The Science of Science Fiction is What Makes “The Rise of The Planet of The Apes” So Scary [VIDEO]

I love science, and I love science fiction. But not the old rocket ships and aliens stuff, what I'm talking about is the new science fiction. I think it has been made better by the fact that science itself has gotten so amazingly advanced. I really don't know how many people realize what a small step it is from our laboratories to our movie theaters these days.

The best example I can think of is "Jurrasic Park" a movie based on a book by my favorite author, Michael Crichton. You have all seen the movie but when you realize how much science was in it, you think, wow this "could" happen. At the time it was just based on the science of cloning, and how they learned to create an entire sheep from just one gene. Then he just takes that one small "what if" step. "What if we could find a fossilized mosquito from the jurrasic time with dinosaur blood preserved inside? Could we clone a dinosaur?" Umm, yes. Now, science has gone even further and literally created an organism form DNA up. Created life , in a lab from scratch. I will let you deal with the implications of that in your own mind.

I bring all this up because very soon a new movie will be out that deals with the science of science fiction in the same way. It take real life testing and experiments, things that are going on right now in labs around the world, and just takes that one , very, very small step of "what if?" That movie is "The Rise of The Planet of The Apes"

The old P.O.T.A. movies were great in dealing with the sociological science of things like race relations, slavery and nucleor war. And yes, I know there was the whole virus that killed off pets explanation of how we got to a planet filled with intelligent apes but lets be honest, thats more fiction than science based fiction.

This movie looks to explain how something like this could actually happen. Could a few scientifically enhanced apes really take over the world? Probably not, but with the new work in genentics we have also learned that genetically "enhanced" animals can actually pass down the new gene through normal reproduction. So in that way , could an ape made intelligent in a lab then reproduce that gene through generations and generations? yes. There is a great article on this very thing at Forbes.com

That to me, the "yeah this COULD happen... is both the exciting and scary thing about science fiction. I hope they do the science in the film the justice it needs and deserves. Either way , it looks good!