Favorite Film Scientists? 546
theodp asks: "From Rotwang in Fritz Lang's Metropolis to Wallace the Engineer in last year's Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Slate notes that scientists have long been a staple of the movies. So who are some of the more memorable scientist characters from your movie-going?"
Favorite Scientists (Score:2)
Dr Evil
Dr Jeckyl
Re:Favorite Scientists (Score:2, Funny)
That's Fronken-steen!
Re:Favorite Scientists (Score:3, Funny)
-os
Re:Favorite Scientists (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Favorite Scientists (Score:3, Funny)
Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH?
Re:Favorite Scientists (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Man in the White Suit -Alec Guinness (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd include Gendô Ikari from "Neon Genesis Evangelion" to make it an even 5.
Only one choice for me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Only one choice for me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Only one choice for me... (Score:2)
Re:Only one choice for me... (Score:2)
Re:Only one choice for me... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, not quite a movie, but I don't think anyone can top the professor in Futurama. Who could forget classic lines like:
Movie scientists got nothin' on him.
Great Scott! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Great Scott! (Score:2)
Re:Great Scott! (Score:2)
"Nuclear Scientist" Christmas Jones! (Score:3, Funny)
Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Easy (Score:5, Funny)
General "Buck" Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?
Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.
Ambassador de Sadesky: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor. (via imdb, what else)
Re:Easy (Score:2)
Re:Easy (Score:3, Funny)
President Merkin Muffley: Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Excuse my comment, it's not to scale... (Score:2)
Doc Brown and his gigawatts!
Buckaroo Banzai! (Score:3, Insightful)
Martial artist, particle physicist, brilliant neurosurgeon, and hard rockin' pop star!
P.S. Yeah, I replied to my own comment about my other fave, hey, I love these characters : )
In The Not Too Distant Future (Score:3, Insightful)
No contest (Score:5, Insightful)
"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious shit."
Let's hear another scientist top that quote.
I will pick up that gauntlet (Score:5, Funny)
I humbly submit:
Hell, you could probably take half a dozen other quotes [imdb.com] from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension [imdb.com].
Of course, Real Genius had some great lines too.
Re:No contest (Score:3, Funny)
Dr. Nash: I find you very attractive. Your assertiveness tells me that you feel the same way about me. But ritual remains that we must do a series of platonic actions before we can have intercourse. But all I really want to do is have sex with you as soon as possible.
Re:No contest (Score:3, Funny)
-- Dr. Peter Venkman
"Ghostbusters"
That is merely A doctor.... (Score:3, Insightful)
And many great quotes from the TV serial:
Quotes (Score:2)
"Back off man!...... I'm a scientist".
or....
"Hey, hey, hey. Don't be mean. We don't have to be mean because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are. "
Re:Quotes (Score:3, Funny)
B. Banzai
Q: Who is your favorite scientist? (Score:2, Informative)
Not only was he sexier than Bond, he was the inventor of all the cool gadgets we saw in the movies.
Let us not forget: Real Genius (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Q: Who is your favorite scientist? (Score:2)
Re:Q: Who is your favorite scientist? (Score:2, Insightful)
RIP. Desmond.
Re:Q: Who is your favorite scientist? (Score:3, Funny)
Scientologist (Score:5, Funny)
My Favourite Movie Scientists (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, the real heros [imdb.com] are engineers [imdb.com].
Re:My Favourite Movie Scientists (Score:4, Insightful)
I've always admired (Score:2)
Truly a visionary. He's always been an inspiration to me.
-Donald Rumsfeld
Would you be prepared if gravity reversed itself? (Score:2)
Gotta go with Chris Knight...
-l
Farscape (Score:2)
Re:Farscape (Score:2)
We can REASON with it! (Score:3, Funny)
He was the prototype for the scientist who, in the face of mortal danger, insists -- "Don't harm it! It is of a higher intelligence than us! We must REASON with it!" Then gets skewered/dismembered/eaten/all of the above.
- Alaska Jack
1.21 Gigawatts! (Score:2)
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 mph) = 30 757 874 newtons [google.co.uk]
The computer scientist from War Games (Score:2)
Re:The computer scientist from War Games (Score:2)
Re:The computer scientist from War Games (Score:2)
Frankie! (Score:2)
yes hes the scientist and not the monster, and no i dont know how to spell check
Frankenstein (Score:2)
Obligatory quotes (Score:5, Funny)
Wow! What knockers!
