Continuing a previous rant on movies which change/ignore the laws of Physics I bring to you The rant about The Core: the movie that had Geologists all over the world cringing. The plot of this movie is basically a modern day Journey to the Center of the Earth... except that nowadays we know that we can't do that, it's impossible! Elementary school children are taught that underneath the earth's crust is magma. Magma is liquid rock, rock so hot that it melted. Now I don't know if I need to spell this out to most people but apparently the writers of this movie missed the important fact that basically all types of metal melt at a lower temperature than rock, thus the ship they travel in would melt into a puddle upon contact with said magma. Fortunately the crew of the ship would never have to worry about this because their ship would be crushed into the size of a pop can by the immense pressure long before it reached the magma. They decided to invent a metal that doesn't exist, call it "Unobtainium", and build a ship out of it because this metal has magical properties and will survive the trip. I actually don't have *that* big a beef with this particular idea. I actually have to laugh out loud at the unoriginal name! Unobtainium. Well, the apparently obtained enough to craft a ship... so shouldn't they rename it to Obtainium? Or what about Foundsomeium or Gotplentythanksium?

*shakes head sadly*

People who have heard me rant about this movie have said "Why can't you suspend your disbelief and just enjoy a cheezy movie?" I have said this before, suspension of disbelief can only get you so far. There are almost rules to how far a movie can go before someone's disbelief is shattered. If you have a movie set in a fantastical place or time, such as another planet or in the distant future it is far easier to suspend one's disbelief on such things as physics because any flaws in that area can be chalked up to advances in technology or different laws of physics on a different planet. Movies about fantastical subject matter, such as magic or mythical beasts, are also generally easier to believe in. On the other hand if you have a movie about a true historical event or something set in modern times you cannot stray far from the facts surrounding that era. Cars of today cannot fly. Fact. Medieval warriors did not invent gunpowder. Fact. If you are aiming for scientific accuracy in your movie, or wish to give your audience the impression that your movie is scientifically acurate, you cannot turn around and blatently shatter the laws of physics. You really need to introduce some sort of fantastic element if you want people to suspend their disbelief. This is why Back to the Future was good and Timeline was bad. The problem with The Core and movies like The Core is that they pretend to know what they are talking about. This is why I can suspend my disbelief on movies like Star Wars (which if you were to nitpick the physicality of their universe... you would talk yourself into an early grave) and I cannot for this movie. Star Wars does not take it's science seriously, it does not try to explain itself of make excuses, it leans more into the fantasy genre in this aspect; and this is why it is easy not to think about all the impossible crap that is happening. The Core is set in the here and now, therefore we must judge it based on what we know here and now. When the audience knows more about what's beneath the earth's crust than the writers of the movie do, then you have a big problem.

A tidbit of information about this movie I found at the IMDB:

At the University of British Columbia, Canada, an Earth and Ocean Science course (EOSC 310) uses this film as a learning tool by showing the film to students and then analyzing the bad science behind it. Ironically, at least one of UBC's professors was consulted during the shoots that were done in Vancouver.

If you wish to learn more about some of scientific innacuracies about this movie you can follow this link.