Afterword: A Tour Through the Lands of Science and Entertainment

Transcription

1 Afterword: A Tour Through the Lands of Science and Entertainment Most people are not scientists. This means that they have a limited ability to travel to what we might call the land of science with its secretive laboratories, arcane knowledge, unintelligible science speak, and strange social rituals. In fact, research shows that the public most often encounters science through fictional depictions in movies and television shows. Of course, this has led scientists and policy makers to become concerned about how fictional depictions of science might impact science literacy and public perceptions of science. Luckily for us, Hollyweird Science is here with its light hearted, conversational style and its expert Science-fu to serve as an experienced tour guide through the land of science and its fusion with the world of entertainment. While the Hollyweird Science team help us separate science fact from Hollywood fiction, they are also unabashed fans of science-based popular culture. They are clearly sympathetic to entertainment producers who are trying to incorporate real science within the artificial realm of fiction. This means that Hollyweird Science is also providing the public with a tour of the equally mysterious back lots and sound stages of the entertainment industry. Hollyweird Science s sightseeing tour through the dominions of science and entertainment is important because science and fiction represent two of the most powerful cultural institutions that humans have developed to understand and explore their world. The fusion of science and fiction in movies and on TV has increased dramatically over the last 15 years. This increased use of science in entertainment means that we are currently experiencing a Golden Age for science-based popular culture. Box office blockbusters such as Interstellar and Big Hero 6, and television ratings titans like The Big Bang Theory demonstrate that there is a substantial audience for science-heavy popular culture. Academy Award winning films including Gravity and The Martian, and Emmy Award winning TV shows such as House and Breaking Bad have also proven that science based popular entertainment can be critically acclaimed in addition to being financially successful. K.R. Grazier, S. Cass, Hollyweird Science: The Next Generation, Science and Fiction, DOI / , Springer International Publishing AG 2017

2 406 Afterword: A Tour Through the Lands of Science and Entertainment We can also consider this a Golden Age for science-based popular culture because the representations of science and scientists in our fiction have changed significantly. Contemporary portrayals of scientists in movies and on TV have become far more positive and complex than previous stereotypes of the maniacal older white man with fuzzy Einstein hair, bushy beard, thick glasses, and lab coat shouting It s Alive! There has been a remarkable shift in the depictions of scientists in entertainment away from scientists as the odd and evil villain to portrayals of scientists as admirable and heroic. The mad scientist is now essentially a relic of the past. Modern scientist characters exhibit a moral complexity not found in previous portrayals even in those who are villainous. There has also been a shift away from depictions of scientific knowledge as inherently dangerous towards a portrayal of science as being threatening only when it is unregulated and untethered to ethical constraints. Fictional portrayals of science have moved from being a mysterious and dangerous activity to being one that is knowable and controllable. Hollyweird Science s interviews with prominent filmmakers and TV producers reveal to us that filmmakers and TV producers have embraced authentic science because audiences have become more sophisticated consumers of entertainment. Audiences are demanding more complicated entertainment products and that includes scientific content. One of the primary reasons that entertainment producers have gravitated towards science is that contemporary entertainment now emphasizes realism across media and across genres. This growing desire for realism motivated filmmakers and TV producers to increasingly look to science to help them ground their texts in a realist framework. This desire for more scientific content has, in turn, led to an increase in the number of scientists brought on board to act as consultants for film and TV productions (including a certain Kevin Grazier who has contributed advice for a significant number of entertainment productions). The success of these scientist/entertainment collaborations helps explain why there is so much more science in our fictional media and why popular images of science have changed so dramatically over the last 15 years. It is much more difficult for entertainment professionals to stick with old, worn-out negative stereotypes like the mad scientist when they are asking real-life scientists for assistance. The veracity of science in cinema can be important in shaping public discourses about science. Movie and TV science can certainly make the public fear science, but stories about science in movies can also convey the excitement of scientific research or communicate a sense of awe about the natural world. However, as Hollyweird Science points out, it is also important that we do not get bogged down in the act of scientific nitpicking. Scientific facts serve as the starting point for filmmakers who then use their own professional judgment to

