History Main / ArtisticLicenseEngineering

* HumongousMecha: The same problem as normal-sized mecha with the addition of problems with the SquareCubeLaw.

* SkyScraper: While we have extremely tall buildings now, they're not by these standards, which tend to abuse the SquareCubeLaw.

* AlcoholIsGasoline

* In general any time an elevator car falls due to the cables being damaged or cut, most writers don't seem to be aware of the redundant emergency braking systems in place on the car rails. If they are featured they tend to take a long time to kick-in with lots of impressive sparks and grinding noises.
** In real life when people questioned this when the elevator was first demonstrated at a world fair the inventor assured everyone by ''getting into the car himself and ordering the cables to be cut.'' The brakes engaged immediately as designed.

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** Another: The SquareCubeLaw notwithstanding, the buildings are so slender in comparison to height, that the slightest breeze would probably cause them to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckling buckle]].

** The prequels and Clone Wars series make this worse, since the earlier designs were much more effective. The Clone equivalent to an AT-AT could walk straight up cliffs, had a lower center of gravity distributed further apart on more limbs, and had weapons that didn't [[FixedForwardFacingWeapon all face forward]] just for one example... and [[{{Handwave}} vulnerable to the above-mentioned mines that the AT-AT have long legs against]]. For the record, the disadvantages of low height actually came up in the first ''[[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars Clone Wars]]'' cartoon, where Durge and his lancer droids were able to trash the AT-TE walkers with their lances.

* In general any time an elevator car falls due to the cables being damaged or cut, most writers don't seem to be aware of the redundant emergency braking systems in place on the car rails. If they are featured they tend to take a long time to kick-in with lots of impressive sparks and grinding noises.
** In real life when people questioned this when the elevator was first demonstrated at a world fair the inventor assured everyone by ''getting into the car himself and ordering the cables to be cut.'' The brakes engaged immediately as designed.

* ''Series/TheManInTheHighCastle'': The Nazis have rebuilt downtown Berlin according to Hitler's master plan, with [[SigilSpam swastika-festooned]] megastructures all over the place, most conspicuously the truly-enormous ''Volkshalle''. Unlike VideoGame/WolfensteinTheNewOrder, which handwaved it with a [[AppliedPhlebotinum "super concrete"]], no attempt is made to explain how such enormous structures can stand in a ''city built on a swamp''.[[note]]In real life, ''Reichsminister'' Albert Speer had several concrete test pylons placed around Berlin to evaluate the feasibility of Hitler's dream city. They can still be seen today, although they've sunk considerably since 1944 and are still sinking. Berlin's underlying soil is too soft and damp to take that kind of load; any structures of the sizes envisioned would have to be built on top of pylons extending all the way down to bedrock, which would significantly increase the already-colossal costs of the whole project.[[/note]] Another engineering problem with the ''Volkshalle'' is also left out, namely that a dome that size would have its own indoor precipitation because of the humidity brought in by 100,000 or more people standing inside.

*** Except that the two walkers have very different roles. The AT-TE was a main battle tank/walker. The AT-AT was a self-propelled artillery (and less importantly, personnel transport). Now, what do you need in an artillery unit in a universe where almost all weapons are line-of-sight? Indeed, if you do the math on the Hoth assault, it turns out the AT-[=ATs=] opened fire on the generator as soon as they got line of sight - which was several kilometers more than if they were the size of AT-TE's.

* Rado's Annex, a free-standing two story subtower connected to Darm Tower by a walkway on the ''sixteenth floor'' in the ''VideoGame/{{Ys}}'' series is pretty much structurally impossible. Yunica actually points this out when she first sees it in ''Origins''.

* Most {{Humongous Mecha}}s except for these:

* Mecha in general often touch this trope. A bipedal machine is, with anything resembling modern technology (or in the near-future sans [[HandWave Handwavium]]), a horribly complex, inefficient, and dangerous way to design a war machine. Just the stabilizing and moving systems alone would be a nightmare.
** Add a double dose of this when considering {{Combining|Mecha}} or TransformingMecha. The sheer number of moving parts alone would give any engineer worth his salt a drinking problem let alone connecting the control systems and electrical circuits from two or more separate craft into a cohesive whole. Also consider how hard it is for pilots to refuel in mid-flight through a fuel line and then imagine ''ramming'' another mecha in order to combine...

