Examples of Bad Engineering in From the Earth to the Moon R.U.R. Metropolis & Transatlantic Tunnel
OUTLINE According to H. Bruce Franklin, science fiction is "the onlyliterature capable of exploring the macro-history of our species. . . in acosmic context" (Science Fiction: The Early History, Internet) whichsuggests that man's place in the universe is dependent upon rock-solidscientific investigation and exploration. But as a literary/cinematicgenre, science fiction can and often does contain inventions, ideas andtheories based on pure speculation and pseudo-science. Some of the devicesand instruments featured in many popular science fiction novels and filmsare in essence conceived through bad engineering, meaning that thesedevices and instruments are not practical nor possible according to presentscientific knowledge. Out of all the novels and films written and producedwithin the last one hundred and fifty years, four stand out for their useof bad engineering-Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon (1865), R.U.R.by Karel Capek (1921), Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1926) and Maurice Elvey's In the 1865 science fiction "classic" From the Earth to the Moon,Jules Verne, the author of other sci-fi novels such as Journey to the
Verne makes no reference to exactly how the vehicle would beoperated and controlled once it reached outer space; landing on the moonwould be another gigantic problem, due to the vehicle not having any sortof mechanism to slow its ascent to the lunar surface. As a science fiction "classic," Metropolis, set in the year 2026,tells the story of a futuristic city where the workers are forced to spendtheir days working underneath the city, running the machines that enablethe city to operate. The flight, of course, will be monitored from theground by a powerful Rocky Mountain telescope operated by the Cambridgeobservatory. Rotwang, being thedesigner/engineer of this device is also flawed, for like so many "madscientist" depicted in science fiction films of the first half of thenineteenth century, he ends up being conquered by his own self-confidenceand inability to see beyond his technological mistakes. It seems that in order todo this, the designer/engineer would have to invent some kind of a systemthat would link a human brain within the components of a machine. Another example lies in the underground city, wherethe workers sweat and toil for days upon days with no recognition for theirlabor. , yet his themes of scientific fantasies are significant andstriking. At first, his experiments with robots went ratherunwell, but his young nephew somehow constructed a simplified man-shapedrobot by leaving out the complexities of humankind. The best example of bad engineering in this film concerns thefemale robot designed by the somewhat crazed inventor Rotwang. , the seminal robot motif which hasinfluenced every science fiction film since the novel's publication.
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