Gravity!

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Just saw this last weekend, and don't see any threads here for it yet.

The good: Its entertaining, and its visually just stunning - one of, if not the the most, beautifully shot movies I've ever seen.

The not so good: Minimal character development, a very minimal story and there are parts where things get unrealistic or outright implausible.

I don't think Clooney or Bullock's acting in the film were anything that special - both did perfectly fine. However, performances in these types of movies where there's only one or two people on screen for pretty much the whole movie are the types of things that the critics and academy members eat up, so I'm expecting at least nominations for Bullock and most likely Clooney as well. The film really does deserve some nominations and wins in the various technical and visual effects categories and I'd be pretty surprised if it didn't.

How much "character development" can you really squeeze into a movie covering what has to be a few hours of real time?

It's an action flick.

I've heard nothing but good things about this film. I am eager to see it.

As someone who is very interested in astrophysics, there is no WAY I could bear to sit through a film in which the producers haven't even bothered to make the actress' hair float above her head in scenes when she is allegedly in zero gravity.




Notice how her body is floating through the air, yet her hair is not floating at all.

*Face palm*

It just doesn't work that way.

I haven't seen it yet, but I'm excited to. I love sci-fi, especially the movies that don't focus on lasers and explosions.

Went to see it, mostly because the Missus wanted to.
I read a review on AintItCool that pointed out almost EVERY scientific detail is inaccurate. The orbits of the various spacecraft, the times those craft orbit in, the physics involved, the Astronaut's training, and on and on.

For instance, NASA insists the Astronauts get to know each other long before their mission together and even has them go on camping trips to build friendships, so all the stuff about Sandy Bullock's character going up with only 6 month's training, and not know George Clooney is utter rubbish. Also her attitudes would simply never be tolerated by NASA. If you want to see accuracy, cue up Kubrick's 2001.

It would have been better without all the god stuff. It bugs me when they let evangelicals do rewrites on material like this .

Sooooooo I guess I'm playing devil's advocate

I watched this film with a buddy (both of us are physicists) and the thing is: If I were to be very exquisite about physical laws, I'd be rendered unable to enjoy a lot of movies, specially those that take place in space. But hey, It's about being entertained, and the movie does that quite successfully.

So yeah, pretty much every single object in space is in an orbit that doesn't make much sense. And I can see how the writer had to overlook that in order to have a better plot than "Astronauts wander off in space until their oxygen reserves run out and die of hypoxia". I'm willing to overlook that as well because I watch movies so that someone else tells me a story, and most of the time in order to tell a fictional story you must deviate from facts, otherwise it would be a documentary.

Second, and I am contradicting Neil DeGrasse Tyson, which would make automatically wrong in most instances. At first I also thought it was wrong, but I watched the film a second time and saw what happened. In the part where they are connected with a hose and get entangled with some parachute's ropes. That bit where they aren't supposed to be experiencing acceleration, but somehow they are and Sandra Bullock has to cut the hose. I also criticized harshly that part, until I got to see the film a second time and saw a shot that showed them rotating. In that case, they would experience some acceleration (maybe a tiny bit) but enough for it to be reasonable that they were both in danger since it was just a bit of rope attached to her foot. In that case, a single tug, wouldn't have been enough for her to stop Clooney's motion since she would be exerting that force perpendicularly to the speed at that given time.

And the film itself wasn't bad. Visually it was astonishing, and for most of the time physics was ok enough. Even that bit when she throws the fire extinguisher, which is kind of counter intuitive, but it is accurate enough. Some POV shots were incredible and it was a movie I really enjoyed.

So stop being so bitter about the movie not being scientifically accurate, because most of the movies that use special effects aren't.

That movie was awesome, except for the fact that I have no desire to travel into space anymore.

Bitter is a bit harsh.
I guess it's the public-at-large today, this movie was praised for being so technically accurate and it wasn't. Which brings up a personal complaint of mine, no reporter or reviewer ever checks their facts. This movie looks GREAT, the use of CGI is astonishing, but there is so little scientific fact in it.

While watching it I would get into the action, and then ~bump~ something would happen that was inaccurate and it would take me out of the movie for a moment. But that's me, I'm the one who refused to see that WWII movie about the Enigma machine because it was inaccurate. I hate movies that 'play' with historical fact, and that spills over into scientific accuracy.

I do, upon occasion, enjoy a pint of Bitter.

I guess because the public knows only basic stuff about space, that there's no sound, no gravity, no air and people can't live there (as the opening titles say) and you can't breathe. Even though humans can technically survive for like a minute or two exposed in space.

Watched this last night, then KICKED MYSELF for not seeing it at the cinema first.

Beautiful, mesmerising, and quite gripping. Wonderful musical score too.