What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

[Peelee]

You've got two different episodes mixed in your head. The cheese infection was from the end of the first season and it infected Voyager's system of bioneural circuitry, which was a big problem because the bioneural gel packs can't be replaced for some reason.

Oh, that's because they have to ration power since they are far away from any resupply stations, so they can't make use of the replicators like in other series. The holodecks, of course, can run full-steam ahead, since they are on a different power grid somehow despite also failing whenever overall shipboard systems fail and yeah I hate Neelix and any plot device that was instituted to help justify Neelix.

[KillianHawkeye]

Oh, that's because they have to ration power since they are far away from any resupply stations, so they can't make use of the replicators like in other series. The holodecks, of course, can run full-steam ahead, since they are on a different power grid somehow despite also failing whenever overall shipboard systems fail and yeah I hate Neelix and any plot device that was instituted to help justify Neelix.

While it's true that they ration the replicator usage on the ship, this was different. Necessary components would definitely get priority, but they literally say the gel packs can't be replicated. I just watched that episode a little over two weeks ago.

[tomandtish]

Oh, that's because they have to ration power since they are far away from any resupply stations, so they can't make use of the replicators like in other series. The holodecks, of course, can run full-steam ahead, since they are on a different power grid somehow despite also failing whenever overall shipboard systems fail and yeah I hate Neelix and any plot device that was instituted to help justify Neelix.

Could also be something that can't be replicated. There are a few things like that.

[Peelee]

I now want a Star Trek where the Ferengi abandon gold-pressed latinum in favor of bioneural gel packs as a medium of exchange.

[LibraryOgre]

I now want a Star Trek where the Ferengi abandon gold-pressed latinum in favor of bioneural gel packs as a medium of exchange.

I'm wondering how a few years of Rom's leadership will change the Ferengi...

[Peelee]

I'm wondering how a few years of Rom's leadership will change the Ferengi...

Everyone thinks he's an idiot but he has unknowingly solved all of Ferengi society's problems because the rest of the government wasn't around when he needed something.

[Bohandas]

Anything with a scientist villain (who isn't depicted as a charlatan) who tries to destroy something because their theories can't explain it. That's also a red flag that the people who made the film are probably crackpots.

EDIT:
Oh, and as a seperate thing, a special honorable mention goes to Jurassic Park. But, not because the dinosaur cloning thing, that's just them getting the timescale wrong, it would be plausible if they were working with something more recently extinct and had a truly epic research budget. No, I'm citing Jurassic Park due to the implication that what happens in the film is somehow a danger of cloning, despite the fact that it happened with normal animals in the San Francisco Zoo TWICE. And also because of Jeff Goldblum's character. I'm still not sure whether that character was supposed to be a blowhard or if it was the writers who were blowhards.

EDIT:
Honorable mention also to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. The kicker for that one is a scene at the end where they actually get something right for once, but you can tell that it was by accident. (the bit about the "laser capable of emitting a beam of pure antimatter", which ultimately is just a regular laser because the photon is it's own antiparticle, and thus is indeed a thing that exists, but also totally unimpressive)

While it's true that they ration the replicator usage on the ship, this was different. Necessary components would definitely get priority, but they literally say the gel packs can't be replicated. I just watched that episode a little over two weeks ago.

Wouldn't inability to replicate something imply that either A.) It shouldn't be able to be sent by transporter either OR B.) that it has a soul of some sort. If I recall correctly the replicator, transporter, and holodeck are all supposed to be based off of the same core technology

[Brother Oni]

And also because of Jeff Goldblum's character. I'm still not sure whether that character was supposed to be a blowhard or if it was the writers who were blowhards.

Most definitely the character. While most scientists tend to have the same traits due to their job, that doesn't mean they all have the same personality - they're people like everybody else and run the whole spectrum of society, including rock star (Dexter Holland of the Offspring, Brian May of Queen, Brian Cox of D:Ream).

Bear in mind that Ian Malcolm was invited at the request of the park's insurance investigator - it doesn't surprise me that he picked a scientist of the wrong discipline (a mathematician) rather than the paleontologist and paleobotanist that John Hammond brought (I think there's a line in the film which comments on this).

