7/25/2013 11:26:59 PM

So is this going to be Open Water in space?

7/25/2013 11:47:54 PM

Sandra Bullock Goes to Space

7/25/2013 11:56:04 PM

Also, I could have sworn the first teaser of this was the ISS and there was a Soyuz capsule along with the shuttle.

7/26/2013 12:33:37 AM

Kessler syndrome FTL

^yeah i remember that too. http://youtu.be/xgGPTa7-vlE



[Edited on July 26, 2013 at 9:31 AM. Reason : ]

7/26/2013 9:27:13 AM

here's a spaceflight nerd discussion about the movie...

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=28092.0

7/26/2013 9:28:57 AM

George Clooney? I'm in.

7/26/2013 11:15:09 AM

98% on RT. I might check this out this weekend.

10/4/2013 11:32:21 AM

Heading to the IMAX 3D showing tonight. Pretty excited.

10/4/2013 12:18:29 PM

she gonna be okay if she meditate in her space suit

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/07/tibetan-monks-can-raise-the-temperature-of-their-skin-through-meditation/?utm_source=Today+I+Found+Out+Daily+List&utm_campaign=619e7de5a1-Today_I_Found_Out_Daily_Knoweldge9_20_2012&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cfe94f6138-619e7de5a1-45392741

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/07/tibetan-monks-can-raise-the-temperature-of-their-skin-through-meditation/?utm_source=Today+I+Found+Out+Daily+List&utm_campaign=619e7de5a1-Today_I_Found_Out_Daily_Knoweldge9_20_2012&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cfe94f6138-619e7de5a1-45392741

10/4/2013 12:45:42 PM

You are somehow a worse poster than I am.

10/4/2013 2:03:47 PM

Going to see it in about 2 hours with a bunch of my fellow furloughed NASA friends. I'll let you guys know our thoughts.

10/4/2013 2:27:05 PM

You guys are going to absolutely hate it.

10/4/2013 2:59:19 PM

Quote :

"Heading to the IMAX 3D showing tonight. Pretty excited."

10/4/2013 4:57:53 PM

Just saw it in imax 3d. probably one of the best movie-going experiences i've had in a long time. the immersion and suspense was great.

i know there'll be a flood of posts about how she would have run out of air, burnt up, or passed out, etc.. etc..

[Edited on October 4, 2013 at 8:29 PM. Reason : .]

10/4/2013 8:26:21 PM

So you just spoiled it. Nice job asshole.

10/4/2013 10:16:24 PM

Seriously, dude?

10/4/2013 11:10:22 PM

Tons of inaccuracy but also tons of fun. The rare movie where 3D is actually appropriate. Loved it.

10/4/2013 11:13:18 PM

It was awesome. Loved the 3D experience, and was super tense about 80% of the movie.

10/4/2013 11:31:07 PM

Quote :

"You guys are going to absolutely hate it."

Actually no, it wasn't as bad as we were expecting. I actually rather enjoyed it. Between us all we did find quite a lot of inaccuracies but I won't be that guy and list them or anything. Most of them were minor anyway and it's understandable. The main problem I did have with it however (MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD) was the way Sandra Bullock's character acted. She just seemed to panic like craaaazy a lot. I understand that the positions she was put in would make an average person shit themselves and cry like a little girl but astronauts receive so much training and testing before they go into space that I just can't see that happening. The first rule when it comes to anything risky like that is NEVER PANIC. I kind of feel like it made kind of a mockery of the Astronaut Corps -- and given how cool, calm, and collected George Clooney was the whole time I kind of got a feeling that it did the same towards female astronauts in general. That's just me though.

Also it was kinda silly when she was barking and howling in the Soyuz capsule.

10/5/2013 4:15:14 AM

Tomb Raider (the x360 remake) in space:

Pervasive "I can do this" inner monologue + a series of unfortunate / disastrous events.

Sandra Bullock just can't catch a break.

[Edited on October 5, 2013 at 10:17 AM. Reason : Beautiful film, though. An absolute spectacle, 190%]

10/5/2013 10:16:27 AM

this was the most masterful film i've seen in at least five years. cuaron is a god. cormac mccarthy's the road meets terrence malick meets bbc's planet earth. just stunning.

10/5/2013 11:17:05 AM

George Clooney? Sandra Bullock? In space? Pass.

10/5/2013 11:21:11 AM

^^^^ wow, nice - i'm surprised

10/5/2013 3:31:18 PM

BTW, if you have any type of motion sickness, there is a scene about 15 minutes in that will give you a run for your money. I had to look away and just see things out of the corner of my eye for a few minutes.


