What's the best way to discourage people from going to see Danny Boyle's Sunshine?

Saw 28DL on C4 last night.

Started out like The Omega Man Goes To London mixed with The Changes - the shots of deserted London were undeniably stunning but little was done with them (similarly with the very touching scene when Cillan Murphy finds his parents dead in bed, ODing on the assumption that he was a goner). Then we get all the stereotypes one by one: the Feisty Woman, the Salt Of The Earth Bloke Plus Daughter, Ecclestone playing his usual Psycho Admin role.

I wish the film had had the courage to go further down the Changes route, or even set itself up as a British Outlaw Josey Wales; they could have done a lot more stuff in the countryside, gradually pulling together a new community etc. rather than cop out with the Christopher Ecclestone Wants Your Women/It Was All A Dastardly Government Quarantine Plot stuff; I was half expecting Murphy to wake up at the end of it all and there's Ewan McGregor in the shower.

(SPOILERS BELOW)

this is in new york now, i went to it. it's entertaining, i don't get all the bitching. doesn't have an original idea in its head, but as a sort of highlight reel of spaceship movies, i thought it did the job. really could have done without the religious nutjob psycho killer, but wtf, they needed something for the third act. i like spaceship movies, it satisfied the requirements of the genre (mostly by stealing them from other movies, but i'm ok with that).

(yes, the film's basic set-up is fundamentally silly, and fundamentally silly things transpire throughout. i was still not bored.)

to answer the thread title, send out whores for free-boinking, and everyone should be distracted.

It's the cover feature in Film Comment.

how is Film Comment these days? i used to subscribe way back....

this is not nearly as bad as alba makes it out to be. you ppl are weird about danny boyle a bit, aren't you

FC was RAWSOME this time last year.

Great film.

(in answer to the thread title, i'm not sure there's actually a way to discourage people -- or at least me -- from seeing a movie about a spaceship flying into the sun. if you make a movie about spaceships flying into the sun, i will pay money to see it.)

Now this has hit the Prince Charles [local old films for cheap] cinema I'm gonna see it AGAIN.

im still wondering what that sunburnt slasher guy was doing in the movie. comic relief perhaps? i liked the rest though, most of the movie felt like a submarine thriller.

there was so much 2001 in this movie. it was weird.

there was so much of everything in it. 2001 especially, but i think every spaceship movie ever made got a nod. still, flying a bomb into the sun! it's such a stupid idea, but still so kind of awesome.

ya, 2001... alien (esp the dinner table)... lots of stuff

naming a ship that flies close to the sun icarus = not a good idea btw

I can't decide if I should see this or not - as far as I can tell every Danny Boyle movie that is not called Trainspotting sucks

it's not called trainspotting, if that helps

Sunspotting

"Choose the sun. Choose a flare. Choose a sunspot. Choose a corona. Choose a fucking big photosphere...Choose sitting on that ship watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing convection zones...Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable living module, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up scientists that you've recruited to replace yourselves...But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose the sun. I chose somethin' else."

One of these days I'd like to see a mission-against-the-odds film where the mission is successfully carried out in a professional, unemotional manner.

Deep Impact gets pretty close

This wasn't particularly great but it's miles better than the last SF movie I saw in the theater - The Fountain

awww, but the fountain had ethan suplee in it! and monkeys! and mayans!

Still, they probably could have just sent a robotic ship to deliver the payload and avoid this entire crazy crew member thing entirely.

awww, but the fountain had ethan suplee in it! and monkeys! and mayans!

And the Mayan sequences were great! I wish Aronofsky had just tossed the present/future story lines.

I completely forgot I saw this last night. I change my mind, I like The Fountain more.

The real Icarus story is about directors who think they can make a movie as great as 2001

aN EVEN HOTTER CREW THAN aLIENS

oKAY dUDE

awww, but the fountain had ethan suplee in it! and monkeys! and mayans!

And I missed this?! *rushes off to bittorrent*

I wish I'd got this warning last night.

Terrible movie, although it passed the time I guess.

If only they'd listened to nice Chris Evans, nothing bad would've happened.

yeah otm, he is the voice of cold reason. pretty rose byrne fucks it all up.

i kinda liked that so much of the bad stuff that happened was cuz of human error or just plain bad judgment.

It was to pretty look at, but not much in the way of interesting ideas, or the usual sci-fi allegorical gubbins. It just was what it was.

Also, the jump from one ship to the next THROUGH SPACE seemed to have been nicked off a (much better staged) scene in Battlestar Galactica.

Also also, Cillian Murphy = rubbish. And not at all jealous, me.

And unexpected skinless zombie killer = most preposterous mid-movie shark jump since "Adaptation."

