#MovieFailMondays: Gravity (or, How Movies Can Teach You About Logical Fallacies and Help You Ace the LSAT)
Each week, we analyze a movie that illustrates a logical fallacy you’ll find on the LSAT. Who said Netflix can’t help you study?
2013’s Gravity, also known as Neil Degrasse Tyson’s Film Fact Check, is a science fiction thriller from the mind of Alfonso Cuaròn. While not as scientifically rigorous as his earlier film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (NDT said, and we quote – “I have never seen a film with such obvious attention to scientific detail.”), Gravity did receive plaudits from the astrophysicist for the many things it got right.
Sadly, logic wasn’t one of them.
There are two main fallacies at play in Gravity:
- George Clooney may be out of this world, but even he can’t orbit the planet.
After magnanimously detaching himself from Bullock to slowly float away, evincing a basic misunderstanding of physics, George Clooney is missing, presumed dead. As he flies off into the distance, Bullock realizes that she’s the only astronaut left, and we use that term lightly – she just became an astronaut for this mission only.
Later in the movie, however, Clooney miraculously reappears to rouse Bullock from her hypoxia, convincing her to continue on.
It doesn’t take long for Dr. Bullock to realize that she imagined the whole thing, thus having fallen for a common perception vs. reality fallacy: just because you believe something to be true doesn’t make it so. It’s important to note that, on the LSAT, falling for this fallacy usually results in the loss of a point – not surviving a space-based incident. Still, that would make a killer personal statement.
- Sure, Sandra Bullock might have been a biomedical engineer…but I don’t trust her with my space station.
Biomedical engineer. That sounds impressive. When the medical doctoring part of your degree is the less impressive of the two, you know your educational credentials are packing some serious power.
That said, we’re not going to trust my doctor with my air conditioning unit. Similarly, we doubt NASA would trust someone with a very precise specialization to do work on their multi-billion dollar space station.
On the LSAT, you have to make sure that the experts you’re consulting are the right ones. They need to be speaking in their field of expertise, and they need to speak to something that is factual, not subjective.
While Gravity may have been a visual feast, it was also filled with gaps of logic. These gaps have now been pointed out, however, leaving Neil Degrasse Tyson to say of this blog, “I’ve never heard of your blog; please stop contacting me.”
Matt Shinners is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in New York City. After receiving a science degree from Boston College, Matt scored a 180 on his LSAT and enrolled in Harvard Law School. There’s nothing that makes him happier than seeing his students receive the scores they want to get into the schools of their choice. Check out Matt’s upcoming LSAT courses here!