MovieChat Forums > Project Almanac (2015) Discussion > The technical talk is garbage

The technical talk is garbage

posted 9 years ago by mindrip
54 replies | jump to latest

I couldn't get past minute 7 because the dialog was filled with a bunch of "tech words" in random order. How is it possible that a "sci-fi" movie, from 2014, gets the most simple technical things wrong? Twice in the first 7 minutes! WTF?!

Then there's the "project" for the MIT application - are you kidding me? Drones and hand gesture control are old news and they are nothing more than toys. It's a gluing project at best, definitely not something you'd show off with when trying to get into MIT. On the same subject, if the other two guys were the "engineers", WTH was his contribution to the project? Project manager?

Given the amount of FAIL they managed to pack in only 7 minutes, can anyone explain why does this movie has such a high score? It's so stupid it hurts.

Science fiction? More like make believe.

[–] Tiablo 9 years ago

Agreed.

[–] chained-in-human-body 9 years ago

I guess specifically for tech guys we ought to have two types of sci-fi: 1) facts are preserved, but may be fixed and extended to accommodate depicted science, 2) free manipulation of facts and introduced science. But then it may happen that there is almost no sci-fi that can be classified as type one...

[–] thrillkiller-1 9 years ago

This film was probably written 2-3 years before production started. And most likely written by a writer who is NOT a Techie. As to the Jargon, etc. It doesn't have to be real. It's Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, FICTIONAL SCIENCE!

I Kill Kids!

[–] chained-in-human-body 9 years ago

True, but there's Google for people like that. I've done similar research myself and know how hard it is to find hidden, obscure stuff to build a proper mental image, but wrong WiFi frequency, etc...? That's as simple as copy-pasting from Wikipedia.

Anywho, I just shared my opinion and it doesn't mean that I didn't like the movie.

[–] DrRicketts 9 years ago

Agreed. This reminds me of "Red Planet" where the biologist talks about the code for DNA as A,G,T,P, not A,G,T,C. Wow. Seriously, when reading over the script for approval, this literally would take a 7 second Google search...

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] 9 years ago

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[–] mdcdeve 9 years ago

What are you doing there ?
Stripping wires, it's something i saw my dad doing.

[–] whizkid-93-509377 9 years ago

Lol! ... indeed. Hehehe
And then he says : " Hey, put the camera down, I will teach it to you "

[–] starcraftbw88 9 years ago

I got got a little further, despite the poor dialogue... Think I somehow managed to get to around 30-35 minutes in before shutting it down. I should've known when I saw the part on how they "discovered" the time machine parts or whatever

I mean, I love me a good sci-fi, but this was bad, really bad. At least RT got it right.

[–] Jedi2155 9 years ago

I just randomly skimmed it and the worse part for me was like OMG YOU CANT JUST BUY HYDROGEN! YOU NEED A PERMIT :O :O :O!!!

Sure....

Simple electrolysis with electricity and water boyo....

[–] whizkid-93-509377 9 years ago

I didn't even had a clue what this 'MIT' meant.
Googled it just now, and it turns out to be a university in the United States.

But I didn't get this thing about being 'accepted by a university' or having to pay money for it??

Can someone explain? Do you have to pay money to go to a university in the USA ?
And you need to be "accepted" by them , by making some application, or what??

I am from Europe (Netherlands).
Over here education costs are covered by the government/taxpayers (until you are 27).
And you just enroll in the school you like.
So it looks a bit weird to me.

[–] !!!deleted!!! (6960062) 9 years ago

MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is one of the top universities in the world. Students must apply to get in, and the school only accepts the top students (students with a very high GPA Grade Point Average, and aptitude towards technology and engineering). 90% of applications are rejected.

[–] Gambit771 9 years ago

But what about the fees?
Do you have pay in all or just this one?

[–] davidkeefner 8 years ago

Most education costs can be covered in various ways. MIT will even pay for students who come from low income families.

The real question here is what you pay in sales tax. In the US, it's different in each state but generally doesn't go above 8% and many states have no tax. In the Netherlands, it's what? Over 20%? For things you buy daily? Over your whole life with the rate going up every few years? I'll take the free market education system any day.

[–] JrnlofEddieDeezenStudies 8 years ago

It's a time travel film. It's going to pretty much just be fantasy.

I understand that there is a subset of SciFi fans who want "hard"/reality-based science in their SciFi, but a time travel film centered on a bunch of high schoolers is an absurd place to look for that.

Enjoy Project Almanac for what it is instead--a fantasy flick.

And personally, I'm of the opinion that the realism fetish sucks. Expect fiction to be fiction. If you want nonfiction, head to that section instead.

[–] jaodeballs 8 years ago

it's not about realism vs fiction. it's about internal consistency.

doesn't matter it it's fiction or non-fiction. good stories need to be internally consistent.

if you're writing fantasy and you're writing rules to your fantasy world, you yourself must not bend the rules you made just so you could write yourself out of a dead end in the story.

as for checking technical jargon to at least remain truthful to the present world, it is important only for stories that present themselves to be based on the present world, as this film was. so naturally, audiences expect the writers to remain consistent with real world physics and real world technology. because the story itself was based on the present world.

you see, the problem with suspending disbelief is that there has to be a solid grounding for suspending that disbelief. you can't just say: voila, this is fiction so everyone else must just ignore the *beep* things i come up with no matter how illogical, inconsistent, or stupid it is.

that's what separate the really great stories from the mediocre ones.