut,

  • but he's in a tower on Earth.

  • The problem is there's no scientific reason

  • to have a tower like that.

  • What they say in the movie is that it's

  • to communicate with aliens.

  • Well, we can already do that today

  • with radio dishes on the ground.

  • With radio, you don't have to put it above the atmosphere.

  • They could have made it so

  • that it was a space elevator, though.

  • That would have been super cool.

  • That's this idea of you build a tower to space

  • and then you can ride it up,

  • and instead of launching a rocket,

  • you can just get off your space elevator into orbit,

  • but sadly, they just went with

  • this uninformed thing of building a tower for no reason.

  • This is "Star Wars: A New Hope,"

  • directed by George Lucas, and in this clip,

  • Luke Skywalker admires the twin suns of Tatooine.

  • [gentle music]

  • Alright, man, do I love that scene?

  • "Star Wars" is my favorite movie,

  • and I would make a case

  • for it being the best movie in history.

  • And that's one of the best scenes from it.

  • I mean, just that John Williams music.

  • Luke, as he's about to leave home and embark

  • on this great adventure, you see these twin suns.

  • So visually you just know we're on another planet.

  • It works so well.

  • And astrophysically, it actually tells you a lot

  • about the world of "Star Wars."

  • Actually, most stars in the sky,

  • maybe not quite half, are binary stars.

  • So we have one star, the Sun here,

  • but many stars are two stars orbiting each other.

  • So the question is,

  • how do you get planets around a two-star system?

  • One possibility is that you have planets going around one

  • of the stars and that's actually the case in "Avatar."

  • And then the two stars orbit each other,

  • but the plants are just going around one of the stars.

  • In that case, you would get sometimes the stars,

  • both being aligned in the sky, like during the daytime,

  • being in the same direction.

  • At other times, you might be in between both of the stars,

  • which, if you think about it, as your planet rotates,

  • means that there will always be a star up,

  • and you'll never have nighttime.

  • So those are quite weird,

  • but they're the kind that we see

  • in "Star Wars" is two stars orbiting each other,

  • and then the planet orbiting the pair

  • of stars from farther away.

  • How do we know this?

  • Well, in "Star Wars: Episode III,"

  • they show the same sunset,

  • and so that's like 18 years earlier,

  • and yet, the stars are about the same size in the sky,

  • and they're both rising and setting together.

  • And the fact that they're sort of yellow

  • and orange stars tells you that they're very close

  • to the mass of our star

  • because the color of the star tells you the temperature.

  • At the time, "Star Wars" was made in 1977.

  • We didn't know about planets around other star systems,

  • but today we have, for example, the Kepler Satellite,

  • and it has found thousands of planets around other worlds,

  • including a planet around a binary star,

  • very similar to what we see in "Star Wars."

  • And in fact, scientists informally refer to it as Tatooine,

  • even though its real name is Kepler-16b.

  • This is "Black Panther," directed by Ryan Coogler.

  • In this clip, Shuri shows her brother T'Challa some

  • of her new inventions.

  • - I have great things to show you, brother.

  • Here are your communication devices for Korea.

  • Unlimited range.

  • Also equipped with audio surveillance system.

  • Check these out.

  • - So we've got this laboratory in Wakanda,

  • and it's a great example of Afrofuturism,

  • where in this case, they're imagining a country

  • who had great resources and technological development

  • that was spared the horrors of colonialism.

  • So they didn't have, they weren't set back by

  • all of these bad things that happen in the real world.

  • So I just loved that,

  • and I love seeing all these inventions,

  • and Shuri is just such a great character.

  • Her sort of glee with which she talks about all

  • of her inventions and her relationship with her brother

  • and how she's sort of making fun of him and everything.

  • - [T'Challa] And what are these?

  • - The real question is what are those?

  • Why do you have your toes out in my lab?

  • - You get the sense of humor that scientists have.

  • You get this joy of discovery and of new inventions,

  • and I just really do love seeing a black woman in this role.

  • That is not typically what you see.

  • You usually see a white man

  • in a lab coat, totally humorless,

  • just crazed about technology or something like that.

  • But that's not what scientists are like.