Just seen it again. It seemed a lot easier to forgive that plot twist this time around - and easier to follow all the shaky camera work. Was still pretty intense, but not as blisteringly so as the first time, unsurprisingly.

just plain bad judgment

The whole descent into disaster was the captain's fault and the captain's fault alone. The decision to divert or not to divert was a command level decision and to delegate it to a subordinate was an unforgivable abdication of responsibility.

i kinda liked that so much of the bad stuff that happened was cuz of human error or just plain bad judgment.

-- s1ocki, Wednesday, July 25, 2007 8:17 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

yeah. i reviewed this film and it knocked me on my coal-mining ass but i was also vaguely aware it was a bit like 'dark star' and other sf films i hadn't seen, so i concentrated on that coz i dug that too. exchanges like where they're talking about they have enough oxygen for three "breathers" so we must kill someone -- that was cool.

It was to pretty look at, but not much in the way of interesting ideas, or the usual sci-fi allegorical gubbins.

i thought it totally had the usual allegorical gubbins. too usual. it's a humanist parable about the divine being located in everything and not in some remote god, etc. not that i think boyle's heart was in any of that, but it's what the screenplay's about.

most preposterous mid-movie shark jump since "Adaptation."

i never understand when people say this. the ending of adaptation is totally coherent with the rest of the movie.

it's a humanist parable about the divine being located in everything

I thought it was about how driving a spaceship into the sun tends to make people a little bit batshit crazy.

I thought it was about how driving a spaceship into the sun tends to make people a little bit batshit crazy.

If the movie had actually developed that idea then I would have gone with it, but instead all we got was sudden SPACE MADNESS that we've seen a dozen times before.

Future scientists can build a ship that can fly a crew of eight to the sun, but mysteriously can't construct a computer that can run the mission on it's own?

Having a computer that you could safely trust to deal with the unexpected is the issue.

I thought it was about how driving a spaceship into the sun tends to make people a little bit batshit crazy.

well that's the part of it i liked. but it had philosophical ambitions, however half-baked and stolen.

Having a computer that you could safely trust to deal with the unexpected is the issue.

Apart from dealing with the occasional broken system what else would the computer need to do? The billions of DollarEuros spent on the life-support system for those losers can buy all the redundancy you need.

I wish Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg had done this movie instead.

The first two thirds of this is one of the better studio movies that will come out this year. Michael Sicinski quite oTM throughout:

http://academichack.net/reviewsAugust2007.htm#Sunshine

the jump from one ship to the next THROUGH SPACE seemed to have been nicked off a (much better staged) scene in Battlestar Galactica.

I don't know (that's TV) but, ummm, 2001? And so what -- theer are only so many things you can do with big-budget space operas. Big chunks of it were also like a good submarine movie.

Also also, Cillian Murphy = rubbish.

Well, I just hate you.

Saw this today. I liked it, but the serial killer/shakey camerawork bit was a bit much.

I kept thinking of 2001, of course, but 2001 was the first flick that really paid attention to actual engineering, i.e. anything sent into deep space is going to be long & cylindrical(and spinning). There were some shitty movie-nec tech choices that i thought were just thrown in there to create "drama"(flooding a burning compartment with CO2 would probably work a lot better than pure oxygen which has a tendency to be explosive, having some sort of protective bit if you're working in a cooling unit), but the bit about using the thermal foils as a way to keep you from freezing was nice.

Still, the conventions of sci-fi as a genre require that you refer to something else, since no one will sit thru the wheel being re-invented with story after story. The crazy daemon capt reminded me too much of "Event Horizon". I thought the ship psych with skin problems was a nice touch, a great hint at how much time he'd really spent in the observation room w/o adequate shielding.

from the imdb entry:

'Alex Garland' wrote the film as a "love letter" to psychologically-minded science-fiction, and also a film about atheism and "meeting God". He and director Danny Boyle differed in their interpretation of this aspect of this film, but found this did not affect the content of the movie. Garland remarks that they had reached "the same two interpretations that could be made from the world around us".

http://www.ascmag.com/magazine_dynamic/August2007/Sunshine/page1.php

Cover feature from the latest ish of American Cinematographer

"Choose the sun. Choose a flare. Choose a sunspot. Choose a corona. Choose a fucking big photosphere...Choose sitting on that ship watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing convection zones...Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable living module, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up scientists that you've recruited to replace yourselves...But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose the sun. I chose somethin' else."

I roffled so hard over this.

Um... yes, I know it's taken me a year to see this but I had to wait until the DVD was cheap enough for me to buy.

The first 2/3 of this movie is GREAT - fantastic atmosphere, cinematography, plus Cillian Murphy wandering around being giga-hott particle physicist. Rowr. And then the last third is SO BAD is just ruins the rest of the film. Why did they DO that?

