Being in Tri-Cities, we've probably got a higher-than average percentage of scientists and engineers in the audience, so I'd like to start what I hope will be an ongoing thread on the subject of "hard" science fiction in film. By "hard", I mean that scientific ideas in the film are based on reasonable extrapolations of natural laws and that do not conflict in a major way with them. The term is often used to describe a subgenre of written science fiction brought to a high art by Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov. Of course, there's always some non-scientific malarkey in these stories -- that's what the "fiction" part means -- but it's only a premise to move the story along. Classic case: Clarke's "A Fall of Moondust" is completely wrong about the lunar surface, but taking that misconception as a premise goes on to tell an exciting story with a strong component of physics.
Neither the "Star Wars" nor the "Star Trek" films qualify as hard science fiction, IMHO. What does? Well, that's what I'm looking for here. My favorite recent example is "Red Planet," which combines a survival story (two of them, actually) with the resolution of a scientific mystery.
What are your favorites?
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Friday, February 1, 2008
All Film Club members are invited to be authors
I have sent author invites to all film club members. Anybody can comment. The advantage to being an author is that you can post new topics. If you're not a member of the film club and you'd like to contribute, go to http://bsa.pnl.gov/filmclub/ and follow the Contact Us link.
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