Science vs The Last Jedi “Plot Holes”

this episode of because science is brought to you by wargames hello there Star Wars the last gen AI is arguably the most controversial Star Wars film just search online and you'll find common threads and videos and tweets all sing just how many mistakes and plot holes there were there was a lot of salt now I'm not here to say that the movie was good or bad but I am here to say that if you apply a little science to Star Wars as we do here a lot of these plot holes make total sense oh you can find many hot takes about the supposed plot holes in the last Jedi but what I want to do is address three of the largest that were sent my way by you that deal with scientific accuracy and they all have something to do with space the first is why resistance ships seem to slow down when they run out of fuel the second is why bombs dropped from resistance fighters don't float they fall straight down and the third is how general Organa could do this now I'll also point out that these aren't technically plot holes that's not what plot holes are but we can still address them for their accuracy no matter what the scum and villainy that is the Internet has to say how's that for a hot table let's set the scene for the first plot hole throughout the last gen I the remainder of the resistance is running from the first order and they have to stay out of range the first orders guns so they have to burn fuel now the problem that some viewers had was that when some of the smaller resistance ships run out of fuel it appears as though they slow down and fall back into the range of the first orders guns and those viewers are right there is a point to be made here out here in the middle of keep going this isn't a special edition thank you out here in the middle of space there's no air to get in the way of motion and no gravity wells close enough to make much of a difference and so if you give and that's good alien goo goo if you give an object some velocity out here it will continue on in a straight line at that velocity forever without slowing down this is just an extension of smart boy Isaac Newton Isaac Newton thank you Isaac Newton's first law of motion which states every object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless compelled to change its state by the action of an external force the Internet is right if a spaceships engine suddenly cut out it would not slow down it would continue on in a straight line at a constant velocity forever but the Internet is wrong in that it absolutely could look like the spaceships slowed down so let's just imagine ourselves in this pursuit again we are watching the first-order pursue the resistance ships from afar and a stationary frame now from this perspective both ships have some velocity but also because of Newton's first law we can assume that both spaceships or fleets of spaceships are accelerating because this would cause the resistance to have to continually burn fuel to stay ahead of the first order now if the resistance engines cut out because they ran out of fuel the first order now has more velocity over time and there is no slowing down however if we change this reference frame from stationary to moving with the first order as it appears it is in the film the same situation can be interpreted as the first order having no velocity and the resistance having a negative velocity appearing to slow down from this moving reference frame so these two situations that we just went through are mathematically identical from a certain point of view a certain point of view yes and so this seemed makes sense as we are moving with the first order in it but does a bomb dropping in space makes sense another plot hole that's not a plot hole is right in the opening scene when Rosa's sister Paige drops bombs from the resistance ship on to the dread-nots why the internet says do these bombs drop downwards if the battle is happening in microgravity shouldn't instead these bombs just float amazingly every word they say above this plot hole is wrong I mean float is fine and most of most of the words are just wipe the frames the pull of a planet's gravity depends on how far away you are from that planet's center of mass for us that's almost always the distance between the center of mass and the surface of the earth but gravity doesn't stop at the surface of a planet it never stops the acceleration due to gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance you are away from the gravity's source there is no distance limit here for example and this may surprise you even though the International Space Station is 400 kilometers above the surface of the earth it still experiences 90% the pull of gravity that we do know seriously the only reason why astronauts inside the ISS are weightless is because it is orbiting the earth it has enough sideways velocity to keep it in constant freefall it is always plummeting towards the Earth's surface like a stone but it is constantly missing the surface of the earth seriously the math it doesn't like oh the sacred texts if the ISS stopped orbiting the earth it would drop to Earth's surface like a stone and so because the first battle scene in the last Jedi occurs above the surface of a planet and because gravity would still be acting all the way up there on those ships all the resistance bomber would have to do is provide some kind of upward thrust to hover above the Dreadnought to counteract the downward acceleration due to then if it opened up its Bombay doors and released those bombs those bombs would drop almost as though they were on the surface of a planet - air resistance this gets