The
earth consists of an external surface and a core; between
the surface and the core is a mantle; in all, there are
some 2,000 miles from the surface to the core. Solar winds
are emitted, with temperatures that fry everything in their
path, but the earth is protected from solar winds by an
electromagnetic field (EMF) around the globe. The EMF,
in turn, exists because the energy source is a natural
nuclear reactor at the earth's core, which is the size
of Mars, where uranium and other fuels have collected.
If the core stops producing a magnetic field, the earth
is doomed, and trace elements in recent volcanic eruptions
show that the reactor is slowly running down, though the
life expectancy of the planet may still be billions of
years. So says J. Marvin Herndon in an essay in the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences published in early
March 2003. The film The Core, released at the end of March,
is based on a similar premise. Dr. Conrad Zimsky (played
by Stanley Tucci) has been hired by the U.S. Department
of Defense (DOD) to develop a weapon that would cause massive
earthquakes underneath an enemy country, Project Destiny,
and there is a hint in the film that the project may have
tested capabilities already. The movie begins in Boston,
where an executive suddenly falls dead on arrival at a
board meeting; indeed, two dozen or so persons die at the
same time within a small area of the city. Soon, the DOD
summons two experts to explain whether the event is a terrorist
attack of some sort. The two experts are Professor Josh
Keyes (played by Aaron Eckhart), a geophysicist, and Dr.
Sergei Leveque (played by Tcheky Karyo), a weapons expert.
Keyes immediately surmises that they all had pacemakers
which were turned off due to an electromagnetic disturbance,
so DOD loses interest. Trafalgar Square, London, soon is
filled with a swarm of pigeons that fly into people and
windows and then fly away, one of several similar incidents
reported around the world. Next, a spacecraft under the
command of Colonel Robert Iverson (played by Bruce Greenwood)
is unable to follow instructions from Houston Space Center
to land at Edwards Air Force Base; instead, Major Rebecca
Childs (played by Hillary Swank) gets permission to land
on the Los Angeles River. Meanwhile, Professor Keyes puts
two graduate students to work to generate a computer model
of the future of the earth, inputting unusual measurements
of various kinds, convinced that something new is happening.
When he presents the pessimistic conclusion that the earth
is dying quickly to world famous theoretical scientist
Dr. Zimsky, the latter scoffs at his findings until summoned
by the DOD to account for increasingly strange occurrences,
such as the shattering of Rome's Coliseum and the collapse
of the Golden Gate Bridge. Zimsky then calls upon Professor
Keyes to present his theory at a briefing in Washington.
Keyes argues that the earth's core has stopped spinning,
so the EMF is not holding back solar winds, and the planet
will fry in a year. The next question, whether anything
can be done to restart the spinning of the core, leads
the scientists to the Salt Flats of Utah, where Dr. Ed
Brazzleton (played by Delroy Lindo) has developed Virgil,
a vehicle made from the fictional element Unobtanium that
can penetrate the many hundreds of miles of the earth's
mantle to reach the core, where nuclear bombs can be detonated.
(The alternative, Project Destiny, is still a secret but
held in reserve as a last resort, though the danger is
that the earth may simply break up into pieces if massive
earthquakes emerge all over the planet.) Accordingly, DOD
agrees to dispatch Virgil with a crew consisting of all
the scientists thus far identified. DOD also hires a computer
hacker, nicknamed Rat (played by C.J. Quailis), who can
both access any database needed and can jam any information
leaking out about the secret mission. Most of The
Core then follows an exciting script that is a twenty-first
century retake of Journey to the Center of the
Earth (1959),
which in retrospect appears to be prescientific. Indeed,
the film is so filled with scientific knowledge that graduating
high school seniors may be inspired to major in geophysics
in college, and current college students might decide to
change their majors after being impressed by all the scientific
knowledge articulated as the crew encounters one problem
after another in their quest. Indeed, science knows more
about Mars than about the earth's core, so there is much
need to study the issues raised in The Core. Due to lack
of knowledge, there is some sci-fi mixed with real science,
but that will make classrooms even more exciting. Does
the earth shuttle complete its mission and does the crew
return to the earth's surface? Is Project Destiny launched
instead? The suspense is nailbiting, but there is no hint
that The Core, directed by John Amiel, is a film noir,
and that is enough of a clue about the heroism and the
ending. MH
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