Interviews with experts on the difficulties faced when distilling scientific concepts into big-screen sci-fi.

Published in the ‘Star Trek’ issue of Little White Lies.

 

The Science and The Fiction

In one or another of its various incarnations, ‘Star Trek’ has given millions of viewers their first glimpse of strange new worlds, offered an open introduction to wildly imaginative yet curiously practicable scientific advancements and manhandled all of us through an often demanding assault course of improbably literate bri-nylon derring do.

The capacity for the original mid-to-late Sixties series to popularise science and promote more-than-occasionally unfashionable liberal ideals during an especially troubled period in history is enough to enshrine it in the highest echelons of speculative fiction. The ongoing franchise’s ability to inform and excite future generations of scientists, writers and thinkers elevates yet further.

With JJ Abrams’ reboot of this enduring space serial soon to be upon us, Adam Lee Davies invites some of the movers and shakers in various fields of science and science fiction to share their expert opinions on the big bangs and dark matter necessarily produced when splitting the silvery atom of big-screen sci-fi.

‘Engage!’ and so on and so forth…

 

The Authority

David Darling is the author a string of popular science books that have explored everything from the birth of the universe to the ongoing search for extraterrestrial life. He holds a PhD in Astronomy and maintains the award-winning website ‘The Internet Encyclopedia of Science’.

- How well have sci-fi films kept pace with emerging scientific concepts?
I think they've kept pace amazingly well and in many cases have raced well ahead of conventional science. Faster-than-light travel, parallel universes, machine intelligence, virtual realities, etc., have all been tackled in movies, often with great success. In some cases they've helped drive the science by envisaging new possibilities or inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers.

- Are there any films that manage to trade in hard science without doing so at the expense of the story?
Kubrick's ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ still stands out as the film that got it spot on regarding the environment of space and the physics of space travel. The science was uncannily right for a movie made 40 years ago - before the first moon landing.

- What scientific principles do sci-fi films most frequently ignore or mistreat?
The fact that sound can't travel through a vacuum! Again ‘2001’ was accurate with the science of this, but the directors of other SF films have been unable to resist putting in the sounds of rocket engines or explosions in space in an effort to liven up the action. ‘2001’ showed just how dramatic periods of total silence can be.

- Which sci-fi film do you feel presents the clearest picture of our future space journeyings or possible interaction with alien species?
‘Contact’ did a pretty good job of speculating credibly on our first meeting with advanced extraterrestrials and on how superluminal travel might be achieved - not surprising since the novel it was based on was written by Carl Sagan with input from his physicist buddies at Caltech. Tarkovsky's ‘Solaris’ was probably the best attempt to show how truly alien an intelligent ET might be, while ‘Alien’ had a realistic (i.e. cramped) spacecraft. But a film would be pretty dull if it tried to be too accurate: astrobiologists suspect that the highest form of life on most worlds is going to be microbial. Having said that, ‘The Andromeda Strain’ managed to spin a suspenseful yarn around microscopic invaders.

- Does your scientific knowledge ever impinge upon your enjoyment of big-screen sci-fi?
Being a science nerd I enjoy most SF films, from the old '50s classics like ‘This Island Earth’ and ‘It Came From Outer Space’ to ‘Star Trek’, and I have no problem switching off my credibility circuits. The fact that the universe probably isn't populated with Romulans, Vulcans, and the rest, doesn't mean I can't enjoyably escape for a while into an alternative cosmos where they do.

 

The Astrophysicist

Chris Lintott is an astronomer and astrophysicist currently studying – amongst other things – the formation of stars and galaxies. He is fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and co-presenter of the BBC’s ‘The Sky at Night’ with Patrick Moore.

- Are there any films that you feel manage to successfully harness hard science to achieve narrative ends in an elegant way?
It's easier to think of misuses rather than elegant solutions, to be honest! I think the thing that's hardest for filmmakers to cope with is the fact that the odds are we won't ever be able to travel faster than light - starships will take generations to get anywhere. If there's a good film that resists the temptation to send people whizzing about the galaxy, I don't know of it. ‘2001’ gets a lot of the science it deals with right - those space stations would work perfectly well, and be a lot more comfortable than the International Space Station. More recently, Danny Boyle's ‘Sunshine’ got some things wrong, but it made the sun look magnificent, just as it does in modern scientific images.
On another level, ‘Capricorn One’ - a film about a faked Mars landing - has a lot to answer for. It's quite fun, but it's appearance in the ‘70s kick-started the moon landing hoax nonsense that refuses to lie down and die.

- Which scientific concept or theory has been most consistently abused on the big screen?
It must be the principle that nothing can travel faster than light. It's just too tempting to insist on breaking this fundamental rule, but Einstein says it just can't happen. Failing that, I'd give a lot of money to get away from the idea that scientists always wear white coats.

- Is it possible for you to watch a sci-fi film with any suspension of disbelief or are you constantly aware of the science at play?
I'd much rather they didn't try to explain anything, actually. ‘Sunshine’ did a good job on this front - we're not told why the sun has switched off, or how the 'bomb' they carry will save the world. With all that out of the way I can enjoy the movie instead of listening to techno-babble about ‘Heisenberg Compensators’ and the like.

