> Real Genius is a great film in many ways, marred only by the assumption that a military laser is a bad thing to be working on
I wouldn't call it "marred" like it was a small detail in an otherwise good movie. It's pretty much the central lesson of the movie. The whole third act was about the ethics of working on weapons, particularly how engineers, if they're not careful, will focus on the "cool technology" aspect and fail to account for the real application(s) of their work. If you really think working on weapons would be neat, I'm not sure what there is left for you to get out of Real Genius.
I wouldn't call it "marred" like it was a small detail in an otherwise good movie. It's pretty much the central lesson of the movie. The whole third act was about the ethics of working on weapons, particularly how engineers, if they're not careful, will focus on the "cool technology" aspect and fail to account for the real application(s) of their work. If you really think working on weapons would be neat, I'm not sure what there is left for you to get out of Real Genius.