Last week’s issue (what can I say, I’m slow) featured a review of The Watchmen. The review was written by Michael White, an associate editor of everyone’s favourite journal.
An interesting decision… why The Watchmen? It has less scientific content than many other recent releases. The reviewer is obviously a fan of the graphic novel, but is that the only reason? Have I missed any other movie reviews in Nature? Jurassic Park, anything like that?
After the initial suprise, I’ve decided that I quite like the idea. Are there any plans for a regular feature? If so, I suggest approaching Josh Witten, whose highly entertaining post on the genetics of the X-Men franchise was featured in the latest Mendel’s Garden blog carnival.
For the record, I enjoyed The Watchmen (I thought the neon signs in the street scenes looked particularly stunning), but then I’ve never read the book. Perhaps someone who has read the book can explain what the hell the deal is with the big cat towards the end?
-
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- Cath@VWXYNot? on Book reviews – Knowledge Translation edition
- Grant Jacobs on Book reviews – Knowledge Translation edition
- Cath@VWXYNot? on Last Saturday:
- Alyssa on Last Saturday:
- Cath@VWXYNot? on I WROTE A BOOK!
Blogroll
- A Lady Scientist
- Academic International
- Alexander Honkala
- Ambivalent Academic
- Amelie's Welt
- Apple Pie and the Universe
- Arduous Blog
- Balanced Instability
- Blue Lab Coats
- Cancer Evo: Evolution and Cancer
- Candidate Models
- Chemical BiLOLogy
- Curiosity Killed the Cat
- Delicious Juice
- Dinner Party Science
- Dreams and Hopes of a (Former Postdoc) Scientist
- DrugMonkey (ScienceBlogs)
- DrugMonkey (Scientopia)
- Endless Possibilities
- ERV
- Everything and More
- Exponential Book
- Expression Patterns
- Fejes.ca
- Fumbling Towards Geekdom
- Grumpy rumblings of the untenured
- In Scientio Veritas
- It's a Micro World After All
- Kiwihorizons
- Life and Joys of Lisbeth and Tue
- Looking for Detachment
- Masks of Eris
- MicrobiologistXX
- My Fair Scientist
- Neurotic Physiology
- Not To Be Trusted With Knives
- Post Doc Ergo Propter Doc
- Prof-like Substance
- Professor in Training
- Punctuated Equilibrium
- ScientistMother – Raising Replicates
- Some Lies
- Stripped Science
- The Assertive Cancer Patient
- The Digital Cuttlefish
- The Excitable Scientist
- The Gene Gym
- The Happy Scientist
- The Hermitage
- There and (Hopefully) Back Again
- This Scientific Life
- Unbalanced Reaction
- Uphilldowndale
- Xykademiqz
- You Do Too Much
Categories
- bad people
- blog buddies
- blog roll
- book review
- Canada
- career
- communication
- competition
- current affairs
- cycling
- drunkenness
- education
- embarrassing fan girl
- English language
- environment
- evolution
- exercise
- family
- food glorious food
- freakishness
- furry friends
- grant wrangling
- hockey pool
- medicine
- meme
- meta
- music
- nature
- original research
- personal
- photos
- politics
- Primate Party
- publishing
- rants
- science
- silliness
- snow
- sport
- technology
- travel
- UK
- Uncategorized
- Vancouver
- videos
Archives
Meta
Warning: this comment contains blatant advertising (of the non-neon-sign variety…)
Huh. There was actually a science consultant for the Watchmen movie, which I pointed out elsewhere . Also, if this is a regular feature, I can totally write reviews of things on screen in a scientific way (random example ).
I am just throwing this out here, in case any rENNISance readers are suddenly inspired by this post to hire someone to write about movies all science-like.
Nature has published film reviews for many years – X Men, Jurassic Park and Independence Day have featured in my living memory but lots of others I am sure.
