Well! I was all set to go see the movie Sunshine today so I could enjoy and review it… but it’s not playing in Boulder.
What?
That is incredible to me. We have more solar astronomers here per square centimeter than most every other place in the country. That alone should guarantee a screening! Maybe Boulder is too small, so I checked other places: it’s not even playing in Denver. That’s a rather fair-sized city.
I am very bummed. My friend Brian Cox was the science advisor, and his wife Gia blogged extensively about the making of the movie, so I am totally fired up (hahahaha) to see it. But I can’t.
Grrrr.
I know it came out in the UK some time ago, but I don’t think the DVD is out yet either. I am aware of other methods of obtaining it, but I’d prefer to keep this legal. I’ll see what I can do.
Update: Evidently it opens in limited release in the U.S., and will open in more theaters next week. Bummer.
July 21st, 2007 at 9:00 am
I think this weekend is the limited release. Next week maybe the nation wide release. Maybe.
July 21st, 2007 at 9:09 am
It must be awkward to be a “science advisor” to movies like this! Kind of like being a medic in wartime.
July 21st, 2007 at 9:39 am
Phil, I’d not be too upset. The VFX are cool, and the ship design is quite fresh, but the movie is awful. A total waste of time.
July 21st, 2007 at 9:43 am
Yeah, I was all set to see sunshine last night as well, but it’s not showing here (Colorado Springs) either.
July 21st, 2007 at 9:57 am
Wide release is next Friday. But it still doesn’t look like it’s coming to a theater near me.
July 21st, 2007 at 10:04 am
Will be on DVD 28. August in UK.
July 21st, 2007 at 10:28 am
I read a short story a long. long, time ago in a village far way (back in the 1970s) but I can’t remember the author or the title. Sunshine has the same plot, but I haven’t found the reference to the story in any of the press releases about the movie. I would appreciate if any of the readers of badastronomy could help me find the story. (It was in a random collection that I had picked up at the library, and I read so many in my teens that I can’t even remember which collection it was.)
I look forward to this movie because Cox advised on it, and I am curious about how he was able to inject some real science into it. I am not sure if he had the same problems with it that Asimov had with miniaturizing human life in the novelization of Fantastic Voyage or not, but apparently the time that Cillian Murphy spent with Cox in researching his own role as a physicist was illuminating enough to convince Murphy that he wasn’t really agnostic after all, he is an atheist (yea!) Is that reason enough to see the movie? Probably not. But I digress. What was the name of the short story? Is it credited by the screenwriters?
July 21st, 2007 at 10:29 am
I just wanted to go and see it because I figure it’s going to be really bad. Someone posted today that it’s “a terrible mish-mash of Alien, Event Horizon, and 2001.” So I knew that it was something Phil would like to “report to us” on.
But yeah, no where around me either. Tons of theaters playing Harry Potter, Transformers, and the Pixar movie.
Why is there no room for bad Sci-Fi!!???
July 21st, 2007 at 11:19 am
Hi Mike Haubrich,
the short story is most likely “Phoenix” (1954) by Clark Ashton Smith (at least Phoenix is a short story about people who re-ignite a dying sun with nuclear bombs).
– eike
July 21st, 2007 at 11:55 am
I remember reading a really neat short story about a family surviving on Earth after the Earth is pulled away from the sun. You might like it, Mike, it is called “A Pail of Air”:
http://www.webscription.net/chapters/0743498747/0743498747___6.htm
July 21st, 2007 at 12:12 pm
The premise of the film must have made your friend gag. Not surprisingly, I’ve heard the film is terrible, the UK reviews were awful. I saw the trailers while at StarFest in Denver last April and just buried my head in my hands.
I actually like bad SciFi, but I’m usually referring to bad scripts or acting or special effects or even stupid concepts like Space 1999, but the premise of Sunshine is like fingernails on a chalkboard to someone who works in solar physics.
July 21st, 2007 at 1:12 pm
The reviews seem to place it around average, but it really doesn’t look like something I’d be interested in, sorry… I’m of the opinion that just because it’s possible to do a lot with special effects these days doesn’t mean that a lot of stuff in the movies, on tv, and in commercials should be done.
July 21st, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Speaking about terrible mish-mashes, Leviathan come to mind with it’s blend of Alien, Abyss and the thing. So bad it’s good, great stuff to accompany your popcorns.
July 21st, 2007 at 1:40 pm
I saw several previews and the science seemed as bad as the fiction. As Sig Ruman said once in a Howard Hawks film: “Include me out.” I’ll find something better to do than sit through it.