Quoting and continuing spoilers:

Quote :

"The main problem I did have with it however (MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD) was the way Sandra Bullock's character acted. She just seemed to panic like craaaazy a lot. I understand that the positions she was put in would make an average person shit themselves and cry like a little girl but astronauts receive so much training and testing before they go into space that I just can't see that happening. The first rule when it comes to anything risky like that is NEVER PANIC. I kind of feel like it made kind of a mockery of the Astronaut Corps -- and given how cool, calm, and collected George Clooney was the whole time I kind of got a feeling that it did the same towards female astronauts in general. That's just me though. Also it was kinda silly when she was barking and howling in the Soyuz capsule."

Isn't that the idea though? It was her first time in space. If you practiced a speech in front of a mirror 100 times, but when you got up to do it in front of the class people were hissing and throwing things at you wouldn't it rattle you? She wasn't the expert, but Clooney was. Nothing was going according to plan, and she constantly thought she was going to die. Plus wasn't elevated to "walker" status because of her knowledge of the equipment? It sounds like she had only been training for 6 months, when most of them had years of training before a first trip.







End minor spoilers

10/5/2013 3:58:43 PM

^Yeah but they wouldn't have her out there with only 6 months of training. The Astronaut Corps takes that kind of thing very seriously. At the very least, everyone that goes to space has at least two years of training, and even then that is the bare minimum. NASA would rather have the Hubble remain broken than send up an astronaut that didn't have the proper training. Also, she only flew the Soyuz in a simulator once I think and she crashed it. She just simply wouldn't be up in space if she were that under qualified.

And with your giving a speech analogy -- the difference there is that you aren't giving that same speech every day for years before doing it, you don't have contingency plans if you mess it up, and you don't have specific training in public speaking, speech writing, etc. These astronauts are trained to have a Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, Plan E, Plan F and so on so that they will be able whatever happens logically and without panicking.

That being said though, I still enjoyed the movie, especially the visuals and some of the effects like no sound in space, etc. The physics were for the most part accurate too.

[Edited on October 5, 2013 at 5:39 PM. Reason : ]

10/5/2013 5:38:55 PM

^ But if she wasn't average, it wouldn't be a tense movie

10/5/2013 8:30:11 PM

^Yeah exactly. If it were realistic, it would be a pretty boring movie which is why I'm happy with it. lol at the Russians causing the whole thing btw.

10/5/2013 11:21:10 PM

Saw it at the IMAX in 3D, absolutely terrifying in that format imo...worth the extra few bucks.

Quote :

" Also, she only flew the Soyuz in a simulator once I think and she crashed it."

I remember her saying she crashed it "every time" she flew it. Didn't get the picture it was only once.

10/6/2013 9:48:22 AM

Yeah I wasn't sure on how many times she flew it. If she crashed it every time, she clearly needed more time in training.

10/6/2013 2:51:50 PM

Quote :

"cormac mccarthy's the road"

this movie definitely isn't post-apocalyptic, so I don't really understand you making this reference

SPOILER ALERT







beautiful movie visually, and I really liked the silence in specific parts

the only technical issue I had was that I didn't think the station/Hubble were on the same orbit: and after looking that up, they're totally not, by quite a long way (100 miles!)

everything else was filmed in such a physical way that I really liked, as far as Clooney jerking Bullock along with his jets, etc

laughed a bit at her use of the fire extinguisher: Cuaron probably just saw Wall-E a couple years ago and stole that bit

I also liked the visual metaphors he used throughout: once she reaches the Soyuz, there's a floating scene of her filmed as an embryo. Then at the end, with her surfacing out of the water: clearly an evolution reference. Just thought those were neat - though I seriously don't know if she could truly stand up like that at the end (or at least I know astronauts have to reacclimate to gravity for a while when they return to Earth).

all in all, I liked it a lot






SPOILERS OVER

10/6/2013 4:26:32 PM

the sound was sooo good

10/6/2013 5:51:52 PM

^^It showed her being a little wobbly when she stood up and she was only in space for like a week (non-ISS shuttle missions usually didn't last more than like 2 weeks) so that part actually was fairly accurate. You are totally correct on Hubble/ISS inclination angles though.

10/6/2013 7:03:05 PM

I really liked it. Made it feel like you were in space. I didn't see it in 3D but I bet that really adds to it as well.

