The Ridiculousness of the Core

Well you exerted yourself for writing up all the bad stuff you could find in the movie... but hey, you could have just stopped after the first paragraph and said, "Alright, this movie is just a physics and science *beep* which it is. And that would end all need for summing it up.
Or make a website which specifically lists all the flaws in the movie. It's not the only one, by the way. But alright, I just saw it again, and I think some troubled physics major with some kind of posttraumatic stress disorder made this all up while one some drug trip as a revenge for everything his profession had done to him...
or something like that...

But anyway.
My thought is, I think they traveled in a vehicle that was made of that stuff the black boxes in airplanes are made of...

Just one last point: gravity would become less the nearer you get to the core. That was one thing you didn't get right here.

n-joy

It is a ludicrous sloppy mess. At the end when Rat sends out his info out a caption reads: "On it's way." Should be: "On its way." The people who made this crap are illiterate as well as illogical. Or just lazy.

Yep. It's all "movie science," not actual science. But, who cares? It's a really fun and different disaster movie with an amazing all-star cast. For a disaster movie, the acting was top notch. Even though parts were obviously cliche and recycled form other films, it didn't matter because it was an entertaining movie to watch.

Great popcorn movie. Nothing more, nothing less.

Few points on your analysis...

- Science is "best guess" at its best, but why does it seem to have all the answers on things not a single human knows about on Earth today.

- We don't actually know much about what is beyond Earth's crust. Yet the entire movie follows a premise that we know exactly what is beyond the crust. It's a complete fabrication to make us look smarter than we really are

Er this is called science fiction?

- There is no communications system in the world that can pierce through Earth's crust. Yet we have our team near the Inner Core yapping on the radio as if they are right next door. Absolutely ridiculous.

- The HAARP facility in Alaska is real, but it deals with the atmosphere and it is restricted to US Military / Government personnel with a high SCI clearance. A project like DESTINI may very well exist... but with the ability to siphon all power grids in the United States and route through Canada is preposterous.

- The huge crystal caverns just below the crust was the coolest part of this movie, but there is no evidence that exists.

No evidence this exists? What's that got to do with anything? That's like says there is no evidence the Death Star exists!

- Nuclear Bombs wouldn't be able to sway an incoming asteroid, let alone restart the Earth's core. Think about it. The Earth's Core. It's like throwing a flaming cannon ball into a pool of magma. It would do squat.

Don't know about this. They were generating pressure waves. Same way when underwater bomb goes off the pressure waves move the water enough to destroy or damage things in waves path.

- The "indestructible" Virgil device can survive the pressures of the Mariana Trench, Magma, the Crust, more Magma, the Outer Core, and then finally sit just above the Inner Core in pure magma and still survive. Yet it can't take a single bump of a floating diamond rock the size of Rhode Island. What?

Something that big made of diamond would have huge mass and pressure on tiny point and they scratched it so maybe it would tear it. Like how inches of steel plates on side of Titanic were ripped to shreds by frozen water ice on point of iceberg!


- The amount of energy required to fire "the laser" from the front and sides of Virgil in the movie is beyond preposterous. The power of the sun would have to be harnessed just to be able to blow apart rocks fast enough at the speed they are going.

Didn't he say it was resonant frequency effects that did it - not the actual power of laser heating it.


- Everyone would be killed instantly as Virgil falls through Crystal Caverns and hits the bottom. It's like driving off the edge of the Grand Canyon in a tank with all air bags deployed. You would not survive. The human body would be pulverized inside.

They didn't hit the bottom - the vehicle slowed down gently because it slid down the inside of the giant spherical surface after the initial drop.


- Why did someone turn the laser off as Virgil fell through Crystal Caverns? instead of keeping the laser on and continuing on course, the laser is turned off and Virgil is forced to land, and the Commander of the mission dies as a result during "repair efforts".

- Cutting through the Crystals in Crystal Caverns is impossible. These crystals would not survive here for thousands of years just to be able to be cut by a torch that requires oxygen. My goodness how ridiculous

Why? What were crystals made of that they couldn't be cut?

- The force required to propel Virgil back up towards the surface of the Earth would be insane. In fact, it would be greater than a rocket on the surface attempting to get into atmosphere. But somehow, Virgil has no rocket thrusters and is able to magically go straight up towards the surface "surfing" on the very magma that seems to be able to destroy everything else manmade on the planet.

