LOL
"Look guys, we've set up this ludicrous plot point visually by showing rainbowy streams of light throughout the movie. If you can believe that this place refracts light, then surely you can believe that it also refracts DNA, nevermind that that makes no sense from a scientific standpoint."
It's like they shot a movie and then retroactively inserted a half-assed plot to explain the weird shit they created
IIB
"The Shimmer is a prism, but it refracts everything. Not just light and radio waves. Animal DNA, plant DNA...all DNA."
Those who don't agree with you, understand that this is not the official explanation of the shimmer ("the weird shit they created") but an interpretation of those gene biological abnormalities by the young scientist, using her expertise in physics. Which obviously sounds unprofessional and inaccurate. Yet that's her way to share the brutal truth- everyone in the shimmer is mutating. What's causing these is not in the food or water or the air, it is the whole place.
It seems like a poor metaphor considering all of the women are scientists and should know at least enough about physics and biology to know that macromolecules like DNA don't behave the same way as light.
And I still don't like it because movie audiences who aren't that knowledgeable in science might mistake it for an actual explanation. It's extremely common in so-called science fiction movies to portray a completely fantastical even as scientifically plausible by having a scientist character say a bunch of sciencey-sounding gibberish.
It's especially annoying because this film was hyped by critics and marketed as an example of an "intelligent" sci-fi movie.
Yes, DNA don't behave the same way as light and radio wave. But the mysterious force in the shimmer that altering everything might be the same: some kind of quantum level technology of extraterrestrial civilization that beyond our comprehension. Therefore, there is no way for the young scientist to describe it in accurate scientific terms. Her "prism" metaphor is not as poor as you put it.
shareExactly. I hate people with a stick up their ass thinking they're smarter than everyone else while making the most basic points. The point is that something completely baffling is going on that we can't explain with 2018 barbarian-tier science. If they said the dark matter is interacting at a quantum level on your DNA then I guess it would be enough but does it really make a difference that they wanted to make it more artsy by making it about a prism?
shareThrow quantum mechanics into anything, you don't have to justify the outcome.. I mean, look at OAC.
Yes. I made it political... quantum tingly wingly stuff..
Yeah, this confused me too. Two completely unrelated processes using a not-very-good metaphor to relate them.
I'm not a biologist and I haven't read the book. I can buy that the crew were mutating within the Shimmer Zone. What I couldn't get was the 'intermingling' of DNA bit... i.e. deer with flowers for antlers, the bear-thing that somehow had the voice of the woman that it killed, people morphing spontaneously into trees...
Can anyone knowledgeable explain it a little better than 'refracted DNA'?
Everything was being re-written. Except the protagonist. So when she died and the mirror of her left the shimmer, she ate the "let me be a real girl" cookie off the large table. Don't you even have an imaginary friend to tell you these things? it's common rocket surgery for movies like this.
And people bagged out Ink... philistines.