Absolute Zero (film)
| Absolute Zero | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover | |
| Genre |
Drama Science fiction Comedy |
| Written by | Sarah Watson |
| Directed by | Robert Lee |
| Starring |
Jeff Fahey Erika Eleniak Britt Irvin Fred Ewanuick Michael Ryan Jessica Amlee |
| Theme music composer |
Annette Ducharme John Webster |
| Country of origin |
 United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) |
Harvey Kahn Robert Lee |
| Editor(s) | Gordon Rempel |
| Cinematography | Adam Sliwinski |
| Running time | 86 minutes (1 hour and 26 minutes) |
| Production company(s) | Front Street Pictures |
| Distributor | Marvista Entertainment |
| Release | |
| Original network | Various |
| Original release | July 19, 2006 |
Absolute Zero is a 2006 disaster film, directed by Robert Lee, and written by Sarah Watson. It stars Jeff Fahey and Erika Eleniak. The film is about polar shift, which brings a new ice age in Florida, and everywhere within 30 degrees north and south of the equator.
Plot
David Koch (Jeff Fahey), a climatologist employed by Inter Sci, proposes a theory that the last ice age was triggered by Earth's polar shift in a single day. When unusually cold weather strikes Miami and the birds start to return from the south a few months earlier, he is sent to Antarctica to find out what is happening.
Once there, he discovers a frozen body of a human that is at least 10,000 years old. What is interesting is his appearance—he looks as if he was instantly frozen in place. He also discovers cave paintings that show the sun falling down. A sudden blizzard then destroys a base camp and kills some members of his team.
Back in Miami, he presents his findings to his co-workers and his boss. He claims that another polar shift is only a couple of hours away and the new ice age is inevitable. However, nobody believes him. According to the current theories, the shifting of the poles should last at least 200 years so the climate changes, if any, wouldn't appear overnight. David's one-time love Bryn (Erika Eleniak) supports his theory with numerous stories about the falling sun followed by a darkness and terrible cold.
When the weather in Miami starts getting colder and colder, the evacuation is ordered and the people start to move to the north. David, Bryn, and a group of people miss the chance to escape, and their only hope is to hide in a special room at Inter Sci. In a couple of hours, everything within 30° north and south of the equator turns to absolute zero (–273 °C) turning Florida, Mexico, Central America, most of South America and Africa into an ice desert.
They manage to survive although everything is frozen outside the room. When the polar shift is over and the sun appears again, they are rescued.
As a consequence of polar shift, many people die and the world's climate changes completely—Northern Canada and Siberia become hot deserts; Greenland, Iceland, Northern Europe, New York City and State, Alaska, and Antarctica now have a tropical climate.
Filming
The film was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Scientific inaccuracies
The basic premise of the film, that the movement of the Earth's magnetic north and south poles to the middle latitude would cause a massive climatic shift, is only partially true. Although such an event (if it were possible) would result in dramatic effects on global weather patterns, it would not reverse the Earth's climate zones as shown in the film, since climate is governed not just by the Earth's magnetic field, but mainly by altitude and proximity to the poles via the tilt of the Earth's axis, which affords lower latitudes more direct sun rays.[1] Furthermore, the movement of the poles, not the magnetic poles, would move both arctic and temperate regions, but would not necessarily trigger an ice age. It would not cause an ice age localized to Miami, as the film suggests.
The depiction of the Earth's areas that experience a decline in temperature (ultimately to -273 °C) is not scientifically accurate. Below -196 °C (-320 °F), the two dominant gases of Earth's atmosphere (oxygen and nitrogen) would have liquefied and fallen to the surface. Once the temperature dropped below -220 °C (-365 °F), the liquefied gases would have solidified. This would have reduced the atmospheric pressure in this zone to drop to zero. The remaining atmosphere would move to this area and soon earth would have no gaseous atmosphere with a surface pressure of zero. None of these events occur in the film however there is a drastic drop of pressure happening in the end of the film.[1]
It is impossible to reach absolute zero naturally, nor would a movement of poles induce any reduction in Earth temperatures. But this is explained away in the film as being a previously unknown effect.
Furthermore, extremely low temperatures at or near absolute zero would almost certainly result in the manifestation of a Bose–Einstein condensate. Essentially, this causes quantum fluctuations to appear on a macroscopic scale. However, no such behavior is observed in the film.
References
- 1 2 "Goofs for Absolute Zero". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved August 21, 2009.