Re: DRAWING THE LINE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND POPULAR CULTURE

[luisrey@ndirect.co.uk (luisrey)]

 Brian Franczac:

> they can't be
>held accountable AS LONG AS THE WORK IS CLEARLY PORTRAYED AS BEING
>COMPLETELY FICTIONAL. If there was no pretense whatsoever that the JP
>movie(s) contained any real scientific content, then I would have been
>happy to just accept them as more in a long line of monster movies that
>used dinosaurs. This is not the case with JP and TLW, however. In both
>instances, a deliberate attempt was made to convince the public that these
>movies did indeed portray dinosaurs in a realistic manner, and that what
>was on the screen reflected current scientific thinking on the subject. On
>Fri, 21 Feb 1997 10:46:54-0800 Steven Lazarus wrote:  > Jurassic Park is
>*NOT* and never was supposed to be a realisitic movie. <
>To which I have to respond: Then why did they bother going through the
>motion of hiring someone of Jack Horner's reputation as Scientific
>Consultant? The only reason he was on the payroll was to give the movie(s)
>an air of scientific respectibility. The public's perception is that if
>they hired Jack to consult, then the movie's dinosaurs must be accurate.
>This, of course, is hogwash.\]


Deja Vu? I VERY strongly endorse this statement as I've always done, but
then, don't worry about Mr. Lazarus, Brian: we have had this kind or
argument once and again and last time I was called a "Bitter Man"...
compared to the names he's been calling you, I suppose I was lucky!
This is the problem with Spielberg. The power this man has in trashing
culture is immense. Now we have that at popular levels nothing is real
unless is on TV or made by Spielberg. Sad really.

Leave Alien to HR Giger (hats-off to him) and T. rex to Marc Bolan (By the
way, a Tyrannosaurus image was never used by the group in any of its
official records... So there was a specific pop-orientated surrealistic
irony in using the name).



Luis Rey

Visit my Website on http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~luisrey