July 21st, 2007 at 1:41 pm
P.S. But it would be fun to read what the BA has to say about it.
July 21st, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Thanks Eike! That sounds about right, now that you mention it.
July 21st, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Actually, critics have liked this film for the most part. It hasn’t mad a lot of money, however.
July 21st, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Actually, critics have liked this film for the most part. It hasn’t made a lot of money, however.
July 21st, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Never heard of it before now, I like anything to do with the Sun, good or bad, oh I got my widget, thanks again.
July 21st, 2007 at 2:56 pm
New Scientist magazine wrote an article on whether it was a disservice to science to have films like this - they thought it sucked big time due to its awful science howlers. They didn’t like the screenplay either.
I gave it a miss. The new Fantastic Four movie looked better
July 21st, 2007 at 3:00 pm
off topic but hey it is about Randi
article made the major Toronto paper…
http://www.thestar.com/living/article/236959
July 21st, 2007 at 3:28 pm
“Sunshine” was a big downer for me, I was told they had worked very hard on the science parts, but that was a big fat lie (imho).
Making strong sunshine look like flames was bad enough, always linking it to hurricane sounding noise no improvement, but the worst part was the ridiculous misrepresentation on how low temperatures effect a (human) body in vacuum.
Also they mixed in some horror film aspects that wasn’t very horrifying and added a dash of uninspired mysticism to the end.
Save your money, is my recommendation…
July 21st, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Too predictable. I love my ’science’ in Sci-fi and I had high hopes for this movie.
It was just too boring. Some of the ’science’ in the film was also questionable.
Someone suggested before it was “a terrible mish-mash of Alien, Event Horizon, and 2001.†That about sums it up, just with far less excitement. Yawn.
July 21st, 2007 at 4:10 pm
I cant wait for the review Phil! I wish hollywood produced more sci fi movies just so you could write more movie reviews!. They are hillarious!
July 21st, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Yes, it is pretty much a mish mash of the movies mentioned above, down to some very straightforward hommages that are very nearly plagiarisms. Off-course the whole concept of no-sound-in-space falls on deaf ears, this in a film that plays the science-cards the way it does. And I’m no scientist, but a lot of the science presented here sounds quite dodgy. As also demonstrated in the freezing in space scene (and… inhale all the air you can hold when entering a vacuum!).
The third act of the movie is just plain silly, the build-up was nicely done, although the actors, who weren’t bad at all, didn’t quite convince me as being all science-typisch, a bit too stylised. The big twist is all Event Horizon and is completely unnesscary, it ruins the film and you just don’t really care anymore.
The film does look very good, overstyled a bit, but it works, some truly beautyfull effects and some interesting uses for some.
Enjoyed it for the most part, despite thinking I was going to hate it (I’ve been rather partial to most of Danny Boyles post-Trainspotting outings) and I don’t hate it having seen it, but the final act just wrecks it and prevents it from being a rather good space-movie or a film I would readily recommend.
July 21st, 2007 at 6:18 pm
I was just going to email you with the movie, I see you’re on top of it. Looks like an ultimate trainwreck.
July 21st, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Sunshine is a flawed movie for various reasons, but I’d say it’s worth a look all the same. It’s no 2001, sure, but I wouldn’t say it’s Mission to Mars either and I reckon at least some credit is due to the makers for attempting to make something that wasn’t simply one more cowboys-in-space job like most ’sci-fi’ movies of the last 30 years.
The central conceit - that humans could somehow avert such a major, and obviously terminal, extinction event - is obviously far beyond the bounds of real-world possibility. But hey, there’s plenty of other ’serious’ literature and film (sci-fi and otherwise) that uses similarly outlandish propositions to hang a worthwhile story on, so I don’t think folks should automatically begrudge it that.
As for the other science not being up to snuff, it’s a Hollywood movie, so if you go in expecting the real thing then you’re only setting yourself up for disappointment in advance. Hollywood movies do Hollywood science, and hoary old canards like freezing in space, though unfortunate, are more or less to be expected.
Besides, squidgy science doesn’t automatically preclude the possibility of an otherwise excellent tale developing - and in this case it’s more the flaws in storyline, character development, pacing, and a certain extremely lazy visual effect repeatedly employed towards the end in lieu of proper composition that prevent it from achieving its full potential. So not a brilliant movie, but it has its moments and if you can avoid going in with inflated expectations you shouldn’t come out totally disappointed and may even enjoy it at times.