I'm actually glad I got it on DVD because that means that I got the commentary of Dr. Brian Cox maniacally explaining all the bit where they got the science TOTALLY WRONG, HA HA HA!

It is not worse than Event Horizon. Please.

"What can you see? What can you see?"

Fucking love that scene.

I've probably watched this about 9 or 10 times now and I've made my peace with the final third, to the point where I wouldn't want it any other way.

It does get better on repeated viewings, because you know that the last third is going to suck, so you can go back and concentrate on the bits that are really good in the beginning.

Is the psychologist going mad, or is he trying to research the effects of the sun on people's psyches, using himself as guinea pig?

I think he's going mad - kind of foreshadowing or validating Pinback's psychotic break.

Agreed. Curtis says he was playing the role as a researcher doing research, but he's clearly going a little mad.

I've only seen it once, but I really enjoyed this film. I agree that the final third-ish was pretty pants and I could have done without that kind of silliness entirely, but it all looked so great and I was totally engrossed by the vast majority of it, finding it tense and gripping stuff. I would have been happy if they'd stuck to more mundane technological and human struggles, which I really loved watching, rather than bringing in any spiritual and monster/loony clap-trap, but there you go.

It's better the first time. It works fine as a visceral experience, but there's not a lot going on intellectually, despite the film presenting itself as serious SF.

Agreed. I enjoyed it in the same way I enjoy watching lots of end-of-the-world and post-apocalyptic type films.

If you watch it with Dr. Cox's commentary, it's a lot more going on intellectually. Well, mainly because he starts going on random tangents about CERN and supersymmetric matter and black holes and stuff. Come to think of it, it would have been better if they'd made a £50 million movie that was just Dr. Cox talking about the sun for an hour and a half. :-)

this movie was quite good. so, yur RONG

Yes, very much rong going on here. The movie is not bad at all (except for the obviously poor ending as stated)

even that ending, while weird and totally contrarian to the rest of the movie, didn't ruin it or anything (at least not for me, though I can see both sides).

Uh, sorry, to keep banging on about the commentary (you know how my obsessions run) but...

Future scientists can build a ship that can fly a crew of eight to the sun, but mysteriously can't construct a computer that can run the mission on it's own?

The commentary actually went into this. That years and years of Soviet and US spaceflight have come to the same conclusion- in an emergency, you're still better off and more efficient with a human being as a backup system. (That said, the things that Cillian Murphy was doing to kick off the bomb didn't look *that* complicated that one of the other crew couldn't have done it, but hey - maybe it was keyed to his command only. And they always simplify science in movies anyway. That said - apparently the papers he had stuck up all over the walls of his bunk were actual research that Dr. Cox was working on.)

That said, why the human backup couldn't just stay back on Earth... OK because of the electrical interference of the sun in communications systems. But they LIED about the whole "can't communicate from Mercury" thing - they've already flown missions to Mercury that had radio contact the entire time. The sun's effect doesn't kick in until much closer. But that wouldn't have been much of a movie, would it?

They could've done the Mercury part first, and then the communications loss...but I think it's cooler that they're seeing Mercury in complete isolation from humankind.

Well, they had to have Mercury out of radio contact because of the whole "oh noes! Icarus I has been HIDING in orbit behind Mercury" thing. Which Dr. Cox also debunked as nonsense because it is apparently super-difficult to get in orbit of Mercury and the flight plan that they showed was also physically impossible. This is why you don't have proper scientists doing commentary on sci fi films.

This is why you don't have proper scientists doing commentary on sci fi films.

No, this is why you watch the film first and then again with the scientist commentary. Does the UK dvd have Danny Boyle's commentary track too? It's pretty interesting too in completely different ways.

Yeah it has it, but I haven't listened to it because, well, Danny Boyle is not a hott particle physicist. I suppose I should... but I don't care about filmography. I just care about the Science bits.

Oh yeah, I'd also like to put forth publicly my rebuke of Underworld for being assholes and holding up the release of the soundtrack cd indefinitely (and probably permanently).

just seen this, despite this thread. it was shit! must listen to ilx mentalists in future

I have just figured out what was one of my favourite things about it - and it's only something that popped up during the directors commentary.

There's no tacked-on romance! I really liked that! I was really terrified that there was going to be something between Capa and Rose Byrne's character, and was really relieved when there wasn't.

It was really really refreshing to have the female characters there to be scientists and pilots and suchlike and just DO THEIR JOBS rather than just function as cheap love interest/sex objects.

i liked this! sort of a missed opportunity with regard to the premise...but maybe every movie doesn't have to be a masterpiece.

this is prob in my top films of the decade list. fuck tha haterz.

