Most Inaccurate Science Fiction Movie Sounds

The one thing separating science fiction from all other genres is the way it has monopolized the utilization of unique and otherworldly sounds to benefit any particular setting, theme, character, or premise in a movie. This is why sci-fi is simultaneously hated and loved, for it draws upon the inner depths of everyone's imaginations, yet still tends to drive an axe through the laws of both physics and relativity. How accurate are modern sci-fi sounds? Well, given that there's literally no sound in space, I'd say slim to none in terms of having any realistic qualities. You'd think, for a place most often deemed a vacuum, that it would be obnoxiously loud up there, but that's not the case, and neither are the following inaccurate science fiction movie sounds.

Despite a relatively long history of sound effects in science fiction and horror films, most of what we've heard or even experienced throughout the years of Hollywood filmmaking is, as the title so readily implies, fiction and attracts no real science whatsoever, or even any pseudo-science into the fold. Obviously, that's the whole point: science fiction is literally an examination of the real in line with the supernatural, strange, and chaotic. In all intents and purposes, any true sci-fi film production won't go into filming with the intent of presenting the most plausible conditions of space, or the most realistic noises ever composed. Rather, these types of films are nothing more than windows that showcase the future, past and everything in between—all upheld within one fluid moment of continuous spacetime silence...

Due largely to the comprehensive variety in science fiction visuals, effects and sounds, bringing all three of these components together while still maintaining a level of realistic plausibility is practically impossible. There is so much about space we have yet to uncover; it has left sci-fi writers, movie directors, and their musical composures with nothing much to go on when designing their sounds.

All they can use is instinct and imagination. As one sifts through Amazon's compilation of inaccurate science fiction movie sounds, they'll begin to see just how such iconic titles as Blade Runner and 2001: A Space Odyssey did science fiction right. Sound composition, whether recreating the cries of an alien species or rendering a plasma blade into audible existence, must be used both sparingly and intelligently when trying to cement viewers into worlds far from their own. Give a listen to Soundsnap's page of many ranging science fiction sound effects, pushing well over 15,000 strong.

The Matrix (1999)

Is the Matrix real? Though it's been remembered and praised for having a provocative storyline that's as relevant today as it was upon release, The Matrix is among productions with inaccurate science fiction movie sounds. While the entire first half of The Matrix is based in a digital simulation, there's quite a bit of scientific inaccuracy to the overall plot, as well as the overall sound design of this sci-fi classic.

A host of tones and audio throughout the film sound nowhere near to what they do in reality (or would if they were actually real). For instance, a hovercraft's electromagnetism when boosting itself through the city is, by far, so unrealistic it's almost unbearable to watch. There are a few cases where these inefficiencies are exactly what the director is rendering; he wasn't just pointing out the protagonist's cynical attitudes toward the real world, but the audience's subtly similar emotions to everyday life, as well.

Written up as one of those science fiction movies that could have been a potential blockbuster yet failed miserably at delivering a pseudo-Kubrick sci-fi flick, The Black Hole subtly implicated all life with a necessity for self-examination and more inward thought. Unsettling is the fact that no one on their sound team was anywhere remotely concerned about the variety of errors pockmarking this cult classic.

Utterly spellbinding as it was in terms of being a cerebral theological human examination, the movie also employed a variety of inaccurate science fiction movie sounds. Go figure, since it is the same Black Hole that sent a generation of sci-fi fans to hell. At least we got to learn a little bit about what not to expect with black holes and the true nature of space. Just sit back, close your eyes, and listen to the above clip for about 10 to 20 seconds; before long you'll see just how underdeveloped this film was upon release.

Jurassic Park (1993)

You know what Steven Spielberg used in recreating the tyrannosaurus rex roar? This is how Jurassic Park screwed up: by using a baby elephant slowed down for a complete baritone rumbling sound, over which were added some tiger growls, followed by an alligator. As ingenious as this idea may sound, despite the movie's popularity and massive franchise fanbase, it's still among a multitude of inaccurate science fiction movie sounds.

Whatever, or however the T-Rex roar actually sounded like probably came nowhere close to Spielberg's iteration, though it still stayed somewhat close to science fact as was possible. Much like Godzilla and Jaws, the scientific accuracy of animal sounds in Jurassic Park remains one of its biggest plot holes.

Another cult classic like that of The Black Hole (and, retrospectively, rather similar in plots, too), Event Horizon portrays a bleak intergalactic rescue mission gone haywire at the discovery of a mysterious distress beacon belonging to a prototype spaceship called the Event Horizon.

Based in the year 2047, the crew of the Lewis and Clark rescue mission, led by Captain Miller, includes the creator and engineer of the Event Horizon, Dr. Weir, whose development of the ship's gravity drive, shown above, has granted the ship a berth of unduly abilities, like faster than light travel, inter-dimensional bridging, and the warping of spacetime itself. The story concept alone may be mesmerizing to say the least, but with its various inaccurate science fiction movie sounds, like those of the powered warp drive shown above, the cult following has only evolved due to this very fact. There is nothing within Event Horizon remotely plausible, it is, after all, an over-the-top sci-fi horror flick (made in the late 1990s, nonetheless).

