Image courtesy of NASA.The movie 2010 opens today in theaters across America. For the impressive trailer click here. For a scathing review from a scientific perspective, click here.
I like the trailer, I like John Cusack, I like disaster movies in general so I'm hopeful I'll enjoy this one. I don't expect a whole lot of scientific accuracy however. And why should I? It's a movie. Sure, I will poke fun at the technical impossibilities and the scientific improbabilities just like anyone else with a science background. I will also drive my children crazy, pointing out every continuity error in a movie because that's the kind of thing I notice. I hope there is a good story with a long build-up to death and destruction; there is nothing worse than a too-soon disaster in a disaster movie. I like to see normal life going on with subtle hints of problems that we would normally explain away. Like the cold tap water being slightly warmer than usual, or the occasional clock stopping due to blips in the magnetic field for example. I like to see some people dismiss these initial signs with a genuine head-in-the-sand mentality, while others see dreadful portents in the slightest (and ideally insignificant in a red herring sort of way) happenings. Still others, recognize there is something unusual going on, and quietly prepare themselves for the unknown. In other words, a disaster movie for me, is not about the accuracy of the science (although, the more accurate, the better), but rather about the portrayal of the human reactions. 2010 in itself is hardly based on science. I just picked up a book that I that I can't wait to dig into: The 2010 Story: The Myths, Fallacies, and Truth behind the Most Intriguing Date in History. I'll report back on what I find in a later blog.
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