Twenty-one point four-one I would assume? Twenty-one point forty-one sounds kinda strange to me.
Indeed. It's the way I'd expect (or at least, accept) a non-technical actor to say a technical character's dialogue, but
even then I've got to question their early-years mathematics education if they ever got into that habit.
Say there's two readings: "[zero] point seven" and "[zero] point fourteen". Quick, which is largest? And what's the factor between them?
For "0.7" and "0.14" the first is largest, and is five times the size, but that might not be obvious
If you take the first as "0.07" (point oh-seven, or 'zero'/'nought'/'nil'/etc, according to what comms-friendly convention you use), for some reason, then the second is twice the size of the first.
If the first is "0.7" but you think the second is "1.4" then... I'm sorry. Your teachers failed you.
Also, since I wrote my original post, I've half a memory that the original quote was more like "coming in at(/from?) 21.41
degrees", instead. It is part of the first few minutes of the movie, so I had a long time to dwell on my main nitpick, whilst forgetting the precise context.
However, this would (as also with the velocity version, but that to a lesser degree) raise the question about undue accuracy with inherently inaccurate details: measured from a distance (satellite images?),
at a distance (it's still incoming, with plenty of arguably-inaccurate local geology more than capable of changing nature of the eddies over the base). That's a precision of less than three parts in a
hundred thousand across the whole horizontal circle. And if she was
militarily trained, as I think the character concerned was, "zero two one" or rounded/truncated to "zero two zero"/"zero two" would have come more naturally. More than enough precision for any purpose, to just the degree, and possibly even to five/ten-degrees of rounding. Especially noting the thought processes regarding the possibly precision around a circle, later on in the film for the <spoiler element> part of the plot...)
..but I'm only obsessing over this because I like the whole film, and because this is a nitpick that can be safely aired without spoiling a
plot-point by spilling too many details.
(Unlike the thing-under-the-flag. At the edge of a crater? A potentially scientifically interesting point, where it might also
naturally become uncovered under wind action? And when, amazingly, an unmarked something in the middle of a plain,
can easily be found. Ok, so maybe it makes it more likely that the flag won't be buried, but at the risk that it becomes uprooted; unless both it and the thing is also drilled somewhat into crater-edge bedrock. Someone who has read the book might know more than the film let on. I've heard there's differences, though.)
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Topic: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies (Read 138338 times)