Clooney in space again?

[hh5]

Movie: Gravity

co starring Sandra Bullock

About: A medical engineer and an astronaut work together to survive after an accident leaves them adrift in space.

 

 

Why make a movie like this when the real nasa science really says ... you're dead?

 

given the amount of damage in the teasers ... no one should survive

Nasa doesn't do rescue missions

the russians might not launch a robot ship for a rescue mission

no one would survive the landing after reentry

 

the only magic in the hat nasa pulled was Apollo 13

 

Nasa doesn't do satellite work near the ISS

 

lol this movie would justify their fears

 

wasn't the bruce willis and elijah wood NEO space missions enough?

Edited September 12, 2013 by hh5

[thebrinkoftime]

When I first read the thread title, I thought it would be about George Clooney getting a chance to go into outer space and all I could think about is how the aliens are going to be so unimpressed with our tendency to diefy entertainers. Like they meet this graying old man and he somehow communicates with them that his job is to pretend to be other people and on his planet this job tends to make more money than any other kind and the aliens are just kind of incredibly confused and starting to feel real pity for the species they have encountered.

 

Then I noticed it was a science fiction trailer (you see that hh5, fiction, not reality! ) starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock. It's an excellent trailer. Somehow reminds me of some of the science fiction movies from yesteryear, where instead of the special effects being the story, they compliment the effect the story has on you.

 

Then I saw that the director was Alfonso Cuaron and I thought, "I needs me some Gravity in my life."

 

Then I remembered how I read a thread about the reaction to this trailer in another forum where half the replies were, "Not sure I want to hear Sandra Bullock screaming and moaning for the duration of a movie," and I thought we've got a long way to go to become a more impressive species for the aliens to respect.

[hh5]

did everyone have nothing to watch?

so they come to see sandra pant? she's no Barbarella

whats your best space film nomination?

 

Success of 'Gravity' is a reminder of our favorite space films

"Gravity" made history this weekend as it defied industry expectations and shot to No. 1 at the box office, posting the highest October opening ever ($55.6 million).

 

Much has been made of the film, both critically and by audiences, for its revolutionary use of technology. Making stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney appear to float weightlessly through space after a shuttle disaster required director Alfonso Cuaron and his team to invent techniques to complete the task.

 

Their work, and Cuaron's eerie vision for the film, prompted James Cameron to proclaim "Gravity" the "best space film ever done."

 

That's high praise considering the caliber of space films over the years -- and the devotion they've stirred in fans. Space might not be the final cinematic frontier, but it certainly is an audience favorite.

 

Here's a look at some of the most loved space films of all time:

 

"Star Wars" "The Empire Strikes Back" "Return of the Jedi":

"2001: A Space Odyssey": 

"Alien" and "Aliens":

"Spaceballs"

"The Right Stuff"

"Le Voyage Dans La Lune": ("A Trip to the Moon") is a silent 1902 French film directed by Georges Méliès. Pure science fiction at the time of its production, the 17-minute film contains one of space cinema's most iconic images -- that of a crude bullet-shaped rocket hitting the Man in the Moon in the eye. The film is featured prominently in Martin Scorcese's 2011 film "Hugo."

 

"Apollo 13": 

"Barbarella"

 

"Starship Troopers"

"Star Trek" (2009): 

"Dune": 

"Event Horizon": 

"Total Recall": Arnold Schwarzenegger 

 

[Y_B]

This movie was awful

[TetRefine]

Save yourself the time. George Clooney dies, Sandra Bullock lives. Not worth the time and money to go see. Why people are raving about it I don't know.

[Y_B]

Clooney didn't die. At least not yet. He's still floating into nothingness as the movie ended. Should have shown a clip like "3 days later" with him still floating away

[hh5]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRQUgbRDpKM

[Ron]

Here is an interview with the director. There was an awful lot of work that went into this movie. I have not and most likely will not see this movie in the theater, it does not sound that great from reviews but it isn't hard to admire the technical details.

 

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/10/center_of_gravity/

Edited October 7, 2013 by Ron

[hh5]

oh the ooo and ahhh of space n earth ... other than that smash it up in space ... it does draw crowds

Here is an interview with the director. There was an awful lot of work that went into this movie. I have not and most likely will not see this movie in the theater, it does not sound that great from reviews but it isn't hard to admire the technical details.

 

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/10/center_of_gravity/

[JamesSavik]

I can think of a lot of people besides cLooney that I would like to blast into space.