* ''Franchise/{{Starcraft}}'':

* ''Franchise/Starcraft'':

* The chemistry setup Literature/SherlockHolmes is using in the ''Adventure of the Naval Treaty'' makes no sense. Not even if you don't know squat about chemical glassware. Even if retorts had two spouts (they don't), dripping the distillate into two separate receiving vessels, ''then'' mixing the contents of these vessels is just like puring two glasses of water only to pour them both into a third glass. CoolButInefficient.

* Apparently the [[VideoGame/HalfLife2 Combine]] do not know about ''hand brakes'' which is why they have to secure their [=APCs=] with stop blocks that can be easily knocked from under the wheels sending the vehicle plummeting down a slope into a river.

* In ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'', the Viking transforming assault fighter can flip from starfighter to ground-walking mecha. The background description in the game strongly implies that ''transforming can kill an insufficiently agile pilot'' somehow, which is just plain idiotic. There's no call for the interior of the cockpit to be somehow involved in the transformation, nor would you ever want to field something that could kill the pilot as part of its normal performance going right.

** The animatronics are far above real life animatronics, being more like full-fledged {{Killer Robot}}s as opposed to computer-controlled puppets. Most animatronics are completely unable to walk around due to their wires, power supply etc. typically being below a stage and attached through the legs (which, incidentally, are not often built with functioning joints), and even if they could, they would break apart as animatronics are often designed to break if enough pressure is applied so as to prevent injury. If the [[BrainFood Bite of '87]] really happened, an animatronic's jaw would be the only serious casualty.
*** ''WebVideo/GameTheory'' ran the numbers on this at one point and concluded while you could build a Bite-capable animatronic with standard pneumatic drives on the market today, doing so would be an example of such hideous over-engineering anyone would assume you had deliberately built a killing machine. (In short, the drives required are 1000 times more powerful than those typically used by a Chuck E. Cheese animatronic.)

* Just about every single thing to come out of ''TabletopGame/Warhammer 40000'' is either made out of shot traps, should collapse in on itself, or both. Even the more reasonably designed Imperial Guard tanks like the Baneblade are literally built out of shot traps, with short ranged guns that have bores nearly as large as their length as standard armament. It's only that tabletop rules forbid doing so that stops anyone from simply shooting the Baneblade in its Demolisher cannon and destroying it.

[[folder: Anime & Manga ]]

** ''Manga/TwentiethCenturyBoys'' features an engineer who gets kidnapped to build one and rants at his kidnappers about just how undoable it really is. Eventually, it does get built, [[spoiler: but it's a barely-functional one just for show so that the BigBad can steal credit from the hero for saving the world from it.]]

* While ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' narrowly averts this, it still gets caught in [[ArtisticLicensePhysics bad physics]] and [[ArtisticLicenseBiology impossible anatomy]]. The Evangelion mechas are actually [[spoiler: [[EldritchAbomination giant humanoid gods/aliens cloned from a giant alien that is linked to the creation of man]]. They were also placed in armor so tight and confining that they couldn't move without being piloted.]] However, the SquareCubeLaw would still keep the Evangelions from moving fast at all. Also, the midsections of the Evangelions are very thin, being even more narrow than their heads. So, they shouldn't even be able to stand, let alone move around.

[[folder: Fan Works ]]

[[folder: Film ]]

** The chicken walkers (AT-ST's) are just walking targets. The Hoth walkers (AT-AT's) make a bit more sense, if we take into account that repulsor coils big enough to make something as big as an AT-AT float would be such an energy drain that the power plant wouldn't be feasible for mass production. The only reason two AT-AT's got taken out at all was more Luke's RuleOfCool then anything else. [[note]]Then again, ExpandedUniverse information implies that the only reason the AT-AT's were a threat in the first place was because weather conditions on Hoth prevented the Rebels from using anything other than modified civilian airspeeders, which lacked the firepower necessary to dispatch the walkers[[/note]]

** Maybe this is excessive --SuspensionOfDisbelief exists for some reason-- but if as according to EU sources the reactor of Imperial Star Destroyers generate the same energy as a small star, unless they had ''very'' good heat dissipation technologies (not just the exhaust vents the Death Star had) there'd be enough waste heat[[note]]Something impossible to avoid because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics[[/note]] to vaporize them. The Death Star's hypermatter reactor, far more powerful, has those same problems UpToEleven.

