When astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson nitpicks the bad science in mainstream Hollywood blockbusters, he's not trying to spoil anyone's fun. He's just being a nerd. But one movie in particular got the most of his nerdy attention.
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00:00When astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson nitpicks the bad science in mainstream Hollywood blockbusters,
00:06he's not trying to spoil anyone's fun. He's just being a nerd. But one movie in particular
00:11got the most of his nerdy attention.
00:13Perhaps Tyson's harshest criticism ever was aimed at the 2022 box office bomb Moonfall.
00:20Directed by Roland Emmerich, the sci-fi disaster flick stars Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson
00:24as a pair of astronauts who are on a casual mission when Wilson's character witnesses
00:28a swarm of alien spacecraft. Alas, nobody believes him and he's fired from NASA.
00:34A decade later, the two are contacted by a conspiracy theorist played by John Bradley
00:38who posits that the moon is an artificially created superstructure and that there's an
00:42entire alien civilization inside it. He's also noticed that the moon is falling out
00:47of its orbit and will soon begin passing closer and closer to Earth.
00:51This does indeed come to pass, and eventually the moon gets so close that its gravity begins
00:56lifting people off the Earth's surface. Additionally, the three protagonists fly to the moon and
01:01find aliens lurking inside. The film is enjoyably dumb and overblown, like many of Roland Emmerich's
01:07movies. But Tyson has a different perspective when it comes to this genre. As he once declared
01:11on social media, Armageddon violated more laws of physics per minute than any other
01:16film in the universe. But then Moonfall came along and took over that honor — or dishonor.
01:22As Tyson explained on The Jess Cagle Show, the moon is approaching Earth and they learned
01:26that it's hollow. And there's a moon bean made out of rocks living inside of it. And
01:30the Apollo missions were really to visit and feed the moon bean.
01:34And I just couldn't. So I said, all right, I thought Armageddon had a secure hold on
01:40this crown, but apparently not.
01:42Tyson didn't even bother to explain why the physics in Moonfall are wrong. Many of those
01:46reasons may seem clear to viewers, after all. For one thing, the moon falling to Earth wouldn't
01:51allow you to do sick car jumps. But Moonfall and Armageddon are hardly the only movies
01:56to ever earn Tyson's ire. For example, he once infamously complained to James Cameron
02:01that he got the night sky wrong in Titanic. Tyson knew what the constellations looked
02:05like in the North Atlantic on the fateful night that ship sank in 1912, so he suggested
02:09that Cameron should use digital trickery to amend that mistake. And he in fact did so
02:14for the movie's 3D re-release in 2012.
02:17In general, Tyson has a lot to complain about regarding outer space movies. For one thing,
02:21audiences have accepted that most sci-fi spacecrafts are equipped with artificial gravity, even
02:26though there's no such thing. A ship would need to be laterally spinning to keep its
02:30occupants stuck to the floor. And any serious science student would be able to tell you
02:34that there's no sound in space, so any blasters and spectacular explosions would actually
02:39be silent.
02:40But Tyson has admitted that sometimes Hollywood does get it right. He especially loves 2015's
02:45The Martian, as it actually explores real physics and practical space travel concerns.
02:50He revealed some more movies in a 2024 video on his YouTube channel, StarTalk, in which
02:54he ranked sci-fi movies based on their accuracy, broad concepts, and philosophy. One movie
02:59that Tyson cited positively is The Matrix, despite the impracticality of using human
03:04brains as a power source. He also offered high marks for films like Interstellar, Gravity,
03:09Arrival, and even The Blob, which he believed featured the most accurate depiction of an
03:13alien ever.
03:14"...just because of how different they imagined that alien to be. It was not a Hollywood actor
03:20in a costume."
03:22Another of Tyson's favorites is Back to the Future, simply because it's entertaining and
03:26well-written. Sure, he could nitpick the science of time travel, but he can also just have
03:31fun at the movies. He's not a mere stick in the mud. Instead, he's simply trying to get
03:36viewers to read more physics books.
03:44And that's all for now.
03:45Thanks for watching.
03:46If you enjoyed this video, be sure to like and subscribe.
03:47See you in the next video!