Customer Reviews

Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics: Hollywood's Best Mistakes, Goofs and Flat-Out Destructions of the Basic Laws of the Universe

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When people think of physics, they often think with horror about its more abstract sub-disciplines such as quantum mechanics, relativity, elementary particles, cosmology, etc. As a result, many people shy away from this most basic of sciences. But one thing that this book makes perfectly clear is that much of what we see in everyday life is easily explainable (or analyzable) using the elementary physics that one learns in late high school and perhaps early university courses. Using this most basic physics, the author has done an absolutely superb job of dissecting the scientific credibility of modern movies using the scalpel of Newtonian physics and the laws of thermodynamics. The movies discussed are action/adventure/science fiction/fantasy-type movies, i.e., movies that are more prone to stretching and outright breaking the basic laws of physics for the benefit of added spectacular effects. Equations are included throughout but in special boxes for those who are more technically inclined. The writing style is very clear, most engaging and very tongue-in-cheek (even hilarious) when discussing matters related to the scientific literacy of Hollywood movie makers. This book can be enjoyed by everyone; however, it will likely be most enjoyed by science buffs and movie aficionados alike. It could also be used as an exciting complement to any basic physics courses.

As a physics teacher who often used movies and TV to point out the ridiculous scientific mistakes that were common in the media, this book makes a great resource. Mr. Rogers does a good job pointing out the "insultingly stupid" physics that can quickly spoil a movie. Anyone with an interest in physics and the movies would be amiss not to have this on the shelf.

Mr. Rogers does a number of good things here. First, he is quite complete and deliberate in his coverage of the major topics of mechanics. There are chapters on the various aspects of Newton's laws, kinematics, energy, momentum, rotation, gravity as well as brief dips into other areas. He earns a lot of respect for his good, scientific analysis. His chapters focusing on JFK and the collapse of the twin towers are among the best I've read on these subjects.

Wisely, he keeps the calculations offset from the main text so casual readers can skip this if they wish. Most importantly, he also has a real love and appreciation of movies. He doesn't allow his science knowledge to interfere with his enjoyment of a movie if the science isn't crucial to the story.

If there is a weakness in this book, it is that his writing is a bit workmanlike and repetitive, so reading a lot at a sitting can be a slog. But my opinion of Mr. Roger's work may be a little colored because I did a lot of similar analysis for my physics students. Still, there were many ideas in this book that I never developed myself so I was glad to have my understanding widened. This book is well worth a read.

This book examines many things that happen in movies. So, you see a guy with an automatic weapon firing for 20 seconds straight. This book lets you know the firing rate, and capacity so that it would be empty in 1.5 seconds. Also, the weight of bullets, e.g. Matrix Revolutions, at that firing rate, wheelbarrels of bullets won't do it, you need truckfulls. Besides the physics - how fast an explosion goes, versus gravity pulling our hero down to water (they always jump away from an explosion), would give him 17 inches down toward water - oops, fried. Beside the fun physics, what I remember from high school and freshman college physics is in seperate boxes (e.g. Force = Mass x Acceleration) used to give details. You can skip these if they are too dry for you - but I love the backup info. What is great about this book is that the author does not just dismiss stuff - e.g. let's say Superman can fly (given), but if he swooped in to save Lois, coming to an immediate stop, all his kinetic energy would be converted to heat - about 6000 degrees. Or Spiderman, to zip around would need about 1/3 of his body weight to be web creating fluid. Lots of great stuff covered, Star Trek inertial dampers (without they'd be pancake crew), shields in all space movies, Matrix Revolution firing, bullets knocking someone off his feet (e.g. Lethal Weapon), how much explosive to blast the asteroid in Armageddon (oh, about 1000 of the largest nuclear bombs Russia ever built), the bus jump in Speed (how it could actually happen, versus how they filmed it), etc. Lots of great movies covered, without ruining them. Clearly this author loves movies as much as I do, and yet wants to educate readers on physics so you don't try to start a gasoline puddle fire with a cigarette (highly unlikely to work - read the book and see why!). The end of each chapter has a short list of PLUS and MINUS for movies in the category - e.g. [-][-] planets that explode in a few seconds, [0] terrestrial fireballs traveling great distances at hypersonic speeds (incorrect but forgivable), [+][+] fragmentation grenades detonating without large fireballs. So each of these plus and minus relate to movies in the prior chapter, and notice the author often 'forgives' some physics because it is good for the movie/story.

This book says what I've been saying most of my life. Typically I'll see a movie and say to my friends, "That's impossible" to which they vehemently insist it is possible. I've never been able to explain WHY certain movie scenes are impossible, but now I can use this book (and the website) as a handy reference. For example: Why the Italian Job could not have fit Mini Coopers down a 6-foot-wide hallway (because the car is too big to turn around corners).

Great book. Well-written. I read the whole thing in a single day, because I couldn't put it down.

I really like Tom Rogers' website, so this book was a big disappointment since the level of attention to detail that he puts into his movie reviews and physics explanations clearly didn't go into its editing. A lot of the content of the book is harvested from the website, which was to be expected; the bad part is the slapdash, repetitive way in which it was put together. It just feels like the author copy-pasted large chunks of his work together without regard for the fact that a book flows differently from a website.

