I’m a science fiction (SF) writer. I’m also the type of audience member who hates the movies everyone else likes, and likes the movies everyone else hates. Watching classic SF movies, I would challenge the assertion that many of them should be considered classics. Many of the SF movies that have become woven into popular culture are in fact unscientific and can actually harm the general public’s understanding of how the universe functions. This is an analysis of the most well-known speculative fiction movies – that are also the most mis-informative.
Alien (1979)
The film Alien and its sequels feature the extraterrestrial creature known as the xenomorph. It is an insectoid animal that reproduces by releasing parasitic “facehuggers” that in turn implant chestburster embryos. The embryos explode from the host’s chest and develop into adults by consuming prey with a matryoshka doll-like mouth.
At its inception, this concept is unscientific. The xenomorph evolved on an alien planet, yet is seen attaching a facehugger to a human being. At no point in its evolution did the xenomorph ever encounter a human. It is unlikely there are bipedal fauna with two arms, two legs and a head on the alien planet, considering the variety of other anatomies available in the evolutionary repertoire. Ergo, it is virtually impossible that the facehugger would have the instinct to latch onto a face. It’s never seen a face before. It would have no instinctual urge to hug a face.
The 2004 Discovery Channel TV movie Alien Planet illustrates this point in elaborate detail (Discovery Channel, 2004). In this fictional documentary, an interstellar spaceship is sent to an extraterrestrial planet named Darwin IV, where humankind’s probes discover an exotic ecosystem. Members of the food chain include prey whose quadruped limbs have become fused together, mantislike creatures that can glide, and a seven-storey-tall colossus that eats from mouths on its feet. Scientists in the documentary, including Professor Michio Kaku, commented that such organisms are within the laws of physics; more so than a humanoid, considering that an alien planet might have geology ill-suited for the human form.
Indeed, human physiology might be inedible to the developing alien fetus, and might actually be poisonous if its native atmosphere has a different chemical composition. Exoplanet HD 189773b has an atmosphere comprised of glass shards. Saturn’s moon Titan has a thick nitrogen atmosphere.
The strength of the xenomorph homeworld’s gravitational field would also influence its strength. Stephen Hawking stated that life on planets with high gravitational fields would be significantly stronger, in order to compensate for the effort of mobility (Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking, 2010). The chestburster might be so strong that it would break through a human’s ribcage before it can fully develop, whereas if it were to use an organism on its home planet as a host, the host would be strong enough to contain the parasite.
Alternatively, if the alien’s planet has a gravitational field weaker than Earth’s, it would struggle to move on Ellen Ripley’s spaceship, which is programmed to have Earth gravity. Since the creature is unintelligent, its attack would be based on instinct and, therefore, it would miss the face it’s trying to hug while trying to adapt to 9.8 metres per second squared. Ripley would have Newton’s laws to thank for that.
The filmmakers evidently did not consider common sense in morphology. The alien’s mouth-inside-a-mouth makes no sense from an evolutionary perspective. Richard Dawkins famously dissected a giraffe to demonstrate that the laryngeal nerve reaches from the brain, goes down the length of the neck, loops around the heart, goes back up the neck and attaches to the relevant organ. No intelligent designer would extend a cord over 15 feet when the two organs can be attached through a shorter path. There is no evolutionary reason why the alien should have an additional mouth that does not extend much farther than its normal mouth. In the wild, if a prey item leaps one foot away from a bear, the bear would reach for it and bite it again. The bear would not discharge a prehensile tongue with teeth at the ends of its tastebuds. Evolution does not add additional mouths or eyes just for fun. Filmmakers do.
Lastly, from an aesthetic standpoint, the character design comes off as lazy. Killer insects are common in scifi, particularly during the 1950s B-movie era. An example would be Them!, which was about giant ants terrorising mankind. Dr Skip Young states in his article “The Dark Side of Movies as Equipment for Living” that even adults can be influenced by violent movies. He cites mass murderer James Holmes, who was 24 years old when he shot up a movie theater in order to emulate the fictional supervillain the Joker. In a similar fashion, displaying such a pedestrian character design as the xenomorph can influence the audience to think less creatively. Those who are uneducated in science might think that insectoids are the limit of what can exist in space, and might lose interest in science.
