James Cameron’s The Terminator is often considered one of the best sci-fi films ever made. The film spawned a franchise that explored the dangers and repercussions of AI and its dominance over humankind. Although it is not a film that wants to show its scientific accuracy, it was a really groundbreaking film at the time in terms of how sci-fi films were perceived and put together. Unlike other mindless sci-fi attempts at the time, the two Terminator films had a thought-provoking message underneath all the well-constructed action sequences and visuals.
The popular astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson has been vocal about many relevant happenings around modern scientific innovations. He also voices his opinions on various sci-fi films and comments on their scientific accuracy. He recently talked about a certain plot point regarding Cameron’s The Terminator which according to him, does not make much sense.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Two Solutions for The Terminator‘s Plot Conundrum
Neil DeGrasse has famously expressed how the Michael Bay film Armageddon has the most scientific inaccuracies than any other film of the genre. He recently talked to SiriusXM to proclaim that the recent Halle Berry film Moonfall has overtaken that throne. He said,
“Okay, so yes. More laws of per minute than any other movie ever made, ever, okay? That’s what I thought until I saw Moonfall. It was a pandemic film that came out, you know, Halle Berry and the moon is approaching Earth, and they learned that it’s hollow and there’s a moon being made out of rocks living inside of it and the Apollo missions were really to visit, to feed the moon being, and I just couldn’t, so I said, ‘Alright, I thought Armageddon had a secure hold on this crown, but apparently not.’”
He laid out two simple ways for the film to have more compelling solutions to its overall plot. He also brought out James Cameron‘s The Terminator and how the film’s conundrum could also have been solved by two simple solutions. He explained to SiriusXM,
“All you gotta do is just nudge it and if you do that early enough, if you nudge it like one centimeter per second to the right, in space, there’s no friction, so it’ll just keep drifting to the right. If you do that early enough, then you can have the asteroid pass in front of the earth rather than hit the earth or you can slow it down so that it’ll pass behind the earth. Two ways you can adjust it. So, yeah. You know what it’s like?
It’s like The Terminator thing where I want to kill your parents so that you’re never born. ‘Really?’ All you have to do is prevent your parents from meeting each other or have them have sex 20 minutes later than the other one. That will create a different zygote and you won’t be born, so the movies go, in some cases, they get hyperbolic on their solutions to problems”
Being an astrophysicist, Tyson seems to not enjoy films when they deviate from the standard laws of science and gravity. His solutions are understandable but these are movies and they do not need to be scientifically accurate to be entertaining and compelling. As long as the core plot and emotionality within the characters are strong, the film will always work irrespective of its genre.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson Refutes the Recent Claims of Hidden UFOs and Aliens
Recently, there were speculations that the US government was hiding confidential information about UFOs and aliens from the public. Tyson refuted these claims and mocked the government by saying that they wouldn’t be able to hide something like that. He told TMZ,
“Do you think the government is that competent, that they can actually keep such a secret? Oh, my gosh, when did you get that much confidence in the U.S. government. Here’s what I’d rather think: that if we had an alien invasion, more than the US government would know about. We would know about it. We, with cameras and smartphones, we are crowdsourcing an alien invasion of Earth because everybody has a camera, high-resolution camera”
It seems Tyson does not go by public perception and goes by what he believes to be the truth. His comments are more understandable and a realistic answer to the concerns as bizarre as the existence of other-worldly things on Earth.