[Rater202]

I mean, I can see the logic of having an expert in numbers and probability as part of a group meant to evaluate the safety of a park.

IT's not nessesarily good logic, or very well executed, but in theory they could crunch the numbers and run the odds of something going horribly wrong.

Not that there was much time for that before everything went horribly wrong.

Honestly, most of the blame is on the park itself. They spared no expense but really, they should have. I see the appeal of electric cars than run on a track, but they should have been hybrids or at least able to be driven manually with onboard battery for exact the problems tha happened in the movie.

When I was a kid seeing it young and not paying much attention I kept asking why they didn't just drive the damn cars to the end of the circuit. Took me years to get that they literally couldn't.

Every pen kept in place with electric fences should have had it's own emergency generator.

And so on and so forth.

Tha'ts not a science thing it's just a "did not think this through" thing.

[Bohandas]

Well since someone brought Doctor who up...

So, four daleks (a species of spece alien nazis) realize that their creed of being the ultimate life form is flawed since they keep losing. To try to shake things up they inject human DNA in their leader (he actually consumes a whole guy and merge with him). As this initial test looks successful (the guy claims to be experiencing more hatred than before which is good for the daleks) they decide to inject human captives with dalek DNA to turn them into human-daleks. However when the dalek-human start to feel compassion and realize they're the bad guys, the other daleks decide to go behind his back and completely replace the captives' DNA with dalek DNA. This is (apparently) successful as they have a bunch of robotic-acting humans. However they refuse to obey their orders to EX-TER-MI-NATE the daleks' ennemies. Turns out that's because our hero, The Doctor (himself an alien of the Time Lord species) hugged the lightning rod that powers the daleks' DNA injecting machine ans so transmitted a pinch of his DNA to the human-daleks thus giving them a conscience.

So not only are the subjects completely human looking despite having no human DNA whatsoever, not only does conscience originate from your DNA (despite the dalek's 24/7 life supports having machine messing with their brains to ensure they stay unable to feel anything but hatred) but DNA is carried by electricity.

To be fair, the Doctor does seem to be at least partially an energy being (IIRC they appear to breifly convert into pure energy during regenerations) so it kind of makes sense if you accept that premise, although it does call into play all the problems with the concept of energy beings

Darkening the sun pretty much just means increasing atmospheric albedo - which is not only very doable, but something that appears to have been done. It's an extreme scorched earth strategy that invites comparisons to chemotherapy (kill everyone, kill them slightly faster), but this part makes sense. Meanwhile the thermodynamics involved in humans as a heat source make no sense whatsoever.

And double that effect when you consider the power expense of running the Matrix on top of it. Especially considering that the Matrix is completely unnecessary to the Machines' plans and the fact that it is their chosen method for restraining the humans in the power plant proves that they're not really as bad and unfeeling as all that because if they were they would have just used a nailgun.

Also, scorching the sky isn't even the number two most ridiculous thing in The Matrix. It's at best a distant #4 after the power plant, the idea that dying in the mateix would somehow make you die in real life, and the scene in Reloaded where Neo logs into the Matrix via mental telepathy.

Likewise the battery story is told by Morpheus who does not understand The Purpose of The Matrix (as evident by the 2nd movie in the trilogy)

How is it evident by the second film? Because of the Architect's speech? The Architect is, as the creator of the Matrix, probably the least trustworthy character in the film series.

I mean photons are pretty abundant in the grand scheme of things. And if you're a bioluminescent fish, also controlled by your fishy fishy feelings.

Under no circumstances however are they going faster than the speed of light. Scientifically speaking, that's sort of always a real no-no.

And more importantly, in the particular case of photons the idea is inherently self-contradictory

Sounds like it. Also is vaguely remniscient of the McDonalds Coffee court case in which a party with vast coffers can control the narrative for the general public.

I mean, yeah, it was served at a completely unreasonable temperature but that isn't really inappropriate. ALL coffee is served at a completely unreasonable temperature. That's why I don't drink coffee or hot tea.

I thought Frozen II was terrible for a bunch of reasons, but I especially hated they way they used "water has a memory" in their fantasy. It's a clear and obvious reference to the polywater pseudoscience scam.

