Canadian screenwriter responsible for science underpinnings of The Core

The Port Frances Times on Line April 01, 2003 TORONTO (CP)

    Armed with his physics degree from McGill University, screenwriter John Rogers admits he’s responsible for all the scientific ‘‘gobbledegook’’ designed to hold up the plot in the new science fiction adventure film The Core.    But Rogers insists that the far-fetched premise — about a group of scientists and astronauts who bore deep into the middle of the planet to prevent a fatal-to-mankind cataclysm — is grounded in scientific fact. Ninety per cent of it anyway.    ‘‘It’s a Journey to the Centre of the frickin’ Earth movie,’’ he says. ‘‘We’re going to have to bend science a little but the idea was not to treat the audience like chimps. Audiences are going to know what smells real. When you’re lying to them, at least lie to them convincingly and try to bend science and not break it.’’    Working with co-writer Cooper Layne, Rogers also made sure that this time, those venerable sci-fi regulars, the white-lab-coated scientists, were reasonably authentic.    ‘‘It’s kinda cool. I’m getting a lot of e-mails and comments from scientists about how great it is to see scientists being the petty, bickering people that they are.’’    Apparently there was even more scientific ‘‘explainy stuff’’ before the film was screened for test audiences, but they rejected it and out it went.    Aaron Eckhart and Stanley Tucci play geophysicists who learn that the Earth’s molten core has stopped spinning (who knew it turned?), a crisis that will damage the above-ground electromagnetic field, leading to all sorts of calamity, including massive electrical storms that will spell the end of the human race in a year’s time.    A six-person crew must ride an innovative inner-space ship down to the core, then plant a series of nuclear charges just so, to get it going round and round once more.    Rogers insists the premise is solid.    ‘‘The core actually spins, faster than the earth itself as a matter of fact, and every 500,000 years it slows down, pauses and reverses.’’    And just in case skeptics remain in the house, Paramount Pictures released a newly published theory from a bona-fide and highly respected American geophysicist who says the Earth’s nuclear furnace could die anywhere from 100 years to a billion years from now, causing the collapse of the planet’s magnetic field.    Rogers insists it’s real but concedes it sounds bogus. After all, Dr. J. Marvin Herndon, head of Transdyne Corp. in San Diego?    ‘‘I know, Transdyne sounds like such a 1980s sci-fi thing. But no, Herndon’s been kicking around in this field for 20 years. The paper was peer-reviewed by the Academy of American Scientists. I mean they don’t allow guys with tin foil on their heads to publish papers in these journals!’’    Rogers, 36, says he became interested in science when, as a kid, he went to the movies and saw such 1960s sci-fi thrillers as Fantastic Voyage, At the Earth’s Core and Journey to the Center of the Earth. A Bostonian, he went to McGill in 1984, fell in love with Canada and his future Canadian wife, and proudly took out citizenship.    Although he now lives in Los Angeles, he still has a home in Stittsville, Ont.    He began his showbiz career in Canada as a stand-up comic — even copped a few Gemini Award nominations and a very brief TV sitcom — but soon found his strength as a writer for such TV shows as Cosby and the animated Jackie Chan Adventures.    Screenplay credits include The Count of Monte Cristo, Rush Hour 2 and American Outlaws. His next project is to try to bring the legendary Isaac Asimov sci-fi trilogy, Foundation, to the screen.    But it’s those clunky 1960s sci-fi thrillers he remembers and says there are hidden tributes to them throughout The Core.    He says he drew the line, though, at what some of those movies, like The Mole People, proposed and he wasn’t going to go along with any suggestions his adventurers run into retro-looking prehistoric monsters or subterranean tribes down there.    ‘‘There was one terrifying moment during a meeting, when one of the producers went ‘Well, c’mon, no one’s ever been down there. Nobody knows what’s down there. ANYTHING could be down there.’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, sweet Jesus, no! It’s about to all go bad on me!’ ’’