(And for folks who did come away disappointed, I’d suggest a DVD of Primer and a copy of Peter Watts’s Blindsight as compensation. Enjoy, but keep away from sharp objects afterwards.)
July 21st, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Phil, I’ll wait until you see it before I tell you what I thought of it. The scene right at the end will bring a smile to your face. See you soon….
July 21st, 2007 at 7:18 pm
I’m sorry to point this out, but the last time Phil endorsed some friend’s movie (The Krone Experiment) it turned out to be a bit of a stinker, though in the case of Krone it was due mainly to the extremely low budget ($5,000).
So Phil, you need to learn from your mistakes and stop plugging your friends’ movies. It’s a real jinxer!
July 21st, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Actually I have seen Sunshine, and I enjoy it for various reasons. In fact, I found it *very* interesting on the merits of the story.
Nevertheless, it is true what everyone’s been saying about the physics/biology gaffes. One of my favorites is the Mercury gravity assist, in which they swing about the planet in two whole loops before proceeding onward to the Sun. Another interesting one is when they enter the derelict spaceship, and find that the plants in its garden have been growing unchecked for the last seven years. But how? There’s only a finite loop of carbon in the ship’s closed-system. What are the plants using as building material? There are numerous other good ones. It’s actually a fine opportunity to learn some physics!
July 21st, 2007 at 9:33 pm
I know. It’s not playing Missoula, either. It sucks! I’m so tired of really crappy summer movies. This one looks halfway intelligent.
July 21st, 2007 at 10:46 pm
I have to respectfully disagree with Thomas Siefert about Leviathan. it was so bad it was just awful, in my opinion. But then I paid full price to see it at the cinema. Still kicking myself for that one.
July 22nd, 2007 at 2:08 am
I quite enjoyed Sunshine, actually. Yes, there’s plenty of bad astronomy and other assorted science in there (their ideas about orbital mechanics are interesting to say the least), but it’s a visually stunning film, with a good spooky vein through it.
July 22nd, 2007 at 2:22 am
Hopefully, they’re not messing with “Solaronite” (Plan 9 from Outer Space). That stuff can ignite the very sunlight and like gasoline, lead to a runaway chain reaction!
July 22nd, 2007 at 3:58 am
To CR: You are absolutely right, I paid full price too at the cinema back in 1989.
We were a bunch of guys going to see The Abyss, but the Danish cinema marketing guys for Leviathan had realised that they had a turkey on their hands and had made sure the translated title was very close to the translated title of The Abyss. The guy we sent for tickets was not aware of this and we didn’t discover our mistake until well into the movie (we had warmed up with a couple of beers).
I recently stumbled on the Leviathan DVD at a bargain price and it fell into my own personal so-bad-that-it-is-good category (alongside Leprechaun 4) possibly because it invokes memories of olden days.
July 22nd, 2007 at 4:52 am
It’s a sci-fi thriller and as such I’d say it’s the best one to come along in many years. Well, when it comes to space-faring sci-fi at least. Sure it has it’s flaws, but I found it seriously goose-bump inducing at times as well. In the end I was able to overlook its flaws and would rate it pretty high given an fondness for the genre.
July 22nd, 2007 at 5:46 am
Phil, there’s a difference between being legal and being right. Punish the bad guys in Hollywood enough, and they’ll capitulate. Download now, and join the ever-growing movement of video justice.
But it’s still a crap film.
July 22nd, 2007 at 8:51 am
Thomas, that makes sense. My friends & I used to have “Bad Movie Night” about once a month, and Leviathan would certainly fill that niche well.
Re: Sunshine (just to get back on topic for a change)… I’ve said before (on the other thread, and on other boards) that it looks interesting, but that I tire of movies where people get killed off one by one. Please tell me this film isn’t a slasher flick set on a spaceship!
July 22nd, 2007 at 9:20 am
You’ll find a lot of bad astronomy to talk about
July 22nd, 2007 at 11:48 am
CR,
It’s not really a slasher flick, though (as the American ad campaign now makes clear) all the crew do die off one by one in various circumstances.
July 22nd, 2007 at 12:07 pm
It’s a Ten-Little-Native-Americans flick set on a spaceship then?
July 22nd, 2007 at 12:42 pm
It is better to have something than nothing at all. Are there any really good scifi movies at all?