I haven't seen Frozen 2, but I will say that if there is any place for water memory to be a thing, it's in fantasy.

Speaking of that chemical structure, it was possibly the most absurd depiction of a chemical I've ever seen - and I'm including the various ludicrous DNA depictions. I'm pretty inured to weird chemical structures between other media depictions and a passing interest in highly unstable structures that take forms that ping as intuitively wrong (e.g. a 3 carbon ring with only double bonds), but that thing? It looked like someone rammed a few bravais lattices they saw in a crystal chem book together, randomized position a bit, then drew lines between atoms that were vaguely near each other almost at random.

Plus, this was supposed to be a drug - at least throw in a benzene ring or 3 somewhere, they basically always show up.

To be fair, if it's that unusual it kind of makes sense he'd be able to recognize it. Like, he wouldn't have to go through and examine its details because there's only one thing that looks like that

[Fyraltari]

Yeah but....

the comic just sounds like internet bucketcrab mentality that I see so much these days. everyone is just out to pull down other peoples enjoyment of something else without considering their feelings, as if no one is allowed to have things that are sacred or enjoyable anymore, and every time someone expresses an opinion an internet bucket crab will come along to pull you down into the bucket of hate and argumentation for no reason other than they don't like people being above it. its depressing.

Bucketcrab, is that a Discworld reference or are you and Pratchett both referencing something I am not aware of?

To be fair, the Doctor does seem to be at least partially an energy being (IIRC they appear to breifly convert into pure energy during regenerations) so it kind of makes sense if you accept that premise, although it does call into play all the problems with the concept of energy beings

Regeneration is inconsistent as all heck (it was originally a feature of the TARDIS) but nothing in the TV show suggests the Doctor is made of energy. The closest I can think of is when Four's regeneration involved a mental projection of his future self but, when put in context with Third's regenaration, it's clear that this isn't a bit of Time Lord biology but something stemming with the religious beliefs of one of the writer so I won't discuss it.

[Lord Raziere]

Bucketcrab, is that a Discworld reference or are you and Pratchett both referencing something I am not aware of?

It refers to how crabs behave in a bucket. when you put a bunch of crabs in one, when a crab tries to escape, another crab will pull the escapee down back into the bucket, rather than allow them to go free. thus despite one crab being able to go free, they ensure the groups collective demise because they can't bear to see another crab get what they don't have.

I am not well versed in Terry Pratchett, and it wasn't intended as such.

[Eldan]

(e.g. a 3 carbon ring with only double bonds)

Is... that a thing? That makes my brain hurt to think about.

[Bohandas]

Bucketcrab, is that a Discworld reference or are you and Pratchett both referencing something I am not aware of?

Regeneration is inconsistent as all heck (it was originally a feature of the TARDIS) but nothing in the TV show suggests the Doctor is made of energy. The closest I can think of is when Four's regeneration involved a mental projection of his future self but, when put in context with Third's regenaration, it's clear that this isn't a bit of Time Lord biology but something stemming with the religious beliefs of one of the writer so I won't discuss it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVEY5AL5zzk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AxCoMbiZfk

During many of the later regeneration sequences the Doctor's body appears to briefly be entirely converted into the regeneration energy

[Fyraltari]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVEY5AL5zzk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AxCoMbiZfk

During many of the later regeneration sequences the Doctor's body appears to briefly be entirely converted into the regeneration energy

Seems to me like it's just spilling energy out so bright it's hard to see through. If you pause the first video at 1:03 you can still see Tenant's face morphing into Smith's.

[Bohandas]

fair enough.

On a different note, has anyone seen Ad Astra. While the weird disasters the plot revolves around stand out as particularly nonsensical there is little if anything in the movie that does make sense either sciemce-wise or plot-wise

[Traab]

What I really liked was, a site named Cracked did a video on jurassic park pointing out how monumentally stupid they were, and mostly it had nothing to do with the huge holes in the facility, it was mainly stuff like, "Why dinosaurs? You have cloning tech, you could solve like 75% of the major health issues in the world today with that, and have literally all of the money that can be printed or represented by zeroes on a computer. And thats just the START. Cloning can be used to bring back extinct species of animals AND PLANTS. Monsanto would commit seppuku once InGen starts recreating lost crops, altering current ones in thousands of ways to make them better, healthier, hardier, able to grow anywhere, etc etc etc. Not too mention bringing back a variety of extinct modern animals and helping to keep endangered species able to procreate with the fresh batch just introduced. A dino park would be the last thing on the list and done as a pure vanity project because the cost involved in making it at this point is so negligible to the company that already has all of the money in existence that they can do it on a whim.


