MovieChat Forums > 3 Idiots (2009) Discussion > Space Pen

Space Pen

posted 11 years ago by mjlangenbru
6 replies | jump to latest

The film as a whole was okay, however, I don't understand why they used the anecdote about the space pen. Many people have heard of the classic line, "NASA spent millions of dollars developing a pen that would work in space while the soviets solved the problem by simply using pencils." Set aside the fact that this is a well-known anecdote, the only problem is that is is entirely false.

http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

A single man invented the pen using his own funds to produce it, and both the soviets and NASA used pencils until the pen was invented. This clever but over used anecdote happens to be a false one. Why then did they use it in this film?

Anyways, just one of several issues I had with this film.

[–] Eponymous-too 11 years ago

They used it in the film to allow the schoolmaster something symbolic to pass on to Rancho, and also to allow them to show that Rancho doesn't know everything, since pencils did have those flaws in space, which is why it was worth the cost of devloping the pen.

"My name is Paikea Apirana, and I come from a long line of chiefs stretching all the way back to the Whale Rider."

[–] mjlangenbru 11 years ago

But its not true. NASA did not develop the pen, they used pencils until someone else developed it. I understand the significance it played in the plot, however the concept as a whole is a false one. The so-called flaws with a pencil were not a problem and that is why NASA did NOT spend money on the pen because it wasn't necessary.

[–] fatrb38 11 years ago

Then in that case some can interpret it to mean that even the teacher wasn't always 100% correct (although there were plenty of other times when he was duped in the movie).

In my opinion this movie was full of cliches, over-acting, and dull jokes (including some toilet humor) so the space pen issue is just another to add on to the list.

_
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[–] puschit-1 11 years ago

But it isn't important what happened IRL as long as everybody knows the anecdote, false or not. It's just a good anecdote - false or not. It's a plot device! Movies do that all the time and they have to do that in order to not overstrain the audience's knowledge and interlectual capabilities and at the same to not bore the audience to death.

And in many cases movies just go along with established things instead of the reality in order to not confuse people. Let's take the heart defibrillator. In movies they are frequently used to bring a person back to life whose heart had stopped beating. But in reality a defibrillator is used to regulate heartbeats and to stop ventricular fibrillation.
Now imagine yourself as a director. Would you opt to show the correct use of a defibrillator in your movie? And risk that people would call you out on that? It doesn't matter that you are right because the audience thinks you are wrong when watching the movie. So, you will most likely just roll with it.

[–] chuck-526 9 years ago

... This clever but over used anecdote happens to be a false one. ...And that's a problem???

Like the old story about two Afghan warlords destroying a town while fighting over a young boy. It's "too good not to report" and nobody looks into it too carefully. Who cares whether or not it's actually true?

And while "overused" may indeed be true in the west, it's not at all clear it's also true in India where this film was made.

(If the majority of viewers knew it wasn't true, it would have been stupid filmmaking to include it. But where the vast majority of viewers either don't know or don't care, why not?)

[–] halomaniac88 (1736) 6 years ago

this is a very cliched movie, pretty overrated tbh