Are there degrees of grammar Nazism?
-Tom, slightly above Donitz, but way below GoebbelsSpeaking of which, all of you on the podcast were fooled by the hatch entry, and so was I. And I LOVED being fooled like that! My mind was racing during that scene: “Is she dead now and we’re getting a Minority Report type ending? Did the writers just completely shit the bed? Do I not understand space? Maybe she’d just be super cold but could have held her breath? Wait, is she frozen behind her hand? OMFG OMFG OMFG!?” Damn I loved that.
That woulda killed her.
Folds arms across chest and prepares to hate the movie going forward.
Saw this today, Imax, 3D, the works. It’s good! But I actually preferred the space parts of Dead Space 3. And that’s the first time I can remember preferring a game to a movie. Gravity has nothing going for it other than its visuals and “intensity,” and for the first time I think games are getting to that level, at least when the only things you’re comparing are primarily technical accomplishments. The writing in the film was laughable (though the actors do their best, to their credit), and the whole mission was too poorly defined for my taste, it seemed like they put Ryan into space just so she would have a hard time getting back down. Everything was too over the top (Ryan escaping an EXPLODING ISS!)
But! Lovely, very lovely. Three stars in the theater, one and a half stars at home.
That’s a key form of drama. You put the ordinary in extraordinary conditions and make the character persevere.
Compare the ISS blowing apart in Gravity and Mir exploding in Armageddon and tell me which is really over the top or not.
— Alan
The situation in the film is already extraordinary.
I meant to ask this question on the podcast but I forgot: did Sandra Bullock look at the camera at a certain point in the movie? I mean, did she look at us and hold the look? Did anyone else get that impression?
-xtien
“Seven minutes to get out of here.”
I did not see that happen.
I thought your podcast was one of the most insightful of your movie podcasts, xtien (& Tom & KW). While watching, I didn’t think much about all of the rich dichotomies present throughout, but once you all started discussing them, they flooded into my mind. The one I did notice was the death/birth pairing at the end, as Ryan struggles to be born out of the ocean, almost dying in the process, and then gasping into the air like a newborn. (Aside: I also loved how she slipped in the mud, initially looking annoyed, and then laughing quietly as she realized that it was gravity acting on her, finally!)
But I didn’t notice things like Kelly’s observation about evolution, and the “gratuitous shot of the frog”.
Yay podcast!
What makes you think that? Thirty seconds of cold and holding her breath. No big deal.
Okay, it was only ninety minutes.
There’s also a slight pressure difference.
— Alan
Vacuum is not fatal. But you might get a nosebleed.
Wasn’t it Sunshine where someone had to jump from one ship to another without a helmet? Or am I thinking of Battlestar Galactica? He managed it by having someone on the other end with a space blanket to help him get warm again. It’s obviously not a big deal. Anyone who’s had to walk outside to his car in Boston during the month of January could handle it. </science>
-TomIt’s not the vacuum itself it’s the rapid change to it. As they say, “sudden decompression sucks.”
Tom M
It was Sunshine; but remember they were also covered up by insulation, so that helped a bit.
A sudden drop in pressure will hurt like balls, and could eventually result in ruptured eardrums and other pressure-sensitive bodily functions (like your eyeballs); the sudden cold will create instant frostnip across the exposed skin, especially along the extremities. Blood in the capillaries closest to the skin will freeze fairly quickly, expand, and burst in chain-like fashion.
— Alan
Saw it tonight in non-IMAX 3D. Overall I think it’s pretty overrated AS A COMPLETE WORK (though many of the components are great).
Special effects were excellent (see all the detailed posts above) and Sandra Bullock was quite good, but these are in service of an action movie that lurches from one improbability to another for 90 minutes. Some meaningful ideas, character development, and plot would have been nice. Without those it’s a wonderfully well-shot and well-acted rush, but not much more.
Diego
And it all started with the short story “Take a Deep Breath” by Arthur C. Clarke, written in 1957. That scene was reprised in the movie 2001.
I read an article a bit back that suggested holding your breath would kill you (same effect on the body as divers coming to the surface). You would have about 15 seconds of consciousness (based off an astronaut who had a hole in his suit in the on-earth NASA vacuum chamber). But the cold wouldn’t be that big a deal as heat transfer from your skin is slow on a vacuum. Oh but if the sun hit you it would burn your skin. I do not guarantee the scientific rigor of this post. ;)
Saw this at IMAX with my wife and though it was INCREDIBLE! I think it would not have the impact it did if it weren’t in IMAX 3D. Sandra Bullock was just phenomenal.
dgallina - with your lukewarm thoughts, what movie have you seen that does everything “better” on the whole with that much excitement/drama/realism? This is the first movie I’ve ever seen that gave me a sense of vertigo, it made my heart race and bothered my breathing. I haven’t’ had that happen since Aliens came out in theater a billion years ago.