Also, to whoever pointed it out that I mixed up episodes, thanks for that, its been so many years, and there have been so many absurd episodes, they do tend to kind of merge together.

[Keltest]

What I really liked was, a site named Cracked did a video on jurassic park pointing out how monumentally stupid they were, and mostly it had nothing to do with the huge holes in the facility, it was mainly stuff like, "Why dinosaurs? You have cloning tech, you could solve like 75% of the major health issues in the world today with that, and have literally all of the money that can be printed or represented by zeroes on a computer. And thats just the START. Cloning can be used to bring back extinct species of animals AND PLANTS. Monsanto would commit seppuku once InGen starts recreating lost crops, altering current ones in thousands of ways to make them better, healthier, hardier, able to grow anywhere, etc etc etc. Not too mention bringing back a variety of extinct modern animals and helping to keep endangered species able to procreate with the fresh batch just introduced. A dino park would be the last thing on the list and done as a pure vanity project because the cost involved in making it at this point is so negligible to the company that already has all of the money in existence that they can do it on a whim.


Also, to whoever pointed it out that I mixed up episodes, thanks for that, its been so many years, and there have been so many absurd episodes, they do tend to kind of merge together.

I thought the part being a vanity project was pretty explicit in the work?

[Kitten Champion]

What I really liked was, a site named Cracked did a video on jurassic park pointing out how monumentally stupid they were, and mostly it had nothing to do with the huge holes in the facility, it was mainly stuff like, "Why dinosaurs? You have cloning tech, you could solve like 75% of the major health issues in the world today with that, and have literally all of the money that can be printed or represented by zeroes on a computer. And thats just the START. Cloning can be used to bring back extinct species of animals AND PLANTS. Monsanto would commit seppuku once InGen starts recreating lost crops, altering current ones in thousands of ways to make them better, healthier, hardier, able to grow anywhere, etc etc etc. Not too mention bringing back a variety of extinct modern animals and helping to keep endangered species able to procreate with the fresh batch just introduced. A dino park would be the last thing on the list and done as a pure vanity project because the cost involved in making it at this point is so negligible to the company that already has all of the money in existence that they can do it on a whim.

Funnily enough, this came up in SFDebris' examination of Jurassic Park -- novel and movie. As far as I can recall from that, Crichton explains "why dinosaurs" and the answer is fairly simple, by focusing the research towards the entertainment industry they hope to avoid government intervention. As generally the entertainment industry comes under far less legal scrutiny than biomedicine, agriculture, military, or many other conceivable applications that might lead to the State seizing their enterprise.

Basically, Crichton's Jurassic Park is made by amoral capitalists who don't give a damn about dinosaurs, the park is a Trojan Horse designed to get around governmental backlash.

...though the movie ignores that and endeavours to make Hammond a Willy Wonka-esque character trying to materialize his personal dream.

[Dienekes]

I thought the part being a vanity project was pretty explicit in the work?

Yup. To paraphrase an eloquent pterodactyl:

But I don’t want to cure cancer I want to turn people into make a theme park for dinosaurs

[Peelee]

I mean, yeah, it was served at a completely unreasonable temperature but that isn't really inappropriate. ALL coffee is served at a completely unreasonable temperature. That's why I don't drink coffee or hot tea.

...it was served significantly hotter than it is supposed to be (barely ten degrees Fahrenheit below boiling) and also gave her third degree burns on her genitals and thighs. And when she sued for medical costs, McD's began a smear campaign against her painting the suit as frivolous.

Now then... did someone say JURASSIC PARK?!

Most definitely the character. While most scientists tend to have the same traits due to their job, that doesn't mean they all have the same personality - they're people like everybody else and run the whole spectrum of society, including rock star (Dexter Holland of the Offspring, Brian May of Queen, Brian Cox of D:Ream).

