GRB: The Revenge

[gfish]

Randomness: If an action/disaster movie about a gamma-ray burster was to be made, what would the deus ex machina at the end be?

Assume that they (somehow) get a couple week's warning that there will be a GRB in the local vicinity -- no more than 10,000 light years away. The solution, obviously, need not be limited by reality, but the more plausible the better.

The cast should involve, but is not limited to:

• Harrison Ford as a somewhat bitter professional in some seemingly irrelevant but highly masculine trade, like a forest fire jumper or deep sea diver.


• Scarlet Johanson as an absent minded physicist.


• Jack Black as her wacky lab assistant.

The only thing I can think of is that they come up with some kind of magical forcefield which they use to shield the entire earth. That's kind of dull, on the scale of a GRB, but I don't see much available between that and some Stephen Baxter type of plot involving solar system scale engineering.

Comments

[tylik.livejournal.com]

Interesting. There was a discussion over coffee recently of actresses who shouldn't be allowed to play physicists...

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

To be perfectly honest, I was trying to come up with the name of a young pretty actress, and I just don't know the names of that many. I can't even call to mind what she looks like; I just remember hearing hello_mike talking about her once.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

I'll admit to not following a lot of that conversation. I'm not a big media freak.

I have been generally disgruntled by how most female scientists in movies are young, nubile, have great posture (how many female academics over the age of 35 have you seen with decent posture?) are a romantic interest of the hero, and noticably bright.

I mean, I understand that it should be hollywood... but how about some glamorous older female scientists? (I know more really cool female professors in their forties and fifties...) Or a lovely, but non make up wearing and down and the heels PhD candidate? A quirky-funky retro styled post doc?

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

Seeing as how you weren't present for the conversation, that's understandable. :)

See, this began because I threw it out on moo as a joke. Fishy posted an article about a GRB and I said "when does the Hollywood action movie come out?" And then I just randomly threw out the first people I thought of.

So I was going for the young ones because that's what Hollywood would do. The total implausibility of the young nubile female academic was kind of the point of the joke...

[adularia.livejournal.com]

For some reason, I have no trouble picturing Judi Dench as a brilliant physicist. Other than that, I have pretty low faith in Hollywood's ability to portray academia with sufficiently clever satire.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Minority Report. :) I was going to mention it.

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

That is, I don't know the names of all the bevy of actresses of that generation. Y'know, the ones all around the same age as the girl from Pirates of the Caribbean and King Arthur? I was actually going to go with her, but I can't remember her name, either. I'm afraid they all kind of run together for me these days...

[encapsulate.livejournal.com]

Perhaps a wad of the folks from "What the Bleep Do We Know?!?" to Quantuum-Wish us to existance in another galaxy.

[samildanach.livejournal.com]

No, see, Greg Egan already did this one.

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

I want to see a caper movie about this (http://www.bipm.org/en/scientific/mass/). It would be called "The Standard" and would feature this dialogue:

"How much does it weigh?"
"A kilo. Exactly."

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Actually, in my old webcomic, I wrote a long plot arc revolving around the NIST prototypes (http://www.cyphertext.net/comics/archive.php?comicID=124).

oh dear.

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

I've created a monster.

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

That's another common sci-fi movie plot.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

We launch ALL the lead-acid batteries on the entire planet into orbit. Side-plot involving frantic seizure of batteries (from running cars in traffic jams) and top secret research for a LAB replacement. Wacky hijinx involving overcharging Li-ion batteries that burst into flame in Jack Black's hands.

[samildanach.livejournal.com]

A couple of weeks' warning? Billions of years from now, the benevolent transcended intelligences of another tool-using species would come across the charred, blackened Earth, reconstruct what happened, and resimulate everything at the point of incineration.