After the fun and
flurry of the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s celebrations, January can seem pretty quiet. The days
are long and dark. The garden appears dormant. Spring is still a few months
off. It's a great time to head back to the movies, for more movie star plants.
I’m picking this movie for the genetically engineered security plants, and the greenhouse scene between Anderton and Dr. Iris Hineman, one of the brilliant, but deranged, scientists for the project. The plants have a very minor supporting role, and are not included in Dick’s original story. But I enjoyed the imagination behind the motion-activated vines that can ensnare unwary victims; the menacing Doll’s Eye hybrid (based on Actaea pachypoda - White Baneberry) that can slash skin and deliver a toxin that renders paralysis and death, unless an antidote is quickly given; and the carnivorous plants that seem to caress Dr. Hineman’s face as she tends them. Learn more:
First up is Minority Report, a futuristic crime thriller, loosely
based on the short story by Philip K. Dick. In the movie, crimes of passion
have been eliminated in 2054 Washington, D.C., because of an experimental program
that uses three specially gifted human “Pre-Cogs” who can see crimes that will
be committed in the future. The drama unfolds as the Pre-Cogs predict that John
Anderton, head of the Pre-Crime unit that acts on these predictions, will himself
commit a murder. The short story and movie both wrestle with freewill and determinism.
Can someone be held accountable for a thought? Will a person take a predetermined
action based on a thought, or might they take alternative action? The 2002
movie adds a lot of fun, futuristic gadgetry to the bigger questions.
I’m picking this movie for the genetically engineered security plants, and the greenhouse scene between Anderton and Dr. Iris Hineman, one of the brilliant, but deranged, scientists for the project. The plants have a very minor supporting role, and are not included in Dick’s original story. But I enjoyed the imagination behind the motion-activated vines that can ensnare unwary victims; the menacing Doll’s Eye hybrid (based on Actaea pachypoda - White Baneberry) that can slash skin and deliver a toxin that renders paralysis and death, unless an antidote is quickly given; and the carnivorous plants that seem to caress Dr. Hineman’s face as she tends them. Learn more:
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