Worst "SCI-FI" name ever (1 Viewer)

[tenordas]

So I watched Avatar on Disney+ the other night.

IMHO, unobtanium is easily the stupidest name for anything to ever get past an editor and producers. Seriously, how does anyone sign off on calling the oh so desired mineral "unobtanium"?

So, what are your thoughts? Dumbest SciFi name ever, either an object like unobtanium, a character like Jar-Jar Binks (well, that's more than a name, but that's a whole other thread), or a campaign plan.

 

[UndeadSnoopy]

Scorpius.

Nothing else is even close.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Matter Eater Lad and it's not even close

 

[Zack Lee]

Including “and it’s not even close” in any movie title makes it a fairly bad title IMO. What were they thinking (and it’s not even close)

 

[Zack Lee]

The blob.

 

[tomwaits]

So I watched Avatar on Disney+ the other night.

IMHO, unobtanium is easily the stupidest name for anything to ever get past an editor and producers. Seriously, how does anyone sign off on calling the oh so desired mineral "unobtanium"?

So, what are your thoughts? Dumbest SciFi name ever, either an object like unobtanium, a character like Jar-Jar Binks (well, that's more than a name, but that's a whole other thread), or a campaign plan.

I think I heard/read of "unobtainium" used by the stealth plane people when they were building their planes back in the 50's or so. I don't think its a sci-fi thing.

 

[tomwaits]

MODOK?

 

[Grumpy Old Manatee]

Was "unobtainium" a marketing/product placement ploy by Oakley? They've been using that term for years.

I don't watch movies, so I cannot put the two together without undesired research.

 

[Eeyore]

MODOK?

To be fair, it's an anagram but, to your point, the anagram is stupid.

 

[Cage1]

Unobtanium has a long history and is sort of a "secret handshake" with actual science. I think actual aerospace engineers used the term in a derogatory fashion and science fiction just winked at that. Not that it's a great term or anything, but it does have some cool historical roots.

For me, Necromongers.

 

[Sun Wukong]

Unobtanium has a long history and is sort of a "secret handshake" with actual science. I think actual aerospace engineers used the term in a derogatory fashion and science fiction just winked at that. Not that it's a great term or anything, but it does have some cool historical roots.

For me, Necromongers.

This is correct. It has a decades long history in theoretical science and engineering as shorthand for hypothetical "super materials" of extreme rarity and value. Then it moved into scifi from there.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

One of y’all have come anywhere close to Matter Eater Lad

 

[Sun Wukong]

One of y’all have come anywhere close to Matter Eater Lad

To be fair, he absolutely is a lad that can eat any kind of matter so it's accurate if inelegant.

 

[St. Widge]

Unobtanium has a long history and is sort of a "secret handshake" with actual science. I think actual aerospace engineers used the term in a derogatory fashion and science fiction just winked at that. Not that it's a great term or anything, but it does have some cool historical roots.

For me, Necromongers.

Yeah, Cameron didn't just make it up, it's a term that has been used since the 1950s as a placeholder in thought experiments and theoretical physics and engineering.

Here is the wiki entry on it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium

 

[mattgdg]

Maclunkey