Why then do critics praise Alien as a pivotal movie? If anything, this film teaches viewers the wrong things about space and basic biology.
Predator (1987)
Predator was a film about the titular Predator, an extraterrestrial warrior who lands on Earth in order to engage in deadly sport hunting. It is a humanoid with two arms, two legs and a head, carrying weapons that might qualify as samurai armaments, if samurai existed in the far future. Upon removing its helmet, it is revealed to have quadruple mandibles, but otherwise looks like a distorted human face.
The premise of an alien hunter going on a gory Earth safari is unique. The character design of the Predator is not. The scientific inaccuracy of a humanoid alien has already been discussed, but to drive the point, I will cite Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. When discussing human-looking extraterrestrials in scifi, he mockingly lamented, “This simply cannot be.”
The humanoid alien (I’m also talking to you, Spock) is a lazy production shortcut. It would have been too complicated to design a Predator who was, for instance, a two-headed lobster with a jetpack, or an anteater with spiked quills and projectile teeth. With the technology of the 1980s, this would have to have been done with practical effects, which would have made the film look silly. Nevertheless, it could be argued that the clumsy practical effects of a two-headed lobster would have been more memorable than a bodybuilder in prosthetic makeup. At least it would demonstrate to the audience that the production was trying to create something interesting. A failed attempt to create something new is more respectable than the timid approach of making another biped extraterrestrial. After all, science is about innovation. Einstein said, “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”
A less-apparent flaw in the conception of the Predator is the creature’s technology. In the Predator 2, the protagonist enters the Predator’s spaceship and finds a dinosaur skull on the wall of the trophy room. One is to assume that the Predator hunted T-rex and other prehistoric animals. The problem is, if the Predators were alive during the age of dinosaurs, why hasn’t their technology evolved past plasma guns, laser sights and tactical explosives? If they were capable of space travel 68 million years ago, they certainly had laser guns back then. Moore’s Law states that computer chips double in power roughly every two years. While the law predicates that silicon chips can only become so small before the uncertainty principle goes into effect, the Predators would have had 68 million years to overcome Moore’s Law, possibly through materials technology. In the year 1987, they would have been technological gods. Yet, they were carrying the same primitive weapons they had during the Cretaceous period.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Kubrick’s alleged masterpiece was among one of the worst offenders of the SF genre. It depicts the story of humankind through the ages, starting from the primate ancestors of Homo sapiens, and leading to the dawn of space colonisation. A team of explorers investigates a von Neumann probe left from an ancient alien civilisation. During their mission, their onboard AI, the HAL 9000, becomes disgruntled and goes postal in his 2.7 Kelvin workplace.
First off, Kubrick seems to have forgotten the primary point of a movie – to be entertaining. The movie starts with prehistoric hominids, and then goes on for a long time with prehistoric hominids. There is no narrative. Not until the alien monolith appears on prehistoric Earth, and then there’s a time jump, and then – again – not a lot of narrative.
Lacking a narrative, a movie is without a driving motivation and, therefore, the audience stops paying attention. During a market test of the Little Mermaid (1989), executive producer Jeff Katzenberg noticed that a 6-year-old boy in the audience stopped paying attention as soon as the main character started singing a song that described an integral part of the plot. This suggests that audiences prefer to watch action, rather than listening to exposition (in my career as a screenwriter, I often incorporate exposition into action sequences).
2001: A Space Odyssey’s failure to engage the general public meant it had a negative impact on serious science. Actor Rock Hudson, along with 250 other audience members, reportedly left a screening of the movie, muttering, “What is this bulls***?”. This made it all the more difficult for those of us SF writers who are serious about science. It doesn’t matter how intellectual or artistic a film is. Roger Ebert argued, “There’s a place for intellectual arguments, and that’s the printed word.” (Dark City commentary, 1998) He concurred that the purpose of a movie was to engage the audience at an emotional level, and if it happens to be intellectual, so be it. Most people to this day still don’t understand why there is an embryo floating in space at the end of the film.
