Hollywood's Anti Science

"REALITY ENDS HERE." IT'S THE UNOFFICIAL MOTTO OF THE UNIVERSITY OF Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, cast in concrete at the entranceway to the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts and, in Latin, at the South entryway of a new complex building. As scientist-turned-filmmaker and use film school graduate s Randy Olson explained to us, the slogan:

is not a joke. It's a bold, challenging statement—r-a basic "screw you" to the outside world who thinks that accuracy and reality are important variables in storytelling, when in fact they are the dread enemy of storytelling. No storyteller wants an expert around who will question his premises. It's hard enough to tell a story without having some annoying expert sitting there correcting every detail and negating every premise.

Translated for r more literal-minded scientists-who, when they think of Star Wars, think of the impossibility of having fire and loud explosions in space—the motto might be better rendered: Abandon All Accuracy, Ye Who Enter Here.

Sheril Kirshenbaum, Chris Mooney, Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future (2009-07-13)

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