So which brain did you get?
Abby.
Abby who?
Abby normal.
James Stewart as Theodore Honey (Score:2)
Dr. Edward Morbius... (Score:2)
No Matter Where You Go, There You Are (Score:5, Insightful)
Hard to pick just one... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dr. Peter Venkman
Dr. Raymond Stantz
Dr. Egon Spengler
Re:Hard to pick just one... (Score:3, Funny)
I'm just surprised that it took this long in the discussion to bring these guys up.
I would also go for Emmet Brown (Score:2)
Sam Waterston in Oppenheimer (Score:2)
Dr. Charles Forbin (Score:2)
Small sample... (Score:2)
Spiderman or Hulk are examples of scientists that were not even hinted here. Withouth even leaving the comics area, Batman could qualify as scientist too (bah, in last movie he delegated his scientist abilities to people that looked more like ones).
Science fiction and terror movies (good, old, bad or new) have also very good chances of having someone that enters in that category, so there are plenty of chars to choose on in that kind of fields
Beaker! (Score:5, Funny)
Kate Beckinsale (Score:3, Funny)
Okay then, I guess it's gotta be Doctor Emmett Brown and his sidekick, Dr. Delorian.
Dr Egon Spengler (Ghostbusters) (Score:5, Funny)
See, like a true scientist, even when a epic global disaster is about to take place in front of him and his death is imminent, he says something coherent and explanatory. He even apologizes!
mahlen
Stargate SG-1 (TV) (Score:5, Insightful)
Professor Indiana Jones (Score:4, Insightful)
Mr. Spock (Score:5, Interesting)
His objectivity, intellect, and curiosity made him the quintessential scientist.
(Okay, he's mostly a TV character, but he appeared in his share of movies.)
Previous /. Polls (Score:5, Informative)
Favorite Mad Scientist? [slashdot.org]
Winner: Dr. Evil
Favorite Scientist? [slashdot.org]
Winner: Einstein
Dr. Gaius Baltar (Score:3, Interesting)
Dr. Ellie Arroway (Contact) (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dr. Ellie Arroway (Contact) (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dr. Ellie Arroway (Contact) (Score:3, Insightful)
and
The problem with the way mechanics are depicted in movies is that they are Hollywood stereotypes
and
The problem with the way engineers are depicted in movies is that they are Hollywood stereotypes
and
The problem with the way chefs are depicted in movies is that they are Hollywood stereotypes
and
There for entertainment, not an accurate portrayl of a profession.
realistic is nice, but I prefer entertainment
Re:Dr. Ellie Arroway (Contact) (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Dr. Ellie Arroway (Contact) (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Dr. Ellie Arroway (Contact) (Score:5, Informative)
Page 53 of the hardback (2 pages into Ch. 3, "White Noise", it describes Ellie sitting beside the billion-channel signal analyser and also using headphones to listen to a couple of channels at a time. And knowing it was futile to imagine she could find a signal in a few that the computer monitoring the billion could not, "but it gave her a modest illusion of utility".
Subsequent paragraphs make it clear she's also fooling around with different listening patterns - two narrow-band frequencies against each other in different earphones, two planes of polarization, etc - to hone her own ideas of what a pattern recognition approach might be. And also because one often hears pleasant "patterns" in the noise. (Sagan gets poetic here about stars that sing and glissandos of sound.)
It was a very nice evocation of the drives and thinking patterns of the curious scientist at work - poking around in the data personally, kicking it from every angle.
"No Way Out" (Score:3, Interesting)
This is one of my favorite engineer exchanges in movies, from "No Way Out," 1987, with Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman, and Sean Young. A computer is crunching away at a bad photograph which when enhanced will incorrectly incriminate Costner in the death of Sean Young's character. He estimates that he has only a few hours to find the true killer before the photo is legible. The following exchange takes place. (Compare and contrast this with absolutely every other movie and TV show in which a photograph can be zoomed indefinitely by simply clicking on the interesting part, or can be immediately enhanced by the geek of the day with only a few key strokes (never a mouse) upon directions from a superior such as, "Can you make it clearer?")
