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'Lucy' (2014)
- "Humans only use 10% of the brain." Surely you've heard it all before. It's pretty much what this movie is about. What would actually happen if we used our brain to its full potential?
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'Lucy' (2014)
- While the idea sounds promising, there's actually no scientific evidence that we only use 10% of our brains.
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'Jurassic Park' (1993)
- What do you do when you find DNA from the Jurassic Period? You try to bring dinosaurs back, of course. The problem is that DNA has a half-life of 521 years, so this would not be possible in the real world. Not to mention that you'd need the whole genome to be able to clone a dinosaur!
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'Jurassic Park' (1993)
- And let's say a miracle happened and you brought back raptors. They surely wouldn't look like the hairless reptiles in the movie. Raptors actually had feathers and, according to one paleontologist, looked more like "kickboxing killer turkeys."
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'Armageddon' (1998)
- 'Armageddon' is so inaccurate that NASA shows it to their trainees in their management training program to see if they are able to spot all the 168 mistakes!
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'Armageddon' (1998)
- The whole premise of the film is founded on an unrealistic scenario. An asteroid "the size of Texas" would have been visible probably years before it hit Earth, not in just a few days.
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'I Am Legend' (2007)
- Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the sole survivor of an outbreak that transforms humans into zombies.
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'I Am Legend' (2007)
- So what does he do? He creates a vaccine with his own blood, of course! Except this would not be possible, unless he too was infected. Otherwise he wouldn't create the antibodies needed for the vaccine.
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'Star Wars' (franchise)
- Space doesn't really have air, and sound needs air to travel. Do you know what this means?
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'Star Wars' (franchise)
- It means that the spaceship battles would be completely silent. And you wouldn't be able to hear the death star exploding either!
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'Star Wars' (franchise)
- We hate to break it for you, but deflecting lasers with light sabers means that Jedis have reflexes faster than light (because light travels at the speed of light). Oh, and you wouldn't be able to see beams of light in space either. But hey, maybe The Force can make all these things happen!
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'Superman' (1978)
- OK, let's not even get into the super powers. Instead, let's focus on one thing Superman does, that actually wouldn't have the desired effect. He spins the Earth in the opposite direction to turn back time.
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'Superman' (1978)
- Even if Superman managed to give our planet a little push in the opposite direction, it wouldn't turn back time. It would, however, potentially change weather patterns.
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'The Dark Knight Rises' (2012)
- A bomb about to detonate in two minutes? No problem, Batman will jump into his batplane and take it far enough, quickly enough, so it won't harm anyone.
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'The Dark Knight Rises' (2012)
- But even if he were flying at 467 km/h (290 mph), this would only get him as far as over 11 km (7 miles) away. At this distance, the bomb would definitely destroy everything and everyone.
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'Skyfall' (2012)
- Remember that underwater fight scene where James Bond emerges like he had just played with a rubber duck in a bathtub, rather than having fought a man in cold water?
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'Skyfall' (2012)
- This is quite unrealistic, as 007 would likely be suffering from hypothermia and would be shivering uncontrollably.
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'Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory' (1971)
- There is a particular scene where Charlie's grandfather jumps out of bed and starts dancing, after being bedridden for years.
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'Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory' (1971)
- This just wouldn't be possible. Being in bed for years would result in a muscle atrophy. He would probably have to go through extensive physiotherapy before he was able to pull those moves.
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20 / 31 Fotos
'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' (2008)
- We know Indiana Jones can get away with a lot of stuff, and it looks like a nuclear explosion is no exception.
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'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' (2008)
- Well, maybe this time he pushed it a bit too far. He survived the blast by hiding in a fridge! It goes without saying that a refrigerator does not offer great protection against a nuclear bomb.
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22 / 31 Fotos
'X-Men' (2000)
- Could we have a new species of humans in just one generation? Evolution disagrees. Small mutations would have to take place over millions of years for this to happen.
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'The Core' (2003)
- A number of odd occurrences start happening and a scientist eventually discovers that the planet's core has stopped spinning. The solution? Blast it back into action.
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'The Core' (2003)
- They then decide to drill to the Earth's core and use explosives to make the planet spin again. Now, not only would explosives fail to make the planet spin, the whole idea of drilling to the core is just unrealistic.
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'Independence Day' (1996)
- Writing a code and entering an alien IT system to save the planet? Not a problem. Also, they surely only have one programming language, right?
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'The Day After Tomorrow' (2004)
- Most of us are familiar with this apocalyptic scenario: glaciers melting and waters rising, flooding cities across the globe.
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'The Day After Tomorrow' (2004)
- The good news is that this would likely take years, and not just a few days, to happen. The bad news is that it is actually happening.
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'Waterworld' (1995)
- This one goes beyond your regular flood. The whole planet is actually submerged! This is simply not possible because we don't have enough water on Earth.
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'2012' (2009)
- Another apocalyptic movie where glaciers melt and the Earth floods. Yes, again, there isn't enough water for this to happen in reality.
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But that's the beauty of film
- We get to watch things that could never happen to us to momentarily escape the real science of life! (Zimbio) (Insider) (Storypick) See also: Incredible mistakes in film and TV
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The biggest science mistakes in movies
Looking for the "science" in science fiction
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Yes, there are some ridiculous things that only happen in Hollywood movies. For instance, when was the last time you walked away from an explosion without looking back? But even though we take everything we see in the movies with a grain of salt, there are some scientific inaccuracies that might escape us. Do humans really only use 10% of the brain? Could we travel back in time if somehow we managed to spin the Earth in the opposite direction?
Click through the following gallery and find out the answer to these and many other questions.
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