A bizarre thought occured to me...

[Emperor Qianlong]

I know that Hollywood has produced all types of laws-of-physics-defying absurdities like Armageddon, The Core, Sunshine, and The Day After Tomorrow... so in that context, I wonder, has there ever been a scenario in a movie in which the sun was going supernova? I mean, I know that's absolutely impossible - it's doubly impossible even, as our sun has still 5 billion years of lifetime left, and as it's simply not massive enough to go to supernova. But, since we're talking about Hollywood, one can expect them to do just about anything (look at the movies I mentioned above).

So, has there ever been a movie (even an obscure B-movie, for that matter) in which such a scenario happened?

[MadAce]

Probably. But it would play out the same as Sunshine.

[NapoleonXIV]

http://imdb.com/title/tt0419373/

There are 4 others in the IMDB but this is apparently the only one actually about your proposed subject.

[Emperor Qianlong]

Originally Posted by NapoleonXIV

http://imdb.com/title/tt0419373/

There are 4 others in the IMDB but this is apparently the only one actually about your proposed subject.

Wow, excellent find there, NapoleonXIV!

Originally Posted by Comment on the movie

Oh where to begin? Leaving the incredibly bad science out of it (and believe me, as a former astronomer I gotta say the science was so bad!), the people who made this movie did obviously NO research on what Australia is supposed to look like.

Not only did just about everyone have an American accent (and most of those who affected an Aussie accent need to fire their dialect coach), but just about every detail was way, way off. I could handle some of the small stuff (i.e. phone numbers here have 8 digits, not 7), but they got some pretty major stuff wrong too.

Whlle the cars were at least driving on the left, they all had the wrong kind (possibly European) of licence plates. Aussie plates don't look anything like what they had. Imagine a movie set in New York where all the cars had bright pink tags.

But the BIGGEST blunder that anyone who had ever set foot on this continent would recognise: Australia doesn't have the death penalty. Like in most civilised nations, it was abolished years ago. This was a major plot point in the movie, and if they had bothered to do a lick of research, they would have known they needed a major rewrite.

Sloppy

Reading what that person writes about the movie, it sounds so bad it might easily been a product of the dreaded Mike Huney that I invented for that essay. There seems to be more than enough real world equivalents to him...

[Thande]

I can't sympathise with the whole Hollywood science-hating brigade. After all, if you could make a disaster film nowadays with every top scientist as a consultant so the product was absolutely 100% accurate with respect to our most cutting-edge theories, I'll tell you two things about it.

1) It would be approximately twice as boring as watching paint dry, and

2) In 25 years, the science in it would seem just as stupid and credulous to the re-run viewers of 2032 as the science in Armageddon or The Core. In fact I doubt they could tell the difference.

[VT45]

No, what would be better would be a gamma ray burst. And we'd only know about it because of FTL-rule-bending technology centuries ahead of our time.

[Conspiracy theorist]But the government has been hiding all this tech from the public for over 60 years now, so of course it's possible![/Conspiracy theorist]

I just noticed the word "conspiracy" contains the word "piracy."

[Emperor Qianlong]

Originally Posted by Thande

I can't sympathise with the whole Hollywood science-hating brigade. After all, if you could make a disaster film nowadays with every top scientist as a consultant so the product was absolutely 100% accurate with respect to our most cutting-edge theories, I'll tell you two things about it.

1) It would be approximately twice as boring as watching paint dry, and

2) In 25 years, the science in it would seem just as stupid and credulous to the re-run viewers of 2032 as the science in Armageddon or The Core. In fact I doubt they could tell the difference.

Come to think of it, you're actually right. When I think of my own domain (paleontology), and look at Jurassic Park, yes, they did the hell of a lot of stuff wrong in the movie (I'm only talking about the first one, as it gets increasingly darker with all the subsequent ones...), but the amount of stuff that was up-to-date at the time of the release and that's hopelessly outdated today is actually much more...

[Thande]

Originally Posted by Emperor Qianlong

Come to think of it, you're actually right. When I think of my own domain (paleontology), and look at Jurassic Park, yes, they did the hell of a lot of stuff wrong in the movie (I'm only talking about the first one, as it gets increasingly darker with all the subsequent ones...), but the amount of stuff that was up-to-date at the time of the release and that's hopelessly outdated today is actually much more...

Just so.

One of my favourite asteroid films is Meteor, from 1979, whose science is probably just as bad as Armageddon's, but it's better because the story is more interesting, more global, and less Ameriwanky. (Though the special effects are obviously not up to much).

[Emperor Qianlong]

Originally Posted by Thande

Just so.

One of my favourite asteroid films is Meteor, from 1979, whose science is probably just as bad as Armageddon's, but it's better because the story is more interesting, more global, and less Ameriwanky. (Though the special effects are obviously not up to much).

I liked that one too, actually, especially the special charme of olde gentleman Sean Connery.

I personally liked Deep Impact however. It's not really believable either, but it at least comes over a lot more convincing by the whole mood of the movie, whereas Armageddon is just really, really bad.

[SouthCarolinian]

Yeah, Deep Impact seemed like soemthing that might happen...build a huge ass shelter, put important people in, work your way down, whereas Armageddon was complete fantasy.

[Codae]

I think I read something somewhere about a movie in which a manned mission went to the Sun to reignite it after it had gone out.

[Keenir]

Originally Posted by Emperor Qianlong

so in that context, I wonder, has there ever been a scenario in a movie in which the sun was going supernova? I mean, I know that's absolutely impossible - it's doubly impossible even, as our sun has still 5 billion years of lifetime left, and as it's simply not massive enough to go to supernova.

So, has there ever been a movie (even an obscure B-movie, for that matter) in which such a scenario happened?

The Day The Sky Exploded ?