- What current scientific developments do you imagine will provide material for any future films?
One of the most amazing things happening at the moment is the discovery of planets around other stars; we now know of more than 300, and we might only be a few months away from discovering the first Earth like planet. I'm looking forward to seeing films set in real places, rather than made up solar systems. Imagine knowing that around a particular nearby star there was an Earth-sized planet with liquid water and hints of life in its atmosphere. What stories could filmmakers tell us about that?

 

The Author

Alistair Reynolds is a hugely successful British sci-fi author whose blend of speculative science and space opera has few peers. He has a PhD in Astronomy and has worked at the European Space Research and Technology Centre.

- Your writing has been described as 'hard' science fiction.
I've always balked against the ‘hard SF’ tag as I don't think it particularly describes the type of SF I find most exciting, but there's no doubt that I do like to respect the science as much as possible. I find this as liberating as it is challenging. Sticking to a rule like ‘no faster than light travel’ opens up as many possibilities as it closes.

- Why do you it is so difficult translating speculative science to the screen?
I don't think many people are that interested, to be honest - least of all the people involved in hands-on filmmaking. Look at ‘Sunshine’, for instance - they made a big hoo-ha about calling in a scientific consultant, but as far as I can tell none of their input had any measurable effect on what we saw on the screen. The end result contained a number of glaring absurdities that could easily have been eliminated at the script stage without in any way making the film less exciting or harder to follow. Of course, had I been involved, it would have been wonderful…

- Is it possible for you to watch a sci-fi film with any suspension of disbelief or are you constantly aware of the science at play?
I just switch my brain off most of the time - it's easier that way. ‘Contact’ made a brave stab, but most of the SF films I've enjoyed lately haven't really been hard SF in either intention or execution. My favorite of the last 10-15 years is probably ‘Dark City’, which I enjoyed for its narrative energy, but the science is minimal. My least favorite would have to be the abysmal ‘Lost in Space’. ’The Core’ was pretty stupid, as was ‘Armageddon’, but there were enjoyable touches in both. It’s not the be-all and and-all, though; ‘Dark Star' is one of my all-time favorites and it doesn't really stand up to close examination on any scientific level.

- Are there any techniques that filmmakers have in their arsenal that you envy?
I still feel that SF is at its best as a written medium, but there are undoubtedly narrative devices that filmmakers can employ that writers can't really use in the same fashion. I often make use of multiple narrative strands, for instance. In a novel it becomes too choppy if you cut between strands that are anything less than several paragraphs, even a short chapter, in length, whereas a director can cut away to another strand for just a few seconds - a guy in an office putting down a phone and saying "They've killed the president!" or something. Ultimately it's all about film being primarily a visual medium, and the novel being primarily an interiorised form.

 

The Futurist

Be it in under the title of ‘conceptual artist’ or ‘visual futurist’, designer Syd Mead has worked on some of the most successful sci-fi films of recent years. From ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’ through ‘Tron’ and ‘Blade Runner’ to ‘Aliens’, he has reshaped the iconography of an entire genre forever.

- You’ve helped create some of the most fully realised futurescapes in sci-fi cinema. How do you begin visualising these worlds?
Movies are stories. Movies are to storytelling what the symphonic orchestra is to music. Science fiction stories are told in relation to their narrative time frame, their stylistic visual base and filmic style. These stories take place in specific, imaginary worlds. That world needs all the same things that make our world recognisable; ambience, fashion, transport, enclosure; all should relate to a consistent scenario. What better way to adjust familiarity to an alternate reality than to take real world experience into the story world at hand? But it must still all work in relation to whatever story premise is in play. It must still be recognisable to an audience and it must have a certain validity, either as accurate pretence or exaggerated caricature.

- What are the challenges faced when translating hardware from the page to the screen?
The immediate challenge is to appreciate what the story is about. Once I understand that I can start to invent the various props that the story requires. I have a degree in Industrial Design which helps me to synthesize future manufacturing techniques and stylistic motifs that make the resulting designs innovative, nouveaux and perfectly visually logical.

- How important is the look of a sci-fi film to its ultimate success?
I think the design of a movie’s artefacts and visual style has very much to do with a sci-fi film’s success. Once the storytelling style is established the design complements that editorial determination. ‘Brazil’, for instance, is a spoof on extreme bureaucracy enabled by rinky-dink, slap-dash technology. The result is genius. ‘The Fifth Element’ uses an over-the-top, elaborate design that is very funny, dramatically explosive and simply wonderful. ‘Blade Runner’, being deliberate styled as a noir film, demanded an overlay of urban desiccation that illustrated the dysfunctional cross-section that typified the movie’s story-base as written by Philip K. Dick.

- How has the recent surge of technology assisted sci-fi filmmakers fulfil their visions?
I think it has made the movie making process more accurate and allows image presentation that would have been literally impossible a decade ago. However, advanced technique in creating special effects has nothing to do with the quality of the story being told or how it is told. You don’t have to go very far to dig up the $2OOm movie that is awful - badly acted, over-designed and that substitutes explosive special effects for concise directing and pertinent story development. Too many current releases are simply long demo-reels for SFX houses. The story is totally massacred in the process of producing a continuous string of eye-candy for juvenile minds.