Doom
The year is 2025 and a research team has uncovered ancient technology, which contains an interstellar instant pathway to Mars. Upon colonization, an archeological dig is commenced in hopes to discover more about the red planet. The dig proves fruitful in the discovery of humanoids that appeared to have once been bioengineered with a serum. The new scientists inhabiting Mars yearn for the biological component that is chromosome 24. Without doing any work except for the extraction process the research team took the chromosome 24 from the Mars humanoids and used it to find the soul. The soul is the unmapped part of the human genome. After they successfully extract the chromosome though, they discover that there are repercussions for playing with the newly deemed “soul compound.”
In the film the year is 2025 and science has the last word on whether or not something is or isn’t. Mars has been colonized and nothing seems to be impossible for science. Religion has ceased to be a major influence since the archeological dig on Mars proved fruitful with the discovery of human-like life forms. This being said, let it be known that religion still has a foot hold and shows no signs of diminishing entirely. There was no political, or social impact because it takes place on Mars it was a classified project so no one knew about it on earth.
In light of it being a movie, Doom does a mediocre job at giving religious, scientific, and cultural backgrounds to everything. It was mostly intended to take after a first-person-shooter video game and thus focuses on the aspect of scary creatures, cool weapons, and blood. The film was produced in 2005 during which science was playing a major part in technological breakthroughs. Mars was being explored with unmanned probes and the possibility of Mars sustaining life was beginning to seem plausible. Cloning of animals was in full swing at this point in time. The first animal to be cloned was 10 years prior. The bioengineering of plants began in the early 1990’s causing this technology to be quite advanced by this point. Also during this time religion was being explored from a fictitious point of view. The movie The Da Vinci Code was showing previews and getting ready for its debut. This is a highly controversial film adopted from a highly controversial novel about religion.
Doom is a movie that explores the idea of combining science and religion. In the movie a super soldier serum is developed which increases physical stamina, strength, reflexes, and increases mental awareness. However, the developers of said serum soon discover that when introduced into the body the serum adheres to a newly discovered compound of the human body. This compound is referred to as the “Soul Compound” or the human soul. The scientists in this movie are referred to as “insane” and “mad” and their ideas are “bad idea(s).” The serum was never tested on animals; the scientists went straight to injecting it into humans. With each test subject came different results. Depending on whether the person was, in their soul, good or bad the serum would either give them super-human capabilities or bring out the “monster”, respectively. In the opening scene, as a reconnaissance team is sent in to investigate a distress call, jars and tubes are found scattered amongst laboratories containing still functioning human organs. The scientists are described to have all gone “crazy” not because of their experimental ideas/procedures but in fact because their experimental serum is contagious by blood contact and spreads each time a person is killed. Rather than the typical zombie idea, it actually explains why victims come back from the dead. Their souls are, for lack of a better word, infected with the serum. Upon the soul’s release from the body, the victim’s true form shows. This provides an interesting out look on the connections and differences between religion and science. Society accepts that science and religion are separate. This movie combines the two in a coexisting manner in which science proves religious beliefs and religion is a part of science.
Doom. Dir. Andrzej Bartkowiak. Perf. Dwayne Johnson. DVD. Universal Pictures, 2005. Phoenix, Joseph. Mars Sample Return : Issues and Recommendations. Washington D.C.: National Academies P, 1997. Romero, John, Sandy Petersen, and Tom Hall. Doom. Computer software. Vers. 1.9. 10 Dec. 1993. 18 Apr. 2009.
The movie as a whole could not very well be used for the class because, as argued before, its main purpose was visual entertainment, intellectual discussions. It briefly touches the idea of “chromosome 24” and how the soul can be viewed from a biological standpoint. It also doesn’t shed much light on how or why chromosome 24 is the Soul Compound and how the serum brings out everyone’s soul. The movie further fails to explain why some people comeback in a zombie -esque manner while others transform into hell-sent demons. All those mentioned above set aside though, the movie makes for an interesting topic because rather than keeping the two apart or acknowledging that they have no connection it brings them together. No longer does science disprove religion, but prove it; no longer does religion deny science, but embrace it.