Total Recall (1990)

Loosely based on the Philip K. Dick short story "We Can Remember it For You Wholesale," the 1990 film Total Recall is chalk full of a great many scientific implausibilities. One of these miscalculations is the human physiological contact with the surface atmosphere of a colonized Mars; while the film makes the audience believe people can actually die from what's known as explosive decompression, this is (thankfully) not the case.

While yet another of their various production issues can be said of the entire sound department's lackluster use in effects, Total Recall did still win that year's Special Achievement Academy Award for its visual effects. Even the original score, which was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, won the BMI Film Music Award, but the sound effects? Personally, what ruined this movie for me, was this very unrealistic inequality in the combination of the movie's score, visuals, and FX, which had led to a myriad of inaccurate science fiction movie sounds.

"It's a trap!" - Admiral Akbar

Star Wars movies and their freaking Tie Fighters, man. I've said it at least a dozen times already: there's no sound in space! First and foremost of legendary and iconic film franchise, Star Wars's many inaccurate science fiction movie sounds are the well-known trail of an echoing hiss (of which I'm only just now drawing a blank as to the whereabouts and reasoning of this sound), which follows every Tie Fighter is a definitive impossibility in space.

Add to this a host of similar inadequacies, from the various sound effects of laser beams and ion weapons used in combat, to the usage in speed of light technologies and faster than light travel (which, as of this moment, is still existentially postulated), Star Wars has a long list of impossibilities that only make the massive film franchise far larger and bolder than it has already become. Pew-pew, take that Star Trek!

Wing Commander (1999)

There's a reason you've never heard of this movie, and ironically it's most accurately summed by the premise of this very article: there's no sound in space, it's a vacuum! The production team and sound design on the 1999 film iteration of the video game Wing Commander were met with plenty of distaste and anger for misrepresenting a variety of science fiction components.

Riddled with a berth of sci-fi clichés, cheesy special effects, and mundane dialogue, Wing Commander was received with both poor and negative critical responses, most of which tended to focus on the movie's disregard for the way sound works in space (refresher course: it doesn't). These and many more inaccurate science fiction movie sound in Wing Commander, from explosions in mid-space (not possible), to the traversal of sound through space (possible, but inaudible to human ears), and to the likes of multiple voices traveling across spaceships (not possible), this movie is yet another example of how audible effects failures can seriously damage the overall reception of a science fiction film.

God, no other science fiction film so adequately ruins the genre more so than Armageddon, a theatrical representation of why Michael Bay should never make a sci-fi movie, ever. Surrounding the assemblage and dispatch of a brave group of NASA recruits on a mission to either destroy or redirect the trajectory of a Texas-sized asteroid, Armageddon certainly isn't a typical space opera, but that doesn't mean it isn't riddled with a host of scientific errors, plus a range of inaccurate science fiction movie sounds, like those heard in the scene above.

Armageddon is one of the few sci-fi movies out there that just grinds my gears for its utter disregard for such important scientific laws as physics and relativity. Trailing Independence Day by only a year, Armageddon was yet another failed attempt at rendering the impossible into being. Sounds like metal grating, reactive explosions, and engine thrusters wouldn't even be heard within the vacuum of space, visor-helmet on or not. If you think anything from the above scene is even remotely plausible, concerning specifically sounds alone than I implore you to cover your ears as you watch, for it's far more realistic, and is much more entertaining than hearing Ben Affleck speak pointless phrases into existence.

Independence Day (1997)

Not so much bearing a cult following as it does simply intertwine a level of patriotic sentiment with that of international coalescence in the joint task of rendering an aggressive alien force obsolete, Independence Day has its own plentitude of inaccurate science fiction movie sounds, to even more complex debates about the overall plot. (We're led to believe this rag-tag group of Earthling individuals somehow just learns a way to not only understand the alien language, which is oddly used by a telepathic race but also bypass the advanced and sophisticated alien technology with the use of a computer virus... just no).

It's pretty clear that Independence Day, too, has its fair share of scientific irregularities, but of most concerning to me is the alien sounds and the spaceship effects. For being two out-of-this-world entities, they seem so absurdly domestic it's almost sickening, which is due to the inadequate sound effects of the alien shuttles, which are recorded from human-engineered jets and modified to sound, for lack of a better term, "alien." Nothing quite needs an independence more so than Independence Day, an overrated sci-fi cliché-fest like no other.

There's nothing in science fiction filmography that pisses me off more than when a director, sound crew, or composure gets something as simple as the sound of rushing water wrong. As is the case in the scene shown above, taken from 2003 sci-fi action flick The Core. As the crew of a rescue drilling operation, which is attempting to dig through the surface of the planet in order to save all of humanity (in of itself so implausible I must forcibly refrain from screaming myself into a conniption), the group of geophysicists and scientists whirl through the interior of a massive body of water with oddly uncharacteristic audio trialing their vessel.

While this scene could have, in another life, been well-received, as well as praised for more scientifically plausible storytelling, it effectively did the exact opposite with many critics complaining that the production's overall sound design must have been in shambles amid filming. Though only one of many instances from The Core where elements, like water and fire, or the intonations of the earthen crusts (for which we can accurately test, unlike those in space) are among only some of the most inaccurate science fiction movie sounds ever recorded.