too much sometimes IS enough
May. 10th, 2007 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adelaideseanTwo reviews of Danny Boyle's new movie "Sunshine" (by Grant Watson and Marcus Chown) and Lucius Shepard's recent rant have convinced me to commit to something I've been inching up on for a while now.
From this moment henceforth, I refuse to see a serious science fiction movie (i.e. one we're supposed to take seriously, rather than, say, Fantastic Four) in which scientific knowledge and the people employed in the pursuit thereof are needlessly treated badly.
In other words, I'm boycotting science fiction movies that contain overtly crap science unless there's some kind of pay-off for putting up with it.
I don't think I'm being unreasonable. Is it so wrong to want movie-physics (say) to bear at least a passing resemblance to the physics surrounding us in our everyday lives? Or to wish that scientists were rounded characters, with the same depth of being that other characters in the movie enjoy? Failing both of these, could we at least have something else in exchange? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind explored powerful and thought-provoking themes through extraordinary direction and performances. Armageddon (like so many others in its league) did not.
I'm amazed that we settle for anything else. No one would watch a thriller that wasn't thrilling or a romantic comedy with unlikeable leads. A movie set in post-war Italy wouldn't include the Grand Canyon and icebergs just because the director felt like it. Why should the relationship between science and science fiction be any different? There's enough sense-of-wonder to be had out there without getting things so terribly, terribly wrong--and good special effects are the standard now, not the major drawcard they used to be.
Movies that let me down this way drive me mad. Since I don't want to be mad, I'm going to stop supporting the Big Dumb SF Blockbuster industry. No one in Hollywood will notice, I'm sure, but I'll feel better for it.
From this moment henceforth, I refuse to see a serious science fiction movie (i.e. one we're supposed to take seriously, rather than, say, Fantastic Four) in which scientific knowledge and the people employed in the pursuit thereof are needlessly treated badly.
In other words, I'm boycotting science fiction movies that contain overtly crap science unless there's some kind of pay-off for putting up with it.
I don't think I'm being unreasonable. Is it so wrong to want movie-physics (say) to bear at least a passing resemblance to the physics surrounding us in our everyday lives? Or to wish that scientists were rounded characters, with the same depth of being that other characters in the movie enjoy? Failing both of these, could we at least have something else in exchange? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind explored powerful and thought-provoking themes through extraordinary direction and performances. Armageddon (like so many others in its league) did not.
I'm amazed that we settle for anything else. No one would watch a thriller that wasn't thrilling or a romantic comedy with unlikeable leads. A movie set in post-war Italy wouldn't include the Grand Canyon and icebergs just because the director felt like it. Why should the relationship between science and science fiction be any different? There's enough sense-of-wonder to be had out there without getting things so terribly, terribly wrong--and good special effects are the standard now, not the major drawcard they used to be.
Movies that let me down this way drive me mad. Since I don't want to be mad, I'm going to stop supporting the Big Dumb SF Blockbuster industry. No one in Hollywood will notice, I'm sure, but I'll feel better for it.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-10 06:06 am (UTC)How sad (and not entirely unexpected) that they can only recommend six movies with good physics, and only two of these are science fiction (2001 and Bladerunner). How many thousands of SF movies are there that don't make the list? One's mind can only begin to boggle.
Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-10 04:54 pm (UTC)http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html
(you get a favourable mention in the interstellar non-FTL concepts section :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-10 10:42 pm (UTC)