The Hotline Hollywood Calls for Science Advice

Once upon a time, any scientist in a movie would likely be an evil mad scientist. Luckily, we got away from that and made more scientists the hero in films. But movie producers and scriptwriters are not scientists. To avoid being made fun of on internet forums, moviemakers try their best to be as scientifically accurate as possible within a story. So they consult the Science and Entertainment Exchange, which connects real scientists to scriptwriters in order to bring realism and accuracy to their films. Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, has a few movie credits for science consulting, most recently for Arrival.

Plait tells more about Arrival and the the Science and Entertainment Exchange at his new SyFy Wire blog. Actually, it's Bad Astronomy with a new home. He also has links to a lot of scientists on the internet you can follow, and a longer video about the science of the movie Arrival.