- What do you want me to do?
- Slow up the resolution on that picture.
I need more time, Sam. I need more time to get this straightened out.
That's what I need.
I'm not satisfied with the way this is coming up. The eigenvalue is off.
Looks all right to me.
We're pulling away from our reference information. Program a Fourier transform.
- That seems like a waste of time.
- Just do what I want, OK?
Need you even ask? (Score:3, Insightful)
Dr. Eldon Tyrell (Score:3, Insightful)
Dark City's Dr. Daniel Scheber (Score:5, Interesting)
Dr. Daniel P. Schreber
(played by Keifer Sutherland in Dark City)
Honorable mentions would be:
Dr. Evil & Dr. Stranglove
Re:Dark City's Dr. Daniel Scheber (Score:4, Funny)
"Back off man, I'm a scientist"
Come on People! Edna Mode! (Score:3, Funny)
"This is a hobo suit, darling. You can't be seen in this. I won't allow it. "
Favorites (Score:3, Interesting)
Gyro Gearloose (Ok, he's an engineer, so what?)
The Brain
Lt. Col. Samantha Carter (they will do another Stargate movie, right?)
Dr. Frank-N-Furter
And purely for looks, Dr. Christmas Jones
Gilligan's Professor (Score:5, Interesting)
He knew nearly everything except how to get them off the island. He was a social misfit, still everyone respected him because of his high intelligence.
Re:Gilligan's Professor (Score:3, Funny)
Remember Jaws? (Score:3, Insightful)
Dr. Clayton Forrester (Score:3, Insightful)
"Welcome to Pacific Tech's "Smart People on Ice!" (Score:3, Informative)
Chris Knight (Val Kilmer) from "Real Genius".
Too often, smart people are portraied as humorless drones, when a good sense of humor is usually a mark of intelligence.
Dr. Dana Scully of course! (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, she could apparently do a Southern blot [wikipedia.org] in about 7 hours, when it take us mere mortals 2 days... (though that was in the X-Files TV show, not the movie)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
The Andromeda Strain (Score:3, Interesting)
That movie was about as close as you can get. They all had flaws, they all had to work together to solve the problem, they all were only as strong as their weakest link, and they were stupified for the entire movie because what they were studying was completely alien to them.
Go back and look at this movie. It's a true classic.
A few unmentioned ones. (Score:3, Interesting)
For those of you who haven't seen it, Jessup is a researcher at a Boston university who obtains some extremely powerful hallucinogens from southern Mexico and does massive doses while inside a sensory deprivation tank, when seven shades of hell breaks loose, with a strong whiff of Jeckyl and an australopithecine Hyde. Plus, the guy gets some pretty decent nooky throughout the film, including one of his super-hot students, so bonus points for that.
I'm also a bit partial to Doctor/Botanist Stephen Maturin, played by Paul Bettany in "Master and Commander", who almost beat Darwin to the punch by some 20 or 30 years.
Finally, psychologist Kris Kelvin in Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 epic "Solaris", is definitely up there with the greats.
Come on! (Score:5, Insightful)
Brainstorm (Score:4, Interesting)
As far as movie scientists are concerned, I always liked that group of scientists in Brainstorm (which I haven't seen in a long time). I've worked in real labs of several different sorts, and those guys still look like the real deal. Unlike most Hollywood "science" movies, which force their scientist characters into Frankenstein-inspired cliches, there were a few common mistakes that Brainstorm avoided with its scientist characters:
- No one scientist who works in isolation. This was a team of at least 3 scientists, like you'd find in real life. The two team leads who were the primary researchers shared credit equally as far as the film was concerned. The project was their baby.
- No "mad" scientist. Although one of them was played by Christopher Walken. Louise Fletcher's character I think was better written. She was the one who smoked if I'm remembering correctly. Movie scientists are usually too smart to smoke. They've done research or something and found that it's bad for you.
