Shut up brain!

So last night Deirdre and I rented the new Transformers movie. Yeah, I’m sure most of you saw it in theaters, but we were rather busy moving across the country this summer so give us a break. Anyway, we decided to pick it up because it would be an entertaining movie and to be honest, rather brainless. At least that’s what I expected. I really need to learn how to turn my brain off when watching action/sci-fi movies, but I just can’t seem to do it.

As you may imagine, I was able to notice many blatant scientific/technical mistakes. At this point I really should point out how great Deirdre is at me pointing out all the stupid mistakes. And she gets into it too, like pointing out that the NSA computer specialist had an Australian accent rivaled only by Paul Hogan. Or that after showing the White House and the Pentagon the text at the bottom of the screen pointed out that we were in Washington D.C.

Now being the science nerd that I am I tend to focus more on the technical errors that they make. That and the wonderfully insightful scripts that are just a litany of scientific buzz words strung together to sound good but say literally less than nothing.

But I think the one that really got me the most, even more than somehow having a PC magically communicate with a short-wave radio, was the explanation of the sighting of a Transformer on Mars. That part I didn’t care too much about, what just annoyed me was that they claimed that NASA got he signal from Beagle 2. Anyone see the error there? Sure, it’s cool that they were actually able to get the name of a Mars rover right, even on that failed, so kudos on that level. The only problem is that Beagle 2 (named in homage to the British ship that carried Darwin - The Beagle) was a British satellite, launched by the ESA.

You would think that if they were going to go to the trouble of informing us that Qatar is in the Middle East and that the Pentagon is in D.C. maybe they could just pick one of the many NASA made Martian exploration vehicles that failed to use as a plot device. But then again, maybe I should just shut up and enjoy the movie for what it is. If only I could figure out how to get my brain to just stop being so analytical