
Scientists Help Movie Writers Make Films ‘Plausible-Ish’ - e15ctr0n
http://www.wsj.com/articles/scientists-help-movie-writers-make-films-plausible-ish-1452473839
======
westoncb
This is actually a decent route for a kind of supplementary education: it
would be pretty valuable to expose a broad audience to the way
scientists/engineers really think about problems—and the opportunity is
generally wasted, preferring to convey that scientists/engineers just have
some magical ability that the audience does not.

It's a little difficult to say exactly what it is that could be communicated,
but I guess I'd call it 'intuition'; and the value of trying to convey it in a
movie is that if you tell the average person, "I'm now going to give you some
examples of how scientists think about things"—they're going to become nervous
and less efficient at absorbing the info.

I was recently impressed by "Ex Machina" for being 'plausable-ish' and showing
realistic, intelligent thought processes, as an example. The t.v. show "House"
is also sometimes good about it.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I'd like movies to go more for a kind of "social proof". Part of the reason
Star Trek, especially TNG, raised a generation of scientists and engineers is
because science and engineering there is normal. Not mundane, but normal.
Every protagonist and background character in this world is highly educated;
no one is surprised by it, nobody boasts about it - it's just how everyone
are. Even that dirty Klinon thug knows more science and engineering than your
average university graduate. It's just _normal_ , and I think it reflects on
the audience.

Besides thinking, there's a huge value in portraying accurate science and
technology. Even if it's background, not core of the plot. Pretty much
everyone in the West learns stuff from TV and cinema, whether they like it or
not. Especially if one doesn't know about something beforehand, the movie will
set baseline expectations about that thing. Think how most people seem to
believe that people will explode when exposed to vacuum - thanks to decades of
movies that told them exactly that. If people are going to learn from TV, they
may as well learn the correct stuff.

~~~
Adam_O
I think about this too sometimes.. TNG in particular had scientifically
literate characters and that sort of depth was considered normal, there was no
fuss about the big ideas and the knowledge, they just applied it. It is easy
to get used to a mature baseline of thought like that as a viewer. Most of the
newer apocalyptic themed sci-fi just seems silly in comparison.

As a side note, I really like some of the comic books written by Jonathan
Hickman, for example his S.H.I.E.L.D. or FF runs. He seems to be a fan of
science.

~~~
TeMPOraL
TNG is a thing that comes back as a topic almost whenever I have a longer
discussion with my mother and brother. It's those discussions that made me
realize that there are two things that Star Trek world had, that I miss in the
real one:

1) High level of baseline literacy we were talking about. Contrast to our
world, when many people shy from learning new things, and those who do learn
are often labeled as nerds and warned about dangers of having too high self-
esteem. I really long for the world where this sort of anti-intellectualism is
not something to be proud of, and where the social pressure is encouraging
self-development, rather than discouraging it.

2) Expectation of competency. It's visible on all levels - from civilian vs.
Starfleet interactions, through teamwork of starship crews, to the inner
workings of big bureaucracies like the United Federation of Planets. Everyone
is assumed competent until proven otherwise. Characters in Star Trek know
they're working with others who are as smart as they are, and so they trust
each other and trust the system. Contrast with the real world, where we often
assume our coworkers are incompetent, and the predominant narrative in society
is that bureaucracies are stupid and evil.

I only now realize how much my expectations of humans are different thank to
Star Trek, and that a big part of my life is trying to form an area around
myself, where 1) and 2) would hold.

