It’s another Thursday and I’m doing my best to keep up with the Thursday Movie Picks. Thursday Movie Picks is held every Thursday. The rules are very simple. Just pick three to five movies that go along with the theme of the week. This week it’s “Scientists.”
1. Jurassic Park: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Paleontologists Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler and mathematician Ian Malcolm are among a select group chosen to tour an island theme park populated by dinosaurs created from prehistoric DNA. While the park’s mastermind, billionaire John Hammond, assures everyone that the facility is safe, they find out otherwise when various ferocious predators break free and go on the hunt.
This is one of my favorite movies. Anytime it’s on TV I have to watch it. I still get butterflies in my stomach when Dr. Grant sees an actual dinosaur for the first time. It’s a pretty solid warning of what not to do with scientific power as well. And yet there are how many more movies after this one? But I love it and I can’t get enough. I can’t wait for Jurassic World 3.
2. Avengers Endgame: “Good. You had me worried there, because that’d be horseshit. That’s not how quantum physics works.”
After the devastating events of Avengers: Infinity War (2018), the universe is in ruins. With the help of remaining allies, the Avengers assemble once more in order to reverse Thanos’ actions and restore balance to the universe.
It might be a little bit of a reach but you have Bruce Banner/Hulk and Tony Stark both trying to figure out time travel and how the entire thing would work. There’s a lot of science in these movies, even if it’s exaggerated. I mean, the entire reason Hulk exists is because of an experiment gone wrong. Thor has even compared science and magic in previous movies. The MCU is filled with various scientists, engineers, and smart asses.
3. The Fly (1986): “I’m working on something that will change the world, and human life as we know it.”
In an isolated and outdated laboratory, a physicist called Brundle discovers teleportation and he shows Veronica, a journalist, his lab and his invention. The scientist decides then to experiment it on himself, but a fly enters the machine too and the man undergoes an unexpected mutation. Brundle progressively changes becoming a mutant monster with an uncontrollable force.
I probably saw this movie for the first time when I was way too young but it’s a good one. You have Jeff Goldblum playing a eccentric scientist who has an experiment go horribly wrong. Science is all fun and games until you accidentally turn yourself into a fly/human hybrid. I’ve never seen the original but I might try and make that happen soon. It’ll be interesting to compare the two since they seem very different story wise.
Only three movies this week on the list! I tried my best to mix it up. I didn’t want to include biopics because I felt a lot of people might have them on their lists. A few other films that crossed my mind though included “The Martian, “Arrival, and “Independence Day.”