The world is not magic. At least, that is, the actual real world around us. That’s the great insight we’ve achieved over the course of centuries of scientific investigation into the universe. It all follows rules; everything has an explanation (which is not the same as everything having a reason).
So I was struck by this blog post by screenwriter John August. He talks about the movie Groundhog Day, in which Bill Murray’s weatherman character is stuck in a time loop of unspecified duration. For a film that seemed fairly inconsequential at the time, it’s really a great starting point for all sorts of conversations — I use it in my book to talk a bit about time-travel paradoxes. (Did I mention I’m writing a book?)
But August uses it to illustrate the cinematic usefulness of unexplained magic. Even in a fictional universe, you don’t want it to be completely magical — there need to be rules, otherwise it’s impossible to have a coherent drama in which the characters struggle to achieve some goal. In Groundhog Day, the goal is to win the love of Andie MacDowell, although different stories make different choices.
But the central conceit of the movie — Bill Murray is stuck in an endless loop, trying to get out — remains completely unexplained. In an early version of the script, apparently, there was some talk of a voodoo spell that set the time loop in motion. Removing that bit of explanation was an incredibly smart decision. If it had been included, the focus on the story of the protagonist’s journey would necessarily have been diluted by the attention paid to the voodoo spell. The movie worked much better with that little bit of magic remaining unexplained.
You can just imagine if Murray’s character had been a physicist instead of a TV personality. Forget about winning someone’s love; the guy would have spent millions of years trying to figure out the mechanism behind his travel in a time loop. It’s great when scientists talk to Hollywood, but thank goodness they haven’t taken over.
Let’s not forget the point of view of the protagonist. In Groundhog Day, Bill Murray is not a scientist and neither are any of the other major (or indeed minor) characters. Introducing “SCIENCE” into such a plot would clearly be out of character and irrelevant to the plot structure.
Like it or not, all sci-fi stories are predicated upon a good story. If scientific fidelity must be sacrificed then so be it. Truthfulness to science as the scientific community must be reserved for documentaries and the like. Clearly some movies are compatible with sound science and may even benefit from that. However the science is optional. A solid story is mandatory!
Sometimes it is very interesting and fun to start of with “axioms” that seem to counter regular experience and see where they lead to.
Umm. . . .err. . . .who ever claimed that all scientists were great storytellers? Geez, even most STORYTELLERS aren’t great storytellers! Don’t the the implicit criticism of scientists here; look at Back to the Future, in which a “scientist” was involved in the story, and it was great.
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