Earth should have been fine. PLOT HOLE


Near the end of the movie they say that the meteor will arrive a week early.

Pretty much means it's going to miss us. How the hell does the meteor still hit us?

Learn to science, hollywood.

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It's a dramedy about two people meeting before the end of the world. I have no idea why anyone would go into this expecting hard scientific fact.

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There is a suggestion in the news coverage that the government knew when it would arrive, but lied to reduce panic and keep society running as long as possible (e.g., law and order, TV broadcasts).

That was my take on it anyway.
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RIGOLETTO: I'm denied that common human right, to weep.

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You're a dork.

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To all those narks saying theres a giant plot hole and scientists would never misjudge by a week....wheres your proof? How many times have scientists accurately calculated when a earth destroying meteoroid would hit the earth? Not even once,right? Theres a plot hole in YOUR theories... :P


don't call me shirley

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Well I don't think it's a plot hole. More like a flawed plot device. And while I understand where people who say "It's just a movie!" are coming from, it's hard to turn off your brain just because we're watching fiction. Unless clearly stated otherwise, one has to assume that the normal rules on earth follow (i.e. moral, scientific, etc...). Flawed plot devices like this makes it difficult to suspend belief.

And I get it, they want the drama of the last minute decision to go back to Dodge. This could've easily been remedied by simply removing 1 week. Why the heck did it need to be 3wks away anyway? ..or They could've simply made it made their dalliance a week longer. Or perhaps they could increase Dodge's singlehood another week. Or a combination of all of those. Instead they chose a plot device that simply threw a lot of people off.

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Neh. That was deliberate ... :) You think if there is certain doom for planet Earth by a 114km asteroid they would give you the exact time and place of impact? That would provoke mass panic. The movie had cleverly placed twice the information that the government does not give as public information the place of impact, and also, this was louder than the rest of the ambient information. So if the government didn't specify the place why should they specify the exact time? Just think about it. If there would be a certain end of the world by asteroid the last 2-3 days would be complete chaos and mass panic, mass suicides more than a week before impact. So this way, they at least avoided some terrible last 2 days ... I say that the last 2 days, because before that there i a thought that maybe some miracle happens and impact will be avoided ... But when you know that tomorrow is really over, no more miracles, that is when the ugly thing happens ...

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Jeez, does it really matter anyway? Did it ruin the entire movie for you?

"It's because of movies like this that illegal downloading exists and you can be bored for free..."

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it's a fuc*ing movie lighten up who give's a shi* about science if one hits us where all screwed anyways. Stop reading into things so much.

Another day another dream

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[deleted]

In the film, it was supposed to be an extinction level event and no living thing could survive. But for the sake of argument, suppose not all people are expected to die immediately, your reasoning is still subject to the same problem. If some could survive at least for a while, then in the film, BEFORE the government revised the estimate of the date, all people should have rushed as far as possible away from the impact zone. We didn't see that happening in the film.

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[deleted]

The thing is, it doesn't ruin the movie for me.
In fact I went into this movie highly skeptical and accidentally fell in love.

That said, the plot hole there is large enough to keep an insomnia suffering semi-geek awake for an hour or so after watching it when she realizes how flawed that logic is.

-White Wolf "I don't suffer from Insanity...I enjoy Every minute of it!"

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I am rather surprised that that the asteroid Matilda didn't just break apart upon entering Earth's atmoshphere.

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That's because the earths atmosphere is only about 70 miles thick itself. The meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs was around say 7 miles across. But while the diameter of the movie meteor is 10 times the size of the dinosaur meteor, it is about 1000 times the volume/mass - the earth wouldn't stand a chance.

The one in Russia recently was about only 50 to 60 feet across...

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way too big, the huge size was likely a selected to rule out pretty much all survival scenarios.

but suppose it was a lot smaller, say a mile or two across, how it would act when it hit the atmosphere would depend on what the asteroid is made of. If its was just made of loose rock it would break up, some meteor explode in the atmosphere, but it if was made of solid iron and nickel than it would have landed entirely intact.

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RIGOLETTO: I'm denied that common human right, to weep.

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