LUCY: Imaging of future

As a rocket scientist and mathematician, my friends and university students continuously ask me about my thoughts on the science in today's blockbuster movies.



They question if certain concepts are accurate, and if particular scenarios can actually happen. Normally, I have a short one or two sentence answer, which immediately quenches their curiosity. However, recently I watched the Universal Pictures movieLucy, written and directed by Luc Besson, starring Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman. When asked about my opinion on the science in this movie, I have more than just one or two sentences to share this time.



First off, the movie left me visually spell-bound. The actors and actresses where superb, and I applaud my fellow French producers for prioritizing a scientific concept in the middle of an American action film. However as a scientist, I must stop and state that over 60% of the science in Lucy was either misleading or inaccurate. From the hospital intestinal surgery scenes to the kinesiology-brain responses during fights, a number of scientific consequences were mistakenly overlooked. As a TED speaker on the topic of reprogramming the brain to overcome fear, I will clarify and correct just three of these science misinterpretations surrounding the brain, math, and after-life concepts as suggested in the film.




Without giving away the entire storyline,



Lucy is a motion picture about a smart, thrill-seeking college student who finds herself in a horrific drug and human trafficking situation where her brain is permanently altered by a laboratory drug ingested during her captivity.



Due to the drug's volatile biological restructuring nature, she begins using more than 10% of her brain and has less than 48 hours to live. She finds the one neuroscientist and professor (played by Morgan Freeman) who can capture her superhuman brain phenomenon for the world. However, time is limited because villains jeopardize her life in the process.



The movie Lucy must give current day mathematicians and physicists more credit.



"1+1" doesn't always equal two. Every mathematician and scientist knows this fact. However in the movie, the main character attempts to imply that mathematicians are limited by this concept and their math is only as useful as its own measurement system. This statement is absolutely 100% false. In reality, mathematicians and physicist are the ones who have proved higher dimensions exist, namely in two branches of mathematics, Topology and Chaos Theory. But humanity has yet to understand its practical results.



Take for example the branch of math called Topology. This study centers itself on explaining spaces that can and cannot be measured, like Space in other galaxies. The study shows that not all things in existence can be measured. Further, another branch of mathematics called Chaos Theory explains both higher and lower infinitesimal sub-dimensions. At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Chaos Theory helped reveal "super-highways" in Space for traveling to Mars faster. Scientists also use it to explain the instantaneous decision-making moments where "all hell can break loose" - like why a tornado hits one home and not another; why brush fires travel in one direction and not another; even why someone's brain subconsciously chooses a certain mate over another.



According to Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity, time is subjective. In the same way that a large ball placed on an elasticated cloth stretches the fabric and causes it to sag, so do planets and stars warp space-time. Chaos Theory and Topology are used to understand systems that seem pattern-less. We are seeing that the brain and the universe are mirroring each other through Chaos Theory. Shockingly similar to the human brain, our Solar System is identically composed of 10% luminous matter, and 90% of an unknown substance called dark matter with unknown functions -- where time and space are appearing not always predictable. In short, mathematics is an every-changing human language depicting changing patterns in the universe. And the findings are extrapolated to higher dimensions (called non-metric spaces) where 1+1 doesn't equal 2. And frankly, this sum is sometimes never defined.

All I remember about the Snowpiercer

Cinema is a medium of motion and if anyone understands this, it appears to be Bong Joon-ho, whose visionary new work is a demented and stunning thrillride. In his first production outside his native South Korea, Bong has delivered his most ambitious project yet, and proves more than capable of handling an international, multilingual cast and a large budget.

When a global warming solution backfires, the Earth is enveloped in a new Ice Age which almost annihilates the human race. The few thousand survivors live aboard a lone train that perpetually circumnavigates the otherwise dead planet. The train's creator, Wilford, leads from the engine at the front, while the tail is inhabited by low class citizens. Each day they are subjected to humiliating atrocities, and at their wits' end, a revolt finally erupts.

In a narrative almost completely bereft of melodrama, Bong is never afraid to put his characters through hell or kill them off in an instant. The stakes are high, the space confined and the time limited. On the train, there is no room for mistakes. Reason trounces emotion at every turn, keeping the film hurtling along at breakneck speed. In Snowpiercer, movement equals life and everything, down to thin slivers of light and a snowflake floating by a window, is in constant motion. Shadowy backgrounds flit by during the opening credits before we are introduced to a train that hasn't stopped moving in 17 years. The entire setting of the film is always belting forward, and once the revolt begins, the protagonists push ahead within it. If the revolt slows down, it will fail and if the train stops, its inhabitants will freeze: Stopping for even a moment is certain death.

As expected, spatial dynamics play a huge role in Snowpiercer, which would all be for naught were it not for the film's stunning and endlessly inventive mise-en-scene. Filming an ambitious sci-fi in confined spaces is no small feat and director of photography Hong Kyung-pyo has done a magnificent job of bringing each of the train's carriages to life with rich and eclectic cinematography. Combined with Ondrej Nekvasil's excellent production design, Steve M. Choe's layered editing and Marco Betrami's evocative and multifaceted score, the film's technical specs are a feast for the senses.

Bong has assembled an eclectic cast and each of his actors is well matched to their characters, yet many go beyond the traditional confines of their roles, delighting and horrifying us in surprising ways. Chris Evans, in between Captain America roles, plays the reluctant working class hero to a tee, and shines in the film's back half, when the script gifts him some unexpectedly weighty moments.

Under her false teeth, wig and pasty makeup, Tilda Swinton is uproarious as the train's unhinged prime minister. Measured and full of delightful ticks, her memorable Yorkshire madam steals every scene she's in. John Hurt's performance as the elderly patriarch of the tail section is marked by raspy gravitas and a mournful gaze. Bong stalwart Song Kang-ho effortlessly keeps up with his English-speaking co-stars, strutting and shuffling about, providing comic relief and a dash of cool as the train's incarcerated former chief of security.

Though it was never going to be a sunny ride, the sheer desperation, violence and madness on display throughout Snowpiercer's 125 minutes make it one of the most dystopian films we've seen in quite some time. As we proceed forward through the train's carriages, from the grimy tail, through the cartoonish school, idyllic green house and debauched clubs, so too the film's tone, story and characters evolve and enrichen.

Following the disappointment of Kim Jee-woon's The Last Stand and the lukewarm reception of Park Chan-wook's meticulous chamber piece Stoker, Bong Joon-ho has created with Snowpiercer the most accomplished overseas work of any Korean filmmaker to-date. While it remains to be seen whether or not mainstream western audiences will embrace Bong's dark and ferocious genre film, in many ways he's already beaten Hollywood at its own game. A tour de force of science fiction, Snowpiercer is a singular and breathtaking cinematic experience.