Inconsistencies or plot holes in films

[Yellow Fang]

In The Unforgiven, the Gene Hackman character tells the writer that English Bob entered a bar, started shooting at Two Gun Corkrin. Two Gun Corkrin took deliberate aim back but his gun misfired, and he only actually had one gun, because his other gun was in fact a big penis. At that point English Bob walks up to Two Gun Corkrin and shoots him in the liver. The Gene Hackman character says he was in the bar at the time, so why did he let it happen?

 

[Dogtrousers]

Not sure whether your blood would boil. What is the boiling point of water in zero pressure? Don't think you would freeze very quickly because there is no convection. Heat loss would only be through radiation.

A bit of googling tells me that water boils at 37 degrees at 0.07 atmospheres or 53mmHg.

So if the pressure is less than or equal to that, and I guess it will be, then blood will boil at body temperature.

 

[Dadam]

In terms of the temperature, vacuum is a perfect insulator for convection or conduction, but the opposite for radiation. So in earth orbit, if in direct sunlight it's likely you'd be overheating very quickly and getting very bad sunburn. In the Earth's shadow, you'd start getting cold but not like dunking into liquid nitrogen. Either way though I think heat or cold would be the least of your concerns.

The pressure inside your body would not become sudden vacuum. Like a balloon, your skin and vessels would still be exerting pressure on the contents. Capillaries near the skin would burst, eyes would bulge but probably not pop.

Blood is salty so the boiling point will be higher than that for water, therefore I don't think your blood would boil per se. It's possible though that you'd get a terminal case of the bends, as bubbles of various gas form due to the sudden lack of pressure.

Not a pleasant way to go.

 

[matticus]

The pressure inside your body would not become sudden vacuum. Like a balloon, your skin and vessels would still be exerting pressure on the contents. Capillaries near the skin would burst, eyes would bulge but probably not pop.

So basically Total Recall got it right?

Spoiler

it was in a dream sequence anyway. Or implanted memory, whaddeva!

 

[Punkawallah]

Not sure whether your blood would boil. What is the boiling point of water in zero pressure? Don't think you would freeze very quickly because there is no convection. Heat loss would only be through radiation.

Radiation, yes - but isn’t space something like minus 300 degrees C?

 

[Yellow Fang]

In terms of the temperature, vacuum is a perfect insulator for convection or conduction, but the opposite for radiation. So in earth orbit, if in direct sunlight it's likely you'd be overheating very quickly and getting very bad sunburn. In the Earth's shadow, you'd start getting cold but not like dunking into liquid nitrogen. Either way though I think heat or cold would be the least of your concerns.

The pressure inside your body would not become sudden vacuum. Like a balloon, your skin and vessels would still be exerting pressure on the contents. Capillaries near the skin would burst, eyes would bulge but probably not pop.

Blood is salty so the boiling point will be higher than that for water, therefore I don't think your blood would boil per se. It's possible though that you'd get a terminal case of the bends, as bubbles of various gas form due to the sudden lack of pressure.

Not a pleasant way to go.

Would you get bends? Divers get bends when they come up from deep sea too quick. But the pressure in the deep sea is many times atmospheric pressure. The difference in pressure between space and atmospheric pressure is only one atmospheric pressure. In addition, bends comes from nitrogen forming bubbles in the blood IIRC. I don't suppose astronauts would breathe much nitrogen, just low pressure oxygen. Could be wrong of course.

 

[Alex321]

Radiation, yes - but isn’t space something like minus 300 degrees C?

Vacuum doesn't have a temperature.

Temperature is the measure of heat present in an object or substance, and heat is determined by the average kinetic energy of the particles present. In a vacuum there are no particles to have any kinetic energy, so any indication of temperature is meaningless.

 

[Alex321]

Would you get bends? Divers get bends when they come up from deep sea too quick. But the pressure in the deep sea is many times atmospheric pressure. The difference in pressure between space and atmospheric pressure is only one atmospheric pressure. In addition, bends comes from nitrogen forming bubbles in the blood IIRC. I don't suppose astronauts would breathe much nitrogen, just low pressure oxygen. Could be wrong of course.

It doesn't have to be coming up from deep sea, nor be many times atmospheric pressure.

Even at a depth of 10 metres, which will be 2 atmospheres (so one more than normal), if you stay down for more than about 2.5 hours, you will need a decompression stop at 5m to avoid any chance of the bends.

And most recent space programmes have used normal atmospheric pressure and composition.

 

[matticus]

The Gene Hackney character says he was in the bar at the time, so why did he let it happen?

Do you mean Gene Hackney - Director at Naval Undersea Warfare Center?!? He's had a busy life!

 

[Yellow Fang]

Do you mean Gene Hackney - Director at Naval Undersea Warfare Center?!? He's had a busy life!

I thought I got that wrong.

 

[Yellow Fang]

I am not sure whether this was dealt with in the later films, because I gave up watching them. However, in the first Star Wars film Luke Skywalker is living on Tatooine with his aunt and uncle. Luke goes off to talk to Ben Kenobi. When he comes back the storm troopers have killed his uncle and aunt. Darth Vader was prowling around the scene. Now *Spoiler Alert* Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father, so Luke's uncle and aunt would either be Vader's brother, sister, brother-in-law or sister-in-law. Seems surprising he did not appear to recognise them.

 

[captain nemo1701]

Not sure whether your blood would boil. What is the boiling point of water in zero pressure? Don't think you would freeze very quickly because there is no convection. Heat loss would only be through radiation.

By 'boil' I meant that the dissolved gases such as oxygen would start to come out of solution since there's no pressure. So your blood would likely 'froth' which probably is a better term but it would appear like boiling. Space can be incredibly cold - up to minus 270 degrees Celsius just above absolute zero. Any moisture in your body would freeze quite quickly. So it would be probably lack of oxygen, extreme freezing temperatures and frothing body fluids which would finish you off, along with deadly radiation. Nice.

 

[winjim]

I am not sure whether this was dealt with in the later films, because I gave up watching them. However, in the first Star Wars film Luke Skywalker is living on Tatooine with his aunt and uncle. Luke goes off to talk to Ben Kenobi. When he comes back the storm troopers have killed his uncle and aunt. Darth Vader was prowling around the scene. Now *Spoiler Alert* Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father, so Luke's uncle and aunt would either be Vader's brother, sister, brother-in-law or sister-in-law. Seems surprising he did not appear to recognise them.

Oh it gets much sillier than that. Uncle Owen's Brother was married to Anakin / Vader's mother, who was killed by Tusken raiders and buried by Anakin at the Lars homestead where Luke grew up.

But I do think Star Wars should be exempt from these sorts of discussions since literally none of it made sense in the first place and on top of that it's been retconned all to hell.

 

[DaveReading]

In one episode of Blakes 7, Brian Blesseds character is teleported into space where he explodes, which is wrong.

Well wrong in scientific terms, at least ...

 

[matticus]

In one episode of Blakes 7, Brian Blesseds character is teleported into space where he explodes, which is wrong.

Now hang on a minute - surely it depends on which type of teleporter they used?!?