I
n case you hadn’t noticed, science is enjoying a renaissance on screen. Not science fiction – that’s always been a silver screen staple – but actual scientists doing actual science. The fictional scientist, in particular on TV, has evolved from the nutty genius to the trenchant chemist.
The same trend is seen on the silver screen. The scientist is no longer the bespectacled sidekick who’d hack the enemy’s defenses or explain why the creature has grown to gargantuan proportions while the hero mows it down with a middy gun.
Scientists are now surviving debris strikes in orbit (Gravity), transforming our ideas of what constitutes a disability (The Theory of Everything), and surviving alone with limited resources on other planets (The Martian).
There have always been movies that treated science and scientists both seriously and speculatively. Think back to The Andromeda Strain (1971), Contact (1997) and even a thrill ride like Jurassic Park (1993). But if you get the feeling you’ve been seeing more movies about science recently, you’re right.
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