Quit yer whining!

Whoever decided that this was newsworthy needs to quit their whining.

That’s so bad that NBC is betting that its May sweeps week disaster mini-series “10.5” starting Sunday for two nights will prove fatal to the competition despite a groundswell of grumbles from critics who say they haven’t seen and heard so many cliches assembled under one roof in years.

And scientists are also not happy: they call the whole thing blarney from beginning to end.

So? It’s not like 10.5 is the first movie with lots of bad science. And it won’t be the last.

Shall we list a few of the worst offenders from the past few years? Let’s see…
The Core, Volcano, Deep Impact, Armageddon, Asteroid, Twister, Meteorites!….need I go on?

Even movies that proudly announced that they consulted NASA scientists had blatant science mistakes. Take, for example the opening scene of Deep Impact. We open with a group of amateur astronomers observing the night sky. They are using flash lights to consult their charts. White flash lights. Astronomers never use white light during nighttime observations — it kills the night vision. If you’re going to tout your film as being as scientificly accurate as possible, I strongly suggest you don’t open the film with a very bad mistake.

I’m not saying I don’t watch these movies — I just know that I need to expect bad science, so I turn that part of my brain off.

Check out Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy for more bad science in the movies and media.