I was watching ‘Them,’ the first of the giant insect movies in the 1950’s, yesterday on AMC, and I got to thinking: Are there any modern day equivilants to this?
Back then, the controvercial technology was the Bomb. Of course, everyone knows the classic “Dr. Strangelove.” But there were plenty of B-movies dealing with the consequences of technology.
Today, the major technology that everyone’s concerned about is the Human Genome Project. Now, I could go into any number of discussions, but this isn’t GD. What I’m asking is, are there any modern movies (major or just B-movies) that deal with genetic engineering?
All I’ve thought of so far is Gattaca, which is excellent. There’s also Mimic, but that’s just another giant insect movie. Anyone?
You can see a lot of these on Showtime late at night. Believe it or not, they still make awful B-movies.
The Killer Eye and Alien Terminator are still playing now and then; they both deal with this type of theme. (From what I can tell, I can only stand to watch about ten minutes of each.)
The obvious “Jurrasic Park”.
“6th Day” if you allow genetic engineering to encompass cloning.
“The Island of Doctor Moreau” (I know it’s an oldie but I mean the last one)
“Alien Resurrection” touches on it.
As a geneticist-in-training, I can say that any movie or TV show that even mentions genetics in any context whatsoever gets it so wrong that it makes me hurt.
Case in point: “Mission to Mars”, which I never saw. In the commercial, there’s a holographic animation of a DNA double helix. One of the characters stares at it and says dramatically, “That DNA looks human!!” Yes. It also looks amphibian, bacterial, or plant. They ALL use DNA, and it ALL looks like that. You’d have to look at at least hundreds of base pairs to figure out its origin, even if you got really lucky.
Don’t worry, [b[Smeg**, that’s the least offensive scientific idiocy in that “film.”
I especially like the M&Ms that violate Newton’s laws by traveling in a circle, and the space-suit with built in LCD display flashing “point of no return” when the fuel level reaches hald empty.