I watched Sunshine a couple weeks ago when it came up in my rental queue. Well, I watched part of it, fell asleep on it, woke up, went back to the point where I had fallen asleep, watched a bit more, almost fell asleep again, and fast forwarded through most of the rest.

I should know better than to watch something like this, but it was supposed to be a science fiction film, and there is part of me that insists on at least being aware of current science fiction films. But this was downright painful.

I preferred Solar Crisis over this, which had a similar theme. Lots of people hated that movie, and there is no doubt that was a "B" movie. In my opinion, this was worse.

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Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Like 01101001 with his 2012 collection, I collect Sunshine threads. Adding this one to the list


"The Core II" due in March 2007
Sunshine - Now THIS movie will have bad physics!
Sunshine
Film Sunshine based on Fact????
Massive "Sunshine" spoilers
'Sunshine' is coming to the US on July 20th!!
Sunshine
Sunshine: The Movie
Bad Astronomy ALert: Movie "Sunshine"

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It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

Some criticisms here are more defective than the scenarios in the film. One objected to the immense solar gravity yet Capa was able to move during the "payload's" descent to the sun. During freefall, no gravity is experienced.

Judging from the film, there was a presumption of artificial gravity technology as well.

For me, an addict, and in the context of thousands of scifi flicks where explosions can be (still) heard in space-- and where the vast majority of the audience thinks that this is normal-- this film is a winner. The props are beyond excellent for the genre.

Alex W does a nice job of putting some things in context for the meticulous.
Nonetheless, I cannot disagree that work is needed to present accurate science. I suppose that we can accept visual hokum in the action films but science fiction should present well thought out drama in a plausible context. With the advent of computerised special effects, this is no longer the daunting challenge that it was.

As I commented on the blog I recently saw Sunshine and did like as well, the only reason I did fall asleep while watching it is because I watched it at work.

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If it's just us, it seems like an awful waste of space.
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<chuckle>
I think you mean 'did not' but I like the typo version better

While I'm reading this thread... I may as well comment on the movie.

I only watched Sunshine because I had heard so many bad thhings about it.

The science was pretty awful.

The sudden appearance of the "slasher" bit was more annoying than anything else. idav said that it was supposed to make me think. Maybe I missed something, but while it did make me think, it didn't make me think anything important or revealing, though. I won't touch it for its religious nature.

I agree with Ellix pointing out objections to some of the objections... but also point out that that objector (Antoniseb) also said he was going by synopsis and not by watching the film. It isn't really covered if the spacecraft was in free fall or not, so I think that can be chalked up to viewer decision.

But it wasn't the science in the movie that bothered me so much. I almost expect bad science in sci-fi. I wish it wasn't there, the public could use more education... but it's there anyway.

What bothered me was the psychology.
The astronauts were depicted as almost raving lunatics.
Some of the plot devices designed to keep the tension up between astronauts didn't even make any sense. And surely the captain would have handled that tension and not ignored it.
Many of them are depicted as extremely obsessive. They are also depicted, for the sake of the plot, as extremely mission oriented. Which although I can see where the writer was coming from, it just doesn't line up with actual human behavior, NASA screening or the very likely sanity levels of true astronauts.
These people were all crazy.
Even the on board psychologist ignored tension problems, took all the wrong approaches to a suicidal crewman and had this perverted fascination with self destructing by looking at the sun until his skin peeled.

Over-all, I would consider it "Horribly chosen Astronauts go psycho on Important Mission" more than anything else.
Then...
...after all the insane drama of watching supposed highly trained and sanity screened people trying to kill eachother...
You get this Really warped character thrown into the mix that has somehow
MAGICALLY
survived seven years alone on a defunct ship... (What did he EAT?- everything was shut down when the second crew boarded... Plus this guy was so baked from the Sun that he should have been a toasty pile of goo...) that makes everyone else look like Sigmund Freud. Not only did he sabotage the first mission... For some weird and unexplained reason, he went to extraordinary efforts staying alive and hanging out for seven years? For what? In case another mission just happened to swing by for a visit so he could sabotage them too? That whole part of the movie was just so wildly nonsensical as to make me want to throttle the writer.

If you think the science was bad, the psychology was ten times worse. It made no sense and was tied together with soggy spaghetti.

I could be entertained by the movie as long as I switched my brain off completely and zoned out... Dribble a bit of saliva off my slackened jaw and and fumble feebly for the remote but give up 2 seconds into the effort.

you are right but I have fallen at sleep at work before.

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If it's just us, it seems like an awful waste of space.
Contact Carl Sagan

I own the movie and have seen it twice already. But I have to say, it's not really as bad as some people are making it out to be, yet it's not a "great" movie. The first 30 minutes or so are indeed great, though. But that's about it. The science is horrible, the cast, in my opinion, was pretty badly chosen, and there were a bunch of unanswered questions.

Anyway, it remains a decent movie, nonetheless. I know a few people who 'loved' it with a passion myself.

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I enjoyed some parts of it.
But I remember, they were in a dining area and eating (why space movies have done this since Alien is beyond me) and I remember watching a sauce or ketchup bottle set down on the table. Gravity pulled the sauce down into the bottle.
It's funny how they have the budget to make a guy freeze in space instantaneously (which is wrong and bad science anyway) but they don't have the budget to make space food look like stupid space food.

Then the Ultimate baddie being in forever jerky-blur annoyed me to no end.

The visuals were enjoyable (Aside from toasty slasher guy), the suspense was good, but like I said in my first post on it- I would have to switch my brain totally off to actually be able to ENJOY the movie.

They were running out of oxygen. How is that possible? The ship was so humungously large they could have just shut the door and there would be enough oxygen for a three year journey.