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The Best (and Worst) films about Engineers?

jlucas
jlucas over 9 years ago

Given that engineers are responsible for many of the most exciting innovations in human history, it's little wonder that they're often featured in Hollywood movies. Whether it's as the obligatory 'brains' in an action/adventure ensemble or as the subject of an Oscar-baiting biopic, engineers are a common sight on celluloid.

 

The latest addition to the canon of films explicitly focused on engineering is 'Hidden Figures', a forthcoming biopic of the pioneering physicist, space scientist, and mathematician Katherine Johnson who, along with her colleagues Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, made a crucial but often overlooked contribution to the American 'Space Race' of the 1960s.

 

The problem with putting engineering on film is that while it can be an exciting job, it isn't always a particularly glamorous one. This means that Hollywood productions often have to take major creative liberties in order to make engineering stories interesting and accessible to the casual viewer - occasionally simplifying or wildly distorting the scientific work that goes behind it.

 

For this week's discussion, we'd like to hear about some of your favourite - and least favourite - films about or heavily featuring engineers. Which films do you believe do the best job of accurately portraying the profession? And which ones got it painfully wrong?

 

To kick things off, here are five of the most celebrated films that feature engineering in some form.

 

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

 

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Russell Crowe was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of mathematician and Nobel Laureate John Nash in this 2001 biopic from director Ron Howard. The film was widely praised, although drew some criticism for making major divergences from the facts of Nash's life, and watering down the discussions of Nash's pioneering work.

 

Apollo 13 (1995)

 

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One of the most iconic and oft-quoted movies of all time, Apollo 13 manages the tricky balancing act of depicting the heroism of the real-life engineers who safely brought the crew of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission back to earth, without sacrificing the technical accuracy behind the story .

 

October Sky (1999)

 

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An early breakthrough role for actor Jake Gyllenhaal, October Sky is based on the bestselling autobiographical novel of the same name by former NASA engineer Homer Hickam. Although only a modest success on release, it has been praised for its inspiring story and positive depiction of a bright young science student.

 

Contact (1997)

 

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Based on the 1985 novel by Carl Sagan, Contact presents a more thoughtful and philosophical approach to the science fiction genre, starring Jodie Foster as a SETI scientist who discovers a signal that appears to be a message from an extraterrestrial being.

 

The Imitation Game (2014)

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Although criticised in some quarters for the questionable accuracy of its story, this blockbuster based on the life and work of Alan Turing - who decrypted German intelligence codes for the British government during World War II - was a major critical and commercial success, with star Benedict Cumberbatch particularly praised for his depiction of the tormented cryptanalyst, who tragically took his own life in 1954 after undergoing chemical castration as a result of his homosexuality.

 

Have we missed your favourite film about engineers? What about the ones that get it spectacularly wrong? Let us know your picks for the best and worst engineering movies in the comments section below.

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Top Replies

  • cstanton
    cstanton over 9 years ago +2
    C'mon, no Big Hero 6? it's basically a film about a workshop/hackerspace/robots. Keeping with the Engineering super hero theme, what about Iron Man? I, too, would like to build an exosuit in a cave from…
  • phoenixcomm
    phoenixcomm over 9 years ago in reply to bwelsby +2
    yeper.. I have a copy and can send it if you wish... BTW corny yes, stupid or worst no way. I have about 90 films of this genre, which I call Classic SyFi, then about another 90 films of SyFi which really…
  • phoenixcomm
    phoenixcomm over 9 years ago in reply to shabaz +2
    What can you say I watch a lot of TV. So here is my SciFi list and i have three toppers: Prometheus, and Deja Vu. Deja Vu is on my Terrorism list also, and the Martin. 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016).mkv 2012…
  • raspyron
    0 raspyron over 8 years ago

    The China Syndrome is a 1979 American thriller film that tells the story of safety coverups at a nuclear power plant.

