Saturday, 27 September 2014

Putting Science back into Fiction

Years ago I used to be pretty much into both General Science and Science Fiction, but over the years I've been going away from it, moving towards history/geography/social issues for the former, and towards drama kind of films for the latter. For the first switch I think it's mainly due to having had the chance to do some travelling, which has awaken my early interests (when I was a kid I was crazy about geography), for the second, I just would say that in the last years I haven't come across too many good SciFic films.

With such set up, Europa Report has come as a particularly beautiful surprise. No doubt that the backbone of the story is pretty exciting, the first manned trip to Europa (that Jupiter's moon that many scientists believe could be home to other life forms), but over similarly promising base ideas the ensuing development fails miserably in too many occasions. In this case a powerful and excellent story is built upon it. A bit slow paced, a bit claustrophobic, a bit emotional, with an interesting narrative formula (parts of the story are told by external sources that seems unclear how have gained that information). No unnecessary "easy horrors" or flamboyant FX, but a beautiful portrait of the human thirst for knowledge, for understanding... and the noble willingness to sacrifice it all in that search for answers.

To me, great part of the success of this film lies on how they've been able to weave a passionate work of fiction around an appealing scientific fact, that chances are that Europa hosts life. Furthermore, it seems like they've pretty much stick to current scientific knowledge when depicting the Moon.

The aspect of the moon Europa was based for accuracy on data from NASA and JPL's maps of the moon's surface

Well, I don't think there's much more that I can say other than recommending you to watch it.

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