Movie 666

By Dr. Theodore Mangrove

I was recently perusing the movie trailers at http://www.apple.com/trailers/ when I came across a new sci-fi movie called The Core. The premise of this film is that the Earth’s core is going to stop spinning, thus removing the protective magnetic field around the planet and leaving us exposed to the deadly effects of cosmic radiation, asteroids, and who knows what else. Enter a bunch of American misfit scientists who build a vehicle that can tunnel to the center of the Earth in order to explode a bunch of nuclear weapons that will make the core of the planet start spinning again. Never mind that it would take a very large number of nuclear weapons to have any impact on the core of a planet.

Is this a picture of a festering, radioactive butthole, or just a still from that new Hollywood movie, The Core?

Okay. It’s true that the molten metal core of our planet is like a huge spinning dynamo that produces the protective magnetic field around out planet, but the scientific plausibility of the film ends there. What I find interesting, however, is the recurring idea that nuclear weapons can be used to solve monumental natural catastrophes.

Look back to the films Armageddon and Deep Impact. In both of these films the Earth is threatened by an asteroid or comet. In Armageddon, a bunch of cowboy miners ride a couple of space shuttles with extra strap-on booster rockets (proof that NASA can solve any problem with duct tape if they put their minds to it) in order to plant a nuclear weapon in the comet and blow it up. Never mind that it would take the entire world’s combined nuclear arsenals to actually blow up something as big as an asteroid or comet. In Deep Impact, the United States launches nuclear missiles at an asteroid headed for the Atlantic ocean, but they fail to destroy it.

Okay, it’s true that comets and asteroids pose a threat to life on Earth, and we know from geological evidence that impacts have happened before and they will happen again. However, space shuttles and a couple of nukes will do nothing to deter a body large enough to cause global damage, especially when we don’t even have a comprehensive program to DETECT an incoming threat. There’s a good chance that we won’t know until a week before we’re about to get hit. So, even though Deep Impact was a horrible film, it’s outcome was probably the most realistic of the films mentioned.

These films seem to point to an underlying notion in Hollywood, and perhaps in the general American population, that we can solve problems by simply nuking them. And there is a larger attitude that the leaders and military commanders of out nation are ready to solve any major catastrophe, and that wacky fringe scientists and smart-ass working men can be called to duty to rescue the planet at a moments notice. However, if you look at the relatively minor occurances of earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, etc. one notices that we have very little control over natural events. Nonetheless, it would not surprise me to see a movie in the future where a group of wisecracking researchers from NOA have to destroy the biggest hurricane of the millenium…by nuking it. In Twister 2 a team of crack commandos could use battlefied tactical nukes to destroy tornados. In Dante’s Peak 2 stealth bombers could be deployed to fire nuclear cruise missiles at active volcanos.

The idea is that if we just keep launching nukes against nature, eventually we will eventually subdue her. Like an unruly wild woman, she must be reminded from time to time to stay in her place. However, in reality nature is indeterminably more powerful than we are, and she will have the last laugh.

Related posts:

1. Red Planet Versus Blue Planet
2. Nuclear Girl
3. Psychos in the Muck: The Hunted
4. Wall-E, Coming Soon to a Landfill Near You
5. No Country For Old Genres

Trackback Post