Sunshine - The movie

[sparhawk]

If you intend to watch this movie, don't read this thread, because it contains spoilers.

 

 

 

On weekend I was watching this movie. Actually, when I read the plot overview I already knew that this movie will be quite ridicoulous, but anyway, I thought it might still be some nice action movie. The plot is that the sun will die in about 50 years, and a spaceship is sent to the sun with nuclear explosives, which should be fired into the sun in order to re-ignite it. Well, that plot has big holes even from that short description, so there is not much point in digging into that anyay. Aside from that, it would still make an interesting enough plot to make a good enough action movie out of it.

I was quite dissapointed though, when the story turned into yet another Zombie/Crazy scientist type of movie. It worked like this, that they found, along their way, another spaceship which was stranded. This spaceship was on the same mission but failed and thought to be lost. Of course they had to investigate it, and so they traveled over to this previous spaceship. It was of course empty, because everybody died. The food would have lasted about 4 years and the second spaceship arrived about seven years later. Of course if the crew is decimated it might last a bit longer then the projected four years, and lo and behold, one of the crew survived. The team didn't know this, and so this loner sneaked on board and started to kill all the team members because he became crazy and wanted to do gods will (or something like that, I didn't really fowllow anymore after it became THAT cheesy).

 

The major gripe that I have with this plot is, that it seems to be a tendency in hollywood movies to introduce unneccassary violence to "spice up" a movie, even if the basic story would already yield an interesting enough scenario. In this case it would already have been quite interesting to see how they actually tried to get near the sun and overcome all the problems that this would include. Instead the writers had to introduce this zombie like character to turn it into a kill fest. Ist it really the case that hollywood doesn't trust a good story to make money, or do they simply have so many bad actors, that this wouldn't work anymore? I remember another movie, where the same happened. Descent. It was a story about a bunch of women doing extreme sports, and they discovered an unknown cave that they started to explore. Then because of a small earthquake, they get trapped inside the cave and have to fine another way out. Same problem here. The story itself would already allow for an interesting claustrophobic movie, but what did these idiot writers do? There were some zombies living in the caves and they killed the womens. Wow! What an imaginative twist!

I'm really dissapointed in such movies, because instead of telling an intersting story, it seems that they all try to deterioate into quite unneccessary violence instead of focussing on the problems that are already there because of the setting.

[Komag]

There's an idiot girl who sometimes works near me at the university, and I have to hear her prattle on and on and on about whatever she talks about all day long. Often it's about the latest movie she watched and liked, and stuff like that sounds right up her alley, I'm sure she would like it.

 

So I guess the movie people like to please folks like her, since they are the ones blowing $20 every single week at the theatre.

 

But have you seen Minority Report? Best Movie Ever

[sparhawk]

Minority Report was quite good. It had some intelligent twist in the plot, which I like more, than just braindead violence. It's not that I totally dislike violence in movies, but I don't watch movies just to watch violence. If it is a tool that makes sense in some context, then it's acceptable. In fact, I always thought that "Saw" was a pretty good movie, and would also have worked without the explicit violence, because the plot itself was already strong enough. The violence didn't look like it was attached to make a bad story at least moderatly interesting, it was embedded in the story as a neccessary part, and the amount that is explicitly shown was just a decision from the director. But I hate it, in movies like Sunshine, where the violence is added on a story where it doesn't even make sense, and makes the story even more artificial.

 

I guess this is the same effect that we also see in games. They are catered for the least common denominator to make more money, and it seem to work. And people who want to have a more intelligent entertainment have to look somewhere else.

[Domarius]

Well personally I saw the zombie guy as a well written part of the plot and not a "violence add-on". The zombie guy didn't seem to take up much of the movie, like some usual "monster picks every one off one by one" typical plot. I enjoyed the rest of the movie for what it was - the character interactions, the interesting technology side, and the unique problems they overcame, etc. All of that stuff was spooky and engaging in its own right, without the zombie guy.

 

But whenever there's a movie about exploring something unknown, I'm dying for something really weird to be there, something unfathomly disturbing. In this case it was a man - but a man so twisted by space and time and his own thoughts that he was barely human anymore.

[sparhawk]

It's not "in this case" it's in most such movies like this. The "intersting" thing that usually happens is that somewhere there is a boogey man hidden to frighten the kids. WOW, now that is an intersting plot twist. Frankly, the whole movie was targeted at this zombie guy. The background story to rekindle the sun was just that, a background story.

