Bad Science in Hollywood

There have been many many horrible representations of science and scientists in movies, but this one takes the cake. It is a movie entitled "Sunshine", and the awful plot is this: In 50 years time, our Sun will be dying. A small crew of people are sent on a space mission to re-ignite the Sun.

Do I look like an idiot? I have quite the imagination. I can suspend my disbelief when it comes to one-man armies, alien invasions, mutant superheroes, conspiracy theories, flying reindeer, intergalactic war, haunted houses, cars exploding from single gunshots, anything to do with black holes, and even magical boys with talking owls. I have even been known to suspend my disbelief long enough to watch the most implausible genre of acting ever: the musical. (The idea that everyone goes around singing and dancing all day long is ridiculous, to say the least.)

But if you are going to tell me that somehow the human race is capable of even affecting the Sun in anyway is preposterous. The sun is one enormous nuclear fusion reaction, converting 4.26 million tons of matter into energy each second. This is an equivalent amount of energy as exploding 9.15e10 megatons of TNT per second. That is scales of magnitude greater than all of the nuclear weapons on Earth combined. So I am to believe that 6 people are going to "re-ignite the sun"? With what? Their good looks? Wait, I bet it has something to do with their DNA (Hollywood's scientific-black-box-deus-ex-machina #1). Or maybe a black hole? (Hollywood's scientific-black-box-deus-ex-machina #2.) Please.

Hmm, if it has something to do with black holes, this might be the first time ever that I could not suspend my disbelief for such a thing. It probably has to do with the fact that the entire plot centers around is patently false: the Sun will not die within 50 years.