That's why I included the parenthetical statement.
Another Earth
- Thread starter Jon Starr
- Start date
That's why I included the parenthetical statement.
Oh, this is also the thing I couldn't get over about Sunshine. There was absolutely no reason whatsoever that the mission needed to be manned.
I can't agree with that. A lot of comets, for instance, with extremely long orbits of hundreds of thousands of years (or more) come from directions that can't be explained. Many have theorized that one or two massive planets with orbits of more than a million years exist hidden beyond the Ort Cloud to account for the strange comings and goings of these comets. Something is certainly effecting their orbits.
Mark Harris
Pain in the ass
I know the potential bodies you're talking about. But it's going to take years to analyze that data and conclude that they are in fact there. Regardless, they are not the same as the rumored Planet X.
Jon Starr
Veteran
Not sure if I COMPLETELY agree with that. While we do a lot of robotic missions, there are things that go wrong. We've lost many probes, many satellites, due to errors, miscalculations, and unforeseen problems. Heck even just confusing Metric and Imperial (sigh).
So when it's something so high risk as saving the planet (not just exploring), a manned mission does make sense. If something goes wrong, not only is there no delay, but it can have more chance of being fixed on the spot.
Buuuut the whole Sunshine concept is just so ridiculous to begin with anyways... sounds familiar...
I haven't really commented on this, don't want to come off as a hater. I am very sure that it's a great little indie production (heard the VFX were pretty not good) and that it's done well for them. Take notice, though: this is the new bait and switch that people are using to help sell international as well.
Monsters really helped to spark the trend, they're not bad movies, but about every shot or anything to do with the Sci-Fi part is displayed in the trailer. It's definitely something closer to a little indie drama about a female who can't deal with the fact that she shouldn't have been driving drunk (NOT A SPOILER!).
Sure fire way to separate production, but I can see audiences getting really tired of the tactic very fast.
If you're going to do sci fi, fantasy, a monster movie... please... go all the way.
It's similar to the Superhero fad now where they're all grunge and no super powers... so easy to do, but come on... give us some powers.
Monsters really helped to spark the trend, they're not bad movies, but about every shot or anything to do with the Sci-Fi part is displayed in the trailer. It's definitely something closer to a little indie drama about a female who can't deal with the fact that she shouldn't have been driving drunk (NOT A SPOILER!).
Sure fire way to separate production, but I can see audiences getting really tired of the tactic very fast.
If you're going to do sci fi, fantasy, a monster movie... please... go all the way.
It's similar to the Superhero fad now where they're all grunge and no super powers... so easy to do, but come on... give us some powers.
The way it played out in the film itself, it was too crucial a mission to risk human frailty getting in the way of it. Everything that DID go wrong happened only because there were people there.
Jon Starr
Veteran
The way it played out in the film itself, it was too crucial a mission to risk human frailty getting in the way of it. Everything that DID go wrong happened only because there were people there.
Well... it's just a movie.
Nektonic
Veteran
The way it played out in the film itself, it was too crucial a mission to risk human frailty getting in the way of it. Everything that DID go wrong happened only because there were people there.
I buy Sunshine's plot because as Jon said, trusting it completely to bots might not be the best way. It would have been interesting if they had some robots or AI as part of the mission and thus as characters in the film. It would have made the 2001 influence more aparant, but if handled in a unique way they could have included a robot/AI character or two.
In general though, I think it works because the theme of the film is sort of the de-humanizing aspects of living in space. So to me I didn't mind having humans there because the theme was intriguing to me.
I agree that the film is not without its faults. They have full gravity on the ship and it turns into a space slasher flick near the end. I suppose they could have done more with it in that regard.
Don't worry Kholi. I already started the hatin' on this one.
And I agree with everything you just said. :thumbsup:
I think the thing that sort of riles me up about these films is that it sometimes feels like the filmmakers don't really give a hoot about science fiction or fantasy as a genre. It seems that they are just inserting a fantastical or sci-fi concept into the film to make it more appealing to audiences.
Not that I know for sure, as the writer and director of this might be big sci-fi fans, but it does kind of raise the alarms when it seems that they don't have a clue as to how to plausibly convey some of the most basic science fictional ideas and they simply throw it in there thinking audiences won't care or won't notice how off it is.
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Don't even need robots or AI. All you really have to do is fling it at the sun and let gravity do the rest. Sure, it's a little more detailed than that, but not too much.
Would save plenty of time, too, instead of having to design and build not one, but two ships complete with the ability to sustain a crew there and back. Plus all the training time, etc. There probably already exist launch vehicles which could do the job if it's not manned.
