Warning: Your enjoyment of Alien: Covenant, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and Baywatch may be ruined after you watch this Late Show with Stephen Colbert clip in which Neil deGrasse Tyson reviews movies. Using his scientific expertise, deGrasse Tyson determines whether science fiction plots (and, randomly, Baywatch's plot) could ever become reality, Mashable reports.
Covenant, the new Alien movie about people sent to colonize a planet at the other end of the galaxy, definitely wouldn't happen IRL. "There is no sensible space mission that’s gonna send humans to a planet before we send robots," he explains. "Because if anything's gonna do some killing, it'll kill the robots first and not the people, and that'll tell us, 'let's try a different plan.'" Once the plan is robot-tested, though, the strategy of starting life on a new planet by sending a few select people over could work. "Only about 12 families started all human life in North and South America across the Bering Strait," he points out.
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There's a major flaw in Guardians of the Galaxy, too: All these explosions can be heard during the fight scenes, but in reality, you'd never be able to hear anything in space. If the movie were realistic, he says, "it would be a silent movie for all the scenes in space."
What is Baywatch doing here? Well, deGrasse Tyson couldn't not address the Rock's superhuman strength. In one scene, he carries two refrigerators, which isn't as hard as it sounds. "A refrigerator is mostly empty space," deGrasse Tyson explains. "He’s strong enough he could easily carry two refrigerators. I bet they’re not even fake. Why wasn’t it three?"
Don't let this new information sabotage your movie-going experience, though. DeGrasse Tyson doesn't. "If there’s enough other interesting things going on in a big-budget epic sci-fi film, then you can distract me from all the science you’re getting wrong," he said. "So, a walking, talking tree, a raccoon that will insult you, a green woman — okay. We’re there. I’ll just sit back and watch."
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