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1970 - 1979!
BENEATH
THE PLANET OF THE APES (1970) 20th Century Fox
I must talk
about The Bomb. This weapon, worshipped by the mutant humans of the
future, is briefly described as a cobalt bomb. Brent and Taylor take
it for granted that this bomb can destroy the world but can that be
true? Well, sort of. It depends on your definition of "destroy."
You see adding cobalt to an H-bomb does not make the explosion bigger
- it makes the fallout worse; worse in the sense of staying radioactive
and deadly for many years instead of just a few months like a regular
nuke. (For a good story about a cobalt weapon
war worst-case scenario, see ON THE
BEACH).
So if by destroy
you mean "kill all mammalian life" (those
damn cockroaches would survive just fine) then yes, it would
destroy the world. But if you mean "blow up the Earth"
(implied in the next movie) or "ignite
the atmosphere and incinerate the Earth" (mentioned
in this movie) then no. Only an anti-matter weapon or something
similar could accomplish such a gargantuan energy release.
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ESCAPE
FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES
(1971) 20th Century Fox
When Dr. Dixon first sees the three apes, he's mildly surprised
to see that they're wearing clothes and seem very bright, but
he dismisses it by saying they must be well trained. Is that how a
zoologist would react in that situation?
NO!
He'd say,
"Oh my god! They're standing upright and have opposable
thumbs! This is a whole new species of chimpanzee! Maybe a new order
of primate! I've got to publish immediately so I can name the
species. I'll be famous!"
The fact that they can talk (which is discovered
very quickly when Zira can’t resist the need to give her opinion)
would just be the icing on the cake. At first glance they are very
obviously not like any chimpanzee ever seen before. |
THE OMEGA MAN
(1971) 20th Century Fox
In the novel the infected are vampires and the movie LAST
MAN ON EARTH is faithful to that aspect of the story. But screenwriter
Joyce H. Corrington, also a Ph.D. in chemistry, wanted to write science
fiction, not fantasy (she explains all this
in an interview included in the DVD extras) so the vampires
became the believable victims of a terrible, man-made disease.
Biowar
was just becoming a major concern in the late 60's / early 70's
when this movie was made (and we know now that
the Soviet Union kept stockpiles of some very nasty stuff).
The Sino-Soviet war releasing bioweapons that spread across the globe
was very much a reasonable fear then and unemployed Soviet scientists
selling their expertise to terrorists is a perfectly reasonable fear
now. |
THX
1138 (1971)
There is a truly odd mix of technology here, from 70's era computers
and displays to the super-advanced robot cops. Normally that would
bother me - if you have that kind of robotics tech you don't need
human workers at all - but it doesn't because this is a police state.
Logic and totalitarian philosophy do not mix so I assume it all
makes sense within their society. It reminds me of the Soviet Union,
which never threw out anything that still worked. |
CONQUEST
OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (1972)
20th Century Fox
There
is a key scene where Caesar’s chimpanzee girlfriend Lisa (Natalie
Trundy: BENEATH THE PLANET
OF THE APES, ESCAPE FROM THE
PLANET OF THE APES, BATTLE FOR
THE PLANET OF THE APES) actually speaks, apparently learning how
from Caesar. I’m sorry, but no. Apes don’t speak - not because
they haven’t learned - but because they can’t. They don’t
have the vocal apparatus. If you transplanted a human brain into a
chimp’s body the resultant creature might understand everything
you said but would not be able to answer. The only thing that would
turn modern apes into sentient, speaking beings like Caesar is some
serious genetic engineering. |
GARGOYLES
(1972)
Tomorrow
Entertainment
This movie
tries to portray the race of Gargoyles as intelligent reptilians with
an unusually long egg incubation period: 500 years. That's why they
disappear for centuries and become mere legend, then make a new appearance,
get all but wiped out by humanity, and are forgotten as legend again
until the next time. That raises lots of questions, like why aren't
skeletons of these creatures found all the time and where are the
fossils of whatever line of reptiles lead to these intelligent beings?
But I can let all of that go with some handwaving and I can respect
their attempt to approach gargoyles from a science direction. What
I can't let go is the flying. You can't have something as big and
heavy as a man flying on such flimsy, slow wings without invoking
magic. The physics just doesn't work out on its own unless the wings
(and associated back muscles to drive the wings)
are much, much bigger. |
SOYLENT
GREEN (1972)
20th Century Fox
I have to
be careful here because I don’t want this to be a spoiler just
in case you haven’t heard someone quote Heston’s famous
line at the end of this movie when he finds out why Simonson was killed.
