6 'Brilliant' Movie Scientists (Who Suck At Their Job)
#3.
Dr. Lawrence Angelo from The Lawnmower Man
Why He's A Genius:
Dr. Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) invented Project 5, a virtual-reality program that transforms its users into telekinetic gods. Unfortunately, godhood isn't all that it's cracked up to be, since you end up looking like Max Headroom on angel dust.
Not that this would hinder your chances of getting laid. The film's portrayals of VR sex are so disturbing that a man's penis would invert itself.
Why He Should Not Have Been Allowed To Do Science:
The film opens with the good doctor unsuccessfully testing Project 5 on chimps. After failing to create psychic ape-messiahs, Dr. Angelo recruits Jobe (a.k.a. Frank Lapidus on Lost), the titular, mentally retarded groundskeeper, to test Project 5.
"My experiment will make you smarter..."
And when we say "Dr. Angelo recruits Jobe," we actually mean "Dr. Angelo hops the unwitting schmo up on IQ-boosting video games and smart drugs for laughs."
"...or an episode of ReBoot directed by David Cronenberg."
Dr. Angelo had good intentions but a miserable grasp of scientific ethics. The ability to read at a middle-school level would be mind-blowing enough for Jobe, but giving him the ability to blow up a middle school with his mind? Please. We'd be better off with the chimps. The worst they'd do is transmogrify reality into a giant banana.
#2.
Dr. Herbert West from Re-Animator
Why He's A Genius:
Dr. West concocted the Re-Agent, a serum that resurrects the dead as mindless zombies. At first, the Re-Agent sounds like a truly awful idea. But think about it: Zombies are tireless, have no use for money and have crossed the unknowable chasm between life and death. In sum: They're the ultimate migrant laborers.
Sure, people would probably protest that these undead abominations are taking jobs away from living Americans, but that's simply because they don't have a zombie butler yet.
Why He Should Not Have Been Allowed To Do Science:
The Re-Agent raises some profound ethical questions, such as "Where's the dignity in dying if your rotting corpse is forced to work at Arby's?"
Regardless of a societally suitable answer (frankly, we'd only settle for nothing less than In-N-Out), Dr. West said, "Screw that noise!" and tested his serum in secret. This meant sneaking into morgues, reanimating disgruntled zombies and then reanimating any poor bastard unlucky enough to wander into the undead's path.
Needless to say, West racks up a sizable body count by the film's end. Had he just told someone what the fuck he invented, we're sure the N.I.H. would've provided him with a dump truck full of overripe old folks to un-birth. The movie would then be exactly like Cocoon if all the senior citizens ate each other.
Heck, West could've held a press conference to demonstrate the Re-Agent. Sure, there's the chance one of his test subjects would strangle an audience member with its zombie intestines, but that's the kind of stuff that gets your driveway paved in Nobel Prizes.
#1.
The Ghostbusters
Why They're Geniuses:
For those two readers who have never seen Ghostbusters: drive to your nearest mall and buy it. Now. Drive in the left lane if it's quicker. And don't worry about fatalities, the cops will understand. They've seen Ghostbusters.
For the rest of humanity: In no time and for little cost, they slapped together the Psycho-Kinetic Energy Meter, the Proton Packs, ghost-capturing technology and had the foresight to buy up cheap downtown New York real estate during the pre-Giuliani years.
14 North Moore Street. Google Map it.
Why They Should Not Have Been Allowed To Do Science:
When faced with irrefutable proof of mankind's ultimate question--the existence of ghosts and thus life after death and the soul--the Ghostbusters did what absolutely no ethical scientist would do: declare war on the spirits and imprison them in tiny boxes.
The theological and philosophical ramifications of an afterlife? Poppycock. The fact that most apparitions are just looking for earthly closure? Bosh. What about the possibility of reconnecting with dead loved ones? Screw that noise! Treat those bastards like we're exterminators and they're a roach infestation!
So let's just that say that if Grandpa Jim materializes in your home, DON'T call the Ghostbusters. Otherwise Peter Venkman will show up stinking of Campari, bark a witticism to no one in particular and unceremoniously Proton Pack the shit out of your living room.
Once all your earthly possessions are charred and radioactive, Venkman will slap you with a $1,000 invoice and ship Gramps off to ghost jail, where he'll spend eternity getting buggered by poltergeists in a firehouse basement.
And about those Proton Packs? These "unlicensed nuclear accelerators" have a fairly important design flaw: If you cross the streams, you'll destroy the universe.
This means that, at any given moment, reality as we know it rests in the hands of three clumsy, out-of-shape scientists.
Say Venkman trips. End of the universe. Stantz sneezes. End of the universe. Egon prolapses. End of the universe.
Winston was not a scientist.
Holy crap, the dickless EPA guy was right!
Have an idea for an article? Think you're funny? Just go here and sign up. No experience necessary.
And check out some actually terrifying scientists, in 9 Real Life Mad Scientists. Or check out some people that are making science cool, in The 6 Most Badass Stunts Ever Pulled in the Name of Science.
And stop by our Top Picks to see Brockway and Gladstone try to grow their very own Kelly LeBrock.
Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to get more of that precious funny.
The cops who got me hadn't seen Ghostbusters, either. Suffice to say, they were not understanding.
Reply#5 Dr. Wu's failure to know about frog genetics isn't his only big failure. Dr. Wu should also have genetically modified a failsafe into all the dinosaurs so that they wouldn't eat humans, at least unless they were desperate. How? There are genes in all creatures with a sense of smell and taste including humans and dinosaurs which control what you find to smell and taste good or bad, and Wu could simply manipulate these genes so that the dinosaurs found humans to taste and smell bad to them, thus they probably wouldn't eat them, unless they were starving, which if they were being fed properly they wouldn't. Of course, Wu's first failure with the frogs that allowed them to breed would eventually remove this failsafe anyway.
ReplyHonestly, it was made a little more clear in the book, which really suffered when they made the movie. Wu wanted to put so much more work into the dinos, and to make them a lot safer (namely by removing the poison sacs on the fan-headed dinos that killed Nedry) but Hammond wouldn't allow one to be killed and autopsied because of the expense, and really rushed the development and breeding of all the dinos. He really got off easy in the movie, while guys who were right in the book (like Muldoon, the security guy who got taken out by the raptors) got seriously shafted. In the book Muldoon takes out a T-Rex with a freaking rocket launcher and blows away two raptors, and Grant himself takes out like four or five raptors himself. Forget the movie, read the book, it's way better. It actually makes sense that Nedry could take down the entire park on his own, because he had set this up like months in advance and had tied all the stuff together, and Hammond had put all his trust in Nedry and had refused to allow Muldoon to get any weapons that'd be really effective against the dinos, or more than two gas-powered jeeps. Hell, they didn't even know what would work on the dinosaurs, because (as I said) none had died yet and Hammond wouldn't let them kill one to autopsy it.
the ghostbusters don't belong on this list because they didn't just indiscriminately "bust" innocent ghost. i submit to you that the ghost they incarcerate are in the midst of a crime/crimes and therefore deserved at least some sort of repremand: library ghost - no crime, no incarceration; slimer - destruction of property, theft of food; stay puft marshmellow man - MAJOR destruction of property, copyright infringement; zuel - attempted murder, conspiracy to commit genocide, terroristic threats.
ReplyNOBODY steps on a church in my town!
Tony Stark made the iron man suit for himself....with his own equipment....in his basement. Why would anyone consult the company they own about a side project?
ReplyPst, comedy site...
Besides, he knew that something was up the minute those guys showed him that they were using HIS gear. After that, and after seeing a big "Stark Industries" logo on the thing that put the shrapnel in his chest to begin with, I'm not surprised he was hesitant to let anything get back to his company.
"Egon prolapses. End of the universe." Best line ever.
ReplyNot to argue with your logic, but maybe he wanted to breed velociraptors to use them as soldiers and sell them to the military (while using a chip or something to control their brain). Of course, he's still an idiot for putting them in a Kid's Park.
ReplyYou could reason he's an idiot for putting any dinossaur in a kid's park.
Well if we are going off the book, he was a theoretical genetic scientist who was offered a job to apply his theories by an extremely corrupt business man who cared nothing for the consequences of his actions, and the park was not designed for kids in the book, but to have something like 15k per day, and that is in 1980s dollars. He also realizes his mistake in the book, and helps to correct it, unlike in the movie where he just GTFO the island
#1 um... they actually did cross the streams...
ReplyOnly when the alternative was their world being destroyed. It was either Gozar's world or ours.
#4
Reply Hide All See All 3 Replies*Facepalm*
THAT'S NOT HOW NUCLEAR REACTORS BEHAVE!
Nuclear reactors are no where near as dangerous as people think they are.
Especially nuclear fusion.
Nuclear fusion reactors will need a constant energy input to get the reaction going. If the reactor takes any significant damage, the the reaction will stop and worse case damage the reactor.
A nuclear reactor DOES NOT BEHAVE LIKE A NUCLEAR BOMB. Especially a fusion reactor.
Unfortunately, we don't have nuclear fusion reactors- we use fission. You still have a good point, though.
If you saw the movie, then you'd realize that it was clearly not a safe experiment.
Damn right. Even a fission reactor having a meltdown will never produce a mushroom cloud. The uranium used is nowhere near pure enough. Civilian reactors use 50% pure U-235. Military-grade reactors use 55%, usually. Nukes take 95% or more. Considering Doc Ock was using Tritium, a isotope of hydrogen which is used to boost the yield of fission bombs and make them into the H-bombs we know of today, it wouldn't even be close to a nuclear reaction.
What's more, a modern fission bomb uses several pounds of uranium or plutonium. What was used in the movie (or in real life) is several ounces of tritium. Even if that stuff was pure U-235, the reaction would have been relatively tiny.
As for a fusion reaction, ignoring everything I've just said? Sure, the resulting plasma breaches (those big loop-looking things that Octavius was suppressing before it went haywire) and fire would have destroyed the building and possibly a few buildings nearby, but judging by how quickly the whole thing shut down when Peter pulled the plug, New York would have suffered more damage from a dockworker letting out a good-sized fart.
