Commentary: ‘The Marvels’ Has A Low Bar For Science

Science fiction is an enormous genre that encompasses a crazy amount of tones, styles, and settings. But unlike any other genre, SF is tied to a discipline completely separate from the arts. Science has a definitive set of laws and principles that are often used as fuel to tell sci-fi stories. But because storytelling is an imaginative process, these rules and laws of science are stretched and sometimes even ignored completely. Stories pick and choose what aspects of science can work within their plot line, and it’s not an equal playing field. Some stories try to adhere to science as strictly as possible while others don’t. The Marvels is a great example of the latter.

The story has a couple of quasi-scientific plot points that are important for moving the plot along and creating action. In the film, Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) interact with an energy field at the same time. The field was caused by a quantum band similar to the one Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) wears. Because of this, the three characters become inextricably linked and swap places whenever their powers are used. They have to team up to stop a villain from using wormhole technology to steal natural resources from other worlds.

Almost none of the film’s plot points would hold up under scientific scrutiny. But that doesn’t necessarily matter. This is a fun Marvel film with charismatic characters and tons of action. That’s the primary goal of the movie. It’s meant to entertain and not necessarily be an exercise in scientific pondering. This is in contrast to a film like Interstellar or a series like Star Trek, both of which go to great lengths in order to use as much real life science as possible. Because of this, stories that try to honor science have a much higher bar to clear than stories that don’t. It doesn’t mean one type of plot is better than the other. It just means science fiction can encompass many different things.

The Marvels is now streaming on Disney+.