What I want to address is something he says just before the famous
line: “The oceans are dying! The plankton is dying!” If
that were true then we would follow pretty quickly. Oceanic plankton
produces about 70% of the oxygen in the atmosphere. If the plankton
were gone then Earth would not be what we think of as an “Earth-like”
planet any more. |
Z.P.G. (1972) Paramount
A lot of people in the 70's were very concerned about over population and the whole idea of Zero Population Growth was an often discussed potential solution. Famine and environmental disaster seemed inevitable and a lot of the sci-fi movies from this era are dystopian and downbeat (SOYLENT GREEN, for example). But if you’ve been paying attention you'll have noticed that in spite of there being lots more people today, none of the disasters they worried about in the 70's ever happened.
Sure, there have been famines, but only because of corrupt, incompetent governments, not because there were too many people. There are billions more people now than in the 70's and between now and then steady improvements in agricultural technology have made food nothing but cheaper and more plentiful.
But if you're still worried about overpopulation, consider this: except for the United States and New Zealand, every Western Nation (including Japan and all of Europe) has a birth rate below replacement level. That means deaths are outpacing births and the population is shrinking. In some cases (Russia, for example) for every two people who die only one new one is born, which means the population is halving every generation.
On top of that, even cultures with high birth rates (most of Islam) are seeing a gradual decline over time. Add all this together and most predictions now show the population of the world leveling off around mid-century, and dropping thereafter. |
|
WESTWORLD
(1973) MGM
Michael
Crichton was trained as a medical doctor before he became a big shot
author / screenwriter / director. I don't know it for a fact but I'm
assuming that's why he imagined a robot "disease" that spreads
though out the park. Today that would probably be written as a computer
virus but I have no problem taking the movie at its original intent,
mostly because of something the chief supervisor says in a Delos meeting
discussing the problem. He says that most of the robots have "been
designed by other computers - we don't know exactly how they work."
This is something that is actually happening today (google
"genetic algorithm" if you want to know more). |
BATTLE
FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (1973)
20th Century Fox
The
movies never really say exactly how modern apes are transformed into
intelligent simians. Many assume that it must be either evolution
or mutations from lingering radiation. Neither of these can be the
answer.
Something in
the neighborhood of 5 million years separates modern humans and
modern chimpanzees from their common ancestor. Two thousand years
ain’t gonna do it. Evolution needs more time to make changes
that dramatic.
And as for radiation,
the answer is no for the same reason the answer would be no for
radiation creating the giant ants in THEM.
Mutations just don’t work that way. They almost always cause
bad changes in genes, that result in still births or shortened life
spans. (If you take the text from a book and
randomly scatter the letters, what are the chances the book will
be better? Odds are it won’t even be legible anymore).
The one and
only way these apes could exist is if they were created deliberately.
A great deal of genetic engineering is the only answer. The Theory
of Special Creation would actually apply, although their creator
was something less than divine.
So here’s
the problem. Twenty years after CONQUEST
OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, where shambling, inarticulate apes
were being used as slaves, all of simian kind has been transformed
into the upright, speaking creatures we saw in the first movie,
WITH NO EXPLANATION AS TO HOW THIS HAPPENED! I mean, what
the hell?
|
EMBRYO
(1976)
The growth hormone is pure drivel, but the concept of an artificial
womb is sound. It has turned out to be more difficult than scientists
thought but it is coming. Imagine the implications: No more premature
infants or miscarriages. No more painful, medically risky childbirth.
Total control over when and where babies are born. No more women
lording it over men about the "pain" they go through! |
JAWS
(1976)
Great Whites generally do not go out of their way to eat people.