There's also point 3), but that may be a particular quirk of my personality -
I prefer stories where not individuals, but _organizations_ are heroes. That's
another reason why I love Star Trek, and that's also why S.H.I.E.L.D. was
always my favourite part of the Marvel Multiverse. A magical mutated flying
superhero is boring. A _Helicarrier_ \- now that's interesting. :).

~~~
Adam_O
Fully agree with 1) in a sense that the sciences and the humanities are all
around us, in front of us, and it's not 'geek' impulse to try exploring both,
it's part of being a rational, fulfilled human being.

As for 2), that's an interesting point. Perhaps it speaks to a level of
maturity and mutual trust that we have not achieved yet. Maybe it manifests
naturally as a result of progress with 1). It'd be interesting to read some
lengthier discourse on this.. I feel it relates to government, market forces,
social perception, culture and more..

------
existencebox
Do they really? At the risk of letting my inner hipster movie snob out in
force, I've found modern sci fi movies to be bottom of the barrel as far as
any sort of plausibility/immersion goes. (As an example, I was screaming at
the screen for the better part of The Martian, if only for the behavior and
attitudes of the acting "astronauts" when compared to actual astronauts in
critical situations)

Moon stands out to me as one of the few beacons of recent "hard sci fi",
whereas many of the movies that got a lot of acclaim for having staff-
scientists (gravity, the martian, interstellar to a lesser degree) just made
me grumpy.

I've found modern movies play the same tricks as they always did, pick up on
buzzwords and massage them enough such that the average joe can't tell the
difference. Perhaps that's what the article means by "plausible-ISH", and I
felt like they touched on this thrust in the "ten years ago everything was
ElectroMagnetic Pulses" (not verbatim), nowadays we just have different
tropes; I don't believe things have gotten any more sophisticated aside from
that the internet forces the tropes to be "more correct" one or two levels
deeper.

A lot of my bitterness is rooted in a combination of two things. One, the
final sentence of the article hits the nail on the head. "You can only make so
realistic a film where someone jumps over buildings"; Fine, but if you concede
that, don't try and paint a thin veneer of half-assed realism over the whole
thing. I will forgive just about anything in a more fantasy-directed sci fi,
but if you start trying to be "hard", I'll hold a different standard. Second,
the correctness seems to often play second fiddle to whatever set pieces or
plot is desired. I understand this may be a pragmatic necessity, but it's very
obvious when the two start to generate friction against each other (scientific
realism and plot) and I long for this to be balanced elegantly, with the
science as a more integral component (truly "leading the story" as the article
likes to suggest they are attempting) rather than the stucco you paint on
after the fact, disguising up a weak skeleton against only the most peripheral
examination.

~~~
humanrebar
I didn't notice any glaring problems in Ex Machina, but it's definitely an
exception.

~~~
ggreer
I while watching Ex Machina, I was caught up in the story and characters.
Immediately afterwards, I realized how ridiculously contrived a few parts
were.

(Spoilers follow.)

The most glaring oversight was the lack of an emergency shutdown for Ava. The
story should have ended with Nathan pulling out a remote, pressing a button,
and Ava collapsing. The prospect of a robot going berserk was known to him.
Heck, it'd already happened before. One scene shows footage of a prototype
smashing itself to bits on the wall. The movie expects us to believe that
after that incident, Nathan thought, "No need to add failsafes. Just let these
AIs destroy my carefully-crafted robot bodies on this glass partition." I
don't buy it.

~~~
alphakappa
(Spoilers too) The thing that stood out for me was Ava leaving the compound
without any explanation for how she would inductively charge herself
afterwards.

~~~
ggreer
I assumed the induction panels were repurposed commodity gear. Typical use
would be to charge phones, tablets, laptops, roombas, etc… and Ava could top-
up at an airport or coffee shop. That conclusion makes more sense than Nathan
inventing his own wireless charging standard.

------
fiatmoney
The science isn't often the most implausible part, it's the actual demeanor of
supposed scientists / engineers / astronauts / etc.

Alien & Primer are excellent counterexamples.

~~~
deciplex
> Alien & Primer are excellent counterexamples.

Oddly, Prometheus was an excellent _example_. It's like Ridley Scott
documented all the different ways you can make a character totally
uninteresting and loathsome, and made sure to include at least one example of
each in that movie. What a turd.

------
imh
Sometimes this seems to make it worse. I've observed I tend to get most
frustrated when the movie is plausible throughout until an implausible climax.
I understand that this is where the friction between plot and science will be
strongest, but it feels like they're changing the rules where it most matters!

~~~
TeMPOraL
They need to stop hiring scientists just to make technobabble plausible - the
creative writers need to start treating them seriously instead, and consulting
them on the story flow. Like in Interstellar, when Nolan would tell Kip Thorne
that he needs something for his plot, Thorne would outline the necessary
physical conditions and developments, and then the two would argue over it
until they could figure out a path for the story that reaches the creative
goal while staying within the constraints of science.

------
bonyt
"Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable
possibilities."

[http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.mb.txt](http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.mb.txt)

------
aaron695
It's a interesting question, are anti-science movies like Interstellar, which
also make science look cool, better for science or worse.

~~~
TeMPOraL

      > anti-science
      > Interstellar
    

... what? Care to elaborate?

