John welcomes writer/director Leigh Whannell (Saw, Upgrade, Invisible Man) and astrophysicist/science consultant Dr. Erin Macdonald (Star Trek) to explore the science of sci-fi. They follow the evolution of an idea through the brainstorm to edit phase, advising how to titrate the proper amount of fact to fiction along the way.

We look at how science can catalyze a story in a round of How Would This Be A Movie. Topics range from solar storms, evil artificial intelligence, human chimeras, and advanced spacefaring civilizations.

In the bonus segment for premium members, we discuss Leigh’s proposal for an 80’s shopping mall theme park experience.

Links:

• Ed Solomon’s Tweet on MIB Movie Accounting
• What is a Dyson sphere? and Dyson spheres on Wikipedia
• What is a Human Chimera? and Becoming Two People At Once
• Stephen King’s The Dark Half
• The Science Behind the Endgame Snap and Minimum Viable Population
• Rokos Basilisk: The Most Terrifying Thought Experiment of All Time
• There is No Antimemetics Division by qntm
• Are Solar Storms Dangerous to Us? and How We’ll Safeguard Earth From a Solar Storm Catastrophe
• The adorable love story behind Wikipedia’s ‘high five’ photos by Annie Rauwerda for Input
• A Collapse of Horses a short story collection by Bryan Evanston
• We Could be Heroes by Mike Chen
• Leigh Whannell on Twitter and Leigh’s 80’s mall tweet
• Erin Macdonald on Twitter
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Twitter
• John August on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Outro by Contra Entropy (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

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You can download the episode here.