3 Afterword: A Tour Through the Lands of Science and Entertainment 407 determine if, and how, these facts must be subverted during production. This means that the public needs to consider all the factors that shape fictional depictions of science including those imposed by the constraints of media practices. Ultimately, Hollyweird Science shows us how science can make for better entertainment and how we can use popular culture to learn more about science. I think we can all agree that this is a good thing. David A. Kirby University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

4 Further Reading Along with some of the many texts mentioned in the text, here are more books for those interested in going deeper into the topics covered in this volume. Joh Ronson, Jon So You ve Been Publicly Shamed. New York/London: Riverhead Books/Pan Macmillan. Ronson is an author and independent filmmaker who, himself, has been the target of an Internet shaming. This is his fascinating and troubling exploration into the Internet s seedier side. Gerry Spence How to Argue and Win Every Time. New York: St. Martin s Press. A book about argument that is not nearly as confrontational as the title suggests. Trial attorney Gerry Spence has never lost a criminal case, and has tried a number of high-profile cases, including representing the family of Karen Silkwood. danah boyd It s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. New Haven: Yale University Press. boyd is a foremost digital anthropologist, researching how social media has affected the personal lives of its users. Lee Smolin The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book is as much about the culture of physicists as it is about string theory, with Smolin arguing that problems with the former have played into insufficient criticism of the latter. Daniel S. Greenberg Science for Sale: The Perils, Rewards, and Delusions of Campus Capitalism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. A look at some of the ways the culture of science can be distorted by how it is funded and the modern imperative for universities to commercialize research. K.R. Grazier, S. Cass, Hollyweird Science: The Next Generation, Science and Fiction, DOI / , Springer International Publishing AG 2017

5 410 Further Reading Jennifer Ouellette The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse. London: Penguin Books. A lively introduction for laypeople into calculus, including exponential functions and the importance of the number e. Morris Kline Why Johnny Can t Add: The Failure of the New Math. New York: St. Martin s Press. Although written four decades ago, the book still addresses topics impacting the innumeracy which permeates education today, particularly in the United States. George Gamow One Two Three...Infinity. New York: Viking Press. An early pop science book in a similar mold as Hollyweird Science, this is an entertaining book that explores fundamental concepts in math and science, written at a level understandable by laypeople. David J. Hand Statistics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. A quick primer on the basics of the use (and abuse) of statistical methods Charles Petzold The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour through Alan Turing s Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine.NewYork:Wiley. A step by step explanation of Alan Turing s most influential paper, and a paper that s almost impenetrable for non-experts without the aid of a book like this. Simon Singh The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy From Ancient Cryptography. New York: Anchor Books. A very readable history of code making and breaking that has an excellent chapter on the Enigma machine. Douglas Hofstadter I Am a Strange Loop. New York: Basic Books. This book reprises and extends Hoftstadters core arguments from his seminal, but dense, opus G odel, Escher, Bach, about how conscious arises in brains, and why machines should be able to do the same. James Barrat Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era. New York: St. Martin s Griffin. A sobering exploration into what will happen when machines achieve humanlevel intelligence. George Dyson Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship. New York: Holt Paperbacks. Written by Freeman Dyson s son, this book details the Orion project and its plan to launch spacecraft propelled by nuclear explosions.

6 Further Reading 411 Francis J. Hale Introduction to Space Flight. New York: Pearson. Currently this book is out of print, but if you can get your hands on a copy it will teach you how to plot missions to other planets with little more than highschool math. George Pendle Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson An account of the stranger-than-fiction life of one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Gerard K. O Neill The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space. Burlington: Collector s Guide Publishing. This reprint of O Neil s massively influential 1977 work shows the incredible vision and ambition of a man who wanted to make space colonies a reality. Valentin Lebedev Diary of a Cosmonaut: 211 Days in Space. New York: Bantam Books. This English translation of the memoir of one of the crew members of the Salyut 7 series details many of the unglamorous aspects of living in space. William E. Burrows This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age. New York: Random House. A lively history of the early days of space flight, and how the early leaders influenced each other and those who came later. Mary Roach Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. New York: W.W. Norton. Another book that examines the unpleasant, unglamorous, undignified, and downright gross aspects of space travel, but in a lighthearted and highly amusing way. Blake Snyder Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You ll Ever Need. Studio City: Michael Wiese Productions. An excellent, and influential, book on screenwriting...as well as a little bit of a glimpse into Hollywood culture. Although ostensibly the last book on screenwriting you ll ever need, there are two sequels.

