Just back from seeing the movie “Gravity.” Here is a small review, in two parts:
Part One: The Howlers
There are some serious science issues with this movie. For starters: the cause of the trouble in the movie is the Russians blasting one of their satellites with a ground-based interceptor. This is obviously the sort of thing that could cause serious trouble in low Earth orbit, but the movie stepped it up a notch by having the cloud of debris causing a chain reaction among other satellites, making *them* blow up, which makes *more* satellites blow up… in the end, the way it’s described a wave of shrapnel girdles the Earth and takes out pretty much the entirely of man-made space-based infrastructure in a matter of a few minutes. Ummm… no.
Second: Hubble is co-orbiting with the ISS, separated by a hundred kilometers or so. Ummm… no. And ISS is co-orbiting with the Chinese Tiangong space station, separated by a hundred kilometers or so. Ummm… no. You can get from one to another under the power of a backpack maneuvering unit. Ummm… no.
That said…
Part Two: Everything Else
Ho. Lee. Crrrraaaaaaaaap.
This movie earns the price of admission in the first ten minutes. The opening scene is just a view of Earth from orbit; outside of IMAX films shot from the Shuttle, you’ve never seen the like. From there you see the shuttle “Explorer” working on Hubble, With George Clooney doodlybobbing around the vehicle in a new, experimental maneuvering unit. Within short order, the SHTF, and the Explorer is struck. The Shuttle is trashed, the Hubble is trashed, and Our Heroes are pitched into the dark. This was all shot – as it should be – in virtual silence. Nowhere in the movie do the descend to the intellectual depths of adding impossible sounds to the vacuum of space. The scene on Explorer being destroyed is one of the most astonishing things I’ve seen on-screen, as nail-biting as the plane crashes in “The Edge” and “Flight.” There are no explosions, no fireballs, no smoke, no high-energy detonations. What there is a lot of, however, is a lot of debris. A lot of things that clearly have *mass.* Things that interact with each other, and have inertia (including rotational momentum).
And even while things are being torn apart, billion dollar machines are being converted into garbage and people are dying on-screen… it’s all just so beautiful.
The filmmakers spared no expense – or at least it looks that way – to depict realistic zero-gee. This includes several scenes within space stations, floating through modules filled with floating debris. A scene of Sandra Bullock in an airlock is particularly effective.
Water floating in space station modules. Zero-gravity *fire,* which might be the first serious depiction of on the big screen. Things that are tethered to each other whip around and snap back elastically, as would actually happen. A parachute is shown deployed in space (as result of taking impact damage); it is not a static thing, but flails around like a trapped jellyfish. Because, with no gravity and no air, there’s nothing to make it stop except the slow grind of friction.
Earth is ever-present, as you might expect. And unlike most movies, here Earth is not a big ball *painted* like Earth, but is instead an actual fully realized planet. The oceans are not a uniform shade of blue. The limb of the Earth has an atmospheric haze and a greenish glow at certain times; when orbiting over the night side of Earth, the aurora is clearly visible as are cities and other artificial lights.
Sandra Bullock’s character is the main one, and only one of three that you actually see alive (you hear a few others, including Ed Harris as the voice of Mission Control… a job he’s had before, and a barely-heard Greenland Inuk – which provides some truly heartbreaking moments). She does a fabulous job as a mission specialist just trying to survive. She’s not a Super Hero, nor is she a Useless Victim. She’s a Regular Joe caught up in horrible events, and she does a damned fine job of it.
In the end, the Orbital Mechanics Howlers mentioned at the beginning of the review don’t detract much from the staggering spectacle of the film. There is no sex, no drug use, no politics (apart, perhaps, from the plot element of the Russians blasting one of their satellites), only a little profanity, and no violence beyond the obvious.
Go see it. Go see it on a big screen. At some point in the nearish future I’m going to put the 250 miles on my car to go see it on an IMAX screen