Everyone has a favorite science-fiction movie. This is one of the movie genres that’s been around the longest and had an incredible impact on the film industry. After movies like Star Wars and The Matrix were born, the science-fiction genre skyrocketed and is now one of the most sought-after genres in film. These science-fiction movies excel at making us believe they’re real. They usually make up scientific facts based on real science and put a spin on real-life situations that, when done properly, do a good job of freaking us out. But, oftentimes, this science is so ridiculous that there’s no way we would ever believe it. There are some science-fiction movies out there that made a complete mockery of real science. Even though it’s embarrassing, there’s a sort of dark humor that these movies bring to real-world situations.
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Whether it’s unrealistic space conditions, spontaneous volcanic formations, or DNA replication, these movies do a great job of taking liberties with scientific facts in an embarrassing way. These are the movies you can live out your wildest scientific dreams, like cloning humans or walking on Mars, without any ill effects. It’s a shame that we don’t live in a world where any of this is possible. But at least we’re not the directors of these movies and had to sit and watch the world point out our lack of scientific knowledge. We’ll watch from behind the screen.
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Die Another Day
In 2002, Lee Tamahori directed Die Another Day. North Korean agents capture James Bond, where they place him in prison. He then travels to Cuba after he escapes. In the movie, what seems like complete accuracy is just another mockery of real science. A baddie from North Korea has his DNA replaced, only because he wants to hide as a British mogul. But, get this. It’s impossible to change your DNA. You can’t simply change your DNA and become another person. If you tried doing this in a hospital, you’d simply die. That’s what should’ve happened in this movie. It would’ve saved us from those horrible couple of hours the movie put us through (via Ranker).
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Alien
In Alien, a crew aboard a space shift discovers a nest of alien eggs inside the ship. That’s when disaster breaks loose. Their ship, The Nostromo, is an entanglement of leaking hydraulic lines, hibernation pods, and cramped eating quarters. While we appreciate their attempts at portraying a spaceship that may depict where the future of space is headed, they make a complete mockery of real science. That sort of spaceship would never make it into space, let alone off the launchpad. This exotic lab wouldn’t survive its journey into space, and we’re not sure who’d voluntarily choose to live in a place like that for months on end, either (via Popular Mechanics)
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The Day After Tomorrow
It’s the end of the world. Massive natural disasters and an ice age wipe out entire countries, and there’s no means of escaping. In the movie The Day After Tomorrow, the creators took a spin on worst-case scenarios and developed a nail-biting film that made us inch to the edge of our seats. Even though everything in the movie is extremely unlikely, considering we’ll probably die from heat waves or flooding first, it’s still terrifying. But they made a complete mockery of real science, and that real science is global warming. Their absurd physicals-defying events, like changing temperatures that disrupt ocean currents, leading to an ice age, are ridiculous. People wouldn’t just freeze solid. Still, the movie was entertaining enough to become popular amongst science-fiction fans (via Popular Mechanics)
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Deep Impact
In 1998, Deep Impact brought a giant crater hurdling toward earth that was about to wipe out all humankind. The government tried its best to keep it under wraps, but their secrets were soon revealed. Today, even though NASA tracks these comet planet-killers and deflects them off course using aircraft and gravity, the movie made an accurate, albeit subtle mockery of real science. At the time, the movie was true to interception and deflection of comets, but nowadays, it’s far from the truth. With updated technology and science, we have more efficient ways of saving the planet from comets that kill (via Popular Mechanics)
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The Andromeda Strain
An extraterrestrial virus floats around outer space, and in The Andromeda Strain, scientists use a satellite to capture it. Initially, they believe they can use it as a biological weapon, but it turns out it’s evil, mutates, and kills anyone and everyone it encounters. What a horrible way to die. Even though this is terrifyingly accurate, considering exposure to microorganisms in space could kill us, it still makes a complete mockery of real science. We’re not sure scientists would put us all at risk with a foreign outer-space virus, but you never know. Maybe that’s what the movie was poking fun at (via Popular Mechanics)
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Star Wars
The Star Wars saga took the world by storm. Released in 1977, there are now 12 movies and nine TV series. These movies and shows took the world by storm, even if they made a complete mockery of real science. In the movies, every planet in the Star Wars universe has only one type of climate, which is impossible in real life. It’s extremely unlikely that an entire planet would have only one biome, much like Endor in the movies is only covered in forests. The heroes in the movies should’ve gone to planets with a variety of biomes and climates to make it more believable, although it wouldn’t be the same saga if that happened (via Ranker).