- Intense personal relationships. Walken's character was having marital problems. That's very strange for a movie scientist, who usually remains single to avoid confusing audiences who do not view scientists are normal human beings. (If he has any family members at all, their purpose in the script is to be props- they will be in close proximity to a volcano or bomb or something, so as to establish that the amoral movie scientist has "something to care about".) Not only does this guy use his machine to rejuvenate his marriage and make things better between him and his wife, people in the lab immediately discover the new technology's potential for porn. Good call on that one!
- Problems with upper management. They had a boss who was trying to militarize their whole project, and IIRC they had to cooperate to keep their funding. Most "movie scientists" either require no visible source of funding, or can just rely on their own personal wealth to buy all the Jacob's ladders and other mad-looking items they need for their lab. (Or they have the scientist running an entire company, like Eldon Tyrell. As a CEO scientist, Tyrell naturally has plenty of time to spend with local city policemen as they give Voight-Kampff tests to his employees.) As far as militarization of scientific work is concerned, most movie scientists are amoral and don't care. In the movies, scientists are completely amoral unless they are saving the world that day- and they're probably only doing it because their wife or kid is too close to a volcano or bomb.
Having said all that, I have to admit that in general the characters in Brainstorm are not very well developed because the movie is trying too hard to impress you with its technology. In 1983 it looked pretty impressive- these people had a system where you could dial in over an acoustic modem and have a tape robot play terabits of personal experience directly into your head! As far as text went, their terminal software looked like the setup I had in 1983. But even for 1983 they made reasonable guesses. I always remember that scene where they finally demo the technology and have some sort of hub with a dozen ribbon cables coming out of it connected to everyone's heads.
Parent is spot-on (Score:3, Interesting)
I have always liked that Christopher Walken used his oddness to play a good guy who is odd because he's a genius, and he actually gets it right. The scene etched on my memory is where Walken is talking about what he's learned about the government black mirror program and says "They've taken my work ... and made it into something bad!" That could
Re:Come on! (Score:3, Funny)
Ghostbusters NO contest! (Score:4, Funny)
I mean practically the whole script is mad scientist-y, a few of the classics...
Winston Zeddemore: Hey, wait a minute. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hold it. Now, are we actually gonna go before a federal judge, and tell him that some moldy Babylonian God is going to drop in on Central Park West, and start tearing up the city?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Sumerian, not Babylonian.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yeah. Big difference.
Winston Zeddemore: No offense, guys, but I've gotta get my own lawyer.
Dr Ray Stantz: You know, it just occurred to me that we really haven't had a successful test of this equipment.
Dr. Egon Spengler: I blame myself.
Dr. Peter Venkman: So do I.
Dr Ray Stantz: Well, no sense in worrying about it now.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why worry? Each one of us is carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back.
Dana Barrett: You know, you don't act like a scientist.
Dr. Peter Venkman: They're usually pretty stiff.
Dana Barrett: You're more like a game show host.
Dana Barrett: Are you the Keymaster?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Not that I know of.
[She slams the door in his face. Venkman knocks again]
Dana Barrett: Are you the Keymaster?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yes. Actually I'm a friend of his, he asked me to meet him here.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What do you think, Egon?
Dr. Egon Spengler: I think this building should be condemned. There's serious metal fatigue in all the load-bearing members, the wiring is substandard, it's completely inadequate for our power needs, and the neighborhood is like a demilitarized zone.
Dr Ray Stantz: Hey. Does this pole still work?
[slides down a fireman's pole]
Dr Ray Stantz: Wow. This place is great. When can we move in? You gotta try this pole. I'm gonna get my stuff. Hey. We should stay here. Tonight. Sleep here. You know, to try it out.
[Venkman looks at Spengler. Spengler slowly shakes his head. Venkman turns to the real estate agent]
Dr. Peter Venkman: I think we'll take it.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Ray has gone bye-bye, Egon... what've you got left?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Sorry, Venkman, I'm terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.
Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad?"
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Oh good, you're here!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yeah, what have you got?
Dr. Egon Spengler: This is big, Peter, this is very big. There is definitely something here.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Egon, this reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole through your head. Remember that one?
Dr. Egon Spengler: That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me.
Re:Come on! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dr. Moreau (Score:2)
Re:Dr. Strangelove (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Dr. Strangelove (Score:3)
Re:I prefer TV scientists such as... (Score:3, Funny)