Category:
movie
Synopsis:
At a college known for its genius students, two pupils, Mitch and Chris, are joined together on a team for a private project headed by one of the top professors at school, Prof. Hathaway. The project is a laser beam, and they are hounded fanatically by Hathaway to the point where Chris is threatened with not graduating from the school and Mitch is told he could be dismissed back to a high school. After completing their laser only days before their deadline, it is discovered that Hathaway has stolen the invention and is selling it to the military as a stealth assassination device. It is up to the geniuses who invented the laser to take responsibilty for their invention and to ensure that it can never be used for such underhanded and injust reasons again.
Context for time depicted:
The timeline of the story takes place in the 1980s, and has references to the California Institute of Technology in small storylines or actions that take place. No direct threats to security were mentioned to warrent the creation of the laser.
Context for time of production:
Popular during the Regan administration, the SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) was introduced by President Regan himself as a defense system that would operate from space. It would use ballistic missiles initially, but he had researchers working on lasers from the ground and air and other possible ways of transporting this defense system that became known as the Star Wars defense.
Assessment:
This movie is very amusing and entertaining. It is filled with many excellent goofy quotes. The two main characters, Mitch and Chris, are foils of one another. Mitch is extremely dedicated to his work , almost too much, while Chris does not care and shows little dedication to anything other than his own amusement. Professor Hathaway, however, shows the scientist not as someone to be admired or liked, as in the two students, but as someone who wants to pave his own way using the work of others for his own gain. He does not care about the consequences of his deal with the military, who are breathing down his neck for results which in turn makes him breathe down the boys' necks. Hathaway has used most of the military's grant money for his own enjoyment rather than to help the boys with the project.
References:
Real Genius. Dir. Martha Coolidge. Perf. Val Kilmer, Gabriel Jarret. DVD. TriStar Pictures, 1985.
"Real Genius (1985)." Internet Movie Database. 4 Apr. 2008 <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089886/>
"Strategic Defense Initiative." Infoplease.Com. 2005. 22 Apr. 2008 <http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0846897.html>.
How would this be used?:
This could be used to show a corrupt and often one-sided relationship between teachers and their students when the students are smarter than the teacher, and how the military takes advantage of science's innovations.