Bear in mind that Ian Malcolm was invited at the request of the park's insurance investigator - it doesn't surprise me that he picked a scientist of the wrong discipline (a mathematician) rather than the paleontologist and paleobotanist that John Hammond brought (I think there's a line in the film which comments on this).

The paleontologist and paleobotanist were demanded by the lawyers - Hammond just tried to cover his ass on appearances by picking them up himself (fitting, since Hammond covering his ass on appearances is kind of a theme in the story). And Malcolm was picked because he was already involved in a consultant role (just like Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler were) due to his work on chaos theory being a point of interest to InGen in regards to their park.

ETA: So the book goes into more detail on this than the movie, but in the movie it's still the insurance adjusters who insist on Grant:

GENNARO: If two experts sign off on the island, the insurance
guys'll back off. I already got Ian Malcolm, but they think he's too
trendy. They want Alan Grant.

Further, in both the book and the movie, Malcolm already knows exactly what is going on at the island, which further highlights his reason for being brought on as a consultant for the inspection. The only objection to him from anyone other than Hammond was that Malcolm was not a conservative-enough choice for the suits. Hammond, of course, tries to claim credit for bringing Grant and Sattler when that was mandated by the insurers. Because that's who Hammond is.

What I really liked was, a site named Cracked did a video on jurassic park pointing out how monumentally stupid they were, and mostly it had nothing to do with the huge holes in the facility, it was mainly stuff like, "Why dinosaurs? You have cloning tech, you could solve like 75% of the major health issues in the world today with that, and have literally all of the money that can be printed or represented by zeroes on a computer.

John Hammond explicitly explains why he doesn't use his technology for medical purposes - he didn't want any government or lobbying groups being able to potentially have a hand in his pricing structure. A theme park does not serve any interest for the common good, so he can charge whatever he damn well likes and nobody could contest it. Despite seeming congenial, Hammond was a huckster and an ******* (again, kind of a theme in the first book and movie).

And thats just the START. Cloning can be used to bring back extinct species of animals AND PLANTS. Monsanto would commit seppuku once InGen starts recreating lost crops, altering current ones in thousands of ways to make them better, healthier, hardier, able to grow anywhere, etc etc etc.

InGen did clone extinct plants, which Dr. Sattler immediately points out are poisonous and further indicates that they are just grabbing everything they can and not paying attention to how dangerous what they're doing is. Hell, the foolhardy plant cloning is foreshadowing!

Seriously, I'm surprised Cracked didn't also try to claim that Nedry was responsible for everything that happened so that their article could achieve a trifecta of wrong.

[Eldan]

What I'm mainly wondering, if we're starting to talk about experts signing off on safety... where's the safety expert in the team? A paleontologist can tell you maybe how much muscle power a T-Rex will have, or how intelligent a raptor might be in navigating obstacles, but surely, you'd then want at least one expert on keeping modern large animals contained to say if those safety features are adequate. Paleontologists would be terrible at rating security features.

[Traab]

They were going off the movie, not the book, so if it wasnt mentioned in the film, it wasnt a part of the video they did. I dont recall them ever covering why not solve every medical issue ever in the film. As for hammonds character, I took him to be the man with the dream and the funding to make it happen, not a huckster. The closest we get to that is his little chat about running a flea circus when he was younger and even then that was about how he wanted to make something REAL with this park. And yes I know about the plants, thats why I included their ability to clone animals and plants in my post. If they can bring back dino era plants, they can do all sorts of things with what we currently have.

Cracked has a history of intentionally ignoring context in their articles in order to trigger lots of comments and clicks as people come back over and over to argue over how sauron is actually the good guy in lord of the rings and whatnot, but in this they seemed to stay pretty on target, again, just talking the movie, not the book that covered so much more due to not having a time limit. This is not an attack on you its a legit request, could you post a link to the movie scene where the medical potential gets brought up and explained away? I havent watched the actual film in so long its entirely likely I just forgot it was there.

