Ingenious Pursuits The Science of REAL GENIUS Page 1 of 2 by Valteamo Introduction REAL GENIUS (1985) is considered by many fans to be their favorite Val Kilmer movie. This movie which tells the story of the legendary whiz kid, Chris Knight, and the neophyte genius, Mitch Taylor, whom Chris takes under his wing while foiling the military's development of a Star Wars-like death weapon, offers something for nearly everyone. Specifically, there are the characters: Chris Knight (Val Kilmer) - a Pacific Tech legend. Chris is insouciant, irreverent, and irrepressible - and "one of the 10 finest young minds in the country." (1) Val Kilmer described Chris as "someone who is very bold. He's a very creative physicist who takes chances. He has a lot of courage for what he believes in. He's uncompromising in his pursuit to be an individual." (2) Mitch Taylor (Gabriel Jarret) - the youngest and newest student at Pacific Tech who shares Chris' dorm room and idolizes Chris. Mitch is a genius and he is still very much a 15 year old kid. Jordan (Michelle Meyrink) - hypertalking, hypertasking. Jordan can make anything with her mind and her hands. Laslo Hollyfeld (Jonathan Gries) - once a legend at Pacific Tech until his work became everything to him. He lives in the steam cellar - a cave dweller who shows Chris, Mitch, and Jordan the light. And then, there is the screenplay whose highly quotable lines are as readily recalled by Kilmer fans as their own names and addresses. But, also inside the screenplay is the Science. Although Val Kilmer has made other films whose plots were underscored by science (such as THE SAINT), the science featured in REAL GENIUS is an integral part of the daily lives of the students at Pacific Tech in addition to being the deux ex machina of the plot. REAL GENIUS, while celebrating the antics of Chris, Mitch, Jordan et al, resident geniuses of Pacific Tech, pays homage to Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci and others whose genius has impacted on mankind. Background Story of the Deux Ex Machina "I sing of arms and the man," Virgil (70 B.C.E.-19 C.E.) - wrote in the opening line of the Aeneid. (3) REAL GENIUS' opening credits scroll across drawings which also 'sing' of arms and the man. The drawings are evidence of man's propensity and capability to develop weapons of destruction throughout the ages. In REAL GENIUS, the U.S. military has hired a university physics professor, Jerry Hathaway (William Atherton), in order to use his resources (the lab and the students) to help them develop the latest 'smart' weapon, so as to enable a Star Wars-like defense of the USA. Actually, they want to develop "a peacetime weapon that will upgrade the art of terrorism."(2) A farfetched plot? No way! In fact, the plot is based on historical events. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan first proposed what he called the Strategic Defense Initiative (S.D.I.) S.D.I. was born out of the convergence of political crisis and scientific hubris. In the first two years of the Reagan administration, the U.S. redefined its relationship with the Soviet Union and, in the process, produced not only a heightened level of hostility between the two superpowers, but also, a complete stalemate in the slow progress of arms control negotiations that had then been in progress for over a decade. Most of the leading military and foreign policy figures in the administration's early years preferred a confrontational escalation of the arms race, which they believed the USA would win. However, the recession of 1982, along with the emergence of the nuclear freeze movement in Europe and America, and its rapid transformation into a major political force threatened the U.S. agenda. (The nuclear freeze movement in the U.S. became a particular rallying cry for college students, including the Juilliard student, Val Kilmer, whose play "How It All Began" has to be viewed as a seminal piece of work for this time period). Fearful that budgetary constraints and popular fears would derail the administration's military and foreign policy, a number of Reagan aides began to take an interest in what until then had been a relatively obscure proposal from a small group of important, if somewhat erratic, scientists and university professors. It was a plan for developing a laser-guided, space-based defense against ballistic missiles, and its principal scientific sponsor was Edward Teller, a distinguished physicist, who was also known as a hyperbolic enthusiast for visionary schemes that existed largely in his own imagination. (REAL GENIUS' Professor Hathaway is a dumbed-down Teller). Teller and those who shared his vision talked ecstatically about the new technologies that they claimed were already available to create such a system, and they persuaded many within the administration to go along with the wishful and entirely erroneous idea that effective deployment was within easy reach...unfortunately for them, they had no Chris Knight! Teller's ideas were a godsend to the policymakers and they promoted them fervently. Reagan always presented S.D.I. as an impenetrable barrier that would protect the American people (even though, very early in the research process, almost every scientist understood that at best it would be able to protect only American land-based missiles, not the population). Today, in the year 2000, Ronald Reagan's missile shield project is still alive, though it shows no sign of consciousness. As Chris Knight might say, "would you classify this as a design problem or a launch problem?!" (1)