10/6/2013 8:50:59 PM

i really want to see it in 3d

never seen a 3d flick before

but i have no one to go with because all the assholes i know claim they suck

10/6/2013 9:07:26 PM

I didn't see it in 3D

but it was still very gripping without

10/6/2013 9:38:43 PM

Saw it in spite of my long standing acrophobia, but wasn't scared one bit once it started. Great movie, however I felt like the plot was terribly simple. More eye/ear candy than a gripping tale of harrow.

To Wraith's point - she'd never have been up there without a certain level of training. And honestly, with what she was doing technically (switching out boards and shit?), I would imagine that that wouldn't take a rocket scientist. Easier to train an already space-ready astronaut to change out a board than to train an IT monkey to be an astronaut.

10/6/2013 10:38:09 PM

first 3D movie i've seen in years, and well worth it.

pretty amazing little movie.

10/7/2013 8:59:23 AM

It is very, very rare that 3D is an acceptable format for a film. This is an example of where it is appropriate.

Tons of technical inaccuracy, but really fun to watch. Highly recommend - and, I cannot believe I am saying this, but - highly recommend...in 3D.

10/7/2013 9:12:52 AM

If you are cheap like me and only like paying for 3d Imax for those special occasions, I would say this is absolutely one of them.

The movie was very well done, entertaining, etc.

Just go see it.

10/7/2013 9:26:41 AM

Quote :

"'Gravity' gets much of the science right By Tony Rice Posted: 9:27 a.m. today Updated: 24 minutes ago I love sci-fi movies but hate it when the science is needlessly trampled by the fiction. There are no such problems in Alfonso Cuarón’s immersive science-fiction action thriller "Gravity". The film gets so much right, so little wrong and only gets the sci wrong when the fi demands it. The characterization of Sandra Bullock's character as an expert at the job she was sent to do (repair the Hubble Space Telescope) though less than 100 percent prepared to step beyond that is spot on. Every astronaut who has worn a shuttle mission patch trains to land the orbiter in an emergency. Mission specialists aren't nearly as good at this as pilots and mission commanders. The veteran astronaut played by George Clooney also reminded me of every Apollo or early Shuttle era astronaut I've had the privilege to meet. Extremely confident, cool as a cucumber and full of stories. The film's science advisor, Dr. Kevin Grazier, did a commendable job of ensuring the science was right. He teaches astronomy courses at UCLA and works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the Cassini/Huygens Mission team studying Saturn and Titan. Grazier also authored a series of "Science of" books on Dune and Battlestar Galactica. He drew on that to help the filmmakers get a lot of little things right: Water droplets (surface tension) and fire (heat pushing out in all directions) as accurately shown as spherical in space. Nausea is a very real problem for even the toughest astronauts, especially on their first flight. The oversized tools used by Bullock's character in repairing Hubble Space Telescope (HST) are very accurate. Instead of random dots on a black background, real constellations represented behind astronauts. The accuracy of the Space Shuttle Orbiter, International Space Station (ISS) and Soyuz sets are impressive. Set decorators even got the make and model of laptops used aboard the ISS right. Yes, there are more than 60 of those ancient looking IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads on the ISS. The spacesuits and helmets are remarkably accurate It wasn't just the little nit-picky things that filmmakers got right. Significant plot points are based in real science. It's worth warning that there are spoilers beyond here. The cascade of satellite destruction which provides the conflict for the story is a very real threat as the number of objects in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) increase. The problem was first proposed in 1978 by orbital debris expert Donald J. Kessler. Kessler retired from NASA in 1996 but continues to study the problem of orbital debris and served as technical adviser on the Space Junk 3D film shown at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences last year. Clooney calculates the time remaining before the debris field reaches them at 90 minutes. This matches up nicely with the orbital period of objects in (LEO). The Chinese Shenzhou capsule is essentially an upgraded version of the Russian Soyuz. Avionic technology was purchased from Russia in the mid-1990s. An astronaut familiar with one should be able to pilot the other. The right debris hit triggering explosive charges to deploy the parachutes aboard the Soyuz on orbit seems possible. Newton's 3rd law of motion is demonstrated well as Bullock's character turns a fire extinguisher into a rocket engine. She improves control as she moves the nozzle towards her center of gravity. The retrorockets on Soyuz spacecraft used by Bullock's character to escape the ISS do exist and are used to cushion landing. They are seen again on the Shenzhou (see above). Unlike American capsules which are designed for water landings, Shenzhou and the predecessor Soyuz capsules normally land on solid ground. The one Soyuz water landing did not go well. In 1976, the crew of Soyuz 23 landed in a lake in blizzard conditions, the parachute filled with water and submerged the escape hatch. Cosmonauts waited 9 hours in frigid conditions for rescue. As Bullock's character nearly gives up, her plan to reduce the oxygen in the cabin and just "go to sleep" is probably the least painful way to go. Still, this is a work of fiction, not a documentary. Science must be sacrificed in the name of storytelling. It was mostly orbital mechanics that took one for the team: Rendezvousing in orbit requires significantly more time and precision than was available in the movie, so shortcuts were required. The ISS, HST (and visiting shuttle) and Tiangong 1 orbit the Earth on very different inclinations (28.5º, 51.6º and 42.8° respectively.) They are moving in very different directions as a result. Getting from one to the other is not as simple as changing lanes on Interstate 40 and requires significantly more time and precision than available in the film. In reality, the ISS, HST and Tiangong are separated by 4,000+ miles and are below the horizon. Space, even Low Earth Orbit, is a big place, and translating that to a movie screen is really difficult. The Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Clooney's character jets around on in the opening scenes does exist but was used only on three early shuttle missions and not since 1984. You can see space flown MMUs today hanging above space-flown shuttle orbiters at the Air and Space Museum and Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. The MMU was capable only of short bursts to move astronauts around the shuttle, not crossing distances portrayed in the film and certainly not in the time presented. But it was certainly a cool way to get Bullock and Clooney into the second act. Overall I really enjoyed this movie, not just for the attention to detail but for its immersive approach to filming. I think I even caught the lady sitting in front of me gulping for air at a pivotal point. The use of sound effects and most importantly, silence make a large contribution to the overall experience. I'll see it again and next time on an IMAX screen."