It would be nice to see one, but the main point is that they do not seem to exist, so it is good to have at least something…
July 22nd, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Thomas,
I’m not sure I’d exactly call it a ten-little-indians type thing either. It’s just that the thesis has to do with the temporariness of us and the World. Over on IMDB a number of people have asked, “Does everyone [in the crew] die?” A number of times I’ve replied that “Everyone dies. Even had one or more of the characters been left alive at story’s end, the fact remains that way past that end, those characters will eventually be dead, of violence, old age, of something. No one makes it out intact.”
July 22nd, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Maybe if they had made this movie into a 2.5 hour long commercial like that suckfest transformers movie we would be able to see it here in the states. Yeah, it does look like a bad movie, but still I wish i could see it here. I bet if they CGIed a Mountain Dew slogan on the side of the spacecraft they would release it here.
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Phil, if you go here, http://www.foxsearchlight.com/sunshine/, there’s a link which will give you places & times for free public screenings of Sunshine in the U.S.
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:14 pm
In fact, there appears to be one this coming Wednesday at 7:30 in Denver.
July 22nd, 2007 at 11:28 pm
From the Ebert review, referring to Brian Cox and the science in the film…
“Considering that the movie is set only 50 years in the future, the sun seems to be dying several billion years prematurely, especially in a “hard” (i.e., quasi-plausible) science-fiction film. Man, am I glad I didn’t go off on a rant about that before learning that the film’s science adviser, Dr. Brian Cox of CERN (Conseil Europeen Pour le Recherche Nucleaire [European Laboratory for Particle Physics]), thought of it, too.
The sun is not “dying in the normal sense,” IMDb.com reports, but in the Cox scenario “has instead been ‘infected’ with a ‘Q-ball’ — a supersymetric nucleus, left over from the Big Bang…that is disrupting the normal matter. This is a theoretical particle that scientists at CERN are currently trying to confirm — the film’s bomb is meant to blast the Q-ball to its constituent parts, which will then naturally decay, allowing the sun to return to normal.”
I’ll buy that. Blasting a Q-ball to its constituent parts sounds normal to me, but then I read every sci-fi magazine published during my adolescence, and my hero was John W. Campbell Jr., the editor of Astounding/Analog, who insisted his fiction not be preposterous, but sensible and possible, such as a mission to the sun to blast a Q-ball to pieces.”
July 23rd, 2007 at 3:49 am
Thanks for the info Mark, unfortunately its not playing here in San Diego. Thanks anyways. Is it expected to be released later for a wider distribution?
July 23rd, 2007 at 4:51 am
I saw it. It sucks, big time. Not because of questionable science, but because it is a “psychological” thriller (and “slasher”, complete with knives) which just happens to be set in space. As I generally loathe that genre, I loathe this movie. Go see Harry Potter or something, it can’t possibly be any worse.
July 23rd, 2007 at 8:17 am
I personally wouldn’t call it a psychological thriller. I would call it an existentialist thriller, an allegory of the human circumstance.
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:21 am
Interesting analysis Gia, you have made me want to see the film despite the bad rap it’s getting here. Indeed I’m very curious how one person could have seen what is obviously the intended “message” of the film, while the rest, among those who should be sympathetic to that message, did not. Did the message fail so badly, or have we just become so jaded that we can no longer see a sincere effort to depict science in the light it was intended?
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:21 am
I’m a bit hesitant to see a slasher flick (or even a film with slasher tendencies), but Gia’s comments do have me wanting to see this. I may not see it in the cinema (if it even plays in a ciname near me), but I’ll check it out on dvd when the time comes.
I don’t want to know if everyone in the crew (or for that matter, on Earth) dies by the end of the film, but the “everyone dies eventually” argument is pretty lame, because it’s so obvious. I think we all KNOW that everyone dies eventually. If, however, that’s actually the point of the film, that we all die, but what we do in life can make a difference to those living, I guess I see the point of bringing it up that way.
Anyway, I guess I’ll know soon enough how the film is, and it’s all about. (Unless, of course, I die first. Whee, what a charming thought.)
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:13 pm
It’s a terrible movie. The plot moves from point to point entirely on the stupid decisions of those involved. The science is horrid and is made even worse by the idea that there were actual consultations about the science with professionals, and they still got it wrong every time they could.
The people in the movie are mere charicatures, not characters, and the movie feels like a video game from start to finish, even featuring an “end boss.”
Gia, just because a movie presents scientists in a positive light does not mean it is a good movie. This one isn’t.
July 23rd, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Greg, the thing about ‘art’, in a broad sense, is that different people get different things out of it. I think Beethoven is boring. I love Bach. I don’t like heavy metal music. The Dead Kennedys are brilliant. I’m not interested in ballet. I love watching ballroom dancers. Salvidor Dali is overrated. Picasso was a genius. The Rolling Stones are boring. The Beatles were the best band ever.
