“NOW I just don’t believe that.” Surely all of us, at some point, have watched a movie and thought: It’s simply badly researched, or, the makers must think we’re idiots (白痴). Recently, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph ran a humorous piece on unconvincing tech moments from some top movies. Let’s see what all the fuss is about.
Telegraph writer Tom Chiver’s first example is from the end-of-the-world movie Independence Day, in which a character comes up with a virus capable of destroying Windows, the computer system the alien spacecraft uses. “It’s a good thing they didn’t have Norton Antivirus (诺顿防火墙)”, jokes Chivers.
It’s just one case of a movie that takes a lot of license with its science. Another one Chivers mentions is from Star Wars, where glowing beams of light traveling through space look very impressive. The problem is that in space there are no air particles for the light to reflect off. In re
ality, they’d be invisible, which wouldn’t look so cool on the big screen.
Chiver’s second piece of Star Wars nonsense is the sound the fighters make in the movies: “the bellow (咆哮) of an elephant mixed with a car driving on a wet road”. But sound needs a medium to travel through, like air. In space, there wouldn’t actually be any sound at all.
Few people would deny that the mind-bending Matrix films make for great viewing, but for Chivers, the science in the movies is a little silly. He comments “…the film is based on the idea that humans are kept alive as electricity generator. This is not just unlikely – it’s fundamentally impossible. They would need more energy to stay alive than they would produce. It’s like saying you’ll power your car with batteries, and keep the batteries charged by running a dynamo (发电机) from the wheels.”
And finally, as Chivers points out, DNA is not replaceable. But this bit of elementary genetics passed the makers of the 2002 Bond film Die Another Day by. In the film the bad guy has “gene therapy” to change his appearance and his DNA, which is completely impossible.
小题1:What does the underlined sentence mean?
A．The virus created by the character is capable of destroying spacecrafts.
B．Aliens’ using Windows system is totally unconvincing plot.
C．The spacecraft should have Norton Antivirus.
D．Norton Antivirus can stop a virus.小题2: We can learn from the example of the Star Wars that .
A．in space, you can not hear anything
B．light beams travel via air particle in space
C．Chiver thinks the sound of the fighters is vivid
D．the invisible light beams are impressive in the movies小题3:Chiver uses the example of car batteries in Matrix to imply that .
A．the basic idea of the film is rather ridiculous
B．the science in the movies is very convincing
C．the idea that humans can be kept alive as electricity generator is right
D．humans would stay alive as long as they would produce enough energy小题4:We can learn from the movie Die Another Day that .
A．the idea of gene therapy is creative
B．the element of DNA should not be used
C．the makers of the 2002 Bond use the genetic technology
D．DNA can be replaced but in the real world it is impossible小题5:Why did Chiver write this passage?
A．To prove all these films are makin
g mistakes.
B．To show his great concern for the movie industry.
C．To joke about some movies in the movie industry.
D．To call for the audience to find out mistakes from the movies.