7 Film References Franchise or film series Film title Year(s) Chapter(s) A Beautiful Mind Adam Aeon Flux Alien Alien Alien Aliens Apollo , 7, 8, 9 Armageddon 1998 P, 9 The Astronaut Farmer Austin Powers P Avatar 2009 P, 5 Avengers Age of Ultron Back to the Future Back to the Future Back to the Future Bicentennial Man Blade Runner 1979 P, 5 The Black Hole Brazil Captain Marvel Cherry Cocoon The Cold Equations Colossus: The Forbin Project , 5 Conquest of Space Contact The Core 2003 P, 2, 9 Creation The Crying Game 1992 P Dark Star The Day After Tomorrow Deep Impact Desk Set Destination: Moon (continued) K.R. Grazier, S. Cass, Hollyweird Science: The Next Generation, Science and Fiction, DOI / , Springer International Publishing AG 2017

8 414 Film References Franchise or film series Film title Year(s) Chapter(s) The Dish Dr. Strangelove The Edge of Tomorrow (aka Live, Die, Repeat) Elysium , 9 The Enemy Below ET: The Extraterrestrial P, 4 Europa Report , 9 Ex Machina , 5 Fahrenheit Failsafe Fantastic Four P Fantastic Four Fantastic Four 2015 P Ferngully Frau im Mond , 9 Forbidden Planet , 5 Galaxy Quest Gravity 2013 P, 1, 2, 6, 7, 9 Guardians of the Galaxy , 9 Her , 5 Hidden Figures Hulk Hulk The Hurt Locker The Imitation Game , 3, 4, 5 Inside Out 2015 P The Iron Giant i, Robot An Inconvenient Truth 3 Interstellar 2014 P, 2, 7, 9 Iron Man 2, 5 James Bond 4 James Bond Goldeneye James Bond The World is Not Enough James Bond Moonraker John Carter 2012 P Jurassic Park P Jurassic Park Jurassic Park La Charcuterie mécanique Lawless 2012 P Le Voyage Dans La Lune Life Logan s Run (continued)

9 Film References 415 Franchise or film series Film title Year(s) Chapter(s) Lost in Space Lost in Space Love The Martian 2015 P, 4, 6, 7, 9 Metropolis Minority Report , 5 Mission to Mars Moneyball , 4 Moon , 6 On the Beach Outland 1981 P, 9 Pacific Rim 2013 P, 9 Pandorum Passengers Paycheck A Perfect Storm Pi Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl Planet of the Apes Pocahantas Polar Express The Postman 1997 P, 5 Project Moonbase Proof Rain Man Raising Genius Real Genius Red Planet , 5 The Chronicles of P Riddick Robot & Frank Rocketship X-M R.U.R The Scarlet Letter 1995 P Serenity Short Circuit Silent Running , 9 The Sixth Sense 1999 P Sneakers Soylent Green The Space Between Us Stand and Deliver (continued)

10 416 Film References Franchise or film series Film title Year(s) Chapter(s) Star Trek , 7 Star Trek: The Motion Picture , 9 Star Trek Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , 5, 6, 8 Star Trek Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , 7 Star Wars P, 4, 7, 8 Star Wars Star Wars: The Force Awakens 2015 P, 4, 5, 6, 8 Star Wars Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Rogue One: A Star Wars Story , 5 Star Wars Star Wars: A New Hope , 5, 8, 9 Star Wars Star Wars: Return of the Jedi Sunshine 2007 P, 6, 9 Swordfish Terminator Terminator , 5 Terminator Terminator 2: Judgement Day The Theory of Everything Thor 7 Thor Thor The Three-Body Problem: I Titan, A.E Top Gun 1986 P, 3 Total Recall , 9 Total Recall Transformers P, 2, 5 12 Monkeys : A Space Odyssey 1969 P, 4, 5, 6, 7, : The Year We Make Contact , 7, 9 Unbreakable 2000 P Wall E WarGames , 5 Waterworld Westworld Willy Wonka and the Chocolate 1971 P Factory The Wizard of Oz , 4 When Worlds Collide X-Men P, 2 The Zero Theorem