Not magically. They were using the vehicles impellers which were now operating at 100% using his hot wiring. The impellers were all they needed on the way down too once they reached molten rock. Lasers were only for solid rock that needed melting.

Actually you missed a something here someone else mentioned - how did he solder the copper cables to the unobtainium shell in the first place - the shell should have absorbed anything the blowtorch could throw at it considering the other side was absorbing 6000c magma so would never heat for solder to stick!


- Navigating magma tubes and trenches the entire way up to the surface is beyond ridiculous. You have Hillary Swank somehow navigating on a 16ms LCD screen what equates to a tank going up up up navigating past obstacles, diamonds, and rock, WITHOUT THE LASER EVEN ON, Death Star II tunnel flying style. It's beyond preposterous.

As above, laser was just for solid rock, in molten magma only the impellers were needed.


- Hillary Swank could have opened the door to let the scientist through before the capsule was crushed under immense pressure--the same pressure the rest of Virgil is being bombarded with. She killed him and doesn't even cry or show regret for the rest of the movie regarding it.

Well this is nothing to do with your complaints of bad science, this is just normal movie characters making decisions isn't it?!


- The nuclear bomb rolling over the floor onto the Nobel Prize Winner scientist's leg somehow doesn't roll anymore even after two men are pushing on it to move. How absurd.

What do you mean absurd? The thing apparently should have weighed tons. Two men are not going to move something that heavy even if it was on a flat surface. It rolled onto his leg when ship gyros failed and rocked ship sideways and gravity rolled it downhill.


- Lightning would not be able to be absorbed "Yoda" style in the Rome Coliseum, and then explode after absorbing too much. That was beyond hilarity.

Yes this whole Rome sequence was absolutely ridiculous. Looked like the made of stone building was just absorbing loads of electricity!


- The United States power grid is not tied into a single computer, even in 2013. There are multiple systems and many of them are isolated from the other. As a result, Rat would not be able to hack a government intranet and be able to shut down the grid during the DESTINI powerup.

- Rat wastes about 2 hours trying to break through the Destini firewall, but he keeps searching for DESTINY. It was explainted that it was D-E-S-T-I-N-I not Destiny, and for some reason "that did not compute" with Rat.

- The Rat would not be able to program free long distance permanently into a handheld phone. His kung fu is unrealistic and sensationalist.

- Gravity, as you get closer to the interior of the Earth, would become stronger. Not only would this make it tougher for Virgil to move back up to the surface, the occupants of Virgil would find it VERY difficult to stand up even after piercing Earth's crust. Suddenly lifting the arm to control a joystick or drinking a cup of coffee would become 2-3 times harder than it was on the surface. It would only get worse the closer to the core you would get. Gravity, besides the Sun, is the thing we as humans rely on Earth in order to survive. It is balanced and tuned perfectly for our lifestyles. Our bodies would not survive extreme gravity in the mantle, let alone the outer core and inner core perimeter. Yet it's completely ignored in the movie.

Wrong. Gravity would actually decrease linearly as you go to core to zero at dead centre. Think about it - the 3000 miles of rock above pull equally to 3000 miles of rock below you. They should have all being nearly weightless or like on the moon down there, not walking!

That's another thing you missed - the ship was more or less going down all the time yet when they were walking down the ship through doors and hatches it always looked completely flat! They should have fallen down from back of ship all the way to navigation down steep slope!

I don't think you should take a Movie like this too seriously. Why do people watch these movies expecting Hard Science. You can't travel faster than the speed of light. But movies like Star Trek and Star Wars makes it look easy as pie to do just that.

I'm not convinced by the OP's point's , especially as the Core is based on real event's from 1956. Hasn't he seen Journey to the centre of the earth and fantastic voyage, two film's proving the technology has been in place for decade's, probably centuries for such an undertaking.

Stanley Tucci's hair and Aaron Eckhart's chin are also scientific anomalies if not impossibilities!

What I find funny, is that you are smart enough to know the scientific reasons as to why this film is inaccurate, but not smart enough to understand that the term SCIENCE FICTION doesn't mean DOCUMENTARY.

"We stayed up all night dry humping, it was awful, I think she gave me poison ivy."