Blogs / Science Not Fiction

If you saw my list of underrated science fiction movies, you’ll know that I love a good ending. For me a great ending is when the movie really uses those last seconds to add something to the storyline (or even transform your perception of the whole movie), so that you sit watching the credits trying to digest what just happened. (I’ve nothing against epilogue-style endings–I’m looking at you, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King–but they’re not great in and of themselves.) Again, your suggestions welcome! (Also, beware spoilers!)

• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, original ending). This movie brings home the bacon of paranoia as the helpless protagnist screams at the movie watching audience that they’re next.
• Planet of the Apes (1968) Quite possibly the best ending of a movie ever, I can still remember the shattering shock of discovering the identity of the Planet of the Apes when I first saw this movie.
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Sure, the voyage Beyond the Infinite is confusing, but the very final shot of the Star Baby gazing upon the Earth speaks to the promise of the future that’s built into the film’s DNA.
• Dark Star (1974) A philosophical showdown with a sentient bomb taken to its logical conclusion accompanied by brilliant dialogue.
• Bladerunner (1982, original ending) A great twist at the end, but one which met significant opposition, and the meaning of which wasn’t confirmed by director Ridley Scott until decades later.
• The Terminator (1984) Okay, so yes, the end of this movie does herald the otherwise depressing prospect of inevitable nuclear war, but it’s defiance beautifully sums up the movie.
• Brazil (1985, original ending) Yes, it’s depressing. But then, did you see the rest of the movie?
• Back to the Future (1985) Admittedly, it’s not particularly thought-provoking, but the flying-car ending of this movie deserves its place for being just an awesome kick in pants.
• Twelve Monkeys (1995) The uncompromising logic of the movie gets taken to its grinding conclusion, along with a clever little twist.
• Contact (1997) I liked the idea here that the super-advanced and super-manipulative aliens that screwed the protagonist over weren’t all powerful.

Improved and expanded laws of robotics [SomethingAwful via BoingBoing]

Living on Martian time [Futurismic]

Singing Mad Scientist Alert: Dr. Horrible comes online today and its pretty frakkin’ good. If only Whedon had the foresight to cast NPH in the Buffy musical.

Revenge of the moped: The future of transport is not the hovercraft, but the electric bicycle. [Next Big Future]

Ahead of our ComicCon panel next week on good science in good science fiction, some musings on the opposite phenomenon: when science fiction hurts good science. [io9, Science Fiction in Biology and Mike Brotherton via SF Signal]

UPDATE: I totally missed the main point of this last story, which was that Buzz Aldrin was the guy who said that popular scifi was hindering science.  Active discussion on the topic going on now at Bad Astronomy.

As I mentioned before, I expected a few of this summer’s big science fiction movies to be overrated: sadly, for me, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army was one of those. As I said on Friday, I enjoyed the first Hellboy because of its H.P. Lovecraft overtones. Lovecraft’s fiction was inspired by the cosmological shift in our perception that occurred in the first decades of the 20th century: Edwin Hubble proved that the universe was incredibly bigger than anyone had suspected, with island galaxies separated by vast voids; Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity demolished the previously rock-solid absolutes of time and space; and a cabal of quantum theorists played merry buggers with the definition of reality. Lovecraft’s writing spoke to the dark underbelly of uncertainty and insignificance that could be inspired by new discoveries: his stories are often about scientists plunged into events that are way over their heads.

Minus the Lovecraft, Hellboy 2 is simply average superhero fare, borrowing heavily from the original celtic folklore regarding fairies and elves (by “original” I mean before the Victorian era turned fairies into pretty winged sprites and Tolkien turned elves into beautiful warrior-snobs.) In this folklore, elves and fairies are generally best avoided due to their capacity for malevolence—Terry Pratchett’s Lords and Ladies is a great contemporary take on this. Despite the lavish visuals, it’s all rather predictable, featuring not one, but two, romantic subplots.

Oh well. At least I did enjoy the season five opener of Stargate Atlantis, as Robert Picardo becomes a regular cast member. I’ve liked Picardo’s performances since China Beach, and his character of the reluctantly self-aware medical AI on Star Trek: Voyager was the most interesting thing on that show. Fingers crossed for the rest of the season.

