Strange. The examples you say &quot;made you grumpy&quot; are exactly the three movies I think are the beacon of hope for sci-fi, and the trio of hardest sci-fi of the last, I don&#x27;t know, <i>five decades</i>?<p>Gravity is the least hard of those tree, but still is orders of magnitude more accurate than anything I know that came after &quot;2001: A Space Odyssey&quot;. There are some issues with orbits and distances and <i>maybe</i> with the tangled-in-parachutes scene (though I believe it was correct, critics miss the frame of reference of the camera).<p>Interstellar has only few implausible things - the biggest offenders were the &quot;power of love transcending dimensions&quot; line by one of the characters, and the... final act. But physics was done more right than probably ever before, Space Odyssey included. (INB4 yes, that planet near black hole <i>was</i> realistic, it&#x27;s actually a pretty neat edge case of rotating black hole physics.) I actually found myself Googling what I thought was pseudoscience, only to discover it&#x27;s actually true (and to learn some more about relativity too).<p>And the Martian... come on. There&#x27;s basically two things the book gets wrong, and both are minor. Dust storm being too strong, and the author handwaving radiation shielding into existence without explaining <i>how</i> it works. The rest is pretty much totally legit. (Ok, the movie didn&#x27;t show that gravity on Mars is weaker, but that was literally because the director said that doing it is too much of a mess, and the audience won&#x27;t care anyway.)<p>--<p>&gt; <i>Fine, but if you concede that, don&#x27;t try and paint a thin veneer of half-assed realism over the whole thing. I will forgive just about anything in a more fantasy-directed sci fi, but if you start trying to be &quot;hard&quot;, I&#x27;ll hold a different standard.</i><p>Totally agree. Though if the Holy Trio above made you grumpy, I wish to know what do you consider hard. It seems we have pretty different standards.<p>&gt; <i>Second, the correctness seems to often play second fiddle to whatever set pieces or plot is desired. I understand this may be a pragmatic necessity, but it&#x27;s very obvious when the two start to generate friction against each other (scientific realism and plot) and I long for this to be balanced elegantly, with the science as a more integral component</i><p>Also agree. The movies and series in this article are basically a joke in this area (even though I <i>love</i> Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.). They&#x27;re more like Star Trek in this regard, though I still think Star Trek&#x27;s technobabble made more sense.<p>And about science being a more integral component - again, check Interstellar. There&#x27;s a pretty neat story that starts with Nolan approaching Kip Thorne, telling him that he needs a planet with <i>very</i> strong time dilation for the plot. Thorne initially thinks it&#x27;s impossible, but then he sits down, does the math, and figures out a crazy scenario in which that planet <i>is</i> very much plausible...<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.space.com&#x2F;28075-science-of-interstellar-book-review.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.space.com&#x2F;28075-science-of-interstellar-book-revi...</a>