Dystopian near futures count as science fiction to everybody that doesn’t think science fiction is limited to spaceships.
Not that I personally would ever watch one except in a Clockwork Orange setting, so that may prejudice me against Cuaron. (Or it may make me more objective.)
Wait wait wait, Xap. Two things…
Saying science fiction should be about the future is worthy, true. But the fact is that – compared to the 1950s or 1960s – we are living in a science fiction world. If we want SF that even handwaves at realism where do we go? Low-earth Orbit is a winner, there. Hell, that’s a damn space station up there.
Yes, should we want more and are we half-assing it? Sure. But it’s still there.
Parenthetical aside: When I hear engineers and administrators telling reporters that we couldn’t get back to the moon in 20 years even if we wanted to I have to think they’re just being pussies. The US got there in, what, 7 years give or take? During a time when they were using stone knives and bear skins, for God’s sake.
So the idea of making realistic SF about the future makes an assumption that things will be largely like they are. Small, incremental steps like the ISS and maybe a trans-lunar colony and such.
On the other hand, dystopia as science fiction? I’ll take it. But doesn’t arguing that it should be accepted as SF when it’s been done so much (can’t say it hasn’t) counter your “SF should be about the future” argument?
Where did I ever say that science fiction has to be about the future? I said 2001 was, but what I meant to convey is that contained in that future was space travel as an idea. Science fiction is about ideas. Utopias and dystopias are ideas, although almost always very bad and constipated ones. Space is not science fiction, at least not the restricted version of space that has been reality for over four decades now.
Gravity will be a contemporary adventure movie. As such, it may be great or boring, profound or trivial. What it won’t be is science fiction. Science fiction has grown past mere space, or else it’s a dead genre.
It’s hard to tell from the teaser trailer and reviews, but I’m predicting that most of the movie is going to be Sandra Bullock meandering through various scenes of jaw-droppingly beautiful cinematography while more or less waiting to die. Thus, pending further information, I am dubbing it Space Gerry.
(It’s not a knock; I liked Gerry, even if nobody else did. And hey, this one’s in 3D!)
I had the same thought, especially since Gerry opens with Spiegel Im Spiegel. Maybe she gets Matt Damon to build a “dirt mattress” for her to land on.
I have one beef with this trailer. There’s something totally unrealistic about it:
Near the end, we see pieces blowing off the International Space Station, and pieces of debris with flaming trails. They’re clearly supposed to be grazing the upper atmosphere and getting hit by the air friction up there.
But –
In order for this to happen, the I.S.S. would have to have de-orbited. It would have to have lost at least 100 meters per second of its orbital velocity.
Normally, de-orbiting is accomplished by deliberately firing a rocket engine in the retrograde direction. The plot of the old movie Marooned, in fact, was that the retro rockets didn’t fire, and the crew were stranded in Earth orbit because of it. In this movie, though, we’re apparently supposed to believe that something accidentally caused the ISS to deorbit. How the hell is that supposed to happen? An impact with another object in Earth orbit? What kind of impact could impart a whole 100 meters per second of delta-v on the multi-tonne ISS without shattering the space station completely? (Not just breaking it in a couple of places like we see in the trailer, completely shattering every bit of the ISS in the first second of impact.)
Reviews are spectacular so far. I’m wicked psyched for this.
I saw the trailer in a theater this week. I wasn’t blown away - it looks like a disaster movie set in space. It’ll probably have top-notch special effects and hopefully it’ll be entertaining - but it’s not a genre that inspires greatness.
That does it. Space is scary and humanity should stay home.
At the end of the trailer, does she say, “please call me?”
The “Doomed Astronaut” was a standard trope of written science fiction in the fifties and sixties. I recall Ballard stories and a haunting Bradbury piece.
That being said, I am unreasonably psyched for this film, because recent fiction has made space too safe. I want to see these people jury-rig a re-entry vehicle with no ground communicaton.
They had a trailer (thing pulled by a truck on roads) at Comic con this summer showing the teaser (5 minute clip of the movie) in 3D. My wife and I went to it and we both did not come away with a desire to see the movie.
I haven’t seen the extended trailer, but my favourite stories are of the “shit happens, people come up with an solution” genre. I hope I am not too disappointed with this film.
I’m pretty sure that was the Canadian-build space arm that broke off at the beginning. Figures.
I’m looking forward to Gravity and I’m thrilled that it’s getting great reviews.
The drought was broken big time a couple of months ago with Europa Report, a tense and interesting movie about a manned expedition to Jupiter’s moon that amazingly has no woo or supernatural bullshit or boring fistfights, and what seemed to me to be believably solid science behind it, but in art house theaters, no one can hear you cheer about it.
Edit to add trailer.
The “Children of Men” guy? Welp, I’m seeing this.
I didn’t like Children of Men either, for reasons I went into at the time. That wouldn’t bias me against Gravity, but I’m somehow less than enthused by this trailer. Looks kinda like Bradbury’s Kaleidoscope, adapted for the screen with a big budget and a romantic subplot.
I didn’t get into it, mostly because the actors are too famous. Batman and the Chick from Speed in Spaaaaace.
And I’m suffering from an existential crisis (well not really, but work with me) in that we can no go anywhere, do anything, with CGI…and the action feels amped up beyond what would happen in a situation like this. Impossible camera moves, the just at the tip of the fingers, the HUGE changes in momentum by impacts of stuff…it’s uncanny valley territory for me.
I felt the same way with Transformers:We Detroy a City and Superman: We destroy the city Transformers left behind and Star Trek: We Destroy a City, too!
There are only 6 major reviewers in so far, but it’s scoring 99% on Metacritic, which is unheard of for nearly any movie. That score will drop, but even if it drops into the high 80s that’s rarefied air for a sci-fi movie in the last decade.
I am opening myself up to being excited here. Dangerous, I know, but what the heck.
Clooney generally (with some notable exceptions) picks pretty good projects, and I loved Children of Men, so I’m cautiously optimistic. Can’t wait.
That’s really how you think of them? Geez, they have done a lot of work since then ('97 & '94), and picked up a few Oscars along the way. You really gotta get out more…