[[folder: Literature ]]

* Architecture and machinery that fits, or appears to fit, this trope is common in Creator/DrSeuss books, [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum which are nonsensical anyways.]]

[[folder: Live-Action TV ]]

* ''Series/TheManInTheHighCastle'': The Nazis have rebuilt downtown Berlin according to Hitler's master plan, with [[SigilSpam swastika-festooned]] megastructures all over the place, most conspicuously the truly-enormous ''Volkshalle''. Unlike VideoGame/WolfensteinTheNewOrder, which handwaved it with a [[AppliedPhlebotinum "super concrete,"]] no attempt is made to explain how such enormous structures can stand in a ''city built on a swamp''.[[note]]In real life, ''Reichsminister'' Albert Speer had several concrete test pylons placed around Berlin to evaluate the feasibility of Hitler's dream city. They can still be seen today, although they've sunk considerably since 1944 and are still sinking. Berlin's underlying soil is too soft and damp to take that kind of load; any structures of the sizes envisioned would have to be built on top of pylons extending all the way down to bedrock, which would significantly increase the already-colossal costs of the whole project.[[/note]] Another engineering problem with the ''Volkshalle'' is also left out, namely that a dome that size would have its own indoor precipitation because of the humidity brought in by 100,000 or more people standing inside.
* ''Series/{{Revolution}}'': [[spoiler: Electricity isn't the only thing Monroe needs to get his helicopters flying from [[Recap/RevolutionS1E10NobodysFaultButMine episode 10]] onward. These machines have sat idle for 15 years, and fuel and lubricants do not last indefinitely. There's also a good chance that the avionics have physically degraded with time and exposure to the elements]].

** They decided that it would be a great idea if instead of metal wiring, most of the ship's utterly vital systems are connected with gel packs, which are basically biological goo. Not only does it open up engineering weaknesses that no good old copper wire would face (such as one instance where it was poisoned by Neelix's [[LethalChef cooking]]) but also cannot be replicated or grown. Yes, they chose the one system that couldn't be made on the fly with their replicators. They also have have other engineering slip ups like have no emergency lights and ''manual'' door overrides that don't work if it doesn't have ''power.''

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

* Just about every single thing to come out of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' is either made out of shot traps, should collapse in on itself, or both. Even the more reasonably designed Imperial Guard tanks like the Baneblade are literally built out of shot traps, with short ranged guns that have bores nearly as large as their length as standard armament. It's only that tabletop rules forbid doing so that stops anyone from simply shooting the Baneblade in its Demolisher cannon and destroying it.

** Surprisingly enough, averted in some of the armour designs - The [[http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:Ghazghkul2.jpg "walking tank" style model]] of Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka was sculpted by someone with a background in mechanical engineering, who made a point of making the joints, pistons and servos actually be there for a reason. [[note]] This is somewhat bizarre, considering that the Orks actually have a canonical justification for using this trope (they are all latent psykers, so if enough [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve Orks think something should work, it works]]). [[/note]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' doesn't so much have an artistic license as it has ''[[ToonPhysics entirely separate laws of physics from reality]]''. On one hand, sand, gravel, and most living things will respect the laws of gravity while most other blocks ignore it entirely, enabling [[FloatingContinent floating continents]] and [[OminousFloatingCastle fortresses]] to be built and naturally generate with a little effort. Yet on the other, most anything electronic barring mods follows the laws of electronics mostly swimmingly (well, minus the fact that [[PerpetualMotionMachine redstone torches]] produce seemingly infinite power.)