around any weird hand wavy anti-gravity tech and gets around the magnetism technology mentioned in the last Jedi's visual dictionary oh come on man with science this controversial scene makes sense - does it yes it does how are we talking right now I don't know quantum something let's move on I have to be wired somewhere the last scene in the last Jedi that you told me makes no sense is when general Organa is spaced but is still able to pull herself back to safety in a previous episode of because science about star-lord we explained why someone who is space isn't going to explode or immediately freeze or otherwise instantly perish however in about 15 seconds a spaced person will lose consciousness if they are not resuscitated within 90 seconds they probably won't be resuscitated at all so let's time this scene with general layout assuming that her exposure to the void starts when the camera cuts back to her then she starts pulling herself back to safety she's still conscious after about 35 seconds and she makes it to an airlock within 60 seconds now considering that Leia is a space general in a space war she probably knows what to do if you get spaced close your eyes and exhale otherwise your lungs shred themselves so in that context these numbers aren't exact but they're fine they're definitely not plot hole worthy so within about that minute time frame how can Leia pull herself back to her ship equal and opposite forces imagine you use something like the force to pull a lightsaber to you a lights a fine that's good space New Moon now imagine something like the force to pull a lightsaber to you now whatever the force is it has to be applying a force to the lightsaber to accelerate its mass to you and to your hand now if that is happening and the force is coming from you you experience an equal and opposite force in the other direction now a lightsaber doesn't weigh very much so this force is not going to accelerate your mass very much and the frictional force at your feet is going to be able to keep you planted but in space friction affects you not I'm experienced so all Leia would have to do floating outside of the raddest is use the Force to apply a small force to that ship if she did that and we're talking about real world physics here then the Radice is gonna pull on her with an equivalent an opposite facing force now because force equals mass times acceleration the Redis is so much more massive so it's not going to accelerate very much it's going to be imperceptible but because Leia under the same force is so much less massive she is going to accelerate back towards the bridge at a perfectly plausible pace the director of the last Jedi Rian Johnson thought the same thing and I agreed with him tweeted him this video and maybe we can help make the next movie so three of the biggest plot holes in the last Jedi that you sent to me dealing with scientific accuracy are decently accurate I think bombs could drop downwards in space under the right conditions general Organa could force her way back to her ship safely and in a decent amount of time and it could look like a ship was slowing down in space during a space pursuit from a certain point of view I will admit that the last Jedi did cause a lot of controversy but the great thing about science is that with the right data controversy disappears because science [Music] do you know what I had to think about a lot is what would happen if the ISS did stop orbiting if it was just hovering above the Earth's surface using thrust using rockets then all of the astronauts inside would cease to be weightless they would just be standing in a spaceship which feels weird and it sounds weird but that's only because engineers don't really consider that situation because it would take so much fuel just to keep a spaceship constantly hovering above the Earth's surface I think that's why it feels counterintuitive we just don't think that way because it's totally not practical but in the Star Wars universe hey maybe they have ultra efficient thrusters of some kind also if your time Leia's scene from beginning to end in real time real movie time she's in space for about two minutes less workable I'm gonna give her the benefit of the doubt the internet won't thanks again to war games for sponsoring today's episode of because science war games is a first-of-its-kind digital series where you affect the story cool right we're clearly living in a sci-fi future because wargames is a show that watches you tracking which characters and story threads most interest you to change the narrative as you go this story changes each time you watch and if you can't wait to experience this interactive story for yourself it sounds pretty wild right we've got a first look at episode 1 over on nerdist.com so head over there to check it out right now thank you so much for watching Matthew if you want more of me you can go back to Nerdist comm and check out musk or the space program on project alpha comm if you go right now and sign up for premium content from Nerdist and geek and sundry you can get the main episodes of because science two days earlier than everyone else and if you like this video please consider liking and subscribing and hitting that notification bell for the because science YouTube and the because 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Channel: Because Science

Views: 515,260

Keywords: Nerdist, Fvid, Because Science, Kyle Hill, star wars the last jedi, supremacy, general leia, plot holes, resistance, gravity, orbit, bombers, space

Id: CPTIjLPPdIM

Length: 12min 57sec (777 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 29 2018