  • I see more of myself in Shuri than I do

  • in most portrayal of scientists in movies,

  • She captures the essence of science better than, say,

  • in "Armageddon" or "Independence Day,"

  • some nerd in a lab coat.

  • One of the things I really like about the narrative

  • of "Black Panther" is it's based

  • on this asteroid that came to Earth

  • and crashed and it's made of vibranium.

  • And so part of the thing here is that there's this culture

  • who has resources that help them sort of get ahead,

  • but then it helps them shield themselves from colonialists

  • who aren't able to come and get it.

  • This same kind of thing has happened

  • on Earth in various ways, almost identically.

  • We've had iron-nickel meteorites.

  • That's one of two types of meteorites.

  • They're either stony or iron-nickel,

  • and before cultures had the ability to mine iron,

  • they were able to mine this meteorite,

  • been able to get the iron from it,

  • and they don't always get a huge technological advantage.

  • They have, in a couple of cases,

  • but they usually have used it to make ceremonial things

  • like daggers and pendants.

  • One of King Tut's daggers was made of meteoric iron.

  • We can tell that by analyzing the composition,

  • and the Inuit, even though people

  • around them had Stone Age technology,

  • there's a case where a group of them were able

  • to make metal fish hooks and spear tips

  • and things like that.

  • It's astounding to me that that kind of thing has happened.

  • But even more surprising is that every time

  • where a culture has had this,

  • colonizers came and took the meteorite away.

  • There's only one case where that didn't happen,

  • and that was 'cause the meteorite was like 80 tons

  • and people couldn't move it.

  • So this thing of getting a technology from space

  • and then colonialists stealing it,

  • unless you hide it from them, that is real.

  • So I really love the fact that they were able

  • to take this astrophysical story,

  • but then weave it into a narrative that is very meaningful

  • for both the characters in the movie,

  • and to a lot of people.

  • It's affected all of our lives on Earth.

  • This is "E.T.," directed by Steven Spielberg.

  • In this clip, Elliott's home gets invaded

  • by astronauts after E.T. falls ill.

  • [moans]

  • - [Elliott] Leave him alone.

  • [dramatic music]

  • [scientist breathing heavily]

  • [scientist roars]

  • [Elliott screams]

  • - Alright, so what's going on in this scene,

  • we've got Elliott and E.T., who are really vulnerable,

  • and at the same time,

  • the scientists are coming into the house,

  • and their faces are obscured.

  • We really have lost their sense of humanity.

  • They're breathing really weirdly,

  • and they're like these home invaders.

  • So they're the real clear villains.

  • These are scientists who just want to study E.T.

  • I mean, wouldn't you want to study extraterrestrial life

  • if it came to your planet after thousands of years?

  • Think about it.

  • E.T. has knowledge of physics way beyond whatever we do.

  • He has knowledge of interstellar travel.

  • It answers the question:

  • Are we alone in the universe?

  • And he can revive things from the dead.

  • Okay, so this could be the key

  • to all of us having immortality,

  • and yet somehow Spielberg makes us root for a kid

  • to keep all of that away from us,

  • by making scientists into the villains.

  • Look, I'm a scientist.

  • All we want to do is study things

  • and make the world a better place.

  • So I think there was room in the movie

  • to make the scientists heroes,

  • and also have this kid and alien relationship.

  • This is "Avatar," directed by James Cameron.

  • In this clip, we're introduced

  • to Pandora's floating mountains.

  • [dramatic music]

  • So I really like a lot of aspects of what we're seeing here

  • and in "Avatar" in general.

  • We've got these Na'vi,

  • these creatures that are like really long

  • and skinny blue creatures,

  • and they've got these sort of horse-like creatures

  • with them going around on these floating mountains.

  • Okay, so everything about that has some basis

  • in what James Cameron was trying

  • to create here with this movie.

  • We're on a moon around a planet around Alpha Centauri,

  • one of the closest star systems.

  • So it makes sense that that's one of the first ones

  • that we would visit, and the allude to the fact

  • that the gravity might be a little lower on this planet,

  • I think maybe that's one

  • of the reasons they're very tall and long.