* ''Videogame/SeriousSam'': Flavor text from NETRICSA says that the [[FrickinLaserBeams Laser Gun]] is made of titanium so as to not overheat. Titanium actually has very low thermal conductivity – a titanium laser gun would in fact overheat ''faster'' than one made of, say, steel or aluminium alloy. Not that it matters for a game firmly on the "Classic" end of the FacklerScaleOfFPSRealism, mind you.

* In ''Film/{{The Net|1995}}'', an IP address is shown as "23.75.345.200" but [=IPv4=] addresses can't contain numbers higher than 255.
** This is more the IP equivalent of a 555 number.

* ''VideoGame/TheSims'', falling under acceptable breaks of reality, since house building can take a long time without you thinking how many pillars to put to support the entire structure. Of course, there are also GoodBadBugs that allow things like a ''floating house''.

* ''VideoGame/FarmingSimulator 17'', being a [[SimulationGame simulator]], goes out of its way to detail the ''graphics'' of the vehicles and attachments with such things as power take-offs, three-point hitches, ball hitches, and fifth wheels. But when it comes to actually hooking the equipment up, you can get away with all kinds of shenanigans. For example, you could run a beet-harvesting wagon behind a pick-up truck with the harvester's power take-off driveshaft obviously hanging in midair. [[note]]A power take-off is basically an exposed auxiliary driveshaft that allows a vehicle to provide rotational power to some other accessory. It's an essential feature of farm tractors, and fifth-wheel trucks sometimes offer them too. Consumer pickups don't generally offer it standard.

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

** Lets not forget the original ''Enterprise'''s pencil-neck, which by all means would snap off whenever it did anything resembling a turn. Later ship designs downplay the length and thicken the "neck" section, generally making it slightly more believable, even if it was still a rather unsound design. This particular weakness gets graphically demonstrated in ''Film/StarTrekBeyond'' when [[spoiler:[[BigBad Krall's]] [[ZergRush swarm attack]] slices off both warp nacelles, preventing the ''Enterprise'' from pulling a HyperspeedEscape, before cutting through the neck and leaving both the saucer and drive sections helpless]].

* In ''Series/HaltAndCatchFire'', Cameron's computer experiences a power surge, burning out her hard drive. Donna and the Cardiff Electric engineers attempt to recover the data by removing the platters from Cameron's dead hard drive, mounting the platters onto a second drive, and if the FAT[[note]]File Allocation Table[[/note]] is still intact, move the data onto a third drive. It's a rather convoluted solution that could theoretically work; however, Donna and the engineers were handling the platters out in the open rather than in a controlled, dust-free clean room. Removing the cover off a hard drive outside of a clean room environment will destroy it; the clearance between a hard drive platter and its read[=/=]write head is less than ten ''nanometers'' and contaminants as small as dust, smoke, and human hair, which are measured in ''micrometers'', will ruin a hard drive and its stored data if the platters are exposed.
* ''Series/TheManInTheHighCastle'': The Nazis have rebuilt downtown Berlin according to Hitler's master plan, with [[SigilSpam swastika-festooned]] megastructures all over the place, most conspicuously the truly-enormous ''Volkshalle''. Unlike VideoGame/WolfensteinTheNewOrder, which handwaved it with a [[AppliedPhlebotinum "super concrete,"]] no attempt is made to explain how such enormous structures can stand in a ''city built on a swamp''.[[note]]In real life, ''Reichsminister'' Albert Speer had several concrete test pylons placed around Berlin to evaluate the feasibility of Hitler's dream city. They can still be seen today, although they've sunk considerably since 1944 and are still sinking. Berlin's underlying soil is too soft and damp to take that kind of load; any structures of the sizes envisioned would have to be built on top of pylons extending all the way down to bedrock, which would significantly increase the already-colossal costs of the whole project.[[/note]] Another engineering problem with the ''Volkshalle'' is also left out, namely that a dome that size would have its own indoor precipitation because of the humidity brought in by 100,000 or more people standing inside.

* In ''Film/{{The Net|1995}}'', an IP address is shown as "23.75.345.200", but [=IPv4=] addresses can't contain numbers higher than 255.

* In ''Film/TheNet'', an IP address is shown as "23.75.345.200", but [=IPv4=] addresses can't contain numbers higher than 255.