The presence of one unrealistic thing in a movie does not excuse all others.

Also, who the heck is Jean?

Dealing with SH the same as with SF is to me as silly as discussing on the proper darwinian place of Trolls in Evolution, asking if they share a common ancestor with Elfs. We never do that, don’t we? Yet it’s more of a basic premise of the storyline with Spoc’k in Star Trek, a real SF; …fascinating! (raising left eyebrow)

Insofar as using the proper analytical frame of reference while looking for a plausible way to lift this monster, it’s childly simple: Superman did the whole lifting and flying from underneath her keel, and they photoshopped him out later!

It’s the good’ole Third Law of Movie Making: «We’ll fix that in post-prod!»

Hermione Granger wouldn’t even have to touch the thing, but wasn’t available at the time and honnestly, they didn’t had her kind of money.

Jean, B.A. in cinematography.

PS: Don’t mistake me. I love and enjoy Tolkien as much as Asimov, and can Marvel over super-heroes. I just don’t read each with the same «inertial frame of reference».

When the helicarrier first took off and disappeared, I paused the movie (she hates this) and I said “The interesting thing about that scene is that the helicarrier thing wouldn’t work, too much energy required and it would flatten anything under it; but the cloaking thing might actually work in about 20 years. We already have smaller versions of it now”

She threw something at me and I un-paused the movie.

~Zyg

I mean think about it. An aircraft carrier is a ship meant to carry aircraft. Now they’ve made the aircraft carrier fly. So what they’ve built is a sort-of aircraft to carry… aircraft.

Why would anyone do that? Isn’t it easier and more efficient to simply build more advanced aircraft? Intermodal transport systems make sense, but intramodal transport systems rarely make sense.

Do we have trains that carry trains? Ships that carry ships? Cars that carry cars?

Yes, I’m aware of certain unusual edge cases, like the RV that carries a commuter car. Or manufacturers that transport plane parts in a plane. Even the military transports entire helicopters inside large cargo planes. I don’t think these are very good rebuttals.

So basically, Phil, if the helicarrier were possible, it would be easier to just have the planes it’s carrying helicopter around instead?

To Stu, she said “flying helicopter”.

All movies, even ones based strongly on our world, are ultimately part of their own unique universes. It’s still fun (at least I think it is) to check out whether what’s possible in those movies would be possible in the real world.

Besides, its plainly obvious that the Marvel Universe isn’t the same one we live in. There are Aesir gods, mutants, alien tech, supersoldiers, etc all interacting with each other with no regard for time/place continuity. And S.H.I.E.L.D. has somehow managed to build not just a helicarrier in complete secrecy but an assortment of underground facilities. In the Marvel Universe, of course the helicarrier can fly.