While a movie is mostly for entertainment, B-movie creators are nevertheless aware of their educational responsibilities toward their audience. While most B-movie productions couldn’t and wouldn’t afford a scientific consultant, the scriptwriters tend to make sure that the information that is given during the course of the movie is scientifically sound as far as could be ascertained. As far as could be ascertained without any research, at least.
OK, perhaps not scientifically sound, but at the very least they make sure it’s sounding scientific. I mean, the words and concepts used by the scriptwriters usually have some resemblance to words and concepts used in scientific discussions, it’s just that the context…tends to be…a bit…randomly scrambled. A kind of creative reinterpretation, if you will. There was a phenomenon called the Cambrian Explosion, and the dinosaurs did die out, after all…just the connection between the two is a bit…compressed, here, for narrative purposes.
And the idea that a prehistoric animal could survive a long span of time frozen in ice, and be reanimated once the ice thaws was at one time seriously considered by science. And rejected, of course, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t one of the classic B-movie plot devices anyway. I mean, it’s like Walt Disney haven his head cryogenically preserved after death – that also didn’t happen, but you could easily imagine it. And it would have been kinda cool. Literally.
The newspaper clipping the Professor holds up is a leftover prop from Nolan’s last Titanic-style movie (“Titanic IV – steam-powered Boogaloo”), but as long as the actor makes sure to keep the name covered up, it should work…
The sinking of a ship is most efficiently portrayed by stock footage, and you’ve probably already seen the one used in panel five in a movie or two. It shows the sinking of the British battleship H.M.S. Barham during WWII, and since there isn’t really an overabundance of footage of capital ships sinking this scene has been used over and over again in movies – sometimes even in A-movies, to portray the sinking of some battleship, but also in B-movies, to portray all kind of ships sinking. Including the Titanic.
More on Thursday.