Greetings, my excellent friends!

As one of our new Spwug colleagues pointed out yesterday, the European Organization for Nuclear Research just activated their Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.  In case you aren’t caught up to speed, the purpose of this Collider is to help physicists better figure out particle physics – including learning more about the Big Bang, black holes, antimatter, and dark matter.  There was even some debate over the safety of such an endeavor, as well as some attempts to stop the Collider from ever being fired up.  But, as of yesterday, the button was pressed, and first phase has begun.  That sucker is on like TRON!

And… so far so good, right?  I mean, we haven’t been invaded by inter-dimensional beings, had our souls devoured by one of The Old Ones, or been sucked into the never-ending void of nothing.

Although, I do have to wonder why my wife and I suddenly have a roommate with a weird eye-stalk coming out of his forehead, or why my walls are bleeding.  Eh, I’m sure everything’s fine.

Besides, I would rather spend this time paying homage to CERN’s first step into the history books by sharing with you a few of my favorite movie and TV moments where “pushing that button” or “flipping that switch” to further science really did screw things up.

 
“Quantum Leap”

I’m sure a lot of you remember this little gem from the late ‘80s/early ‘90s.  It was about a scientist named Sam Beckett who was pressured by his financial backers to prove his theories on time travel or lose funding.  So what did Sam do?  That’s right – he “pressed that button”, stepped into the accelerator… and vanished.  Then, for five seasons, he “leaped” around time, assuming other peoples’ identities from the past and trying to “change history for the better”.  And all he had for help was his best friend who could only appear as a hologram.  Meanwhile, his memory was all Swiss-cheesed and his friends and family back home had to struggle to keep the project together while trying to get him back.  Of course, if he hadn’t pushed that button, we wouldn’t have had five years of a great little show that could.  Unfortunately, pushing that button also meant we had to suffer a major blunder when NBC cancelled the show prematurely, forcing the writers to scramble together a crappy ending.  Sam never went home.  And we never forgave NBC.

 
Back to the Future

Ah, one of my favorite movies.  I’m kinda stretching my own set-up here, since technically Marty’s trip to 1955 was an accident.  But, I think it still qualifies because Doc Brown “flipped that switch” on the time circuits with the intention of using the DeLorean to travel through time to understand the universe better.  It’s just too bad he got shot by Libyans outside the Twin Lone Pines Mall and Marty ended up in the driver’s seat.  Still, the best of intentions led to a great adventure story that ended up with Marty changing his own future for the better and ultimately saving his friend from lead poisoning.  Unfortunately, it also led to two sequels that weren’t bad, but not nearly as good as the adventure that started it all.  Not to mention the fact that thanks to Marty, we had to suffer an “evil” 1985 for a bit.  Crazy drunk pedestrians.

 
“Sliders”

Okay, this one is in slightly the same vein as “Quantum Leap”, but I really loved this show (when it originally aired on FOX).  Here you have a teen-boy genius named Quinn who is developing a way to travel through dimensions.  After an alternate version of Quinn shows up to help Quinn Prime figure out one last equation, QP decides to “press that button” on his remote timer, sending himself, his professor, his pseudo-girlfriend, and a random entertainer into an alternate reality.  Oh, and surprise: the timer has been accidentally reset so that they have to keep traveling to random universes in order to find a way home.  Not only did this get them into a lot of trouble every week, but meeting a female version of oneself is kind of creepy.  So creepy, in fact, that your show gets stuck in a war over creative differences that ends with you getting handed over to the Sci-Fi Channel and most of your original cast leaves.  And we all know what the Sci-Fi Channel does with potentially good shows…

 
The Fly (1986)

David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of The Fly made the original look like a Disney adventure.  Cronenberg knows how to make with the gross-out, and he didn’t disappoint with this film.  In it, a scientist named Seth Brundle creates a set of telepods that allows teleportation.  For science!  After a couple of minor setbacks, Brundle is finally able to transport living tissue successfully.  So what does he do?  C’mon, have you been paying any attention?  Right – he “pushes the button(s)”, climbs into the telepod and prepares himself for molecular transport.  Unfortunately, a fly literally gets into the works.  And instead of head and arm swapping, we get to watch Jeff Goldblum (in all of his quirky-acting glory) slowly fall apart in what would become one of the best on-screen transformations into a giant, mutated monster.  Sadly, it didn’t end well.  No, Brundlefly did not become a superhero.  No.  He became Brundleflytelepod.  Then he became Brundleflytelepodshotgunheadsplodey.  And just to pour salt in the head wound, we got a lackluster sequel three years later with Princess Vespa and Rocky Dennis.

Well, that does it for this installment.  I wish I could have listed more, but due to space and time (HA!  See what I did there?  Collider!) I decided to limit this list to the first few “don’t push that button” moments that immediately sprang to mind based on my fondness for them.  There are definitely more examples out there.  You can find them in your public library!  Okay, no you can’t.  Okay, maybe.  Look, it doesn’t really matter.  What I’m getting at is this: take a moment to celebrate Collider Day (That’s what I’m dubbing it.  And I’m trade-marking it, too!  Gimme money!) by going out and finding a few titles that you enjoy involving scientists, weirdos, hobos, and general crazy people who “push that button” or “flip that switch” in the interest of science, pop them in your media player of choice, and enjoy!

Oh, and don’t mind that thing in the corner with the tentacles and moss growing on its head.  It only eats when the screaming stops.

The Don is afraid to dive into the plasma pool.  It hasn’t been a full hour since he last ate.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 5:48 am and is filed under the future, Donnie Sturges, geek love, Television, movies, news. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.