[hh5]

The Science behind Gravity

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Let’s start with the catastrophe that propels the film. What actually happens to debris in space? Would the chain reaction occur in real life?

LEROY CHIAO: The chain reaction is not credible. There’s orbital debris out there to be sure, and it’s something we’re concerned about. Spacecraft typically have some shielding on it to take impact up to a certain point.

TOM JONES: We built the space station with debris shields to protect from the puncture of space debris. My crew delivered the U.S. lab to the space station and it’s armored because of the threat of a catastrophe from space debris. But the chain reaction, I think, stretches the idea a bit too far. It’s not a runaway effect where everything is killed. You would not even see the debris coming as the folks did in the movie — it’s at the speed of a rifle bullet, and you would not see that.

PHIL PLAIT: Debris will move away from an explosion and each little piece will stay more or less on the same orbit. You get a cloud of debris, but over time, it expands. Usually it’s not that bad right away because satellites are specifically put on orbits that are different from other satellites.

So the way the film has the stations positioned is completely off?

PP: Oh yeah, the three objects — the Hubble, the ISS, the Chinese station — are in three completely different orbits. It’s not just that they’re in different heights, the orbits are in different shapes. It’s tilted, like two hula hoops, one inside the other and then tipped at an angle.

TJ: This is one of the biggest shortcuts the movie takes with physics, to put the three all within an orbit that lines them up, and they’re the same altitude so you can hopscotch from one to the other. They’re not in similar orbits, and in fact, you cannot jump from one to the other. You can’t just shoot your thrusters off and go visit it.

LC: The orbital planes are probably not even co-aligned, so they’re in totally different orbits and totally different altitudes.

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Let’s say the disaster doesn’t occur, and instead Sandra Bullock’s character just somehow becomes untethered and goes flying through space. What would the emergency procedure be to rescue her?

TJ: Had she been on a shuttle that’s still functioning, the shuttle would fly after her and pick her up — that’s the solution we practiced for many years. But the space station is too massive to fly over and do those kinds of maneuvers, so we always wear, on the space station, an emergency jetpack that can shoot you back. But if you were hurled off at the velocity of Sandra Bullock’s character, you would need another spacecraft that’s equipped to come get you, and that’s not something we practice for, because we think it’s much easier to plan for not coming off the space station by tethering yourself carefully.

Would she, a medical doctor, have been needed for a spacewalk in the first place?

LC: It’s certainly plausible. It’s not at all uncommon for medical doctors of different backgrounds to be trained for a spacewalk, because if you show an aptitude for that, then it doesn’t matter what your background is, whether you’re an engineer like me or a medical doctor like some of my colleagues. You would be trained to do spacewalks.

Moving on to George Clooney’s character, when he’s making her share stories and talking her through their trip, wouldn’t that use more oxygen than just letting her breathe?

LC: Well, you’re right, but it’s a tradeoff. In that kind of a situation, if someone is freaking out and you think you can calm that person down by talking, then it’s worth talking. If you’re hyperventilating, then you’re using a lot of oxygen.

And he survives because of his jetpack. How does a jetpack actually work? Would it actually be able to save both of them?

LC: The jetpack, the MMU — Man Maneuvering Unit — the real thing didn’t have nearly as much fuel as was shown in the movie. First of all, he wouldn’t just be kind of flying around, making jokes and all that in the beginning and he certainly wouldn’t have enough fuel to chase after somebody who’d been thrown off in a different direction, and change orbits and make it to another station. The fuel for that was compressed nitrogen, and it’s not a very efficient fuel. We used the MMU in the early days of the shuttle program to put grappling fixtures on satellites. An MMU could actually operate for several hours but it’d be very slow, deliberate maneuvers, not like how he was in the beginning of the movie, just flying around. He’d run out of gas pretty quickly just doing that.

TJ: That device, the MMU, was a reality back in 1985, but the one he wears has a limited range. That machine was retired so we currently don’t have one.

Later, Clooney’s character is forced to let go to save Bullock’s. Could he have survived? How does the physics work in that scene?

PP: Yeah, that scene was the one scene in the whole movie where I kind of went, “I have a hard time forgiving this.” He did not have to die, basically. She’s stopped, there’s nothing pulling on him now, it’s not like she’s hanging from a tree holding on to his wrist. There’s no force on him, all she had to do was very gently pull on the tether and he would have come floating up to her, and instead he just unbuckled.