11 TV/Web Series References Franchise or film series Series/film title Episode Year(s) Chapter(s) Adventure Time Agents of S.H.I.E L.D. Airwolf Fallen Angel Almost Human Almost Human Skin Andromeda , 9 Ascension , 9 Babylon 5 Babylon , 9 Battlestar Battlestar Galactica Galactica Battlestar Battlestar Day in the Life P, 9 Galactica Galactica Battlestar Battlestar , 5, 6, 8, 9 Galactica Galactica Battlestar Battlestar Rapture Galactica Galactica Battlestar Battlestar The Face of the Galactica Galactica Enemy Battlestar Battlestar The Hand of God 8 Galactica Galactica Battlestar Caprica Daybreak , 9 Galactica Blakes Blakes 7 Orbit The Big Bang 2007 P, 2, 3, 4, 9 Theory The Big Bang The Relationship Theory Diremption The Big Bang The Anxiety Theory Optimization Bones 2 (continued) K.R. Grazier, S. Cass, Hollyweird Science: The Next Generation, Science and Fiction, DOI / , Springer International Publishing AG 2017

12 418 TV/Web Series References Franchise or film series Series/film title Episode Year(s) Chapter(s) Bones The Spark in the Park 3 Buffy the Vampire Slayer The Cold 1996, Equations Cosmos Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey CSI P CSI CSI:Crime Scene 2000 P Investigation Defiance 2013 P, 2 Doctor Who Doctor Who ; 6, Doctor Who Doctor Who The Impossible Planet Doctor Who Turn Left Doctor Who Doctor Who Revelation of the Daleks Dot Comedy P Eureka , 3, 5, 7, 9 Eureka Duck, Duck, Goose 3 Eureka What Goes Around, 7 Comes Around Eureka Liftoff 9 The Expanse , 9 Farscape ; 6, FlashForward 2007 P Firefly Firefly Objects in Space The Flash Fringe , 2, 3 Futurama Futurama Fry and the Slurm Factory Game of Thrones , 9 Hackers Halo Halo: The Fall of Reach Halo Halo: Forward Unto Dawn Herman s Head 1991 P The Hitch- Hiker s Guide to the Galaxy The Hitch-Hiker s Guide to the Galaxy , 3, 5 (continued)

13 TV/Web Series References 419 Franchise or film series Series/film title Episode Year(s) Chapter(s) House, M.D P, 2 Humans The The 100 Inclement Weather The Jetsons Knight Rider Last Week Tonight Let s Make a Deal Lost Lost in Space , 8 The Man in the High Castle Manhattan , 4 Manhattan You Always Hurt the One You Love The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Mobile Suit Gundam Mr. Robot Mr. Robot Eps1.0_hellofriend mov Mythbusters Wheel of 3 Mythfortune The Newsroom Numb3rs Numb3rs Noisy Edge Numb3rs Disturbed Numb3rs Prime Suspect Numb3rs Traffic Numb3rs Sacrifice Numb3rs Sabotage Person of Interest Probe Computer Logic Quarterlife P Red Dwarf , 4, 5, 6 Red Dwarf Holoship Rowan and Martin s P Laugh-in Saturday Night Live Episode Schoolhouse Rock Hey Little Twelve Toes (continued)

14 420 TV/Web Series References Franchise or film series Series/film title Episode Year(s) Chapter(s) Scorpion Secret Talents of 2008 P the Stars The Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers The Simpsons Space: , 6, 9 Space: 1999 Breakaway Stargate Stargate Stargate SG Stargate Stargate Atlantis Stargate Stargate: Universe Star Trek 6, 8, 9 Star Trek Star Trek , 4 Star Trek Star Trek For the World is Hollow, and I Have Touched the Sky Star Trek Star Trek Balance of Terror Star Trek Star Trek: The P, 5, 6, 9 Next Generation Star Trek Star Trek: The Ethics Next Generation Star Trek Star Trek: The The Measure of a Next Generation Man Star Trek Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek Star Trek: , 6, 7, 8 Voyager Star Trek Star Trek: , 8 Enterprise Survivor Terminator Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles Turn-on 1969 P The Twilight Zone The Twilight The Cold Equations Zone Virtuality The Walking Dead War Games Whiz Kids Airwaves Anarchy