None of those opinions are ‘right’, but they *are* mine.
I agree with Mark Martin, it’s an existentialist thriller moreso than a modern sci-fi. I think it harks back to sci-fi from the ‘olden days’ which used extraordinary circumstances to address different issues. The issues Sunshine addresses are morals vs logic, intelligence vs violence, the desire to know vs the desire to believe… and the value of one human life compared to Humanity as a whole…
Ken G asked “Did the message fail so badly, or have we just become so jaded that we can no longer see a sincere effort to depict science in the light it was intended?”
I think Sunshine is a bit of a mirror. If you don’t have an existential bone in your body, then you just won’t see anything in it, irrespective of whether you like looking at the stars or not. The message in Sunshine didn’t ‘fail’ - I know loads of people who have been completely and utterly blown away by the film - but sometimes people just aren’t looking for that message. Fair enough.
One ‘bad’ review I read of ‘Sunshine’ said something like, ‘Watching it made me realise how small and insignificant we all are, how giant, powerful and magestic the universe is and how we don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. I hated it.’
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Gia said “One ‘bad’ review I read of ‘Sunshine’ said something like, ‘Watching it made me realise how small and insignificant we all are, how giant, powerful and magestic the universe is and how we don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. I hated it.’ ” That’s funny!
I wonder if there’s going to be (or already is) a backlash from the religious section of society, proclaiming what an evil film this is because it dares to present atheism/atheists prominently, and even had people ‘convert’ to atheism while it was being filmed. (Yet we’re all supposed to blindly accept any religious stuff in films as not only OK, but right.)
July 25th, 2007 at 11:30 am
I’ve seen the film. One thing that I noticed about this film is that it’s more of a philisophical movie than a sci-fi flick. The movie isn’t about amazing feats of engineering or technology, most of those accomplishments aren’t explained and are assumed to be taken for granted. My opinion is that this movie is about each of the crew members. It’s about their struggle with their situation. How the rationalize, how they cope….and how they die. Don’t freak out, that isn’t really a spoiler, it’s in the ads for it on this very page actually. The makers of the film wanted that to be apparent from the git go it seems.
I saw a quite poor video/audio quality copy of this film but it’s style was still very impressive.
I give it a 5/5, no a 10/10… :-þ
July 31st, 2007 at 12:08 pm
I would agree that “Sunshine” has it’s problems; the science is weak (although I didn’t notice that much), the last act is a bit off, some effects are overused. But in comparison to the likes of Armageddon or the Core or the crap that’s out this summer (Transformers), it’s brilliant! It is a philosophical movie (brilliant minds making mistakes in harsh circumstances, who draws the shortest straw, etc), and although the “horror” aspect in the last half was generally disliked, I simply saw it as a logical progression from the issues exhibited earlier in the film (imagine if Searle had kept going down the same path). Danny Boyle is also just brilliant in his use of pace, tension, and claustrophobia juxtaposed with the existential musings of the crew.
Plus, visually beautiful. The busy, corporate whored effects of Transformers can kiss my…
August 5th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
[…] was waiting for this movie to be reviewed by Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy, but he hasn’t seen it yet! After I saw the movie I was desperate for some scientific critique but even the SEED review was […]
August 12th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
I loved the photography, the sound and the acting. Some great special effects for a medium budget movie.
It would have been so much better in zero-gravity. Is it really that hard to do realistic zero-gravity in movies these days?
I did appreciate that the physicist got to be the good looking hero.
September 3rd, 2007 at 11:54 am
This movie went far beyond bad astronomy (although it had plenty) into just not making sense.
Exactly what is the Q-ball supposed to be doing to the Sun? Destroying it is supposed to not just stop the deterioration of solar output, but restore it to normal (see last scene). So it seems that the Q-Ball is somehow just suppressing the energy producing reactions at the core. However, we all know that it takes thousands of years for radiation to propagate from the core of the Sun to the surface. So, it should take thousands of years to see any change after the Q-ball is destroyed. Also, how is the bomb supposed to get anywhere near the core before it’s vaporized? Why do they detonate it above the surface where it won’t do any good?
Or, if the Q-ball is supposed to be orbiting inside the Sun sucking up enough matter to make a difference, how would destroying it be able to reverse the damage? Also in that case, how would they find it? They don’t seem to make any attempt to do so.
