Newsarama has a piece up on Yahoo (!) on the “five most scientifically plausible science fiction movies.” First off, props to Matt and Mike for getting Newsarama syndicated out to Yahoo — should be some great exposure for them there. (My Comichron column runs monthly there, as well.)
And, of course, the list itself — which is intended to inspire debate, and almost certainly will. Off the bat, I would drop Iron Man, adding Contact, where they got much of the earth-based science right and the speculative element in possible doubt is the wormhole business. And I’d probably drop in 2010 and The Andromeda Strain — though I’m not sure what else I’d leave off. I think even Crichton would have said Andromeda is more plausible than Jurassic Park, so that might be one.
The Truman Show seems an odd choice — I’m not arguing that it belongs somewhere on the list, but we get into some weird dividing lines here. Something like Children of Men has a speculative springboard and is very possible — but somehow I have the feeling that you want to recognize the films where there are multiple brushes with science which the filmmakers have to navigate. That’s where I like 2010 — where they get everything from the physics of rotational motion to aerobreaking right as often as they can.