Scientifically Correct Or Fun?

[Diamond Cross]

This weeks' Doctor Who Victory Of The Daleks featured Spitfires in space firing energy guns.

I personally enjoyed it. It was an episode that hit a little close to home for me because as a kid I'd imagine the toy WW II planes that I played with as starfighters with energy weapons.

But the thing is this, from reading a lot of forums over the years I can hear at the back of my head people getting really upset over that because it's incorrect to have these planes in outer space. And the argument that is extrapolated from that is that we must adhere to scientific accuracy or the entire episode is just no good.

Personally, I just don't understand that way of thinking. And I get really frustrated with it.

To me it is somewhat important to get the science behind some things correct and accurate.

But for me, it's the story elements that matters the most. Sometimes you just got to do what's fun. After all, if we didn't then there'd be no FTL drives that gives us the speed of plot and no transporters or dragons that kidnap damsels for us brave and noble Paladins to rescue.

And if we all adhere to things that were scientifically accurate, then most of everything would be dead in the water.

So I ask, what is more important, being correct or telling agood story?

 

[Jack7]

A thing can be both scientifically correct (or at least correct from our current understanding of scientific principles), and fun. But when it comes to things like sci-fi shows and what-not I think it very much depends upon the vehicle and the medium.

If you had Spitfires in space (I assume they were sealed and did not use propellers for propulsion, but I don't know as I didn't see it) on a show like Star Trek (and I've seen some silly science on Star Trek) or Star Gate Universe, that would be absurd. It would be out of place.

On a show like Dr. Who it would be a natural part of the shtick. It wouldn't bother me at all on Dr. Who, I'd kinda expect it. So I think it sorta depends on what the expectations were, and what the show were driving for in the episode, as well as overall.

But when it comes to fiction I always try to give the show, book, film, etc. as much leeway and latitude as I think I can because after all it's only fiction, not meant to be real. It's not non-fiction, it's fiction. I might disagree with an approach, or find it silly, but I can't say as I get upset in most cases (I might if it involved something like murder or injustice, etc) because after all, it's only fiction. Then again when it comes to fiction some vehicles strive for a high degree of realism, some do not. I personally don't think Dr. Who strives for a high degree of realism. That's not the point of the show to me. The point of that show to me is not realism, but imagination. To stimulate the imagination in a free and loose way.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

It's not binary. If you're telling a hard sci-fi societal allegory, you need more scientific rigor than if you're telling a space opera.

Some stories or genres simply need more scientific rigor than others to be accepted by audiences. Stories that are very fantastic on some dimensions are well served to be very accurate on other dimensions, if only to avoid stretching believability in too many different directions at once.

A good example for me is the Spider-man movies. They play fairly fast and loose with super-science giving people powers, but the first two limited it to that. Everything else was within "real world" boundaries. This means you really only need to make one big leap of faith to suspend your disbelief. All the others are within the boundaries you've already jumped past, so they mostly slide by pretty easily. The third one requires the same leaps as the first two, but ratchets the super-science up 10 notches with the Sandman and also introduces a parasitic alien and a chain of coincidences longer than all those in the first two movies combined.

On the face of it, all 3 movies are ridiculous, but most people I know were on board with the first two but found the 3rd silly. They couldn't always tell you why. "Emo spidey" was frequently blamed, even by people who were irritated with the film long before he actually went emo.

BSG is also a good example. They had a couple of super-science elements that were absolutely core to the story, FTL jumps and synthetic humans. But they chose to severely limit the super-science elsewhere, mainly to provide people with a greater sense of familiarity. And it worked for most people. You can earn a couple big leaps by shortening your steps elsewhere.

For some stories, genre conventions are more "believable" than actual realism. Most people find spaceships that make swooshing noises and laz3r-beam pew-pew sounds more acceptable than silent spaceships. They will actually invest in the story more and rate it with higher believability when you break the laws of physics.

But that has as much to do with drama conventions as anything else. Personally, I think you could do a brilliant submarine movie in space with strict adherence to the rules of vacuum and limitations on sensors and such. You'd have to structure the whole story to play up the drama of those rules and limitations to keep the audience with you, however. Whereas if you present spaceships behaving like WWI or WWII planes, more people will simply come along for the ride without any hand-holding.

 

[TwinBahamut]

In my book, it is basically impossible to have something that is scientifically correct, so you might as well make it fun instead. After all, scientific accuracy is a moving target at the best of times, and we live in an era where scientists know that they are working with an incomplete theory of how things work (relativity and quantum hating each other, and all that). When even works that make a decent effort at trying to make the science work can completely and utterly fail at the task (Ender's Game is one stunning example, and there are countless more), you may as well just give up and write things in a way that is fun.

Honestly, it is probably better in every way to create a story world that is consistent in tone and has in-story physics designed to match the needs of the story rather than to chase the fleeting and foolish dream of writing a sci-fi story that obeys the laws of physics.

If nothing else, we live in a world where every last work that claims there are 9 planets in the solar system is using obsoleted science.

On a different note, I can't really see the appeal of Spitfires in space with energy weapons (I'm not a Doctor Who fan), but I am a big fan of mecha and overwritten space operas, so I can sympathize with the frustration about dealing with people who complain about scientific inaccuracy.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

IIRC, the Spitfires did not use energy weapons.

For Doctor Who, scientific precision is not what I come to expect. It is all made-up.

Things are timey-wimey and reversing the neutron flow helps. Leave it at that.

Startrek had made up a lot of "pseudo-science" and then tried to make it internally consistent. Still wasn't scientifically correct.

 

[Hand of Evil]

As I do not know how gravity bubbles work - will just say fun.

 

[Umbran]

The devil, as they say, is in the details.

There are sub-genres inside "science fiction", each with their own sets of expectations.

In "hard SF", the author pays attention to the science, and tries as best he or she can to make the story work with real (or well-considered extensions of real) science. This can be cool.

In the rest of SF, the details of science play far second fiddle to other concerns. This can also be cool.

When one tries to do hard SF and does it badly, or one pretends to be doing hard SF, but really isn't, then things get ugly. Audience expectations get played with, and the audience doesn't like that.

If the Doctor waes his hands, and says, "Bibbity-boppity-boo, I've done some wild Timelord mumbo-jumbo to make your airplanes work in space!" there's no pretense that there's any real science involved. It is pure fantasy, and that's fine.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I'm one of those people who complain about not getting the science right in TV/movie science fiction, but I usually just roll my eyes and go with it. (One exception was during the Star Trek Saves the Wales movie, when I got a whole movie theater to glare at me when I shouted: "They're Going Warp Speed In Atmosphere?!!!")

But with Doctor Who I don't even bother rolling my eyes. Its pure (science) fantasy.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

I think it's more important that the science as presented in the film be consistent within the film; consistency with real life is usually less important.

For the most part, I'm not too bothered when the science gets a little mucked up, especially when the science isn't the "point" of the story. I do appreciate it when there's an obvious effort made to get it right, but I'll admit it is annoying if some scientific point important to the story gets messed up.

 

[Plane Sailing]

For me, the big problem wasn't spitfires in space in energy bubbles, it was "Oh no, enemy bombers are 10 minutes away and all the lights are on! Quick, lets design the gravity bubbles fit them to spitfires and fly them up to orbit in 10 minutes!!!1!"

Plus, your question is too binary. Between "Scientifically Correct" and "Fun" there is a wide, wide range of "Scientifically plausible" (with varying degrees of plausibility).

My preference is for "Plausible", and doesn't break my sense of verisimilitude.