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Key words: Alien, film,
Prometheus spoiler alert,
screenwriting, xeno-species
Science Fact and Science Fiction
Features
Science in film
Helen Lambourne (Wellcome Trust)
On Monday 8 November, Sir John Gurdon was bustled into a meeting room at the Wellcome Trust
to face a wall of TV cameras, journalists and photographers in a special press conference. Professor
Gurdon, a former governor of the Trust after whom the Wellcome Trust–Cancer Research UK Gurdon
Institute was named, had just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology for the
discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become immature cells that are capable of
developing into all tissues of the body. That same evening, the Wellcome Trust was able to announce
a second prize-winner on its premises. Not for a Nobel Prize this time, but rather the inaugural
winner of the Wellcome Trust Screenwriting Prize.
The Wellcome Trust’s connection to Professor
Gurdon makes sense. It is, after all, one of the world’s
largest funders of biomedicine. But screenwriting?
The Trust’s mission, going back over 75 years, has
always been to further scientific understanding, but
its founder, Sir Henry Wellcome recognized that
science was part of culture, that it should be part of a
conversation about society rather than a subculture
characterized by mass incomprehension. Public
engagement has always been very important.
Film is an extremely important medium: a film on
general release has the potential to reach very large
audiences. With the Trust’s mission to make science
a part of society, we acknowledge the potential of
film to inspire audiences and make science a bigger
part of the cultural conversation.
When most people consider science in film, they
invariably think of science fiction: the blockbusters
such as Armageddon, The Day After Tomorrow,
Minority Report, the X-Men films, or the more
cerebral visionary epics such as Blade Runner and
2001: a Space Odyssey. But there are other ways
of bringing the ideas and vision of science to a
cinematic crowd.
Memento, nominated for an Oscar for its
screenplay by brothers Christopher and Jonathan
Nolan, is a mystery thriller about revenge and a
film about anterograde amnesia. Neuropsychologist
Sallie Baxendale from the National Hospital for
Neurology and Neurosurgery argues that it is one
of few realistic portrayals of amnesia in films. But
crucially, Baxendale also gives credit to the format
of the film: “the fragmented, almost mosaic quality
to the sequence of scenes in the film cleverly reflects
the ‘perpetual present’ nature of the syndrome.”
Similarly, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
is not only a film about love, but also a film about
the nature of memory. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s
Nest features a narcissistic sociopath, but it is also
a film about how society deals with mental illness.
A Beautiful Mind is a drama about a maths genius,
but also a study of the detrimental effects of
schizophrenia on relationships.
When we watch drama on television or on the big
screen, we expect to be entertained. But we also want
our stories and characters to be plausible. “Could
this really happen?” is an intriguing question for all
film makers (and scientists) and vital in plotting key
elements in any story.
We expect characters in our films to behave
consistently throughout the film and the situations
that they face to make sense, but what about when
it comes to portrayals of science? Should we allow
screenwriters extra dramatic licence when they
bring science into the story? No film-maker sets
out to intentionally betray science, but sometimes a
story might require a ‘suspension of disbelief ’ that
might not be scientifically accurate. In order to enjoy
a cinematic experience, this requirement is part of
the deal for non-specialist and scientific audiences
alike. However, a science-themed film that asks this
too often changes the viewing experience and starts
slipping into another realm, that of fantasy. There is
nothing wrong with fantasy – just look at Avatar –
but it is when the two are tangled that science in film
becomes dissatisfying.
Success in the film world is usually measured in
audience numbers; the notion of accuracy is rarely
discussed outside of scientific circles. Dr Mark
Glassy is a scientist working in cancer research. He
is also a science-fiction enthusiast. In his book The
Biology of Cinema Fiction, Glassy gently interrogates
the science in science-fiction films by asking himself
the question “Could it actually happen?”
December 2012 © Biochemical Society 21

Features
22 December 2012 © Biochemical Society
Science Fact and Science Fiction
In Jurassic Park, a film that features molecular
biology, scientists are able to a dinosaur by
combining dinosaur DNA preserved inside a
mosquito suspended in amber, with frogs’ eggs. As
Glassy argues, in order to do this, a near complete
dinosaur genome would have to be obtained. Using
the techniques in the film, the scientists would
have created, at best, a frog–dinosaur hybrid, not
the fully hatched Tyrannosaurus that appears in
the film. But the fundamental principles of genetic
engineering and cloning were not fractured. The
answer to the question ‘Could it happen?’ is yes,
genetic engineering technology will perhaps one day
advance enough that we can recreate extinct species
from ancient DNA.
In science-fiction classic Alien, Glassy finds “one
of the most interesting life cycles in science-fiction
cinema”. The film delivers credibility and kicks in a
beautifully constructed documentary-style thriller.
The life cycle of the alien in the film is composed
of both a sexual phase and an asexual phase. The
sexual phase, the mating of the alien queen, we
assume happens off-screen: but the asexual phase,
the hatching of the ‘facehuggers’ that begins via the
victims mouth is vividly depicted. The facehugger
latches on to another species and assimilates its DNA
with the host. As a result of this DNA mixing, a ‘chest
burster’ alien emerges from the host and grows into
an adult, completing the cycle. A stunning piece of
visual cinema and visionary science.