Two of my favorite science fiction franchises premiere their latest installments tonight: Hellboy II: The Golden Army opens in cinemas and Stargate Atlantis returns to television on the SCI FI channel for its 5th season.

With its supernatural overtones, some might quibble over whether or not Hellboy is really science fiction. putting it instead into the fantasy category. But Hellboy clearly draws from the tradition of horror science fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft, who, in his stories, created a complex and rich universe in which humanity is only a paper-thin dimensional wall away from malignant entities that regard us a little more than ants scurrying underfoot.

Stargate Atlantis, the spinoff from the successful Stargate: SG1 TV show (which was itself a spinoff from the 1994 Stargate movie) is also set in a rich (if considerably less bleak) universe. Since the Stargate franchise moved to television in 1997, the producers have done a great job in creating a believable and consistent constellation of advanced physics and technologies that form the background of Atlantis and SG1. They also deserve credit for how they’ve structured the show: idea-of-the-week plots are carefully balanced with long term character and story arcs, meaning that even after hundreds of episodes across both shows, casual or new viewers can still watch the show without feeling lost (something that became a problem with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Bablyon 5 for example) while devoted fans get rewarded too.

Check back on Monday for my thoughts on both of tonight’s openings!

As reported by my fellow DISCOVER blogger Eliza Strickland, researchers believe that the moon may have considerable amounts of water ice. But Tintan fans have known this since 1954, which is when Hergé published the second half of his Destination Moon two-parter, Explorers on the Moon: during a moonwalk, Tintin discovers a cave with a floor of ice.

Okay, okay, admittedly the ice suggested by Eliza’s researchers isn’t just lying around — it’s bound into lunar rocks. But it is another prop for the Destination Moon books, which have held up surprisingly well over the decades, especially given that they were published three years before Sputnik I and 15 years before the Apollo moon landing.

Written with a desire to get the science and technology right (for example, in the first book, Destination Moon, an explanation of how a nuclear reactor burns uranium fuel is given that was not materially different from the version I found in physics textbooks years later, and which was somewhat better presented), the books feature a nuclear-powered rocket that uses Von Braun’s original Direct Mode mission plan to get to the moon (no mucking about with lunar landers, or rendevousing with booster stages in Earth orbit when you have a nuclear engine!). Acceleration couches support the crew, whiskey forms into little balls under its own surface tension in zero gravity, and reduced lunar gravity complicates walking.

Of course, there are lots of inaccuracies one could pick at, but to my mind Tintin’s discovery of ice is emblematic of why the books hold up so well. Hergé could easily have chosen to have Tintan discover the ruins of a lost civilization, or giant mushrooms, or any one of a number of things that are a lot more dramatic and cartoonogenic than ice. But by making the discovery of ice the scientific highlight of the mission, Hergé grounds Tintan’s fantastic adventures in reality, and gives the books the ring of truth.

As mentioned over on Boing-Boing, the Science-Fiction Museum in Seattle is looking for someone to help out in its education department. Not surprisingly, a “keen interest in American popular culture” is required, but before we all start brushing up on our episode guides, so is “2-3 years experience conducting work-place training programs and/or classroom teaching” and “knowledge of educational theories and museum interpretation techniques.” Oh well.

Worth mentioning as well is the museum’s current exhibition featuring some awesome old-school robot designs (think Robbie the Robot meets Andy Warhol), which is open until October 26.

The summer movie season is upon us, and I’m looking forward to watching a bunch of science fiction movies over the next few weeks. Batman, Hellboy, X-Files, Babylon A.D. are all getting the full blockbuster promotional treatment. Chances are though that some of them will be overrated, which got me to thinking about some of the most underrated movies I’ve seen. I love underrated movies: for whatever reason you plop yourself down in front of the screen not expecting much and then: “Hey! This is pretty good!” Here’s my top ten — what are your suggestions?

