The Core
The Core (2003) is a science-fiction disaster film about a team who is tasked with drilling to the center of the Earth to set off a series of nuclear warheads in order to restart the rotation of the Earth’s core. I found the film to be really awful, on account of its lack of scientific accuracy, a Hollywood-portrayal of hacking, and how contrived the writing seemed at times. 1
In the film, a top-secret experimental weapon called DESTINI is blamed for accidentally stopping the core’s rotation. The lack of a rotating core causes several effects, including: 1
- An EMP blast, which caused pacemakers in a localized area to fail immediately.
- Birds flying in a frenzy, breaking through windows.
- Ground-based guidance systems calculating the incorrect position for the space shuttle’s landing, forcing an emergency landing in an LA river.
- The sight of auroras much closer to the equator than should be possible.
- An electric storm which caused stone buildings in Italy to explode
- No magnetosphere, which allowed microwaves to penetrate the atmosphere. This resulted in the ocean boiling and the Golden Gate Bridge experiencing a structural failure due to the metal it was made of melting.