Then there’s the bomb which has the mass of Manhattan Island. Where did humans get the technology to send that much mass to the Sun? Or even to build a spaceship that large? And if they have it, wouldn’t they have sent a somewhat larger crew, like maybe hundreds? Why would they bother with the farm when the mass of the required life support expendables would be negligible compared to the bomb? Or why not send a slow robot ship with the bomb, then follow up with some faster ships with people (if they are really needed for anything other than screwing up)?
And how about those “fissionables”? We are told that all of the Earth’s fissionables (Brian Cox says uranium) have been extracted in 50 years. How did they manage that? Does it include the uranium in the oceans? Did they set up giant breeder reactors also? More to the point, once they had all that uranium/whatever, why not just use it to power civilization, instead of betting on this crazy Sun-saving mission? That would have been an especially good idea after losing half of it on the first attempt. Which reminds me, wouldn’t it have made sense to at least send a few extra ships full of crazy astronauts to see what happened to the “Icarus I”, and maybe try to salvage the bomb?
November 13th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Still no review? I guess the US passed this one by. No big loss IMHO. I agree with David, it was too grating to sit through all the stupidities of the plot as well as the bad science. The movie started fairly well if you put away your science IQ, but toward the end it fell apart. The cheap tricks like single frame shots of the Icarus 1 crew to try to make things spooky as well as the intentional blurring and insertion of nonsensical images when the Icarus 1 captain is trying to sabotage things, just made me feel the director was short of inspiration. Note that only on DVD can you actually clearly see that these tricks are being played on you (I actually found them very distracting and confusing). As a physicist (who works at CERN, by the way, but is in no way connected with this movie, thank God - oops, I mean Planck!), I would have normally liked having a physicist playing a lead role as good guy, but I felt more insulted than anything else since no self-respecting physicist would have ever volunteered for a such a ridiculous mission. The IMDB had this rated as 7.3, which prompted me to rent it. I was quite disappointed, I would rate it around 5-6. As for the anti-religious ending (which is maybe why it hasnt made the big time in the US), I found it corny, not philosophical. In fact it was so blatantly anti-God, it made me, an agnotic, embarrassed. I guess all of us agnostic or atheist scientists had better watch our backs, you never know when a colleague might go wacko and decide to kill everyone around them who is working against what they consider to be God’s plans.
As many have already said, its too bad good hard SF movies are so few and far between. I think they should have left the Q-balls on the pool table for this one…
November 29th, 2007 at 8:19 am
I hate to say it Phil, enjoyable movie as it was, your friend Brian Cox got it wrong. A nuclear bomb the size of manhattan would come nowhere close to being enough to ignite the sun. Billions of nuclear reactions of that size occur each second inside the sun, so the effect will be negligible. Secondly, you’d need to ignite the thing at the core, not the surface.
Still a good movie with great effects and possibly the best natural disaster movie I’ve seen. I typically hate the genre. But Sunshine combined the disaster with some Event Horizon horror-esque elements which worked well. I don’t think I ever got bored during it. Great stuff, if you can look past the bad science.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
FINALLY got to see this DVD last night. My impressions? Very much like ‘JCF’s.’ Sure they never explain well why the sun is dying or how the ’stellar bomb’ is going to save it (outside of it “creates a mini big-bang” or something), and some of the science is a little iffy, but this movie is riveting. Its tense, sometimes creepy, often makes you wonder who and or what to trust, and in the end satisfying. Well worth the rental. A solid ‘B’ grade movie (couldn’t rate it higher becuase of the science stuff, just an extra 5 minutes of explanation would have made a world of difference there).
And why exactly is it anti-religious? I didn’t get that at all. Just becuase the psycho ends up pontificating about god? Yeah, becuase that NEVER happens in real life…
January 26th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
DVD viewing complete. Yep, it’s a Hollywood attempt to create a “speculative fiction” flick with enough drama to draw in the “science-fantasy” crowd. The freezing in space cliche and oxygen fire suppression seemed to me the worst offending scenes.
Disjointed scenes and mediocre acting, however, probably wounded this film most. The horror aspect might have worked if they found a better cinematic technique than jumpy, blurry cuts….an edgy technique like the Japanese horror flicks Ju-on or Ringu perhaps.
Yet like others here, I felt the moive had enough “wow factor” space moments to make it thrilling, and occasionally thought provoking.
Wondering what other films out there people think are the best in the “speculative fiction” genre.
Both 2001 and 2010 were worthy. Children of Men too. I also liked The Fountain, though admittedly it has a good bit of sci-fantasy mixed throughout.