[Peelee]

What I'm mainly wondering, if we're starting to talk about experts signing off on safety... where's the safety expert in the team? A paleontologist can tell you maybe how much muscle power a T-Rex will have, or how intelligent a raptor might be in navigating obstacles, but surely, you'd then want at least one expert on keeping modern large animals contained to say if those safety features are adequate. Paleontologists would be terrible at rating security features.

It's less safety than it is liability. The inspection was triggered by the cold open with the raptor - there was a $20,000,000 lawsuit from the family. Given that it's effectively a zoo, they would already have all the necessary paperwork and inspections to satisfy the investors. The trick is that it's a zoo with new animals who have never been kept in captivity before, so they're looking for experts on those animals (Grant) and also behavioral statistics (Malcolm). It's also basically a final run-through - everything is set for them to open, it's just cold feet at a major potential liability problem at the 11th hour. Gennaro himself is ready to shut the whole shebang down at the drop of a hat, even knowing what they have, but once he sees it he immediately realizes the cash cow they have and stops caring. It's not hard to imagine the inspection is a fig leaf.

ETA:

They were going off the movie, not the book, so if it wasnt mentioned in the film, it wasnt a part of the video they did. I dont recall them ever covering why not solve every medical issue ever in the film. As for hammonds character, I took him to be the man with the dream and the funding to make it happen, not a huckster. The closest we get to that is his little chat about running a flea circus when he was younger and even then that was about how he wanted to make something REAL with this park. And yes I know about the plants, thats why I included their ability to clone animals and plants in my post. If they can bring back dino era plants, they can do all sorts of things with what we currently have.

Cracked has a history of intentionally ignoring context in their articles in order to trigger lots of comments and clicks as people come back over and over to argue over how sauron is actually the good guy in lord of the rings and whatnot, but in this they seemed to stay pretty on target, again, just talking the movie, not the book that covered so much more due to not having a time limit. This is not an attack on you its a legit request, could you post a link to the movie scene where the medical potential gets brought up and explained away? I havent watched the actual film in so long its entirely likely I just forgot it was there.

Just double-checked and you're right, they skipped that part in the movie. Also, the movie does try to portray Hammond as less of an ass than he was in the book, but he is still very much an ass. He can't be bothered to deal with a person who died because of what he brought into the world. He is forced to bring in Dr. Grant, then claims full credit for getting Grant in the helicopter ("I brought a scientist, you brought a rock star."). In the board room, when all three experts brought in specifically for the assessment give him absolutely dreadful reviews right off the bat, he handwaves away their complaints. He keeps insisting that they spared no expense when his dealings with Nedry show significant sparing of expenses where the public cannot see. He openly admits to his background as a huckster. He brings children to a safety inspection triggered by a fatality. These are not signs of a good person. These are signs of a narcissistic *******.

[Dienekes]

What I'm mainly wondering, if we're starting to talk about experts signing off on safety... where's the safety expert in the team? A paleontologist can tell you maybe how much muscle power a T-Rex will have, or how intelligent a raptor might be in navigating obstacles, but surely, you'd then want at least one expert on keeping modern large animals contained to say if those safety features are adequate. Paleontologists would be terrible at rating security features.

Didn’t they have Muldoon for that?

Of course no one listened to his extremely good advice about raptors “They should all be destroyed.”

[Cikomyr2]

I am unsure if it's science or communication problem. But I hate the forced conflict of Scientists/Church in stories where scientists are piercing the veil between worlds, and the church having actual proof of the supernatural just give vague warning to make them stop.

The real scientitic approach would be to determine if the Church 'a experience can be proved to be reliable, and then gather as much intel about the other side from this experience as possible. Just because it's coated in supernaturalism doesn't mean it's not valuable intel.

[Peelee]

Didn’t they have Muldoon for that?

Muldoon was a game warden, Arnold was an engineer (who has worked for the military and for various major theme parks in the novels but not specified in the books). Both would have valuable insight on the park. And yes, Muldoon arguing against the very existence of the raptors should have been taken into consideration (also he pushed for significantly more militarized security in the novel, which was largely shot down by Hammond).