The defining and thrilling idea contained within
the Alien films is that the alien DNA can adapt to
any species and combine them into a viable mixture
capable of reproduction (a xeno-species). Since DNA
is passed on from generation to generation, the alien
must have previously assimilated DNA from other
species, combining to make the alien the terrifying
force that it has become. Somehow the alien has the
ability to find the best genes it can and incorporate
these into its own genome and life cycle, making it
one of the most powerful and dominant species seen
in science-fiction cinema.
The key to the credibility of the film is that the
alien life cycle depicted has examples and parallels
here on Earth. It stays true to the principles of
biology; it has an asexual and sexual life cycle, a
cyclopropagative transmission process (much like
malaria), meaning that it changes form and function
as it invades and multiplies within hosts, and it
survives through domination of its environment via
its genes.
Prometheus, the recent prequel to Alien, is, on
the other hand, low on authenticity. Neither the
mission, the biology nor the scientists are consistent
even within the film’s own narrative world, with the
filmmakers choosing instead to mix realities; the
real, the fantasy and the reality within the film. Take
the moment the scientists analyse the alien DNA and
discover it’s a 100% match to our own. In his blog
SciencePunk, Frank Swain describes how puzzling
this is: “I’m not sure what this means. That we’re
them, obviously. But 100%? I share 99% of my DNA
with a chimp. Does that mean [the aliens] made
chimps too? But if they’re a 100% match for us,
where did they get the extra 1% DNA we don’t share
with chimps? Do they use some other DNA that they
manufactured? Does that mean the [aliens] made all
life on Earth or just kick it off and let it evolve?”
It is the mixing of narrative worlds in science
fiction that hampers enjoyment. In Prometheus,
as Frank Swain again points out, the writers make
a big deal out of the characters not being able to
breathe the moon’s atmosphere because of its high
CO 2 potency, but the combination of gases inside
the alien’s moon base enables the expedition team
to breathe normally. That’s fine: the aliens modified
the atmosphere inside the base to suit their lungs. So
why then are the aliens wearing breathing apparatus
inside their own base? And how does one alien
manage to sprint unsuited out of the moon base after
the scientists?
For me, though, it’s the scientists that really stretch
credulity far beyond breaking point. I don’t mind
that they are ridiculously good-looking, younger
than everyone else and are thirsty for risk – that’s
believable. In fact, these qualities are an enjoyable
leap away from the classic Hollywood scientist
who, quoting from Christopher Frayling’s Mad, Bad
and Dangerous: the Scientist and the Cinema, are
almost invariably male and “are dressed in white lab
coats; have frizzy hair or else none at all; they wear
Coke-bottle spectacles; they work alone indoors or
underground in laboratories marked ‘Secret’; they are
middle-aged and not at all physically attractive”. The
Prometheus scientists showed none of these clichés,
which was refreshing. The notion that science might
actually be interesting to people with both looks and
brains is a modern idea in movie making.
What wasn’t so good, however, was how clueless
the scientists were about everything, which, as
research scientists on a trip of a lifetime, didn’t make
sense. Worse, they were careless with their loot – the
alien matter. Common to all working scientists I have
met is the care they take over their samples: feeding,
temperature, climate control, transportation, health,
contamination risks and the individual needs of each
precious piece of data. In this film, the scientists
throw the new life forms around as if they’re custard,

Al Smith, winner of the Wellcome Trust Screenwriting Prize. © Wellcome Library, London
contaminating all and sundry and losing their own
value as a research tool in the process. And don’t get
me started on the geologist with the most advanced
mapping tool in the world, who manages to get lost.
In a Wellcome Trust survey of 1600 working
scientists conducted in 1999–2000, findings
indicated that, whereas 70% of respondents accepted
that their work had social and ethical implications
and 73% considered the media to be the most
effective method of communication with the public,
the majority considered themselves to be viewed in a
negative light by the public. Movies can change that.
They may not be a place to learn about science but
they are a place to engage with it.
This is why, in June this year, we launched our
Screenwriting Prize, to get writers to use science as
inspiration for their stories – not necessarily to get
scientifically accurate plotlines, but rather to focus
on originality, innovation and authenticity, to move
science in film out of the confines of science fiction
and historical biopic and into different genres.
The response from the writing world was extremely
heartening: 338 established writers submitted an idea
for a feature film. Criteria were strict on eligibility for
Science Fact and Science Fiction
writers, but deliberately open about the nature of science
in the idea. The entries were reviewed by experts from
the British film industry, public engagement specialists
at the Wellcome Trust and a professional scientist,
Allan Pacey from the Department of Reproductive and
Developmental Medicine at Sheffield University.
The winner, Al Smith, was a playwright who has
written extensively for theatre and TV, including
Holby City, Casualty and a script for Sir David
Attenborough. Smith won the £20 000 prize for an
idea entitled HalfLife about two teenagers, each with
a neurological condition, who steal a car and go on a
road trip and fall in love. Sam Firth, an experimental
documentary maker, was awarded a specially created
runner-up prize. Her film will explore the nature of
reality through the mechanisms of memory and recall.
Both will now go away and develop their idea further
in collaboration with Wellcome Trust scientists.
The Trust hopes that, by nurturing future feature
films from the very beginning with scientific input
and guidance, we will foster films that draw their
inspiration from real science and medicine and hope
that this will mean films that are better because of
and not in spite of the science. ■
Features
December 2012 © Biochemical Society 23