Gravity - Review and Discussion Thread

^ Better than Children of Men? No. Better than Azkaban? ... I'd call it about even.

 

Best movie of the year, so far.

 

Also, better than Y Tu Mamá También?

 

So if I take the "story" of the equation, then that 12 minute open I feel blows both long takes from Children of Men out of the water. I feel like this is the culmination of the Lubezki/Cauron collaboration - although I suppose working on two Malick films probably helped a lot too. (But maybe his work on Gravity probably ended before he started working with Malick?)

It's just a beautiful cinematic experience to behold, and the threadbare plot and characters actually makes it much more like an IMAX space film inasmuch as you can just sit back and rewatch the film over and over again without feeling like you are being forced to "sit through" something. I love Children of Men and Y Tu Mama Tambien (never watched the Harry Potter movie), but something about Gravity is just magical to watch.

I look at it this way, if I were to ever rewatch Children of Men, it'd be only for the ending. With Gravity, I could rewatch the entire film and be perfectly fine doing so (well, the fact that I've done it 7 times now is a testament to that fact).

Of course, I'm perfectly willing to admit that the script is probably the worst that Cauron has had to work with. But I'm okay with it just being all "style" and very little "substance". I'm actually considering buying a 3D TV for this movie - that's how deep a hole I am in with this thing.

 

Lubezki has been collaborating with Terrence Malick since The New World in 2005. That film, and The Tree of Life (2011) certainly predate principal photography on Gravity.

He's been working with Malick a lot longer though -- since Love in the Time of Hysteria in 1991.

 

7 times. Do you work for a movie theatre chain?

I saw this film yesterday for the first time and loved it. I'm willing to overlook the scientific nitpicks that deGrasso-Tyson had as I believe most people are because most of us aren't scientists and his faults of the film are minor IMO.

One point of the plot I didn't get or perhaps missed the dialogue in the film is why was the Chinese space station losing its orbit? That seemed just a little to easy to make the plot work. Also that she gets incredibly lucky pushing the right controls to eject the emergency landing vehicle.

The rest IMO was plausible - at least plausible enough.

 

Well, when you put it that way, I guess I can't disagree. But if it were me, I'd definitely go for a 3D projector rather than a TV - you get a bigger screen/viewing area, and a more cinematic experience. But that's just moi.

 

I agree. I've recently bought a 3D projector (I love it) and can't wait for Gravity to come out on 3D blu-ray! (well, that and Pacific Rim)

 

Ah, I had no idea they were working together for that long. I just assumed they hooked up with Tree of Life and To The Wonder.
Either way, as a cinematic experience, it's just beautiful. It probably helps being a giant space nerd though.

I don't. Part of it was just experiencing it in as many formats as I could. I've seen it in Atmos, IMAX, D-Box, and "regular". IMAX was the best viewing experience simply because it has the brightest projection.

And that's my only criticism of 3D - most film theaters don't pay for the higher luminance projection, so all my non-IMAX viewings of the movie looked dark and muddy at times.

I don't have the room to go with a projector unfortunately. I was actually looking for smaller 3D TVs, but it looks like the TV makers are only putting 3D into 40" or larger sets these days. At least that's what the chain stores seem to carry up here anyway.

 

Spaceflight and even science was lampooned as being 'penetrative' for awhile by some eco-feminists and deep ecologists. Even Chomsky had to put the breaks on that and well as postmodernism. I've always adored Camille Paglia myself.

She thought that pop-art deserved more respect, and I love her for that. One of her books
http://www.amazon.com/Glittering-Images-Journey-Through-Egypt-ebook/dp/B007WKE2PU/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

 

In the real worl the Chinese space station is in fairly low orbit. It could've simply been pushed or fallen a bit especially after the escape rocket launched/the first pass of the meteor shower.

 

To be fair, you're talking about phallic objects penetrating deep, dark, unknown spaces. It's a gold mine for psychoanalysis.

 

You should find the AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER on TMP; there is a general article before the tech ones that sounds like somebody's psych thesis at times, comparing the Enterprise to spermatozoa as it penetrates v'ger's exterior. You'd figure that kind of thing for the DISCOVERY in 2001, but for TMP?
Well, the way Kirk looks at the ship in drydock ...

 

In the, 'real world,' the Chinese haven't even launched their space station yet?

 

U.S. shuttle orbotors don't fly anymore and the Chinese don't have a working station in orbit yet. So that pretty well makes this film science fiction...seeing as some people were questioning that.

 

Of course. Regardless even in science fiction they often explain why inexplicable things are happening. And they didn't explain why the Chinese Space Station was losing orbit. Also - as I said up thread - she got very lucky pushing the right buttons to properly engage the emergency evacuation vehicle since she didn't read Chinese.

 

^ I thought she muttered something about the button layouts being the same, with only the language labels different?

 

Astronaut Clooney said the layout of the Chinese station was similar to the Soyuz. (Which it is/will be in real life.) So since she was familiar with the procedures on the Soyuz she could operate the Chinese pod.

The thing that occurs to me is that she's lucky the pod happened to settle into a proper reentry angle.

I think of the discussions in "Apollo 13" where they talk about the capsule needing to be in a narrow reentry corridor. Too steep and it burns up on reentry, to shallow and it skips off the atmosphere. Bullock's pod seemed to happen to be in just the right reentry corridor.

Yes it's not built yet, but as your excerpt says, it's to be built in a low orbit. So given some hand waving (which we already have to do a LOT of for this movie to work) we can assume it's shallow orbit but it into reentry earlier especially if we compound it with being pushed out of orbit a bit by the debris field/launching of the escape pods.

 

I'm confused.

China's Tiangong-1 space station was launched in 2011 and has since been visited by two different Shenzhou crews. I assumed that this was the Tiangong station also depicted in Gravity? Or was that supposed to be a later Tiangong station which is not yet in orbit?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong-1

 

^ It looks like Tiangong-1 is just the first part of a larger planned station. The one in the movie appeared to be the complete Tiangong station.