Five Technological Movies That Make You Want to Find Out More

by Lewis Robinson

There's a saying in Hollywood that goes, "make it believable." Movie producers put a lot of time and energy into getting the science right. People buy the story because they understand how it could be possible. And then, as Terry Pratchett would say, "what is realism but a created impossibility?" It's not just about visual effects, either. With modern image-processing software and motion capture techniques, creators can mix CGI with traditional filming techniques to make animation indistinguishable from live-action footage. To speak of science fiction films as something set apart from other storytelling mediums sells them short. Science fiction has always been an essential part of cinema – not just since Star Wars or Close Encounters – and many of the most lauded films are set in the future or on other planets. These are the best technological movies that make you want to find out more.

1) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

2001 depicts a voyage to Jupiter with sentient computer HAL-9000 after discovering a mysterious black monolith affecting human evolution. Director Stanley Kubrick took an immense amount of effort to accurately portray space travel in a way never seen on screen before. He consulted with NASA, who let him use their training centrifuge to film actors in zero gravity. 

2) Avatar (2009)

To mine a valuable mineral, scientists need to transfer their brains into alien bodies and experience the world first-hand through those bodies. Humans can view everything remotely through avatars that resemble actual aliens, but because their perspective is very different from a human's, they cannot communicate with them. The main character is one of the scientists who transfers his brain into an alien body to help mine the mineral that will save Earth from running out of resources. James Cameron filmed Avatar with a combination of live-action and computer animation. In stages throughout filming, actors were filmed wearing motion-capture suits. Actors performed their scenes with a stand-in, either a printout of the character or someone in a greenscreen suit. This is undoubtedly more complex than using a spreadsheet to remove duplicate rows!

3) Gattaca (1997)

In a future society where genetic engineering allows parents to determine their children's talents and professions, a man tries to assume the identity of his genetically "inferior" brother to pursue his lifelong dream of space travel.

Gattaca's plot hinges on the premise that genetic material decays at a predictable rate – which scientists tested by examining hair donated by members of the public.

4) Sunshine (2007)

A crew of eight men and women travel to reignite the dying sun with a nuclear fission bomb in 2057. The film follows their struggle as they work on a seemingly impossible task and face obstacles both from nature and an evil computer running the ship. Director Danny Boyle used real mathematics developed by NASA scientists for the plot of Sunshine. For example, the sun's gravitational pull is depicted consistently with fundamental physics equations.

Boyle also worked on developing accurate computer displays for the crew to use, consulting with computing scientists to create film-accurate programs.

5) Minority Report (2002)

A highly advanced crime system can predict the future. If someone commits a crime, this futuristic technology predicts it, and the person is punished before committing the crime. The basis for this technology is predictive analytics which involves using software to analyze past events and determine what might happen in the future. In a way, this is quite an accurate way of predicting the future as if something happened similar to something that happened before; then, computers can extrapolate the patterns. Although not exactly like the film's "Precrime," the idea is similar.

Movies are one method to learn about technology. Some of these movies occur in the future, while others take place in the present or past, but they all give a possible glimpse into the future. Our desire to understand the science in these films motivates us to seek more information on the technologies displayed.