It’s unpleasant to listen to someone talk about how he despises everything. The good news is, I don’t. There are science fiction movies that I consider to be highly effective. However, these movies are virtually forgotten, or if they’re remembered, they’re remembered for the wrong reasons. I think it’s worthwhile to rewatch the following films:
Dark City (1998)
Dark City features a man with no identity and no memories. He wakes up in a metropolis where the night never ends, and there are inhuman Strangers pursuing him at every corner. As the story progresses, he discovers that reality is not as mundane as he thinks.
Physicist Brian Greene reasons that in the absence of the ability to find the meaning of life, one can only find solace in how the cosmos functions. Dark City takes the opposite approach. Rather than explaining the mechanics of how the Strangers are able to manipulate reality, the film delves into the core questions that we all ask – what is the meaning of life? What is reality? What are dreams? These questions will always be relevant, since no one can know the answers, and we will always be wondering.
Dark City also explores mankind’s desire to find the truth in the face of opposition from a shadowy tyranny. Filmmaker Alex Proyas claims he made the film to comment on the oppressive nature of modern society (Dark City commentary, 1998). Whether it’s the burning of Giordano Bruno, or the persecution of Christians in ancient times, humans will always experience oppression. Skeptics can find tranquility in the movie; after all, the core of skepticism is challenging long-held beliefs. Lastly, the film is superior to 2001: A Space Odyssey because Dark City engages the audience with an understandable narrative.
Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (1999)
I’ll say it: Jar Jar Binks is more interesting than Boba Fett. Consider the following thought experiment: imagine the most annoying person you know. Maybe it’s the coworker who always throws his trash in your trash can, or the guy in the neighborhood who double parks and causes you to arrive late for a dental appointment (and then acts confused when you tell him why you’re annoyed). Imagine he was the face under the helmet. Suddenly Fett isn’t so cool anymore. Nobody knew what he looked like for 22 years. During those two decades, the only thing cool about him was the armor. So anyone who wears the Boba Fett armor is as cool as Boba Fett. Han Solo can wear the armor and be like Fett.
George Lucas created Jar Jar Binks because he was not interested in making the same movie he made in the 1970s. Jar Jar Binks was something new. Something no one had seen before in the Star Wars universe. Similarly, Isaac Newton was famous for being completely obsessed with figuring out the nature of mechanics, and tried many different failed experiments. Reading the Principia, scholars have noticed many errors. Newton is still considered one of the founders of modern science.
Binks wasn’t funny by any measure, but it demonstrates that the artist was trying to imagine outside the box. For this reason, the Phantom Menace might be considered one of the most daring science fiction films ever made, mistakes included. Richard Feynman said, “Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”. He would not have been displeased by Lucas’ abomination.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
This children’s cartoon is often frowned upon for its association with the “brony” fandom. If one ignores the grown men dressing up as horses, the show has scientific value for the younger audience.
The cartoon is an excellent introduction to the basics of evolution. Three subspecies of ponies are identified: Unicorns, who have a magical mono-horn; Pegasus ponies, who have wings and can walk on clouds; Earth ponies, who live on the ground and have robust physical strength. This is reminiscent of the Earth of 300,000 years ago, when there existed nine distinct human species. Looking at these subspecies can give children a better understanding of the scientific classification system in zoology, wherein species are defined according to kingdoms, phyla, etc.
As the show progresses, new pony subspecies are revealed, including crystal ponies and hippogriffs. Crystal ponies were frozen in time for a thousand years, and then awakened. This seems to reference attempts to clone extinct species, such as the woolly mammoth. Recently, scientists implanted mammoth genes into mice, generating wooly mice.
Does it sound silly to discuss a Hasbro cartoon in the context of science? It’s not nearly as silly as a Klingon who can reproduce with a human.
Being called a classic does not render a piece of art effective. Films are heavily influenced by marketing and publicity, which can make a mediocre product appear better than it is. Science fiction fans should not place too much weight on the opinions of “legendary” writers. Even legends can make disastrous errors, making you want to scream your vestigial mouth at the top of your lungs (which evolved to speak in whalesong).