Their preferred foods are pinnipeds (seals
and sea lions) because they like the blubber. People are
too lean for their taste. Some think that when Great Whites do attack
people, it's because they're mistaking a surfer paddling on a surfboard
for a seal. In fact that's not true. Great Whites are perfectly
able to tell the difference as evidenced by their approach. When
attacking a seal they rocket up from beneath and slam into the seal,
practically leaping out of the water. When attacking a person they
leisurely swim up and take a bite. They're just curious to see what
this odd creature tastes like and generally they take that one test
bite, decide we're not very flavorful, and swim away. Of course
one Great White bite can be fatal but the fact is most people survive
these attacks. |
RABID
(1977)
There’s
a Gahan Wilson cartoon that shows the gated entrance to the lair of
a mad scientist. Next to the gate is a big sign that says, “Trespassers
will be experimented upon!” The good doctors of the Keloid clinic
must have gone to the mad scientist medical school if they think it’s
legal to perform experimental surgery on unfortunate accident victims,
even if they are using stem cells. Yes, stem cells! Well, they didn’t
call them stem cells but that is what they were describing when they
took a piece of skin from Marilyn Chambers’ leg and sent it away
to a lab to be grown into more skin and any other body parts she might
need.
Now exactly
what went wrong when they did that, I couldn’t comment on because
the movie never explains. I get the impression the intention was
these magic cells “knew” she needed blood so it grew her
a blood stealing needle thingie (pardon the
technical jargon) in her armpit. But why that causes rabies
is never explained.
|
INVASION
OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978)
The
only thing I didn't like in terms of science was the opening segment.
The alien filaments or spores or whatever float from the surface of
a planet, into space and find their way to Earth in both a cheesy,
bad effect (the only bad one in the movie)
and a manner that demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of
gravity in general and the distances between solar systems. It made
me cringe. |
PROPHECY
(1978)
The culprit
here is mercury poisoning. Mercury, used by loggers to prevent wood
from rotting as it floats down river, gets into the fish and anything
that eats the fish (including Robert and Maggie).
Now, it is true that Mercury itself can damage your nervous system
and cause insanity, and it is true that many Mercury compounds are
mutagenic. This is very well known – in fact, it’s too well
known. There have been so many thoroughly studied cases of mercury
poisoning that if mercury caused giant, mutant bears everyone would
know it. Teenage boys would be breaking open thermometers and sneaking
into the zoo late at night. They should have made up some scientific
sounding but completely imaginary substance, like dilithium crystals
or Nutra-Sweet. |
 |
ALIEN
(1979) 20th Century Fox
Every form of life on Earth, from bacteria to oak trees to people,
is based on DNA. But DNA is far from the only solution to the chemistry
problem of self-replicating molecules. Life that evolved elsewhere
would certainly be based on different chemistry. What I’m getting
at is the idea that a creature like this could have naturally evolved
the ability to make use of alien biochemistry is out of the question.
I’m not saying these monsters are impossible – I’m
saying they can only be artificial. They were created by a culture
with a very advanced understanding of extraterrestrial biology and
genetic engineering.
ALIEN is one movie that science geeks really love to discuss because this is one of the very few Hardcore Science Fiction movies in existence (the other being ALIENS).
Science Geeks Kelly Parks and E.C.McMullen Jr. have a discussion over the possibilities of a xenomorph like the Alien actually being able to exist. For hardcore science fans only: ALWAYS BET ON THE SCIENCE GEEK! |
Back
to
HORROR
MOVIES
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LINKS TO
THE FUTURE!
RETROFUTURE
See
Yesterday's Tomorrow, TODAY!
MAN
CONQUERS SPACE
What a beautiful future it was.
ROCKET
GUY
What an interesting future it could be.
BUZZALDRIN
He walked on the moon!
He got Neil Armstrong to take his picture!
He became an MTV Award!
He flew Homer Simpson into space and put the "Buzz" in
Buzz Lightyear!
SCIENCE LINKS!
A
Voyage To Arcturus
Strong
math Techno-speak for the really smart Techno-Geek.
Bad
Astronomy
debunks the myths with clear, easy to understand facts.
BadScienceProjects
The most fascinating research, experiments, and inventions in the
world.
Lots of robots!
Better
Humans
Junk Science
debunks the myths and the myth makers.
MadSci.org
Where
your science questions are answered by REAL (though
not necessarily mad) scientists!
New
Scientist
Nuclear
Space
ScienceAGoGo
See Researchers, Professors, Scientists, and Science
Geeks discuss chaos and particle theory (and
more!) with bathroom language!
See flame wars on a doctorate level!
See Ph.D's discuss rabid liberal politics with no
clue as to what they are talking about!
ScienceDaily
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SpaceDaily
Tech
Central Station
Terrestrial
Musings
More
blog for your buck!
LINKS TO
THE PAST!
NASA.gov
See
history archived before your very eyes! NASA's own online mausoleum! |
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