The author's ingenuity is in explaining how our intuition can fail when it comes to the way things move under unusual circumstances (e.g. bullets, zero gravity) by using counterxamples from a visual medium that everybody's familiar with - action movies. As mentioned, I've read a lot of his movie reviews. Some material that was new for me in the book was his analysis of the JFK assassination film.

I requested my university's library to buy a copy since I thought it would be amusing and helpful for people taking intro physics. If you haven't read the ISMP website much, or if you're buying the book as a gift, it's worth while. If you've read most of the content on the ISMP site already, skip it.

Can you really blow up gasoline by flicking a cigarette into it?

Yes it's lame but I've actually asked myself this exact question. And it turns out the answer is no because a cigarette is designed to smolder and not burn...qualities that are particularly poor in lighting gasoline.

But it also turns out that a lot of the "science" we see in even science fiction movies is contrary to what really would happen.

Here are some for instances...

Being shot by a gun WILL NOT hit you so hard you get thrown into a wall behind you.

Similarly getting kicked very hard WILL NOT throw you into a wall behind you.

A ship exploding near another ship in space would actually destroy the other ship too (making it more like Star Deaths than Star Wars).

Operating even repeating fire weapons will create truckloads of empty shells (so if Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted to have an extended shoot out he'd need to be followed by his own ammo trucks).

In all, movie physics for its part is just as fantastical as, well, the rest of movies are about real life.

And that's fine with me. Or as Blanche put it in a Streetcar Named Desire: "I don't want realism I want romance."

But it's still nice to be able to look behind the curtain a smile. If I was inclined to smoke, it would also make me feel a little safer too...at least around gasoline puddles.

The author does a superb job of breaking the movie stunts into easily consumable chunks of information. Enough information is included to give a basic physics lesson to the reader without going over the head of anyone old enough to have seen most of the movies or going into snoozeland. The sections can be read out of order without getting confused, which makes it perfect for impromptu browsing. Well worth the money.

Unlike a previous reviewer, I watch movies with a very critical eye. It's not just mindless escapism for me. What may be an innocuous or even undetectable detail for one is something that will illicit vitrol from me. One movie that would have fit very well into this book, along with the others the author picks on--including "Speed", "Independence Day", and "Armageddon"--is "The Astronaut Farmer". My disbelief was immediately shattered on Billy Bob Thornton's first attempt to fly into space. An Atlas missile would not have taken off horizontally after falling from a vertical position. Thornton, his wife (Virginia Madsden), his farm, and everything within about a thousand feet would have been blown away, and the movie would've ended right there.

That being said, this is a fantastic book that vindicates those of us who note the details in film. If you really want to know whether or not the bus jump in "Speed" could've actually happened, this is the book for you.

A witty and well-written work that debunks many of the insultingly stupid stunts in modern American films. The author gets high marks for both creative and interesting prose as well as first-rate physics. The book is rigorous and meaty without dragging or rambling. I highly recommend this work for teachers, scientists and movie buffs alike. For even more fun, readers should also check out the author's website.

As someone with an interest in both the cinema and physical sciences, and a fan of the site I thought this book would be a slam dunk. Chalk it up to schadenfreude, but I like picking out goofs in movie, scientific or otherwise. Perhaps that explains the appeal of MST3K to me, but I digress.

For the most part, I found the book both amusing and informative. However, the tone is a bit too preachy and angry. The author seems to take offense that (for example) the director of "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" didn't consider the consequences of the extreme density of a shrunken child. Granted, he gave the movie a pass along with many others for indulgences that were central to the story or particularly interesting. On the other hand, the criteria for which movies escaped his vitriol seemed to be primarily based on his enjoyment of the movie itself more than anything else. Moreover, he took special exception to movies that had silly science and had dialogue devoted to an equally silly explanation trying to support it.

The comparative analysis between Star Wars and Stark trek (complete with chart) was just plain silly and meaningless. This was mostly because of the extremely subjective and arbitrary scoring system he devised and used to compare them.

Also, there were a lot of asides that were more akin to movie reviews than pointing out problems with the science. He exhibits particular ire for Jar-Jar Binks and Hayden Christensen in the Star Wars movies. Fine, I can relate, but it wasn't the point of the book and seemed superfluous.

All in all, there was just too much ink devoted to preaching about how important it is for Hollywood to be accurate in every scientific detail of movies lest it turn us all into science-illiterates. Honestly, I don't see the harm. For example, given the penultimate affront to science, "The Core", the science was so over the top that no reasonable person who has a real-world need to apply science would be side-tracked by it.

"Mom, I'm going to dig a hole to China!"
"Dear, you know that you will be crushed by the extreme temperatures before you get there!"
"Aww mom, they did it in 'The Core' so it probably isn't that bad."


All in all, I would have preferred a more lighthearted approach. This felt too much like a Rush Limbaugh book with the word "Liberals" replaced with "Hollywood Directors."