I disliked the scene at the ISS where Clooney unclips himself. When I was watching it, my brain was going “there’s no net force on him!”, though I may have missed some rotation that would bering centrifugal force into it. But mostly because it just seemed overly—and unnecessarily—schmaltzy.
I’d much have preferred her to just not catch him or for the cable to break. It plays up the random inhospitable world. He could still have talked her into the station, cool as a cucumber, and even let her think she was coming after him.
Then there’s no fuel, etc. The plotline continues untouched.
I loved when the last bit of fire extinguisher juice is used and she spins around and hurls the tank out into space to give herself just enough extra delta V to get a hand on the Chinese station. I was waiting the whole movie for someone to chuck something for a little more momentum, and the payoff was perfect.
That bothered me. Surely it’s not that hard on her relatively short hair to get the effect. The costume department sure didn’t have much else to do at that point.
Also wondered what the hell when a lone ping-pong paddle was floating around the Chinese station. Huh? I understand you could probably have some fun with a ping-pong ball in zero G but the paddle?
Note: I am a nit-picky geek, but I will not allow myself to be distracted by evacuation protocols of a fictional Chinese space station. I will fan-wank it to say that it made sense to the mission designers to leave a re-entry vehicle docked even after a complete emergency evacuation was ordered.
That’s not a fan-wank, that’s exactly what it would be. There needs to be a backup descent vehicle there at all times in case a new crew’s ascent vehicle becomes unusable. That’s what they were looking for and found at the ISS, and it was only the unusability of that that sent her on to the Chinese.
I enjoyed the movie, but it did I think suffer from slightly excessive cliff-hanging. By the end, it was pretty obvious that each stage of the adventure would involve a just-in-time salvation … I was half expecting her to be chased to shore by sharks, or, when she totters to her feet at the end, to find herself facing a hungry lion or an angry Taliban dude, and end up running for her life.
Again, Cuaron was swinging for the fences - everything was geared towards a specific rhythm of crisis, despair, release, hope, etc., and he did whatever he felt he needed to do to hit that rhythm. It is a bit much, but that’s the roller coaster he was going for, right?
I saw it again with the rest of the family who hadn’t seen it. It worked again. I really noticed the opening, 15-min single camera shot. Also, yes, her hair was not as affected by null gravity as it should have been, now that I looked for it - but for the loose-leaf manuals, I noticed that she kept her fingers on them or tucked them open under one of the belts strapping her in. I didn’t see a time they should’ve floated free, as near as I can tell. Score one for them.
I can quibble on the margins, but overall, it is a well-crafted experience which feels different vs. other movies. I remain very interested in seeing what the reception of this movie will be in terms of US box office, Global Box Office, length of release and awards. It may simply translate to “successful Box Office and solid tech-related run of awards” but it feels like it could be more…
I liked Gravity a lot, but I found All Is Lost more poetic and moving. Next to Nebraska, my favorite film of the year.
For those who complained that there wasn’t enough “plot” in the Cuaron, they’re going to hate the Chandor. But from a dialogue perspective, Gravity is My Dinner with Andre by comparison–from the first time we see Redford’s character, he barely says 10 words through the entire movie (and the movie is about 15 minutes longer).
But I found it magnificent, and a lot of that has to do with Redford, who reminds you what a great actor he often was, though at his best, always a very quiet, reactive, recessive one. He carries the movie in a way that Bullock (as fine as she is) doesn’t.
Gravity has production values that I found jaw-dropping, truly remarkable. But All Is Lost is more spare, lean, economical while still being visually stunning. Fewer cliff-hangers, but very similar in the procedural aspect of Survival Mode, all calibrated with impending doom vs. Cuaron’s heightened breakneck urgency. And much of that crisis and spiritual dread at ones own mortality is told by the landscape of Redford’s face, eyes, raw physicality. It’s a fantastic performance in a fantastic movie.
Going to have to disagree there. You can tell simply by how the paper reacts to being moved that they didn’t even attempt to mimic 0-G conditions there.
I would call their depiction of Tiangong exaggerated, not fictional.
True, the real Tiangong is smaller than the Chinese space station they showed in the movie, but it’s not like the Chinese don’t have an actual space station or anything.
EDIT: Unless you were talking about the fact that its orbit decayed. That WAS certainly fictional.
There’s another piece of unreality in that scene, which I just realized.
Real NASA astronauts don’t wear a T-shirt and shorts under their space suits. They wear a one-piece suit with long sleeves and legs. Pictures of these one-pieces usually show them as being all white. And under the one-piece, they wear … a diaper.
Saw it last night and loved it. I was really skeptical about the 3D at first but I have to admit they did a stellar job on incorporating it. Yeah there are a few very unrealistic elements in it but c’mon it is a movie.
Has anyone else utilized a D-Box seat when watching this film? They’re seats that move and shake with the action on screen. It’s sort of gimmacky for other films (I saw the last Harry Potter this way and it was pointless fun), but it really, really complimented this film. It was non-stop floating and tugging and banging and shaking. It added a layer of physical intensity on top of the emotional intensity. Very cool.
I saw it last week. Pay no attention to the dialogue and you’ll enjoy it.
It has changed the way scifi will look, or should look. And if you see it, it HAS to be 3D, IMAX 3D is way better.
When Sandra basically plagiarized Ellen Ripley, the guy behind me said, “Groan!” I laughed at that. Otherwise, there’s some funny as hell Clooney lines. “You want some vodka? No. Oh, okay. So anyway…”