  • They're just evolving

  • under a different set of circumstances.

  • In fact, he had biologists create

  • a whole evolutionary ecosystem there.

  • James Cameron is a very smart guy,

  • and he actually did talk

  • to lots and lots of scientists.

  • The floating mountains there are based

  • on a real thing involved in superconductivity.

  • It involves magnetic field lines,

  • and the fact that you can actually have some piece of metal,

  • under certain conditions, float above something else.

  • Now you can do that with light things.

  • A whole mountain would be a little tricky, okay.

  • I actually talked to James Cameron about this, and he said,

  • "Well, I actually did the calculation,

  • and the magnetic fields would be so strong

  • it would rip the hemoglobin out of your blood."

  • Okay, but he just said, "Just too cool of a visual.

  • I couldn't not use it," so I can get behind him on that.

  • He did his homework.

  • He knows that this is a principle

  • that makes a really striking visual.

  • It really says alien landscape.

  • And yet, those are based on some mountains in China

  • that are real mountains.

  • They don't float, but they look a lot like that.

  • So he's really making it ring true

  • while being alien at the same time.

  • And that is quite a delicate balancing act.

  • This is "Armageddon," directed by Michael Bay.

  • - Your Stouffer's pot pie's been

  • on the table almost 10 hours.

  • I want a divorce.

  • - Dottie, I'm on to something big here.

  • I don't know what this is,

  • but it looks like something's burning up there.

  • Go get my phone book, will you?

  • Get my phone book.

  • Get those names of those guys from NASA,

  • - Excuse me, am I wearing a sign that says Karl's slave?

  • - Go get my goddamn phone book!

  • - There we have some kind of an amateur astronomer

  • who's got this massive telescope apparently at his house,

  • but just nothing in that scene is right.

  • He's got a lounge chair somehow,

  • and he's looking through an eyepiece,

  • and he's got the lights on.

  • This is just not how you do astronomy, okay?

  • We use telescopes in really dark places.

  • Amateurs don't usually have a big, huge telescope like that.

  • Although maybe a few do,

  • but then you don't look through an eyepiece anymore, okay?

  • We take digital images.

  • This is a popular misconception caused

  • by movies and things like that.

  • We used cameras before there were digital cameras

  • and now digital cameras to record things,

  • both professional astronomers and amateur astronomers

  • do not look through an eyepiece except for fun.

  • You might point your telescope at the Moon and look just

  • to see something with your eyeball.

  • But if you're really trying to discover something,

  • and especially if you're gonna make a discovery

  • that no human has ever seen before,

  • you can't do it with your eye.

  • You have to go deeper like you can with a camera,

  • and a camera, you could expose for an hour.

  • Your eyeball only gets photons from the last few seconds,

  • so you can't make a big discovery

  • using your eyeballs anymore.

  • There are immature astronomers out there

  • and they do make contributions to science.

  • They actually do discover comets and asteroids sometimes,

  • but they don't do it like this.

  • Even if you're an amateur level astronomer,

  • you got to use professional tools at a professional level

  • if you're gonna make the really huge discoveries.

  • This is "The Martian," directed by Ridley Scott.

  • [dramatic music]

  • - [Lewis] I can't get to you, Mark.

  • You're too far.

  • I'm not gonna make it.

  • - [Mark] I know.

  • - [Lewis] Beck, unhook me.

  • I'm going after him.

  • - [Mark] Commander, I got this.

  • [air whooshes]

  • [Mark grunts]

  • - So in this scene, Mark has a capsule,

  • but he couldn't quite reach

  • where his crew mates were there to rescue him.

  • They're in a slightly higher orbit.

  • So he decides he's gonna punch a hole in his suit

  • and use a basic principle of physics, that for every action,

  • there's an equal and opposite reaction.

  • And the gas shooting out of his suit will propel him

  • to reach his crew mates there.

  • That's an interesting idea.

  • It's based on some reality, this is how thrusters work,

  • but it's not that well-executed.

  • For one thing, that kind of thing is super unstable.

  • They try to show it a little bit in that scene

  • where he's sort of moving his hand around

  • and he's sort of flying every which way.