Really, though, Octavius clearly didn't test any of his theories or make a test run in there, even with a microscopic amount of tritium, and Harry clearly didn't have any of the clearly numerous OsCorp scientists (whom we saw in the first movie walking around in lab coats) check the numbers, or say...realize that testing something with a huge deal of magnetism and heat in a building made of metal was a terrible idea. He could have picked the location better, but still, the fact is that New York would have been fine. If anything, the number of people Peter saved by shutting that thing down is limited to the people that were in the building at the time.
the ghostbusters should never ever be on this list. they were doing a service. its not like they were just running around looking for ghosts to confine, they were contacted becuase a ghost was haunting the living, ghost shouldnt have been an a hole in the first place. much like an exterminator does, they were exterminators of past lives, but they didnt wipe them out of existence, they just put them in the containment grid, hell, probably was a blast, chilling with other ghosts, probably orgy's galore
ReplyHave you seen what the container looks like? It's in the cartoon. For an image and a good article, you should look up "6 Classic Kid's Shows that Secretly Take Place in Nightmarish Universes."
One minor edit. While the streams up the ante from 18sq miles of NY, to, all of reality. The Ghostbusters remake (or originate depending) Doc Occ by setting up in the middle of NY. Thus solidifying their hold on #1 on this list.
ReplyIn regards to Tony Stark's messiah complex making him supervillain-ish: in the comics around the Civil War/Secret Invasion arcs, he for the most part IS one of the superhero community's worst enemies.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesWasn't the first time, either. In the classic "Armor Wars" storyline, Tony hunted down everyone who was using his tech -- friend or enemy, legally or otherwise. I love the guy, but his worst flaw isn't alcoholism, it's the belief that he can make everything better by taking control personally.
He's a narcissist. Definitely his biggest flaw.
but superheroes would be boring without character flaws
There's character flaws, and there's total jackass flaws.
I agree with you. Just want to say the Civil War arc got me to actually hate Iron Man; he imprisoning the heroes that didn't want to register with the government in the Negative Zone. He played a part in Cap "dying". Iron Man fought alongside villains, who obviously wanted the heroes to submit their identity, so they could kill them later on. I loved when Cap punched him in the face.
Lightsabers will of course always be #1 on my list of "Fictional Items I Wish Were Real That I Could Own" but a proton pack is a damn close second. Damn close.
ReplyYeah and if you have a single one, there is no danger in crossing the streams.
Lightsabers are so freaking awesome I've even seen them in stories in cheesy romance novels. Even porn for bored housewives cannot escape the might of lightsabers.
Fusion reactions don't create explosions. #4 makes no sense.
ReplyTo be fair, I'm pretty sure Egon doesn't suggest crossing their streams would un-make the universe/blow it up. Just that'd it simply kill the Ghostbusters instantly... Maybe.
ReplyAnd it turns out not to be the case anyway. So scratch that one altogether.
Stark refused to let anybody duplicate his arc reactor because he didn't want it to be used as a weapon. Guess what everybody who got their hands on arc reactor technology used it for.
Reply Hide All See All 7 RepliesExcept they might not have gotten that idea if Stark didn't, you know, make a weapon out of it first.
No, I'm pretty sure they would have gotten that idea anyway.
This. Actually, selling out on that s**t knowing the likely consequences would've made him a much worse scientist, at least from an ethics standpoint. (Arguably a better businessman, though.)
He should have given it to Iran. They're using nuclear power for civilian use only!
Free, universal power would do a lot to reduce the need for weapons. Why fight in the MidEast for oil when you have an arc reactor in your car?
Meh, ultimately wars are not about economy, but power.
True. Really, one of the first things anyone does when they get their hands on some new tech is figure out how to weaponize it. Arc reactors in tanks, planes, aircraft carriers, satellites, subs? One arc reactor on a Russian Kilo-class sub (diesel-powered, but almost totally silent on batteries because the coolant pumps on a nuclear sub always make noise) would give it virtually unlimited range, and since it has no moving parts, it's (presumably) totally silent. Stark could have eliminated global warming with the arc reactor, but he'd be turning warfare a hundred times deadlier in the process. Not to mention he's virtually eliminated heart failure (at least ignoring the palladium poisoning issue in Iron Man 2) as a cause of death.
I like the Ghostbusters way too much to condemn them in this way, even though the entry here on them is right. :P I always wondered what gave them the right to unconditionally imprison every ghost they encounter, good or bad.
ReplyThe moral of the story? "When you die, move on." If you hang around being a dick to people, your ass is going to ghost jail.
Expected Flynn from Tron to be here. He got kidnapped by his own program that tried to attack Earth. Pretty sure that means he shouldn't be a scientist.
ReplyNaaaahh, because it wasn't really Kevin Flynn's fault. :P Blame that meany Ed Dillinger for stealing Flynn's idea and giving the MCP too much power.
f*****g raptors.
ReplyAnyone else notice that Jobe in Lawnmower Man looks a hell of a lot like Trey Parker? Wait, that should be the other way around...that's actually scarier
ReplySay what you will about Spider-Man 2... Alfred Molina's man-boobs totally made it worthwhile!
Reply