And I didn't really see any obstacles they had to overcome. The major "obstacle" was self made because of stupid behaviour. The problem with the metoer storm was ok, because this is what I would expect on such a journey, but the scientist, forgetting to rotate the sunshields??? Come one! This is a journey to the heart of the sun and these shields are there only means for survival, and then they forget it? I mean how can you forget this? Getting this close to the sun, even if it is supposed to be dying, it is still extremely hot, and there is no way I can believe that anybody on such a mission could forget this stuff. At least they didn't have guns on board, like in another cheesy movie.

[oDDity]

This is mindless entertainment, nothing more. It's just another one of those generic movies they pump off the production line for people to turn their brain off and chew popcorn for two hours.

There's really no point in analysing it. The people who made it don't care, and were perfectly aware of what they were doing.

 

One recent movie I did like was Children of Men, so if you haven't seen that, then do.

The action set pieces are amazing, shot in long takes in a documentary style with shakycam, and they even leave a bit of fake blood that splashes on the camera lens, rather than redo the shot at one point.

The best birth scene I've even seen as well, you'd swear it was real.

I'm not saying the story or anything is particularly impressive, but from a technical movie making point of view, it's a must see.

[sparhawk]

Is there a german version as well? Problem is, I can't watch to many movies in english, or my wife starts to get pissed off.

 

When I watch Red Dwarf series I always have to do it in a time where nobody else cares about it.

[oDDity]

I'm sure you can get German subtitles at least. And anyway, how many movies are actually made in German?

[sparhawk]

It doesn't matter how much are made in German, because there are people called voice actors whose job it is to synchronize such stuff to a different language.

[oDDity]

Pointless. Even if movie is in Chinese or Japanese I prefer to watch the original actors with subtitles.

[Crispy]

Agreed. Subtitles are superior to dubbing, and they're easier and cheaper to produce.

[sparhawk]

I don't like subtitles, especially when I can follow most of the conversation anyway. I tend to automatically look at the subtitles, and then I don't see much of the movie, even if I understand it without reading. So I have to force myself to NOT look at the subtitles, which also causes that I can't get immersed as much as without it. I prefer to have either the original one, if I understand it, or a dubbed version. It's probably just having to get used to it, but since I never watched many movies with subtitles, it would take some time. I have a collegue at work who comes from poland, and there it seems that most movies are subtitled instead of dubbing, so he is used to it, and he said that he barely misses anything from such a movie.

[New Horizon]

One recent movie I did like was Children of Men, so if you haven't seen that, then do.

 

Yeah, I was dying to see this movie..and then our 'mainstream' bitch of a cinema, only had it for one bloody week. We have an independent cinema, but they weren't able to get it. I haven't checked to see if it's on DVD yet. It's a must see for me.

[Domarius]

Yeah I agree about rotating the shields, seemed a bit silly. My friend pointed that out too, with all the training and testing they would have had.

[sparhawk]

Well, but this was at least an acceptable flaw, while that lunatic loner, was not acceptable. Quite on the contrary, if you extend the anaolgoy to people being shipwrecked, even if they assume that they have to die if there is no rescue in a given time, don't tend to kill their rescuers if they arrive unexpectdly, or go mad just because of this.

 

But I noticed a similar pattern in that other movie with Bruce Willies, where they tried to stop that meteorite with their nukes (forgot the name of the movie, somehting with apocalypse maybe). They took several crzy crew members, and at least one of them was so blatantly obvious useless and crazy, that I knew already when I first saw him, that he has to be the one how snaps and starts some silly things, because this would be the only function that he can have, despite being covered behind a thin veil of justifiction claiming that he is an expert in this or that. It was that movie, where Bruce Willies worked on an oil platform and killed fires or other problems, whenever they encountered one, so he was to be an expert in solving such problems.

[Domarius]

Well, but this was at least an acceptable flaw, while that lunatic loner, was not acceptable. Quite on the contrary, if you extend the anaolgoy to people being shipwrecked, even if they assume that they have to die if there is no rescue in a given time, don't tend to kill their rescuers if they arrive unexpectdly, or go mad just because of this.

Ah, but you are forgetting - HE WAS A RELIGIOUS FANATIC

"Our star is dying! If HE chooses for us to die... who are WE to interfere!!"

"I have spent seven years talking to God! He told me to send us all to hell!!"

