By Rebecca Boyle
In the film "Starship Troopers," humans battle a marauding race of aliens sometime in Earth's distant future. Along with a militaristic vision, the film portrays the aliens as super-sized insects — a particularly frustrating point for Emory emeritus physics professor Sidney Perkowitz.
"I've watched that a hundred times and it still gets my blood pressure up every time," Perkowitz said. Perkowitz played a clip from the film during the kickoff session of ScienceWriters2013. In the trailer, 10-foot insect-like creatures bound through desert set pieces in pursuit of hollering soldiers. Perkowitz uses it as a biology lesson, explaining that in reality, weight increases as a cube of the size. A one-inch bug scaled up to 10 feet would weigh 108,000 pounds, not quite nimble enough to give chase.
"On the face of it, it is very unlikely that these bugs could have evolved to this size. Biology just wouldn't work that way," he said. "But even bad science used on screen can be used for a teachable moment."
Why would science writers come to a talk about Hollywood science fiction? Along with teaching from scientific mistakes, journalists can learn some lessons from Hollywood's storytelling craft, Perkowitz said.
"Hollywood knows that dramatic truth reaches people. Science writers can benefit when we remember we can get narrative into whatever we write about, that adds incredibly to the power," he said.
Scientists can also benefit from sharing dramatic truth, added Rick Loverd, director of the Science/Entertainment Exchange program of the National Academy of Sciences. Science fiction and superhero films draw almost unfathomably huge audiences — "Avatar," the highest- grossing movie of all time, has reached a greater number of people than the population of the United States — and this can be an opportunity.
"If you want to influence the public, you really have to get into their living rooms, and get them engaged with characters they already consider their family," Loverd said.
While Loverd said the Sci/Ent Exchange is not the "accuracy police," the 5-year-old program matches scientists with screenwriters who may need a crash course in physics or medicine. Samantha Corbin-Miller, a writer for TV shows including "ER," "Cold Case," and "Gideon's Crossing," said she values scientists who are willing to help her service a story or character arc — and who understand story matters.
"You can have all the best intentions in the world, and want to present science in as realistic a form as possible," she said, "but between meeting a great doctor at a (Sci/Ent) salon and four months later having an episode show up on TV, there have been many, many compromises made for the sake of art or commerce that dilute, change or compress the legitimate scientific content."
Still, scientists can inspire new ideas that drive new story lines or character development, and present science to new audiences. Loverd pointed to an episode of the USA drama "Covert Affairs" that incorporated geographic information systems in an episode about piracy. He also note the forthcoming film "Thor: The Dark World," which revisits the Norse god and his girlfriend, played by Natalie Portman. In the comic books that inspired the movies, she's a nurse, but the film character is a theoretical astrophysicist. It was nothing against nurses, but was a deliberate attempt to upend the Hollywood stereotype of stuffy, lab-coated male scientists, Loverd said. The film's producers also set up a video contest for girls interested in science, technology, engineering and math careers, and winners will be invited to the movie's red carpet premiere.
"Why not make the effort to use today's characters to influence tomorrow's scientists?" Loverd said.
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