I read the following and instantly thought of you.

LINK (subscription required)

Pentagon's New Goal: Put Science Into Scripts
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER
August 4, 2005

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 3 - Tucked away in the Hollywood hills, an elite group of scientists from across the country and from a grab bag of disciplines - rocket science, nanotechnology, genetics, even veterinary medicine - has gathered this week to plot a solution to what officials call one of the nation's most vexing long-term national security problems.

Their work is being financed by the Air Force and the Army, but the Manhattan Project it ain't: the 15 scientists are being taught how to write and sell screenplays.

~~ Edward Herman

Copyrighted material deleted by The Bad Astronomer

Welcome to the BABB, sbirmingham.

Interesting article.

But please read the FAQs.

How about just posting the link or links (you can go back and edit your owns posts), and providing your ideas about the content?

Meanwhile, enjoy your stay. 8)

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I just edited it.

Yes, that's pretty neat. I hate hearing about stuff like this after the fact, though. Sounds like it would have been fun. Oh well!

Seems to me the Pentagon and the movie studios should be contacting a couple of guys who have demonstrated quite successfully that they know how to promote science via the media:

Phil Plait and Jay Windley!

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Let's not forget Bill Nye or the MythBusters either.

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Hmm, your tax dollars at work. Considering all the threats to national security they want to ensure movies have better science pedigrees? OK, to be fair I assume they are referring to brain-drain and the dumbification of america. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for science accurate screenplays, but why should the government get into the business? It doesn't matter if the science is accurate or really bad, the movie will only be popular if it is well written and features characters that movie-goers will like. Instead of just teaching scientists to write they should also pay for remedial science education for aspiring screenwriters. After all, if the story is bad no one will stick around to learn from the science.

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The government should be in the business of exciting the public, especially kids, about learning. That should be a very big goal of the government!

Encouraging scientists to get involved with films is a pretty good way to do this, and costs very little.

Mind you, a company (cannot remember which) decided not to build a plant in the US because, for one, they felt the citizenry was too poorly educated. They built the plant in Canada instead.

That speaks volumes about this country, and what we need to do.

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The Bad Astronomer
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badastro@badastronomy.com

That was Toyota:

Edit to add: Off topic, but I should add a dispute to that by a Toyota executive: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/01/op...l01toyota.html

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mit seinen Schatten, die voll Kühlung sind.

I'm an up-and-coming filmmaker, and I've been tossing around ideas for movies.

• A drama that follows the mission of STS-61, the first HST servicing mission.
• A wildly inaccurate disaster comedy about the Yellowstone Caldera.
• A political thriller about the 1979 VELA incident

And some more stuff I'm still formulating and tossing around.

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You have a grandstand seat to one of the greatest on most momentous occasions in the history of science

How about movie diplomatics? Have Airport 2007 with the villain trying to ram an A-380 into the Petronas towers and the hero being a woman detective from an Islamic nation. A good role model in an action adventure movie--with Tony Shaloub as her bumbling husband?

A documentary on the Halifax and Texas City explosions to keep us aware of port security.