LC: Yeah, that was a horribly inaccurate thing. They stopped, so there’s nothing else pulling on him. There was no reason he had to let go. He would not have kept going the way he did. The physics on that is totally wrong.

What about the fire extinguisher? Is that scene possible?

PP: I don’t know how much pressure the fire extinguishers on the ISS have, but yeah, you could use it to propel yourself. It would be super hard because first of all, you’re facing the wrong way, and the other thing is if you’re holding it right over your center of gravity, your midsection, it’s going to cause you to spin. So I was like, “Hmm, it’s plausible, but not probable.” But you could do it.

LC: It is theoretically possible, but that whole scenario was pretty far-fetched. First of all , that hatch doesn’t exist on the Soyuz that she opened, and if she were to get it open and blown out into space, using that fire extinguisher to maneuver and slow down, well, the fire extinguisher’s not going to have much in it, and you’re going to exhaust it pretty quickly. You have to be really lucky to make it all work. It’s like jumping off an airplane to catch another airplane.

TJ: When she uses it inside the space station and it bangs her off the wall, that’s accurate, that would have happened. Outside, it would be much more difficult. She’d go tumbling head over heels and never get herself back on the proper orientation to fire herself in the right direction.

Would using the soft landing jets on the Soyuz have worked to get her to the Chinese station?

TJ: Isaac Newton won’t let you do that. You fire your rockets and you speed up and that raises your altitude to a higher orbit, and then you slow down at a higher altitude and you fall farther behind.

Tell me about her spacesuit. Do you have to take it off immediately when you get inside the station?

LC: Once you get back inside the station, you do want to take your suit off because it’s a lot easier to move around of course, and the suit’s pretty big and bulky and cumbersome — you can bump into a lot of things. Having said that, it’s a lot harder to take your suit off than shown in the movie.

What’s the actual process of taking the suit off like?

LC: The procedure is quite involved. It’s probably, I would say, close to an hour or so unassisted. It’s certainly not like changing clothes. It looks like she just kind of unzipped that. And also, you’re not wearing what she’s wearing underneath, you’re wearing a full liquid cooling garment.

TJ: It’s not that quick and it’s not that easy. You’re wearing a lot more clothing than Sandra wears, and to survive in the spacesuit, you need a cooling garment that’s laced with water-filled tubes to keep you cool, otherwise you would die from the heat. In the movie she presses a couple of quick buttons and it comes off. She takes the suit off like taking off a pair of blue jeans, but it’s more a half an hour process.

What did the movie get right?

PP: The thing it got right the best was just the view. It was just incredible. I did work with Hubble for 10 years for my degree and the thought of it up close and everything was beautiful, they did a great job with that. The stars in the sky were right. She swooped past several constellations that were pretty recognizable, like Taurus and a couple of others.

LC: They obviously did a lot of homework in looking at the hardware, the tools and the suits. The inside and the outside of the ISS looked pretty good, and they paid a lot of attention to the lighting of the Earth and how the sun appears, so they created a nice framework for the look and feel of doing a spacewalk and being in space, even if a lot of the physics and orbital mechanics were totally wrong. They did a good job of giving an impression of what it’s like being outside doing a spacewalk. Everyone who’s done a spacewalk, our secret fear is we’re somehow going to get in that situation, get thrown off the station, and here we are tumbling away pretty much to certain death as you run out of oxygen, so I mean, it hits a fear that everybody who’s done a spacewalk has thought about. That’s part of why it works.

TJ: Two things they did a really good job on were the beauty of the Earth set in space and the views that astronauts have. The real thing’s even lovelier, but that was a pretty good depiction of how lovely the Earth and the sky and the sunrise, the sunset, the moonrise and all that was very well done — I was applauding. The other part they did well was the depiction of the space station and the way the objects moved in weightlessness. I really liked the hyperrealism in the film. Those wonderful long camera shots were impressive and of course, that’s the way we would experience it.

Where would you rank the film in terms of accuracy among other films set in space?

LC: Gravity‘s pretty good, it’s in a different category than 2001, but it’s closer to Alien, even though there are no monsters or anything. To my engineer friends and my astronaut colleagues, I always say, “Look, they got a lot wrong, but if you focus on the story, it’s a good story.”

