A recent newsletter from AZoNano.com features a round-up of movies that use principles of the ’small’ and nanotechnology in their story lines. Apart from old favourites I Robot and Terminator 2 (and the cancelled screen adaption of Prey by Michael Crichton) nanotechnology in the movies seems to be fairly thinly spread. We’ve tried extending this list in the past, but it has not been a fruitful search. AZo Nano suggests Star Trek. Pictured is an example of the Borg. Apparently the Borg originate from medical nano-machines, but you’ll have to trust Wikipedia for that!
The origins of the Borg seem to be cross-over with biotechnology, an area replete with film examples. In fact Biotechnology Australia was able to compile a report on the portrayal of cloning in the movies and examine how this related to public attitudes on cloning.
Perhaps this leads us back to the myriad of technologies, applications, risks and benefits that fall under the term ‘nanotechnology’. It is our experience in education and public awareness that discussing the applications and then considering the technologies make most sense for most people. Nanotechnology on its own does not grip the imagination. Our search for nano-related movies will have to be much broader to capture the applications that might use nanotechnology. Anything else from Star Trek???
Adrian | 02-Jun-08 at 1:31 am | Permalink
Don’t know about movies but you can add the book “The Diamond Age” to your list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age), if you haven’t already. I’m sure there’s plenty more books out there that make use of nanotechnology in their plots, it does seem to make for compelling storytelling!