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I Am Legend
In 2007, the post-apocalyptic action thriller was born, following the book by Richard Matheson from 1954. In I Am Legend, a plague turns humans into vampires. This is a spinoff of real viruses, that make us feel like vampires, but in the movie, an immune virologist used his blood to make a vaccine. This is impossible because he’d have to have first been infected to create the antibodies for a cure. He likely wouldn’t have the mental capacity to create the antibodies if he’d been infected, hence the scientific spinoff. We appreciate the director’s creativity, even if it does make a complete mockery of real science (via Popular Mechanics)
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Minority Report
Steven Spielberg directed Minority Report, released in 2002. This American science fiction action film’s premise involves psychics that predict crimes. While we may be guilty of asking a psychic to predict our future, we know it’s impossible for one person to accurately predict what may happen in the future. It makes a complete mockery of real science, which says no one can predict the future. It doesn’t exist yet. Or does it? (via Popular Mechanics).
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Total Recall
The movie Total Recall was released in 1990 and directed by Paul Verhoeven. In the movie, Schwarzenegger is a construction worker in the year 2084. He visits “Rekall,” a company that plants false memories into its patients. This is what Schwarneeggar does to visit Mars, without having to go. But, in the movie, they make fun of real science. Any time someone went to the surface of Mars, they would expand as if they were about to implode. This is ridiculous because explosive decompression is a myth. Instead, if we walked onto the surface of Mars, our limbs would turn frostbitten, we would turn hypoxic, and our blood pressure would drop so low that it’d boil. Honestly, death by explosion sounds a lot more preferable (via Ranker).
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Independence Day
Terror, fear, and panic rule Independence Day, a movie that portrays a world disintegrating hour by hour and slipping through our fingers. In the movie, Jeff Goldblum creates malware that infects an alien operating system, changing their behavior and manipulating them into doing as he wants them to do. It’s ridiculous because someone can’t develop malware that infects someone’s operating system. Or immediately learn another language, like an alien language. Coding takes weeks, months, and years to crack, so the fact that Goldblum even managed to do something like this just goes to show how much of a mockery it’s making of real science. Instead, humanity should’ve been exterminated. If this happened in real life, we wouldn’t stand a chance (via Ranker).
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Blade Runner
This 1982 science fiction film, directed by Ridley Scott, is set in the dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, where the sky continuously pours rain and there was detrimental climate change. Even though this did not happen in 2019, it does make a mockery of real science. Climate change is real, and this movie portrays something that could happen in decades to come. Even though we could do without climate change, the flying cars in the movie were pretty cool (via Popular Mechanics).
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Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park might’ve been your favorite movie when you were a kid, as it was a Steven Spielberg classic. In the movie, clones of dinosaurs rule a theme park, where humans get to wander and observe the dinosaurs. These dinosaurs are cloned using DNA obtained from mosquitos after millions of years. It’s a clever story that’s captivating and thrilling, even if it does make a complete mockery of real science. About 20 years after the release of Jurassic Park, scientists discovered that the half-life of DNA is only 521 years. If it were realistic, they would’ve looked inside the mosquito and found no genetic material they could use (via Ranker).
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The Black Hole
A spaceship on its way back to Earth discovers another ship, presumed missing. This leads to the unraveling of a story of a missing father. In the movie, the protagonists’ escape pod flies into a black hole, the universe’s most destructive phenomenon, they have psychedelic visions instead of being ripped apart, stretched, and dying. They emerge from the black hole safe and sound, which is a complete mockery of real science (via Popular Mechanics).
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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Indiana Jones might’ve been one of your favorite movies growing up. This one in particular took place during the Cold War. Indiana Jones must find the Crystal Skull of Akator. In the movie, Indiana Jones gets himself stuck at a nuclear testing site. He hides in a lead-lined fridge, the bomb goes off, and he’s sent soaring thousands of feet into the sky. Indiana Jones survives the blast and walks away, unscathed. It makes a complete mockery of real science, considering a lead-lined fridge would never protect someone from radiation or survive a fall like that. If it did, miraculously, the force of the blast would’ve broken every bone in his body. He should’ve turned to mush inside the fridge, and used it as a coffin (via Ranker).
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2012
It’s the apocalypse. The earth has an expiration date, much like a gallon of milk, but no one on earth is aware of that. It’s one natural disaster after another as if one wasn’t enough to destroy the lives of thousands. The sun superheats the Earth’s core and destroys everything in sight. No one can survive, and if you do, life on Earth is pretty horrible. In the movie, glacial melting triggers a global flood, as if there wasn’t already enough water on planet Earth to trigger this disaster. It makes a complete mockery of real science, global warming, and climate change. It’s showing us that we’re doomed and have no real chance of survival if we destroy the earth beyond the point of no return (via Popular Mechanics).