[tomandtish]

The biggest problem with Malcom is that he may be a hotshot chaos theorist, but when it comes to determining the safety of the park (as intended by investors) he's actually useless because all he does is say things are going to fail because they are going to fail. If you want people to take you seriously, you're going to have to provide concrete reasons. "This won't work because of X". "There's a 95% probability that if you do this Y will occur". (And clearly show how you came up with your answers). With all the money invested in the project no one's going to shut it down just because someone says it isn't going to work.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Add my voice to the Hammond is an irresponsible huckster in Jurassic Park, the novel.

Oh, and as a seperate thing, a special honorable mention goes to Jurassic Park. But, not because the dinosaur cloning thing, that's just them getting the timescale wrong, it would be plausible if they were working with something more recently extinct and had a truly epic research budget. No, I'm citing Jurassic Park due to the implication that what happens in the film is somehow a danger of cloning, despite the fact that it happened with normal animals in the San Francisco Zoo TWICE. And also because of Jeff Goldblum's character. I'm still not sure whether that character was supposed to be a blowhard or if it was the writers who were blowhards.

In my view, the book wasn't so much about "the dangers of cloning" as it was about "the dangers of having irresponsible, but powerful people making decisions about science". It was very critical of Hammond as a character and pretty clearly lays the majority of the blame for the disaster on him. To my recollection, I believe it was Ian who uses an analogy about how stupid people with deep pockets can effectively buy a dangerous thing like "a black belt in martial arts" and play with it like a toy, without having to undergo the process of learning restraint. They can now just play with their new "black belt" without respect for how that toy can severely injure or kill people unintentionally.

Heck, in the book, Hammond dies because he goes for a walk after all hell has broken loose and is contemplating on how he's going to just clean up the mess he's got and just try to push through the opening of the park again despite all that happened. He manages to injure himself because he suddenly realizes he's in a potentially dangerous situation and doesn't know the layout of his own park. He's ultimately killed because he wandered off alone at the end of the story for almost no reason. Because he assumed the danger was over. To the best of my recollection, at least.

Yet the movie framed the guy as a whimsical, lovable character. But so much of the plot hinges on his irresponsible behavior that it was impossible to cut all of it out, so the movie still has a bit of it in there. It just glosses over it as much as it can with emotional manipulation so you're kind of left with a weird mixed message about him. He's just the cool grandpa who's showing you dinosaurs. Isn't he cool? Hmm, I guess that oopsie could've happened to anyone! Pobody's nerfect!

Probably a smart decision for an adaptation, honestly. Hammond is as close to a primary villain that Jurassic Park has. But the kind of villain he is would probably honestly be a bit difficult to portray in a movie. And maybe a little too upsetting for the fun adventure tone the movie wanted to aim for. Realistic villainy is sort of a downer like that.

As for Ian Malcom. Well, someone needed to deliver the warning of danger in the movie, and since Dr. Sadler and Dr. Grant (our main perspective characters) couldn't do it lest they be regarded as unlikeable pessimists by the audience, it fell to only Ian. Who couldn't point out that Hammond put highly toxic plants in the lobby of the main building because it wasn't his specialty. (Which is the only foreshadowing of danger I recall which was non-Ian based but involved those three characters and was left out of the movie.)

To my recollection, Ian was a character who expressed the sentiment of "We're dealing with something here with too many unknowns to fully understand what's going on, let alone find a way to manage responsibly". I think in some sense, the book just needed a character to make it clear to the audience that when "unexpected problem 7" shows up in the plot, it wasn't exactly something that they should understand was a contrivance or just an oversight they could pretend wouldn't happen in a more realistic depiction. Because of the park's nature as a completely unprecedented construction, "unexpected problem x" was always going to have been an issue with the park.

Ian Malcom's role is to remind the audience that the real world is inconvenient and messy and doesn't care what you think.

"Unexpected problem X" is a pretty common thing in Crichton's works, come to think of it. It's a fun theme for science-fiction to embrace. Scientists are often very surprised.

[LibraryOgre]

Ian Malcolm strikes me as the guy who just released a book about his particular discipline that is really hot on the New York Times Bestseller List, so Hammond got him to come to the project because it looked cool to have this current celebrity looking at your project. It would be like having Stephen Hawking come to look at your park about real aliens that you reconstructed from Roswell DNA, only to find out that the ship that crashed at Roswell was the Nostromo.