"No.. MY God!!" *slashes with knife*

[sparhawk]

Ah, but you are forgetting - HE WAS A RELIGIOUS FANATIC

 

Which is, of course, the perfect person to take on such a journey.

 

That's exactly the point.

[Domarius]

Ahhh I see...

 

Hm, can they really exclude people on their religious beliefs?

Or maybe that sort of psychotic fanatacism would have shown up in the aptitude tests they do on these people? I don't know how it works. It could be possible he hid that side of himself.

[sparhawk]

I assume that poeple on such missions are selected based on scientific criterias. Now it wouldn't be completely out of the question that a scientist becomes a raving lunatic, but I htink the chances are slimmer. Also I don't think that they are running around and randomly pick up people to be included in such a mission. There is a background. You don't get into a spaceship by applying for a job with NASA. You have to provide a lot of background in the form of previous work in scientific investigation. The crew in the second ship was selected because of this. At least they were presented in such a way. Actually I'm surprised that they didn't include a marine soldier, because they do this often enough in such movies. So I have to assume that the first crew was selected also based on similar criteria. And this, IMO would reduce the chance, that such a guy would get aboard, quite dramatically. It's not like a airplane, or a holliday cruise, where you can simply sign up for without any screening.

Nowadays people with enough money can already pay their way into spaceships, but even then I don't really expect that suchz a lunatic would manage to get on board, even though it would become much easier that way.

[Domarius]

I've been reading that book "The God Delusion", one of my brothers gave it to me to read - apparently it's almost statistically proven that the higher the IQ, the less likely the person believes religion. There's nothing 100% concrete but the studies seem to indicate that.

 

But there are scientists who still try to believe in god, and sometimes try to prove it.

 

Though I guess the kind of person who colapses like that, believing the idea that they could actually change what God wanted, would have to be kind of unstable, and that might show up in some test or other.

 

I agree it's much slimmer, but probably still possible - that's what movies are all about though, really rare events.

[sparhawk]

But there are scientists who still try to believe in god, and sometimes try to prove it.

 

Yes, and everytime I hear a scientist arguing for god, then I get the impression that they somehow try to convince themselve instead of believing in it.

[Vadrosaul]

Screening doesn't work all the time in the situation you've mentioned. Did you not hear about the NASA astronaut that drove halfway across the United States wearing a diaper, planning to kill a romantic rival?

[sparhawk]

OK. But how many astronauts are going to space for that? I'm, not talking about a man or woman who is jealous, we are talking about the mad people who try to kill for some "good" reason.

[Vadrosaul]

OK. But how many astronauts are going to space for that? I'm, not talking about a man or woman who is jealous, we are talking about the mad people who try to kill for some "good" reason.

Check and check in the circumstance I mentioned. Though not as overdone as the example in the movie, which is still just a movie, she was penciled in for future missions to the ISS, and she said in her defense thought she was doing something "good".

 

Plus there was a recent shooting in NASA, and they then mentioned a need to increase their screening duties. So the chances may be slimmer, but as RL has shown, some lunatics can get by it and into important positions.

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

This is mindless entertainment, nothing more. It's just another one of those generic movies they pump off the production line for people to turn their brain off and chew popcorn for two hours.

 

One recent movie I did like was Children of Men, so if you haven't seen that, then do.

That's why I go to the movies, when I feel overwhelmed instead of stopping at my usual bus stop, I go a few stops down, and switch off my brain for two hours on a random movie with popcorn. Usually I just like sitting in a dark room with enveloping sound, sound bright colours in front of me, eating popcorn and resting my eyes.

 

Children of Men was one such random movie. Apocalypse.

Right before that, Apocalypto was the random movie, Also apocalypse. also well made and recommended, moreso than Children of Men.

After that The Reaping was the next random movie, and such absolute crap, with jolting sounds which didn't let me rest, (it's supposed to be a thriller or something), various demons, and a scientist who loses her rationality and starts believeing in magic and demons. Another apocalypse.

Hot Fuzz was the next random movie. Not so random, because I opened the very convenient http://www.google.com/movies, entered my canadian postal code where it says US zip, and picked among the top ranked movies. The style and comedy was new and unexpected to me, based on that I recommend Hot Fuzz. If it's familiar to you then I guess there won't be much new.

3 random apocalypses and one total English mayhem in a row - looks like end of the world and destruction is what movies are about now.

Edited May 1, 2007 by Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat