TRC #648: Slapgate Conspiracy + The Science Of Moonfall

As Will Smith’s slap during the Academy Awards trends online, a picture of the moment has gone viral suggesting Chris Rock wore a prosthetic cheek pad. Cristina digs into it. Next, Adam takes a look at the science, or more precisely lack thereof, in the latest sci-fi flick, “Moonfall”.  

Download direct: mp3 file

Slapgate Conspiracy


Was Chris Rock Wearing Protective Cheek Pad Before Will Smith Slap? | Snopes.com

Fact Check-Chris Rock did not wear a cheek pad during Academy Awards slap | Reuters

No, Chris Rock Wasn’t Wearing a Pad on His Cheek When Will Smith Slapped Him

Chris Rock’s first comedy show since Will Smith slapped him is sending ticket resell prices way up

Academy Awards – Wikipedia

Remini

Science of Moonfall

How NASA Helped ‘Moonfall’ Make the Moon Fall – The Ringer

Moonfall Director Reveals Origins Behind Fake Moon In New Disaster Movie – Screen Rant

Moonfall in Real Life: An Astrophysicist’s Verdict

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5 Responses to TRC #648: Slapgate Conspiracy + The Science Of Moonfall

  1. Harleu says:

    Wow. How you watched that fake as hell slap and concluded it was real is beyond me. Takes away any skeptic cred you had.

    The entire time rock is waving his hands around like the animated individual he is. The second smith stands up, rock places his hands behind his back and faces his cheek toward smith in anticipation of the slap he knows is comming. 1 week befor smith can be seen practicing fake slaps on kids. It is so obviously fake, not sure why you cant see it. But maybe take another look at it and use your skeptical brain.

  2. I very much enjoyed Adam’s review of “Moonfall” from the scientific perspective. I watched it as part of a pre-release screening and more or less accepted the nonsensical space antics as simply “sci fi” nonsense, much like you’d accept the Planet of the Apes premise and then get on with the story.

    But this movie looks like someone gave some 6th-graders a bunch of money—hundreds of millions maybe—and said “Make a Marvel/Disney-type movie. “We’ll give you one big star but the dialogue has to be strictly 5th-grade-understandable and the acting has to look like a school play. Don’t worry about plot since you’ll mainly just be riffing on ‘Alien.'” As it happens, the middle schoolers came up with the movie with all the typical Marvel stuff like people in airships and cars aimlessly (and endlessly) racing around, dodging bad guys and boulders until the audience cries out, ‘Enough! Either kill someone or escape!'” I felt like I could have taken a restroom break and not missed much.

    It’s not even worth calling out the moronic plot turns as the Earth is about to be destroyed in a few hours but people are saying “Let’s nuke the moon…yeah, that usually works!” And, just curious, if most of the Earth’s surface is flooded and torn down, how exactly do cell phone towers still work well enough to enable kids to call their parents anywhere on the globe?

    Not to worry…it works for 6th graders.

    • Adam G. says:

      Thanks Jim! Too funny. I think there was a plot point about that particular phone being a special satellite phone or something. I don’t know if this was explicitly explained but they said something which seemed to suggest that was it.

      • That’s why I liked your review: I didn’t want to have to figure out for myself whether there was any aerospace legitimacy…I was just watching as a cinephile and science fiction addict from my younger days: Heinlein, Asimov, Herbert, Clarke, George Alec Effinger and the king of one-time masterpieces, Walter Miller Jr (A Canticle for Leibowitz)

        Thanks again from your neighbor to the south (Phoenix)

  3. Gman says:

    I laughed so hard when Adam referenced his TRC origin story!
    “I belong in the air” had me rolling.

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