The first movie review I can remember us publishing was for Lorenzo’s Oil (Nature 361, 695 – 695, 1993) but I know for a fact that we reviewed Jurassic Park (Nature 363, 681 – 681, 1993) and Independence Day (Nature 382, 681 – 681, 1996) , because I reviewed them! I have fond memories of doing these reviews – and the events that followed directly from these experiences – but these margins are too small to contain them. We’ve had others: Adam Rutherford reviewed X Men 2 (Nature 423, 119, 2003) and I expect there have been more.
Apparently they run movie reviews from time to time, but the films have to boast a high geekiness factor to be even considered. Expect pieces on Transformers 2 and G.I. Joe in the near future.
I believe that the big cat towards the end has something to do with the genetic manipulation experiments they were carrying on at that compound in the artic, Cath, but the fact that they were doing it at all only becomes obvious with the original ending of the comic, which was changed in the movie. So that’s why it doesn’t make a lot of sense as it is (this was explained to me by a fanboy friend that I purposely took with me to the screening to fill in the gaps)
Were the other movie reviews (I don’t have time to look them up now) science-focused? Because I guess my point that I didn’t explicitly make was that there is a science connection in the Watchmen, but it wasn’t addressed in the review (at least not in a way uniquely to the film – the graphic novel is of course the original story). And this is a review for an audience expecting science, so why not comment on it?
The one about Lorenzo’s Oil specifically addressed the subject of the film – the search for some kind of lipid cure for a small boy with a specific complaint – and asked whether it had been over-dramatizeed to the degree that the science was erroneous. In the Jurassic Park review I specifically addressed the science and how it could be knowingly warped for dramatic effect. The review of Independence Day wasn’t about science, but asked why movie-makers continued to makee such drivel when so much good SF remained unfilmed. This comment led directly to a Meeting with -Medusa_ Arthur C. Clarke, but that’s a tale I’ll save for another occasion.
Interesting stuff! Thanks everyone. I must have read at least 85% of all Nature issues since 1995, but somehow I’d missed all the other reviews. Maybe I only spotted this one because I’d seen the movie on Sunday.
Cristian, thanks for the explanation of the cat. I may have to read the book now! It’s either buried under a pile of other unread books, or out on loan to a friend.
p.s. I liked Independence Day. As I said on Jenny’s latest lablit post, I’m very fond of the “so-bad-it’s-good” B movie genre, especially sci fi and creature features.
ahh.. “Lorenzo’s Oil” such a gem in my movie history…
Cath, I still haven’t seen Watchmen. Is it really worth it? As in, does it make sense or/and is it cool effects/storyline? (Am a bit jaded after seeing comics>movies that I am not happy with….)
Well I liked it, and thought it made reasonable sense for that genre. I didn’t find the character back-stories boring, because I’d never heard them before. And the effects and storyline are pretty cool. Definitely one of the best films my husband’s ever worked on, up there with X-Men 2 and 3, despite not featuring Hugh Jackman. (This is high praise indeed from me). Most of the other films he’s done are rubbish (although the sets always look great, of course. See Chronicles of Riddick for illustration), so he’s always really really happy when one of them turns out watchable!
The only comics I’ve ever read are the Asterix books, so I have nothing to compare the recent spate of superhero/comicbook adaptations to. I love the X-Men movies, and thought the Spiderman ones were OK, but I haven’t liked any of the others. I had to go and see Fantastic Four as well, and thought it was awful. It wasn’t bad in a so-bad-it’s-good kinda way, it was just bad.
It wasn’t bad in a so-bad-it’s-good kinda way, it was just bad.
As was the 2003 remake of The incredible Hulk from a few years ago…
I’ve only seen bits of that one, not the whole thing.
As was the 2003 remake of The incredible Hulk from a few years ago
heh, on re-reading I can see that it was time for bed when I typed that…
Cath> Well, Chronicles of Riddick had its moments 🙂 (the Bmovie genre with scifi…) but ok, I might give Watchmen a try then.