http://www.wral.com/-gravity-gets-much-of-the-science-right/12967434/

10/7/2013 11:27:25 AM

http://gawker.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-thinks-gravity-is-scientifically-i-1441842497

10/7/2013 12:07:47 PM

*spoiler alert*


...





I think the worst inaccuracy of all...the only one I almost could not tolerate...is the one that lead to Clooney's death. After she caught him with her leg tangled up, they lose all momentum relative to the station. She would merely have to give a short, quick upward kick in order to send both of them slowly back toward the station.

Instead, he was apparently "pulling her away" somehow...and so he had to let go.

All of the inaccuracies - including the fact that the inclinations of all the setpieces were different - were not that big a deal to me, as they were okay sacrifices to tell the story. So I made peace with it.

But that one really got under my skin. Even a fourth grade kid in science class understands why that scene is wrong.

[Edited on October 7, 2013 at 1:24 PM. Reason : still an awesome movie]

10/7/2013 1:24:10 PM

^ Yeah...I thought that one was weird as well.

10/8/2013 10:42:35 AM

^^ I thought about that too

mostly why she didn't think to rotate her leg around the string (or kick, as you said) to twist it in place while she pulled him in

10/8/2013 10:46:26 AM

In fact she wouldn't have to do that -- it already showed that there was a little bit of elasticity in the parachute cord. All they'd have to do is hold on and they would have "bounced" back to the ISS. The orbital mechanics were waaaay off though. They made it seem like all you had to do was "point and click" to rendezvous. Anyone who has even played Kerbal Space Program knows it isn't quite that simple.

10/8/2013 3:19:53 PM

^ Ahahahaha I made a deliberate effort to avoid mentioning KSP but the truth is that that game, for all the concessions it makes, does really give you a solid level of understanding of basic orbital mechanics.

10/8/2013 5:18:48 PM

http://kotaku.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-famed-astrophysicist-total-gravit-1442224673

10/10/2013 6:02:57 PM

SPOILER B!TCH


I enjoyed it . if you dont see this in 3d IMAX then I dont know what you're looking at. The movie was about life, rebirth, letting go and moving on and yadda yadda. the message was about as subtle as a hammer thrown to your face

I love the parts where Sandra faded to black in the background. I believed this happen twice and appreciated how mostly everything was silent except when the Joker's theme music played.

I thought the fire scene was weird. I cant put my finger on why, it just was. Also when George Clooney comes back ( when she was in the shuttle preparing to die) I was seconds away from yelling BULLSHIT . I was glad I was tricked.

all over the special effects are amazing and i wont be seeing it again. lol

10/13/2013 11:14:18 PM

^ 100% accurate.

set 'em up

10/13/2013 11:15:52 PM