  • If you are not directly in front of your center of mass,

  • you'll just actually rotate around.

  • And this has happened before where

  • in one of the Gemini missions,

  • a thruster got stuck and the capsule just started rotating.

  • And in fact, Neil Armstrong almost died

  • before he ever went to the Moon.

  • Luckily he was able to control his thrusters

  • and get it back under control,

  • but it was a really close call,

  • and you can't really get enough thrust

  • with the gas escaping from your suit

  • to really transfer orbits that way.

  • Usually it depends on the exact specifics,

  • and they actually had some decent numbers in there

  • about the relative velocities that you would be going

  • in that particular case,

  • and the relative velocities you could achieve.

  • The crew commander there had on a big old backpack,

  • and that's supposed to be like a maneuvering unit,

  • and astronauts really do have things

  • like that they have used in the past,

  • and that actually gives you much better control,

  • thrust, everything else.

  • So she should have been the one going to get him,

  • not the other way around.

  • This is "Hidden Figures," directed by Theodore Melfi.

  • "Hidden Figures" is based on the true story

  • of Katherine Johnson and two other women

  • who really did help the space program achieve its goals

  • through their brilliance and hard work.

  • - Euler's Method.

  • - Euler's Method.

  • - Yes.

  • - That's ancient.

  • - But it works.

  • It works numerically.

  • - The math we're actually trying

  • to solve there is real math,

  • and that Euler's Method is a real method

  • to try to solve math problems like this.

  • So I'm really glad that they got that part right.

  • It's a little bit of a tweak because it's a movie.

  • Mathematicians don't really talk like that to each other

  • and really explain the context

  • of every method they're using there,

  • but we all know it to say, "Euler's Method.

  • Oh yeah, okay.

  • I'll just try it."

  • You don't really set the stage, but that's okay.

  • It's a movie.

  • You have to explain to the audience what's going on.

  • [suspenseful music]

  • So what's going on is she has had this insight

  • that allows them to solve this equation

  • that was giving them a really hard time.

  • And that's really this stroke of genius

  • that then helps the space program achieve its goals.

  • But, of course, she's also a black woman.

  • And so as other scenes in the movie showed,

  • she had been kind of marginalized,

  • maybe not believed so much.

  • And yet she's the one that can come through

  • and triumph in the end.

  • So it's a really powerful scene.

  • And the whole movie is full of great moments like that.

  • It's a really, really great movie.

  • I did not really know that story.

  • And why didn't I?

  • I don't know, but that's the power of Hollywood.

  • Now everybody knows these stories and people are starting

  • to have just a greater recognition

  • of these women's contributions to the space program,

  • but that's going to inspire a whole new generation.

  • And that's so important.

  • If we're only using a tiny fraction

  • of our Earth's population of people's brain power,

  • then we're just seeing a teeny piece of the picture.

  • If we can actually expand that

  • to use the whole Earth's brain power,

  • we will all be better off as humans.

  • This is "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,"

  • directed by James Gunn.

  • ["My Sweet Lord" by George Harrison]

  • My sweet Lord

  • Mmm, my Lord

  • - So this is a space fantasy.

  • It's not really trying to be rooted in real science.

  • It's a very comic book kind of narrative,

  • but what's amazing to me is that you can still show that

  • on screen and not have you disengaged.

  • That's the power of really good storytelling.

  • I mean, you can see some

  • of the tricks James Gunn uses to achieve it.

  • He makes this sort of almost comically beautiful land

  • of candy and wonder or something at the beginning

  • with these fish jumping through fountains

  • and cool, amazing vistas.

  • And then you reveal a little bit about the characters

  • through comedy and things like that.

  • And then you get the sense

  • that maybe things aren't all quite what they seem.

  • So it's okay to have a little fun, and not everything has

  • to be perfectly scientifically accurate.

  • It has to fit the tone of the movie.

  • My policy is do whatever you need to do

  • to have some really good storytelling,

  • but just don't get stuff wrong

  • because you don't know any better.

  • And this isn't dealing with anything we know about.

  • This isn't talking about Mars

  • or the Andromeda galaxy or something.

  • It's just a made up comic book fun story.

