He describes a scientific concept that is both readily explicable and quite literally has just been explained.īut then, after our scientist has finished, the camera turns to a second character. Something along the lines of: “We’re going to need to modify the warp thrusters to go through a wormhole of that size,” or, “The terrorists are using an unhackable 512-bit key to encrypt the location of the plutonium,” or even, “By traveling into the past you’ve created an alternate universe timeline in which you were never born.” Something along those lines. He throws in a few obscure, jargon-y scientific words for verisimilitude, but the basic point he makes is quite clear and comprehensible. He explains some plot point to the other characters in the scene, which serves to explain it to the audience as well. Our scientist character delivers a brief, relatively reasonable paragraph of technical dialogue. He is a biologist in a zombie movie or a coder in a techno-thriller (and he is almost invariably a man, which in and of itself is an annoyance). He’s a physicist, usually, if you’re watching a sci-fi movie. He’s a mathematician if you’re watching a drama. Our character is a scientist of some kind. You may even have laughed at it once or twice. You will recognize it, I’m sure, from dozens of movies and TV shows that prominently feature scientists. My least favorite moment in all of cinema is a relatively common one.
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