The Imaginary World that Seems True, Feels True, But is Not True

In today’s world which has flying drones, robot deliveries, and automatic driving
, how probable are the cutting-edge, splendid techniques we see in the movies?
We would like to check the real-life possibilities for the imagined settings in the movies that became box office hits around the world.
Article: Editorial Team

Discovering a human-operated machine that can be realized among the impossible

Avatar

The movie Avatar is a super-film that drew more than ten million viewers in Korea alone. The movie is considered a masterpiece that can be credited for its structure, great storyline based on an amazing sense of imagination, and directing. Nevertheless, this movie has many scientific errors. Many of its settings, including the Hallelujah Mountains floating in the air, ignore the laws of physics.

First of all, I wondered throughout the movie, “How do they share the mind with an alien being?” In the movie, they used genetic sequencing to build the alien bodies, and link the minds of humans into one. Another movie that uses a similar concept is the movie Surrogates, released in 2009. Here, they copied the minds of humans in the androids. The primary problem of this method is the communications technology. The question is: How do you connect a human with a robot or an alien being that is a long distance away? A possible medium is electronic waves. To use the electric waves, the problem of dead zone (areas where waves are shadowed) occurs, and there will also be a time difference when the distance gets longer. It is practically impossible for the main character to share the mind this way for 24 hours a day, running around and shooting arrows. The tremendous amount of data occurring from sharing all the senses through wireless signals is another problem. For this to be possible, we need to develop a whole new type of communications technology and data-processing method that has not been developed in real life yet.

On the other hand, the AMP suit robots are most likely to be possible. This is a ridable robot that has a seat inside, different from the wearable robots such as in the movie Iron Man, and is described as a massive machine that is 4 meters high, 2.83 meters wide, and 1.7 tons in weight. Giant human-operated robots are actually not very likely to be put to practical use in real life, but the size of AMP suits may be different. They will be useful in places such as foundation work for construction sites, cleaning away the big stones and carrying steel rods to support a building, etc. They can also be carried by trailers when not in use, so it seems feasible and attractive realistically.

An unexpected fact-check result on the most realistic-looking technology, Iron Man

Avengers

The movie Avengers was loved by the public for its many superheroes. One of the important roles was Iron Man, the wearable robot in which Tony Stark, a genius scientist, fights. It is a unique character that leads the heroes with superpowers with the power of the robot only.

The settings of hero movies are usually not very real, but most people would think of Iron Man as the character that is most likely to be realized. Since it is a robot, people think that a more or less the same technology will be developed some day in the future. Wearable robots like Iron Man are actually being studied now. Although they are not as developed as in the movie, the researches are in progress to use them in the military or in case of disasters.

It is the incredible high performance of Iron Man that is the issue. First of all, it cannot fly for a long time without wings. There are only two ways for an object heavier than air to fly; one is to shoot it up to the sky by gushing out the wind downwards like a helicopter, and the other is to accelerate with high speed and flying up with the lift supplied by the wings. Iron Man has neither. It gives off rocket sparks from the soles and palms to fly, but for this to be possible, it needs to carry a propulsion device bigger than the body. In addition, it will have to refuel and receive repair and inspection work after each flight.

To resolve this problem, Iron Man uses a pressure-generating device called “repulsors” in the palms and soles, and sometimes uses them to attack enemies by shooting this pressure toward them, or uses them as propulsion to fly. However plausible it may look, it is another setting that is quite unscientific. It transforms electricity directly to kinetic energy and emits it, and uses this energy to fly. This propulsion technology has not yet been developed.

The arc reactor, its power source, is likewise unrealistic. It is a micro-size power-generator smaller than a palm, and generates energy equivalent to three gigawatts per second. Considering that a supersized nuclear power plant generates one gigawatt, we can assume that this will not be possible in near future. Although I feel sorry to destroy the imagination of many fans, it is safe to think of Iron Man as a complete fiction.

Although building a sky city is difficult, cyborg technology is developing

Alita: Battle Angel

In the movie Alita: Battle Angel, released in 2019, the sky city of Zalem appears. It is a very interesting movie depicting a dystopia of a future society. Zalem is connected to Iron City through a cargo tube, which was meant to provide supplies. By the way, would it be possible to make this kind of city? The answer is, of course, no.

The most feasible theory would be to use magnets ─ in other words, magnetic fields. It can also be an electric field occurring from electricity. You can float an object reacting to magnets in the air by using a magnetic field, and you can float an object with mass by using an electric field. Magnetic fields are more efficient, but with either, you need a power plant to float an object more than a kilogram, exclusively for this use. The scientific test devices now can only be used for objects that weigh a few grams. However, it does not only have impossible settings. The movie depicts a society in which the cyborg technology is greatly advanced and the machines can be connected without restriction. Cyborg technology is currently developing or already developed in many ways, and although there may be some unnatural settings, it is more realistic than other parts. It is likely to be more commercialized as the brain science, in particular, progresses.

There is in fact a color-blind artist who distinguishes colors using antenna transplanted in his brain. You may think of cyborg as a human-looking robot that moves individually, but the cyborg technology includes various areas such as recovering a lost body function and opening a world of new capabilities. Therefore, developments in this technology often entail touching stories in real life. The movie reveals the area of more possibilities, and cyborg technology is expected to take a hint from it and develop further. A very feasible wish is embedded in the technology of cyborg.

The most realistic tractor trailer from movies

Logan

The movie Logan, released in 2017, focuses on the weight of life that the superhero Wolverine goes through as he grows old. There are not many scientific settings in this movie, but I would like to point out one thing in the movie: the autonomous truck. Logan, the main character in the movie, works as a driver. When an autonomous truck sounds its horn at him to make way, Logan moves out of its way, even though he is a human.

In the movie, this autonomous truck does not care about human drivers at all. Many experts of movies and science were deeply impressed by this scene. It is otherwise interpreted that someday, autonomous vehicles will be treated with a priority over human drivers on the road.

The autonomous truck in the movie looks like truck wheels that go under the containers. In other words, they are autonomous driving modules with wheels that carry containers above them. If you attach more containers behind the one that runs in the front, it works like a train. This clustered autonomous driving is actually being designed by automobile companies. It is a very feasible system that can be referred to. It can be said that the production predicts that the logistics system of the future will be done with autonomous trucks, and that it has a very high sense of reality, as if they consulted the autonomous trucks that are being planned.

Movies transform imaginations into visual works to depict the future. It is up to the production crew to rely only on complete imagination, or to show more realistic results by scientific verification. You may choose to focus on merely enjoying the story, but thinking about the realizability of science technologies in the movie helps to fully lead our culture in life, and also plays a role in developing science in the future.