TJ: In the last 20 years, it’s the best space film by far in terms of accuracy. It’s not perfect, and we just discussed why, but you’d have to go all the way back to 2001 before you’d find a movie that paid more attention to accuracy than this one did and was depicted in such realistic terms.

PP: 2001: A Space Odyssey and Contact would be the two I always rank very highly. Gravity is definitely below those, but it makes up a lot of points for trying super hard and getting stuff right where it could, so it ranks pretty well for that. All the mistakes were minor, so it’s definitely better than Armageddon or Deep Impact.

[hh5]

my best friend wrote to me. he went to see this movie and I joked to him to adding to the making the film successful that it so doesn't deserve.

I got him to give me a sense of the movie. I say I like to see a sequel because it be good to know if this movie was a stepping stone to a world war or was it just a mistake \ accident caused by one country with no intended malice?

 

I think partly this movie gives bad nasa press. We lost two shuttles already. Now we lost another one. A fictional one but a reminder that this is the tenth year anniversary to the lost of columbia. I wonder if the director thought this was a way of paying tribute or not.

 

Mars or the asteroid belt is really a big risk to human life. Its costly to send man up there. Reality proven that no country is willing to foot the bill for a backup plan when the primary plan fails.

 

Even if there was plans to have back up plans ... when people looks at how much it costs they look to cut it in half. 

 

I love those lines in armageddon .. it really explains ... our space missions are one way trips at worst.

like military missions ... I bet each one left their family an in case if I die video .. no civilian mission is willing to admit that

only military does that at best.

 

I guess we can only find solace in this movie by hearing bullocks panic orgasims and the directors wonderful views of the earth.

I question if clooney would ever make another Ocean movie but losing pitt ... I guess there is no more.

clooney is lost in space

[mickey1952]

I've seen some really good reviews of the film. And I like Sandra Bullock. But I wouldn't be able to stomach two minutes of Clooney, let alone 2+ hours! (No offense to you George fans out there.)

[hh5]

...................................................We're having our moment!!........ Can you help me with my space condom?

[hh5]

............................................................................................................Space Dating

[Fishwings]

I thought the movie was thrilling and beautiful. It had a really simple plot but it was done well and the acting was superb, idk whytf you guys are hating.

[thebrinkoftime]

I don't know either. I took advantage of my trip to Ameeeeerica and went and saw it and it was fantastic. I hate science fiction that forgets the characters in service of the plot or the science and this was not one of those movies. It reminded me of Contact, Apollo 13 or Gattaca, just one of those really arresting character movies in the foreign world of heavy everyday science that keeps your eyes following the pretty lights being projected to the wall. It was operatic in scope, while being minute in detail.

 

I don't even have any remaining George Clooney hate ever since I saw him in that one movie where he rode in cars and talked to business people (Michael something, I think). I don't even know where my George Clooney hate came from since I don't know the man and have no possible clue what he's like in real life. Poor George Clooney, you were good in Solaris too, which is another interesting science fiction movie.

 

Gravity is up there with Kaze Tachinu in the best movie I've seen this year. Whether it stands in the line of the greats will take longer to process and decide, but it's at least in the running.

[Rizan]

Half of us wanted to see Carrie, and the other half wanted to see Gravity. We ended up going to Gravity, but I think by the end of it we all wished we had gone to see Carrie instead.

 

The visuals were absolutely amazing. Everything else was either so-so or terrible. The story (though full of holes) was interesting; not necessarily good, but interesting.

 

The science was appalling. Shooting down satellites is something we already do, we have on several occasions shot down satellites that were otherwise going to reenter. And somehow this satellite that was shot down is at the same altitude as the ISS and every other satellite in the world? And ALL of that debris went in one single direction which happened to line up with the ISS and every other satellite and station? Let's not even get into that scene with Clooney hanging onto a rope and somehow being pulled away from Bullock? What's pulling him? Do they not understand physics? ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS TUG AND HE'D HAVE COME BACK.

 

This is all dwarfed by the fact that NASA would have never allowed Bullock's character to go space in the first place. She had 6th months of training, couldn't even pass a simulation, and had no working knowledge of space at all except that one Astronomy course she probably took for a GenEd during her undergrad.

 

 

Overall, I would rate the movie a Should'veSeenCarrie/10

Edited October 21, 2013 by Rizan

[Zombie]

This is about the future?

But the shuttle's in the past ....

*is confused, like brink's aliens ... head hurts .... starts to moan ...*

Btw nice spoilers, guys