Nasa declares 2012 is most scientifically flawed sci-fi movie

[CatInASuit]

Now, I knew it was bad, but now its official, 2012 is the worst beating out such luminaries as The Core and Armageddon.

I mean it has neutrinos destroying things, but at least it doesn't have unobtanium in it.

Details here

Can you think of anything that could beat it and why?

[Zuul]

I hadn't watched that movie, though I have had to listen to a lot of people who seemed to take it as a documentary of the future.

"The Day after Tomorrow" was pretty remarkably bad, as I recall. Global warming triggers an instantaneous ice age! Wolves (which have never had a strong native presence in New York anyway) are released from the zoo for the sole purpose of chasing people through Manhattan! Trapped in a library full of wooden furniture, the survivors decide to burn books! The thing that pissed me off the most was that it took something real (global warming can also cause cooling events and strange weather patterns) and made it absurd.

[What Exit?]

I like this part near the end of the article:

The agency had praise, however, for the attention to scientific accuracy exhibited in Gattaca (recruitment via DNA), Blade Runner, Metropolis and Jurassic Park.

I watch 2012 on cable. It was truly awful. This is from someone that enjoyed both Armageddon and Independence Day.

Of the other films list: The Day After Tomorrow (global warming, accelerated), The Sixth Day (insta-clones), Chain Reaction (bubble fusion), The Core (magnetic field trouble), What the Bleep Do We Know? (billed as a documentary) and Volcano. I only saw Volcano and it was terrible but not as bad as 2012 for science or as a movie.

I would think about nominating Speed for the gravity defying bus. But as the film hardly claimed to be science oriented in any way, that is probably not fair. I would of course exclude all actually comedies. Matrix I understand was not a terrible comedy like I thought, so I am surprised it did not make the roundup at least.

[Zuul]

The Matrix was more cyberpunk pseudo-intellectual fantasy than science oriented. Since so much of it takes place in an artificial world, the fudging of physics makes some sense. Except, stupidly, they don't fudge things enough. If they have the technology to hack into the Matrix and import whatever weapons and items they like, why the hell are they going in there with guns? Nuclear weapons! Viruses! The sudden and ironclad belief that your flesh is bullet-proof! If people die in the real world because they believe they're dying in the Matrix, why not figure out how to make everybody believe they're immortal? That would make a hell of a lot more sense than teaching them kung-fu to do battle with computer programs.

This is my favorite review of it:

The movie is totally like a Piers Anthony novel come to life.

This movie just rocks because the writers are so cool. They would totally be welcome to drink a Mountain Dew with our Science Fiction Club because they are just like us. I bet they are 14-years-old too, because they are so smart. All the characters have names like "Trinity," "Morpheus," "Neo," and "Cypher." In the robot-vampire novel I am going to write, I have a character named "Cypher" so you know they are creative and not just naming people "Bob" or "Angela." The whole movie is cool like that, like they think up cool names for stuff and make everything look really cool.

Something else that rocked so hard was that they didn't even bother telling you anything about any of the characters. If you don't like them, then go read more Philip K. Dick and shut up because you're stupid. You know you like them right from the beginning and so they don't waste any time making all the losers go, "Oh, that's why I'm supposed to cheer for them."

[What Exit?]

That review is golden. They used "totally like a Piers Anthony novel" as a compliment. I misunderstood it at first.

[Orual]

I got a hell of a kick out of The Core, despite the ludicrous premise. The cast seemed like it was having fun, especially Stanley Tucci and the French guy.

I never did bother with 2012.