Ex Machina Movie

Movies have been around since the 1890s and are a popular form of entertainment that are easily available to the masses. We watch movies to pass time or to reward ourselves for a job well done, and because of this, movies are widely considered to be a sort of “junk food” for the brain and are rarely viewed as a source for information. However, the truth is that even though movies are a source of entertainment, they can also teach their viewers important lessons. For example, the movie Selma teaches its audience about the American civil rights movement. The movie Ex Machina teaches audiences about the dangers of artificial intelligence. In the same way as these films, the 2009 Star Trek movie is able to teach audiences about science and space.
Star Trek is surprisingly able to entertain audiences while simultaneously informing them on space travel and time travel because the movie relies on the science to make the movie more dramatic.
The 2009 Star Trek movie takes place in the 23rd century.
It begins with a dark and mysterious ship emerging in the middle of nowhere. The ship, we learn, is commanded by a Romulan (enemy of the Federation) named Nero. Nero orders an attack on the Federation ship, the USS Kelvin, and the acting captain, George Kirk, must sacrifice himself to let his crew escape. Among this crew is Kirk’s wife who gives birth to their son, James T. Kirk, as they escape. The movie soon fast forwards to Jim Kirk who is now an adult and enrolled in Starfleet, like his father. Kirk finds himself on a Federation ship, the USS Enterprise, which is headed towards the same ship that had killed his father so many years before. Thanks to Kirk’s quick thinking, he is able to save himself and his crew from getting outright attacked; however, the captain of the Enterprise is abducted and taken onto the enemy ship for questioning. With the captain gone, the rule-breaking Kirk is kicked off the ship by the acting captain, Spock. It is at this time that Kirk comes across an old man claiming to be Spock, from the future. Older Spock explains to Kirk that Nero is attacking Spock’s home worlds to get revenge on Spock for a mistake he makes in the future. Kirk realizes that since Nero has already destroyed Vulcan, his next target will be Earth. Kirk gets back on the ship and has to work with Spock to try to save Earth before Nero kills billions of innocent people for his
revenge.
Star Trek’s depiction of space is often enhanced by science, thus making the movie more believable and dramatic. At the beginning of the movie, the USS Kelvin is being attacked by an enemy ship. After the Kelvin acquires severe damage, the camera moves to show people screaming as the ship is hit once again. The audience can hear a woman screaming until a hole is ripped through the ship’s hull. Space is a vacuum, which means that sound cannot travel through space. The audience no longer hears the woman’s screams or the sound of the ship being blown apart because it is impossible to hear noise in space. Cinematically, the silence only serves to make this scene much more dramatic, because you don’t just see the woman fly out of the ship; you essentially hear her die. Without actually witnessing it, the audience feels the weight of the deaths of the people on this ship. Another aspect of this movie that makes it even more interesting are the high speed chases and narrow escapes through space. This is made possible using the space ships’ warp drives, which allow them to move through space at a speed faster than light. In the real world, the warp drive that allows the ships in Star Trek to do this could eventually become a reality. Scientists at NASA are currently looking to make a warp drive that will allow astronauts to travel faster than the speed of light by manipulating the space around the ship (The Daily Galaxy). It should be noted that NASA’s current research towards a warp drive is no guarantee of success, however the movie does an excellent job of portraying a scientific discovery which might just be in our future. Lastly, Star Trek is able to use science to enhance a scene used as comic relief. In the scene, Jim Kirk is on a Starfleet shuttle that is about to take off into space when he meets a man named Leonard McCoy who is being forced into his seat after the crew found him hiding in the restroom. When Kirk claims that they are safe in the shuttle, McCoy angrily replies, “Don’t pander me, kid. One tiny crack in the hull and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. Solar flare might crop up. Cook us in our seats … Space is disease and danger and darkness and silence” (Star Trek). The comedy of the scene is obvious; it’s funny to see a grown man so scared that he is hiding in the restroom. What some don’t realize is that McCoy’s fears were actually valid. The reason why astronauts have to wear pressure suits is because at a certain altitude a human’s blood really would boil when exposed to space (Dunbar). As far as solar flares go, they may not necessarily “cook a person in their seat”, but it certainly wouldn’t be something anyone wants to be exposed to. By using these real facts, the movie grabs the attention of the viewers using intelligent humor based in real scientific fact.
Obviously, Star Trek can’t be completely scientifically accurate, because it is also a fictional film. That being said, even the fictional parts of the movie are based on scientific theory. The movie has a lot of different MacGuffins which allows the plot to move along without completely breaking the laws of physics. MacGuffins are a plot device in the form of a goal that offers no narrative explanation. The first, most prominent MacGuffin is the red matter, which the characters use to create black holes. Even though red matter doesn’t exist in our world, the movie never explicitly describes what red matter is or how it works; this means that red matter could theoretically exist. While the red matter does not teach audiences anything about science, it is used to avoid misinforming the audience. Star Trek uses the red matter MacGuffin to remain scientifically accurate while also making the plot of the movie interesting. Another similar feature in Star Trek is the black hole which allowed the characters to travel back in time. The science behind the black hole from the movie is based on the theory about wormholes that bend space and time. According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, wormholes that connect two points in space and time, so that when travelled through, could send a person forwards or backwards in time (Redd). Theoretically speaking, a certain type of black hole could be used to travel through space and time. Using this theory, the Star Trek is able to create an exciting plot while keeping the movie’s science technically correct.
As humans as a species grow smarter, we demand a higher level of intelligence from our entertainment as well. The 2009 Star Trek movie serves this purpose by using real scientific fact to both inform audience of possibly foreign concepts and to grab the attention of the viewer. This is important because it shows that movies are not just a waste of time or only for entertainment purposes. Certain science fiction films are able to combine entertainment with education to create a better story. As more and more movies are beginning to do this (e.g. The Martian and Interstellar), popular media is growing to embrace science to revolutionize movies and the way we entertain ourselves.