  • This is "Interstellar," directed by Christopher Nolan.

  • In this clip, Cooper is entering a black hole.

  • - [Cooper] Approaching the event horizon.

  • Portside, dipping down beneath it, to go through it.

  • - First of all, I love the rendering

  • of that black hole there.

  • They actually had a team of scientists and movie people,

  • I think it was something like 20 people,

  • make an accurate black hole using general relativity

  • and like a simulation.

  • They actually published a couple

  • of scientific papers on that, so we will learn something.

  • Almost no scientists realized

  • that you would actually see that arc

  • over the top of the black hole.

  • When we saw it on screen, we were like, of course,

  • but until they actually did the simulation,

  • most people didn't realize that.

  • [spaceship rumbling]

  • - The screen's getting interference.

  • Losing control of the stick.

  • - So they had some sort of spray of,

  • I don't know exactly what it is,

  • if that was exhaust from the spaceship or something,

  • it looked kind of weird and trippy.

  • Then he just sees sort of normal stuff.

  • In actuality, at that point,

  • you're probably moving at something

  • like 97% of the speed of light.

  • It's all these relativistic effects take over.

  • It really then depends on the angle

  • that the light rays are coming at you,

  • and all kinds of other super weird stuff

  • that we're just not used to.

  • So stuff would get distorted.

  • Everything would be constrained into some narrow band

  • and we'd see blackness around, but you'd see stars

  • in some narrow region.

  • You'd have magnification.

  • The black hole itself would magnify the light so

  • that you'd get double images of star stuff.

  • It would get really bright, all this would change,

  • and it was a real lost opportunity.

  • They just didn't go for it.

  • So that's a bit of a disappointment.

  • This is "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,"

  • directed by Gareth Edwards.

  • In it, we're introduced to the planet Wobani,

  • one that's enshrouded by clouds.

  • [vehicle rumbling]

  • Okay, so the history of this goes back

  • to one of the writers of the movie wanted

  • to ask me some questions about astrophysics

  • for writing one of the scenes.

  • Now that scene actually didn't end up showing up

  • in the movie, but I said, while I've got your attention,

  • there's a whole bunch of cool stuff I'd like to see

  • in science fiction movies that I've never seen before,

  • like what if you're on a planet,

  • and you're in a galaxy that is,

  • you're on the edge of the galaxy?

  • And so like in the night sky, you wouldn't see stars.

  • You would just see a giant galaxy on one side,

  • or what if you're on a planet that is like melting away

  • 'cause it's so close to the Sun?

  • Or what if we see super planets

  • that are many times the mass of the Earth,

  • and the gravity is really heavy,

  • and there's carbon that is made of almost diamond?

  • Astrophysically speaking, the world is incredible.

  • We've never seen most of that on screen.

  • So one of the things I said was,

  • "How about a planet in a molecular cloud?"

  • That's a big dense field of gas.

  • It could be so dense that it looks black.

  • So if you were on that kind of planet,

  • you might not even develop astronomy,

  • 'cause you wouldn't see stars in the sky.

  • You might not even know

  • that there were other things out there.

  • And so I don't know if it was based on that comment,

  • but I was really excited to see when I saw "Rogue One,"

  • that there's this planet Wobani,

  • and the establishing shot has all this gas around it.

  • And then when you go onto the actual planet,

  • there's also clouds on the planet.

  • So it at least gets this spirit of sort

  • of foreboding and obfuscation obstruction.

  • And maybe that thematically ties in a little bit

  • with our hero, Jyn Erso, being in prison there.

  • So we've seen quite a range of movies,

  • some that get the science exactly right,

  • and some that don't do such a good job.

  • To me, the best cases are ones

  • where the movies are inspiring.

  • They portray scientists well.

  • They make epic adventure of awe and wonder

  • that makes you want to know more and makes you curious.

  • And those are just great things

  • to inspire the next generation of scientists,

  • but also to make the average person

  • who sees the movie more curious and a better citizen.

  • Whether it comes to disease or global warming,

  • there's all kinds of things

  • where science really impacts our society.

  • So if we can make more scientifically literate people,

  • all of our lives improve.

- I'm totally cool with having light sabers

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