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Angels & Demons
A Harvard symbologist discovers a resurgence of the Illuminati and heads to the Vatican to warn of this. While this sounds realistic, the movie goes on and makes a complete mockery of real science. Antimatter is smuggled into Vatican City with ease. That’s complete blasphemy. There’s no way anyone could simply carry antimatter with them, let alone bring it into Vatican City. First of all, assuming the anti-matter we see in the movie could be produced, it would need to be stored in a proper containment system that’s not touching any matter. Which translates to not touching anything. You would need the opposite of a small glass vial. In reality, the antimatter would’ve exploded the second it touched the matter, obliterating everyone in sight. Maybe this is possible in another world or dimension, but not in our world. The movie received pretty horrible reviews anyway, so maybe this one isn’t even worth watching, even if they do mock real science (via Popular Mechanics).
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The 6th Day
In the movie The 6th Day, the characters live in a world where animals and pets can be cloned. Cloning humans is illegal, but that’s the entire plot of the film. Arnold Schwarzenegger is cloned as if there weren’t enough of him already. It makes a complete mockery of real science, considering you can’t clone another human or animal. They would have the same genetic makeup, but not the same personality. Not only is cloning dangerous, but we just don’t have any good reason to clone a human. That’s what reproduction is for (via Smithsonian Magazine).
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Prometheus
Scientists want to discover alien life. And that includes scientists in the movies. A crew of scientists travels to find alien life, and in the movie, one character remarks they’re a “half-billion miles” away from Earth after traveling 35 light years. That’s physically impossible and makes a mockery of real science. Real science says that if we were half a billion miles from Earth, we’d be around Jupiter. To make it accurate, the character should’ve said they’re “hundreds of trillions of miles” away from Earth. These scientists know next to nothing about space travel, and shouldn’t be operating a spaceship. They should’ve swallowed their pride and realized they took a wrong turn (via Ranker).
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Contact
Contact was one of those movies that made a mockery of real science, but was also surprisingly accurate. Even though we’re not deciphering alien language right now, the movie itself used enough quantum theory to be surprisingly credible. Jodie Foster takes a wormhole ride to another planet, and the movie uses every piece of knowledge we have about physics to showcase the event. They use real science as best they could here, even if they’re mostly predicting what may or may not be possible one day (via Popular Mechanics).
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Armageddon
Not only do asteroids not have any gravity to keep people on their surface, but the movie portrays characters that use machine guns to kill everything in sight while on the asteroid. Even a giant asteroid the size of multiple states wouldn’t be able to hold people or allow them to act out what the characters in Armageddon did. If an astronaut was to hypothetically stand on an asteroid, they would float, not walk. Or carry out an entire war. That’s because of the simple law of gravity. They make a complete mockery of real science, gravity, and outer space, and portray it in a way that’s completely impossible (via Popular Mechanics).
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Volcano
In Los Angeles, a sudden volcano emerges after an earthquake and destroys the city. The citizens fear this volcano, and a second earthquake releases the lava built up from the volcano. There are a lot of things wrong with this plot. Even though it’s a movie, the way the director took liberties with scientific facts is laughable. The director only showed two parts of the volcano, the lava, and ash, in the film. There’s a lot more to a volcano than lava and ash. Not only that, but a volcano would never spontaneously emerge underneath a city as it did in the movie (via Smithsonian Mag).
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Gravity
Dive deep into space with the movie Gravity, one of those science-fiction movies that mocked real science. It takes place entirely in outer space, so if you love those nail-biting space films, then this one’s for you. In the movie, George Clooney makes a sacrifice by cutting himself free of his tether to Sandra Bullock. Even though it’s great for cinema effects, it’s not how physics works. In reality, because he was tethered to someone holding a solid object, he would’ve stopped drifting. He could’ve been pulled back easily. It becomes an annoying dream sequence, instead of a wonderful, heroic movie where both characters lived (via Ranker).
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Robison Crusoe On Mars
Kit Draper crash lands on Mars and must survive the barren lands. He finds food, rocks that release oxygen when burned, and water. We all know this makes a complete and utter mockery of real science, considering Mars has none of those things. It gets even more ridiculous when we learn that part of the movie’s ad campaign is touted as “scientifically authentic.” Back then, they all thought cigarettes were good for you, so we can’t blame them. In real life, Draper would’ve died the moment he landed on Mars by hypoxia, hypothermia, or anything else that happens when you’re exposed to the elements of outer space (via Ranker).
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The Terminator
In 1984, one of the greatest movies of all time was born. The Terminator, portrayed by no other than Arnold Schwarzenegger, was a robot that could rebel against all of humanity. Nowadays, we can relate it to Artificial Intelligence and the trajectory of our future with AI. Robots are becoming a thing, and if we keep going as rapidly as we’re going, there’s no saying what will come of these robots. Maybe we’ll live in a real-life Terminator world and have to defend ourselves from massive, strong robots (via Popular Mechanics).