I liked the extremes of heat and cold....the sense of how small and fragile the little sliver of possibility is that allows us to exist, the infinite forces beyond our understanding on either side...making it tangible to us in fire and ice.

the zombie killer bit was just sort of a let down....im not sure how it works in to those themes, or why they would interrupt those meditations for that reason. it felt a little like pandering. why not just jump off into the abstract and mystical like 2001?

often im willing to give such major plot points the benefit of the doubt...they obviously planned this and it's not as slapdash as it seems...but im having a hard time with this one...maybe because i wanted it to be a slightly different movie.

I dunno, I might have felt as fobbed off with a pseudo-mystical 2001 type ending. That shit's hard to pull off.

definitely...

The real problem with Sunshine is that its flawed genius, which is worse than no genius at all.

Still best science fiction of the decade

Loved the dread of the first 2/3, abhorred the zombie killer part - but I don't know where they should have gone after the first 2/3. Not slasher, but not 2001 either.

the premise is stupid

All I have to say is-PINBACKER MOTHERFUCKERS.

The real problem with Sunshine is that its flawed genius, which is worse than no genius at all.

Still best science fiction of the decade

― Hamildan, Thursday, December 11, 2008 9:36 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol what the hell

Just watched this. Thought it was pretty good and Danny Boyle managed to (just about) avoid his usual temptation of having a half-naked white man running around like a lunatic for the last third. The serial killer bit was a bit stoopid, but whatya gonna do? And this...:

The real problem with Sunshine is that its flawed genius, which is worse than no genius at all.

― Hamildan, Thursday, December 11, 2008 9:36 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink"

...is completely wrong. Flawed masterpieces are the only ones worth discussing when it comes down to it.

this loses a lot when they bring on the slasher aspect but before that this is AWESOME

doesn't this movie literally end with a "half-naked white man running around like a lunatic"?

Think he might be completely naked. Actually isn't half his skin burnt off, which is ultra douple-plus naked?

Just remembered I bought the dvd but haven't watched it yet, i'll give it a go tonight.

Well a half-burnt blur running about like a lunatic. Hence the qualifier "just about".

Watched it again. Still fucking intense. Still blown away by Kaneda's death scene. Choked up at quite a few other scenes too, or maybe I was just thinkin' 'bout the wondrous ilx pledge drive.

It's a movie of extremes. Light and dark, noise and silence, madness and sanity, logic and emotion. Totally should've been nominated for a technical oscar.

Burned flesh aside, it was visually very beautiful. And Kaneda's death scene was really well done.

£4 in whsmith this morning (there was a bunch of stuff around that price, serenity for £2 say but i picked this). am hoping i'm more of a ledge than an alba.

have you reached a conclusion?

i watched it at the weekend. bit disappointed that it was in 2.35:1 ie a tiny strip in the middle of my 25" 4x3 tv but i cranked up the surround sound to compensate.

reminded me a lot of 42 episode of dr who. crossed with event horizon.

the glitchy monster effects were nice but are usually there to distract from the bad monster make-up. and served to make the end confusing. (oh, and the single-frame images of the original crew just served to break the 4th wall)

music good. end title music not so good.

my big problem, though, was them calling the ship 'Icarus'.

oh, and alternate ending on the dvd = v disappointing. was exactly the same ending without the snow.

ha, i didn't even know that was there. i'm from the 'life is too short for dvd extras' school.

oh, and Benedict Wong will always be Errol from 15 Storeys High to me.

> i'm from the 'life is too short for dvd extras' school.

is a minute and a half, tops. but don't bother.

bit off topic, but Serenity for two quid is a vastly better deal then Sunshine for four, what with Serenity being fucking ace an' all.

just 6 months till i can start a 'skiffy films of the 2000s' poll.

I watched this again last night (must be my 4th or 5th time) and I still love it.

For the first time I found myself not only unperturbed by the turn it takes at the end, but actually seeing it as a worthwhile and important part of the movie - the veering from being totally realistic (within its sci-fi construct) into a subtle mysticism and fantasy gives it an ambiguity amd scope at the finish that it wouldn't have otherwise.

*ambiguity AND scope...

http://cat.www.bfi.org.uk.meowbify.com/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/danny-boyle-career-10-songs

http://i.imgur.com/PL4i87l.png

This movie has problems, but it has stuck with me more than most movies.

Rewatched this for the first time since seeing it in a theater (which I see I documented in this very thread 18 years ago). It was more intense than I remembered, effectively so. The psycho turn still felt a bit forced, they could have done any number of more interesting things to rev up the tension at the end. But the things I remembered most about it — the enveloping sense of isolation and the overwhelming and terrifying presence of the sun — still held up.

Also reminded me that Oppenheimer wasn’t Cillian Murphy’s first movie as a mega-bomb scientist.