• The Satan Bug (1965): Before The Andromeda Strain and Outbreak, this cloak-and-dagger thriller brought the specter of species-killing disease to the big screen.
• Silent Running (1972): Although a little preachy, an uncompromising ending rescued the movie from cheesiness as the spaceborne remnants of Earth’s forests face destruction.
• The Quiet Earth (1985): Twenty years after I first saw it, the enigmatic ending of this Last-Man-On-Earth tale still sticks in my mind.
• Last Night (1998): Another movie with a haunting ending, it follows the lives of a handful of people in the final hours before the Earth is destroyed.
• eXistenZ (1999): Overshadowed by The Matrix when it was released, this virtual reality tale is wickedly imaginative.
• Pitch Black (2000): Although it spawned a sprawling sequel, the movie that introduced the character of the lethal Riddick was a tight thriller that relied on psychology more than special effects.
• Underworld (2003): I loved the surprisingly rich backstory that gave a war between vampires and werewolves some real weight.
• The Fountain (2006): Another movie that, whatever other flaws it may have had, paid off with a great ending.
• Stardust (2007): Peppered with wry humor — and with romantic leads that manage not to irritate.
• Sunshine (2007): The on-screen physics didn’t make sense, but the psychology of a crew pushed to extremes by their environment worked for me.

The latest cinematic version of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth opens this Friday, staring the ever-likeable Brendan Frasier. Frasier’s character, (Professor Trever Anderson), his nephew and local Icelandic guide find themselves having hair-raising adventures as they voyage through underground seas and landscapes populated with all manner of bizzare plants and animals. Verne’s original book was published in 1864, a time when quite a few people took very seriously the idea that the Earth was hollow–and inhabited. In this they were inspired by a scientific proposal by Edmund Halley (of Halley’s comet fame) that turned out to be not completely off the mark.

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What are you doing at your computer?  Get outside! 

• Scifi movies summarized in one sentence [Scientific American] 
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• Atul Gawande on the brain, phantom limbs and why you have to scratch that itch [New Yorker]  
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• National Treasure be damned, there are actually 25 “original” Declarations of Independence [New York Times] 
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• While you wait for the chimps to declare independence, take the Planet of the Apes quiz [SciFi Scanner]  
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• And all men are created equal [via BoingBoing]:   

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Ah, Bionic Woman, we hardly knew you. Wounded by plummeting ratings after an initial strong showing and finished off by the writer’s strike, Bionic Woman proved that “reimagined” isn’t always better, with the show lasting just eight episodes compared to the original The Bionic Woman’s 59 episodes. However, there’s better news in real-life bionics, with researchers at Georgia Tech announcing they have found a way to make metal implants more compatible with the human body.

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When writers need to indicate that their super-advanced-spaceship crew are just as mystified by some alien artifact as you are, they often fall back on the tried and tested exclamation of “It’s made of some unknown element!” This always caused my eyes to roll—after all the last gap in the periodic table of the elements was filled in 1923 and while scientists do compete to add more artificially created elements to the bottom of the periodic table, these elements are incredibly unstable, with half-lives typically measured in fractions of a second. And even if one of these new elements were stable, they’d all be much heavier than lead, whereas, when handled by the spaceship crew, the alien artifact tends to behave more as if was made of materials with, perhaps, the density of plywood or plastic.

But now a group of Dutch researchers at the University of Delft have created substances that behave like totally a new type of element.  (more…)

- A bad case of the earbleeds. [Polite Dissent]

- Attention Jaron Lanier: FOX Virtuality pilot casting. [Hollywood Reporter via io9]

- Note to Discover Corporate: Time to order Japanese high tech brainstorming room. [Pink Tentacle]

- Ingeniously designed keg stand. [DVICE]

Our Comic-Con panel is on! Currently confirmed panelists include Jaime Paglia, creator and executive producer of Eureka, and newly minted Discover blogger Phil “Bad Astronomy” Plait.

We’re still pursuing a couple of additional special guests that we’re very excited about so watch this space for updates.

Robots equipped with tasers. Enough said.

It slides into view, slowly filling the frame: a giant spaceship, bristling with nacelles, antennas and other devices of unknown purpose. A deep rumbling pushes your sound system’s bass response to the limit. After a length of time, as determined by a complex interplay between how much awe or menace the director is trying to convey and the size of the special effects budget, a collection of glowing engines finally passes into view.

Whether it’s an interstellar freight transport, a Colonial Battlestar, or even a Star Destroyer, one thing is for sure: it’s honkin huge!

By comparison, Earth’s current mega-space project, the International Space Station, is puny. (more…)