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  • altoidian
    0 altoidian over 8 years ago

    I was just a kid when I went to see "The Spirit of St. Louis", 1957, Jimmy Stewart. I was living in St. Louis at the time and took the bus all the way across town to see this film. It hooked me on aviation. It was the first time I realized airplanes could be designed in just about any form so long as you paid attention to the science I knew little about at the time- avionics. I immediately went to the library and checked out any book I could understand on how airplanes fly.The other one that impressed me for the sheer engineering drama (not the love interest BS) was John Wayne's 1947 overly dramatic acting in "Tycoon". I really liked all the sense of a big, really tough job having to be done in a hurry but done right. The one that go me hooked on chemistry was the old film with Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson called, "Madam curie" from the 1938 classic...amazingly, it was written by Aldous Huxley, the renowned sci-fi writer and social observer. The characters in the film displayed such determination to solve their question about radioactivity, I had to get into it. Before I was 12 years old I had a chemistry lab that rivaled that of the local high school. I earned the money for it delivering groceries and selling Christmas cards. I made some skin lotion for my step mother that worked so well, she began selling it at work! (It was nothing but emulsified rose water, lanolin and glycerin- but those ladies absolutely loved it.

     

    For the worst engineering films, though very entertaining, I think was the Star Wars film depicting the young Anikin Skywalker as a child building huge racing jet engines. - Child engineers...really? ;-)

    I was unimpressed with any time travel movie, including the "Time Machine", "Time tunnel" and of course, the iconic "Terminator" movies- Not that they weren't dramatic and entertaining. but, the engineering  premise of the films based on the impossible "Time Conundrum" makes them seem a bit silly to me.

     

    I'm discounting all the "Giant Ant". "Electric Space ships" and "magnetic Monsters" films of the 50's. Not becasue they were not entertaining, but in my mind they fell into the fantasy realm too much. Films like "When World's Collide" and "Atlas shrugged" were more like social discussions than actual engineering films, though, like most of these films being discussed, the actual Engineering is more like scenery than the main theme of the story.

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  • D_Hersey
    0 D_Hersey over 8 years ago

    Design News - Blog - 13 Horror Movies About Technology Gone Wrong

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  • dfilbert14
    0 dfilbert14 over 8 years ago

    You forgot Prometheus !!  Those engineers made US !!  Both the best - and the worst - in a sense !!  {:>)

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  • phoenixcomm
    0 phoenixcomm over 8 years ago in reply to dfilbert14

    Nope dfilbert14 I got that one with cover.. I cant wait for another year for the next one.

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  • dougw
    0 dougw over 8 years ago

    I am surprised at how many movies are referenced in this discussion, and by how many I never heard of. I am obviously not heavily into movies, but I like watching them well enough that I should probably know more about it. I guess when other things like sports and hobbies have a "slight" edge in priority it might be enough to make me almost oblivious. Actually,now that I think about it, my childhood may have been a factor - the country I grew up in had no TV and the lone movie theater showed exactly one movie exactly once per week.

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  • uscdadnyc
    0 uscdadnyc over 8 years ago in reply to dougw

    At least your home country's life-style/media (of your childhood) was Not as Bad as in the Fictionalized American TV Show "Taxi" circa 70's(?). Where the fictional emigre (played by the late Andy Kaufman) said of American Sports use of Instant Replay. He said: "In my country, we do not have Instant Replay. We make them do it again."

    USCDADNYC (NY NY USA)

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  • phoenixcomm
    0 phoenixcomm over 8 years ago in reply to uscdadnyc

    Woh, you didn't like Taxi, now that was funny. But then you had "All in the family" with Archi Bunker, and others like the black "moving on up", or Sanford and Son with red fox..

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  • ajens23
    0 ajens23 over 8 years ago in reply to phoenixcomm

    Robinson Caruso on Mars,

    With cameo by Adam West

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  • jack.chaney56
    0 jack.chaney56 over 8 years ago in reply to ajens23

    Still remember the pack he had with all the gadgets like communication, weather, radar, food, etc.

     

    Jack

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