FF, yeah well – to me it was a bit too plastic fantastic.
I fell asleep during that Incredible Hulk. I like the idea of movie reviews focused on examining the science. I also like scientific testing of movie events. On a US show called “Mythbusters”, they once tried to set up scientific tests to check whether the events in Jaws could really have happened (exploding tanks killing sharks, sharks dragging boats, that type of thing).
I should have said, no sharks were harmed.
How about boats and camera crews?
The section of Nature we’re discussing is called “Books and Arts” so although we haven’t done boats and cameras, we regularly do plays, art and other exhibitions, architecture and other cultural events and objects with a scientific accent. Further, for many years, we’ve run columns “science in culture” (latterly written by the excellent Alison Abbott, our senior European correspondent), “science in art” “art in sciece” etc, and various essay series – see web focus index page via the journal website . Unfortunately, it is not that easy to search for these gems, but we are working on it! (Google might be a better way to search for Nature articles about our wider culture, though as mentioned I am sorry to say I doubt there are any on cameras or boats).
No, I meant “were any boats and camera crews harmed during the filming of the Mythbusters shark special” 😉
I think a boat was harmed (but I can’t recall exactly), camera crews were not, egos were. Seems like Henry and co have been doing some mild-mannered mythbusting in “Books and Arts” anyway!
Sounds like a fun episode! I’ll have to try and track it down, I count Jaws and its sequels, and Deep Blue Sea, among my creature feature guilty pleasures.
Well, I like it. Nature is, besides a vector for science, also a vector for the scientific life and the life of the scientist. At least, that is what I consider it to be. With respect to the scientific life, science policy and public opinions about science are featured regularly. As far as the life of the scientist goes: when not in a lab, a scientists goes to the movies and to the theatre, reads books, watches TV, eats and sleeps like everybody else.
I like to read reviews like these in Nature (or its sister journals, which, sadly, do not take up their role as vectors for the scientific life and the life of the scientist as enthousiatically), provided there is a reason for it being relevant to the life of a scientist as opposed to the life of everybody.
Philosophers of science do it too. Consider the following 17 page long philosophical review-essay: The afterbirth of the clinic: a Foucauldian perspective on “House M.D.” and American medicine in the 21st century, which appeared in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine last year.
Well, I like the idea too, but only if there’s a scientific angle to the review (as with Henry’s examples above). Like Eva said though, the Watchmen review didn’t focus on the scientific content of the movie so much as on the success (or not) of its adaptation from the comic book.
But this is sort of silly…granted, scientist DO go to the movies and to the theatre, read books, watch TV, etc, but not because of the scientific content that they may find in there (actually, sometimes in my case it’s exactly the opposite: I do it to escape from thinking about science for a while)
Which criteria should we use to determine when something is relevant to the life of a scientist as opposed to the life of everybody else? And if there’s no distinction, why doesn’t Nature start featuring, let’s say, reviews for new car models, or a sports section? After all, (some) scientist do drive AND watch the occasional football game…
Well, Cristian, you do have a point there. Scientists are as human as people in any other profession. Cath’s call for a scientific angle is paying attention to the only difference between scientists and non-scientists, and it should. I did add “provided there is a reason for it being relevant to the life of a scientist as opposed to the life of everybody.” Which means (in retrospect, I admit…) that my “I like it” can only refer to reviews in general and not to the review of Watchmen in particular.
This did stir some doubtin me, because there are plenty of scientific angles to car models and football (the US or European variant) games or haute couture, for that matter.
I stand by my point that Nature should be, besides a vector for science, also a vector for the scientific life and the life of the scientist. However, actually determining what that means, or more precise: where that ends, is not so easy.
I’d love to read an article featuring a scientific angle to sport, or food, or whatever. It’s the angle that’s important.
In the light of all of the above, perhaps a review of one of the science sitcoms recently discussed on Nature Network is in order.
Great idea! And maybe I should actually watch them at some point.