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The Matrix
The biggest question in The Matrix is, “what is the matrix?” While there’s a lot involved with the movie, we’re focusing on how it made a complete mockery of real science. In the movie, the character Neo figures out that the machines grow humans and use human body heat for power. While this sounds like something that could happen, it’s so far from the truth. In reality, burning the calories humans consume would yield more energy than using their body heat for energy. It would take more energy to keep the humans alive than what they’d produce with their body heat. Instead, these machines should have used nuclear power, wind, and sustainable fusion (via Popular Mechanics).
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Waterworld
Most of the globe is underwater after the ice caps melt, which isn’t too far off from what might happen in decades to come. Only a handful of humans have survived, and those that did developed gills to help them breathe underwater, hence Waterworld. The only dry land left on this earth is on top of Mount Everest. That sounds horrific, considering it’s freezing up there and lacks enough oxygen for humans to survive for long periods. As much as they tried to talk about the possibilities of global warming, it turns out they were just making a complete mockery of real science. There’s only enough ice to raise the water a bit more than 200 feet across the entire globe. While that’s disastrous for cities like New York and Venice, at least we don’t have to worry about the entire world going underwater. In reality, people would move away from the coast and to higher land, and we’d just complain about missing coastal cities (via Ranker).
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Gattaca
This science-fiction movie is impressive with its opening, where they map out a ubiquitous genetic sequence that reshapes the entire world. Lives are mapped out from birth and based on your genetic predisposition, a new class will emerge. Real life hasn’t yet caught up to this impressive, futuristic technology. Even though it’s a fascinating concept, it’s still making a complete mockery of the real science that we currently have, which says you can’t pick and choose your genetic sequences as much as this movie predicts. Though this movie idea might not be far off, and it may only be a matter of years before something like this is happening in real life (via Popular Mechanics).
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Lucy
This movie tries to take an interesting brain concept and make a scary science-fiction movie out of it. They ask, what would happen if we used the entire 100% of our brain? That’s what this movie tackles. In the movie, a woman gets overdosed on a brain drug. This drug unlocks the full potential of her brain, meaning she can access 100% of her mind. While that sounds fun, the way the movie portrays it makes it sound terrifying. The hilarious thing is that we use 100% of our brains in different parts. If we tried to use 100% of our brains at once, we would probably send ourselves into a coma. That’s like trying to use 100% of your brain to cook a meal. In reality, there is no drug to unlock 100% of your brain, and the character would’ve died from an overdose when the bag of heroin popped into her lower intestine (via Ranker).
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The Dark Knight Rises
You’ve either seen the movie or heard of the movie. This present-day science-fiction film showcases Batman, as he tries to fly an improvised nuclear explosive as safely as possible. He has only two minutes before it explodes, and if he doesn’t make it, the city of Gotham will be destroyed. In the end, Gotham is saved and no one is hurt. While it makes a great movie premise, it’s highly unlikely that Batman would’ve gotten the bomb to a safe distance of ten miles. And, even if he miraculously had, the city would have to deal with radiation complications for decades, just as the people of Chernobyl had. The bomb would’ve destroyed some or all of Gotham, and people would suffer from birth defects and radiation health problems for generations. Batman would not be the hero he is portrayed as in the movie (via Ranker).
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Vanilla Sky
We all say we want to nap forever. But what about for 150 years? The protagonist in Vanilla Sky does just this, while the neurons in his brain navigate a virtual world for him. The idea of freezing a human being, in the hopes they’ll resuscitate them years later, is an idea that’s not too far-fetched from what we’re trying to do on this planet. And while it might not happen anytime soon, scientists are certainly trying to figure out a way to do it. Still, it makes a complete mockery of real science by poking fun at the idea (via Popular Mechanics).
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Wing Commander
Sound travels long distances in space, but the entire plot of Wing Commander seems to focus on just this. It’s ridiculous because humans cannot hear the sound that travels through space. The characters in this movie waste their time whispering and trying to be quiet when they could’ve been as loud as they wanted. The sound wouldn’t breach the walls of a spaceship, and it can only move through dense interstellar gas. They could’ve taken out their sound system, bumped music, and thrown a huge party, and no one would’ve ever heard them. If this was true for planet earth, our teenage years at home would’ve been a lot different. We could’ve thrown those wild parties right next to our parent’s bedrooms while they were fast asleep, without a worry in the world (via Ranker).
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The Core
In The Core, a team of scientists try and restart the Earth’s core by drilling into the center of the earth with a vessel made of unobtanium. Like many other movies on this list, this is a fascinating concept. But it fails to follow science to a T, and instead makes a complete mockery of real science. In the movie, a diamond punctures the vessel and it gets incredibly hot. If this happened in real life, it would instantly fill with magma and the entire vessel would be destroyed. This seems like an important detail to miss out on. We’d prefer if they were destroyed in the process since it would’ve made for a better movie. Regardless, if we could go down into the center of the earth, our world would be much more different. It’s probably a good thing we don’t have access down to the core of the earth (via Popular Mechanics).