Nektonic
Veteran
True. I think maybe the people that got past the ridiculousness of the concept of having to restart the sun, after that anything else seemed downright plausible at that point. That is why doing true hard sci-fi films, especially those set in space, are damn hard to properly do. I'll take cocky starfighters going up against the evil galactic empire and space truckers being stalked by a deadly alien on their massive industrial labyrinth of a ship any day over a lot of the faux realism sci-fi we seem to be getting now. And yes, I know Alien sort of started that faux realism aspect, but they still had that sense of wonder and the vastness of space feeling not being overshadowed by shaky cam and the sense to at least set it in a distant enough future time period to make it digestible.
Although, I still think Sunshine's basic concept is more believable than this one of an identical alternate Earth spontaneously popping out from the other side of the sun. At this point we might as well offer up college degrees on ancient astronaut theory. Erich von Däniken is still alive you know.
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I wasn't implying any of the nonsense about Planet X was true. I was merely pointing out that there are a lot of bodies in this solar system that are impossible to account for, especially those hidden beyond the Ort Cloud and which have orbits in the hundreds of thousands to millions of years category. This would include tons of comets and meteors, and quite possibly planets and their moons. There's also this new-ish notion that our sun may have a dead twin floating around somewhere.
A movie, however, based on a planet simply being hidden by the sun seems quite preposterous to me. I'll definately skip that one. The trailer looked sappy as could be.
Nektonic
Veteran
The Oort Cloud is the way to go if you want a hidden planet or something for a film.
Nemesis. I always thought that would be a cool starting point for a sci-fi epic. An expedition to a planet that orbits a red or brown dwarf could feature some truly strange life forms.
Then there is the recently proposed notion of a mega-sized gas giant Tyche hiding out there in the Oort Cloud.
I'm not saying these are really there, but at least they are doable for a film or story without seeming completely preposterous.
And the orange guy. I know -- I have a friend who can't get enough of that stuff.
Nektonic
Veteran
Are you talking about this guy? He is in every damn episode of the History Channel's Ancient Aliens series.
I think he got a little too close to the sun himself.
simonpwood
Well-known member
Still, a movie about an unmanned probe heading to the sun would be pretty boring. People are the real McGuffins in space based sci-fi.
I really liked Sunshine. You get the feeling that they decided to just throw the science out from the first scene and get on with the movie. It had to be seen on the big screen; the visuals (and the the music) was breathtaking. It was wierd how it changed genre at the end (the whole slasher thing didn't work ultimately), but the very final scenes made up for it. When the sun broke through at the end and the character reached out to it as time and space compressed (or expanded?) - wow. Sunshine was an underrated movie in my opinion.
What did you guys think of the movie 'The Fountain' by Aranofsky? It was an unusual attempt to mix science fiction, love & spirituality. Amazing visuals on the big screen (the DVD was very dark I thought).
...I saw this movie tonight, and I thought the innovative use of brain-damaged helper-monkeys to spasticly zoom and pull-focus at the same time was sheer genius. I hope those monkeys were not overworked when they did the color timing, because I could tell they were trying their best to stay awake during the boring parts that lasted about 91 minutes.
I can't for the life of me imagine why this film won the Sundance Alfred P. Sloan Prize for outstanding film with science, technology or math as a major theme. Maybe they gave all the judges a life-time supply of hookers and blow?
Gawd, I don't know where to start, but here are my favorite features of this film...
- Bad shaky cam ( Is this an earth-quake scene? )
- Focus appeared to be optional in many shots
- Non-existant lighting ( Who needs lights, when it's more realistic to not use any )
- Bad color-timing with optional sand-paper grade 80 look thrown in for some reason
- The story may have been written by the director and lead actress when they were 8 years old ( which would explain a lot )
- The science portion of the film was verified by pre-schoolers who confirmed that a 2nd planet Earth will always orbit our Moon
- Terrible dialog
Surprisingly the audio was ok ( so they must have spent some of that $200K budget on a real sound guy ), and the acting did not bother me too much, which might have been an indication of how much I hated everything else. This misguided film makes "Blair Witch" look like "Avatar" in comparison. I never realized how stupid film reviewers can be sometimes. Ugh!
I can't for the life of me imagine why this film won the Sundance Alfred P. Sloan Prize for outstanding film with science, technology or math as a major theme. Maybe they gave all the judges a life-time supply of hookers and blow?
Gawd, I don't know where to start, but here are my favorite features of this film...
- Bad shaky cam ( Is this an earth-quake scene? )
- Focus appeared to be optional in many shots
- Non-existant lighting ( Who needs lights, when it's more realistic to not use any )
- Bad color-timing with optional sand-paper grade 80 look thrown in for some reason
- The story may have been written by the director and lead actress when they were 8 years old ( which would explain a lot )
- The science portion of the film was verified by pre-schoolers who confirmed that a 2nd planet Earth will always orbit our Moon
- Terrible dialog
Surprisingly the audio was ok ( so they must have spent some of that $200K budget on a real sound guy ), and the acting did not bother me too much, which might have been an indication of how much I hated everything else. This misguided film makes "Blair Witch" look like "Avatar" in comparison. I never realized how stupid film reviewers can be sometimes. Ugh!