Nano Nano

The toys and merchandising tie-ins used to come after the movie, but now the movies are based on toys. This explains the depth of human emotion in recent movies like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and the current GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra.

These feature-length advertisements for toys feature villains intent on taking over the world using technology. The difference is that while we may have the capability at the present time to produce giant fighting robots that can transform into cars and trucks, why would we do that? However, there are limitless possibilities for nanotechnology, the super-weapon in GI Joe.

Nanotechnology is a field that grew out of quantum theory. It deals with tiny, tiiiiiny objects, particularly atom-sized micromachines. By tiiiiiny I mean one ten-millionth of a meter.

The late Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman was the first to postulate nanotechnology. He noted that there is nothing in the laws of quantum mechanics that forbid machines the size of molecules. “The principles of physics. . .do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom,” he wrote. Scientists today can already manipulate individual atoms. “The problems of chemistry and biology can be greatly helped if our ability to see what we are doing, and to do things on an atomic level, is ultimately developed.” (Of course Feynman was also a great kidder so we’ll never know how serious he was.)

Theoretically nano-machines will be able to replicate themselves by scavenging molecules from their environment. They will have the ability to reproduce and multiply themselves like viruses, allowing them to perform amazing feats of biological and technical engineering. For instance, they may be able to kill cancer cells, attack microbes, or remove plaque from people’s arteries. Like ultimate super-antioxidants, they could repair damaged cells and reverse the aging process. Being self-replicating, they would cost nearly nothing.

Molecular robots could devour toxic wastes, produce cheap and abundant food, and build other machines ranging from microchips to supercomputers. Nanotechnology proponents suggest that someday humans could achieve immortality. Human bodies would be frozen after death, and then molecular robots would reverse cell damage.

True, this is mostly theory — critics dismiss nanotechnology as science-fiction — but scientists are understandably excited. Still, they are not nearly as excited as the makers of GI Joe.

In the movie, the world’s largest weapons manufacturer and defense contractor MacMullen — who sounds like the entire cast of Trainspotting yelling at the tops of their lungs — develops “nanomites” that can eat through metal, stone, flesh, anything. With a vial of these beasties you can take down the Eiffel Tower — it’s in the trailer, so I’m not spoiling anything.

MacMullen plans to take over the world using these itty-bitty molecular robots. However, these being recessionary times, he needs to raise money for his diabolical scheme. So he puts the nanomites into warheads and sells them to the US Army. Then he sends his henchwoman The Baroness to steal them back.

This is how we know that he is not the supervillain he thinks he is. Nanomachines are self-replicating! You keep a few in the lab and you can have as many jillions of them as you want! Then again if he didn’t have to steal them back, The Baroness and Stormshadow the nasty kung-fu guy would have nothing to do and their action figures would have no reason to exist, which would defeat the purpose of making the movie, etc.

Opposing the nanotech merchants are the GI Joes, a top-secret American special operations unit with high-tech weaponry. Given the name “GI Joe” I’d assumed they were all American, but they also recruit Brits, Japanese, and French-Moroccans. The Joes race against time to stop the nanomite warheads from vaporizing the target cities.

But MacMullen has another foul plan. You can stop reading now, as this contains spoilers. Using nanotechnology, he and his evil lab genius alter an agent’s face. I don’t know if you can do that with nanomachines, but onscreen at least it seems more plausible than the face-switching technology in John Woo’s Face-Off. (That movie really bugged me. Cutting off Nicolas Cage’s face and pasting it on John Travolta’s skull would be like taking off Sienna Miller’s catsuit and putting it on, say, John Lithgow. It would fool no one.)

The movie itself is a loud and expensive live-action cartoon. As for the acting, you could replace Channing Tatum and company with action figures and no one would notice. Which is the point, I guess.

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