Scifi movies don't actually need a whole lot in order to good. In fact, they really only need one thing. It's not exactly a big thing, or urgently important for that matter. Do you know what that one thing is? Would you like to guess? No? Well, I'll tell you then. That one small things is this: It stirs your imagination and leaves you in awe of the universe. That's it. That's all. Sunshine does it. 2001 does it. Planetes does it. Blade Runner does. Solaris does it.
So why can't more do it?
I've heard good things about Sunshine. I'd like to see it. The director definitely has a great track record.
Solaris, while well-made, I didn't like a whole lot. The plot was interesting, but I thought the happy ending was lame. I suppose that's a small flaw when you get down to it, although there might have been others that I'm not remembering. I'd see it again, but I'm much more inclined to give the old one a rent to see how that is.
Blade Runner, I need to see again, because my friends wouldn't stop fucking talking through it. Wasn't that re-released in theaters briefly? Maybe not worldwide, but I'm pretty sure with the recent special edition release, they at least played it somewhere around here. I really should have jumped on that.
2001 is indeed good, but I think it should be more accessible. I know I would have been lost had I not read the book, and its philosophical implications completely flew over my head until I did a bit more research on the film (of course, I was also 17 at the time, but I don't know that age was the factor there). I know film makers shouldn't beat their viewers over the head to get their points across, but I think Kubrick could have done more to make it a little less impenetrable. Of course, I DO have to commend him on making it one of, if not the most realistic science fiction movie made.
Never heard of Planetes, but you seem to have a good taste in movies, so I'd give that a shot.
Quote:Solaris, while well-made, I didn't like a whole lot. The plot was interesting, but I thought the happy ending was lame. I suppose that's a small flaw when you get down to it, although there might have been others that I'm not remembering.
That's because you watched the wrong one.
![[Image: Solaris_1972_DVD.jpg]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a2/Solaris_1972_DVD.jpg)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069293/
Quote:Sunshine is based on such a completely ridiculous premise that I just don't think I could stomach actually watching it. The sun won't just "shut off", and it's impossible to "jump start" something that massive. It seems like it's "The Core in space".
And that's exactly what someone who has never seen the movie will say. Core in space? Dear Lord, man. Don't you ever say anything like that again. Ever. And I mean that too. Seriously. Just stop before you embarrass yourself further.
Sunshine is one of the most well-made scifi movies EVER. The only scifi movies that can top it are 2001 and Blade Runner, maybe Solaris 1972 and Gattaca, but only the former two for sure. Contact comes close and so does Children of Men, but not quite. Sunshine succeeds because it isn't just "ZOMG save the world!!", it's about the mental breakdown of months upon months of almost complete isolation, it's about awesome majesty of our universe, and it's about the raw fury of our solar system's most powerful force.
Scifi is all about executions, about taking something unbelievable and portraying it in such a way that you believe that it could happen. 2001? Aliens turn a guy into a baby. Blade Runner? Philosophizing robots. Solaris? Weird planet brings dead people back to life based on memories. Planetes? Garbage collectors in space. Also, terrorists in space.
Sunshine lays all its card on the table right at the start. The sun is dying. We made a huge bomb comprised of all of Earth's remaining fissile material. The bomb will, hopefully, "fix" whatever is wrong with the sun. This is Earth's last hope for survival. All of these are presented as FACTS of the world portrayed in the movie. It doesn't spend hours trying to explain to you what happened to the sun, what the bomb does, and how its supposed to fix the sun. It tells you the way things are and then goes from there.
And this my friend is why taste is completely relative.
How can you possibly get across "majesty of our universe" if it's using the wrong laws for the wrong universe? That's my thoughts on it. Oh, I hated Contact by the way.
Quote:Oh, I hated Contact by the way.
Wow, you have bad taste.
Quote:How can you possibly get across "majesty of our universe" if it's using the wrong laws for the wrong universe?
What laws does Sunshine use? The sun is dying, no explanation is ever given. We know that stuff like this does happen out in the wide universe and we THINK it's not going to happen to our sun for a long, long time. But the point is we don't know everything about how the universe works and the situation is presented as some POSSIBLE situation. Because of the sun's death, the Earth is gripped in a never-ending winter. This is what would happen if the sun "went out". We'd freeze. Nothing there that can be picked at. The sun is a giant nuclear reaction, that's fact. The payload being delivers is a giant nuclear bomb, referred to here as a "stellar bomb", with no real explanation given as to what that connotation might mean. Maybe some new technology was invented, we don't know and are never told.
THAT is why Sunshine works. The movie doesn't spend half of its running time trying to explain to the viewer how all of this might be possible, it only tells you that this IS happening and that scientists have determined that there's only way to stop the sun from burning out.
This is also why 2001 works so well. Think about this: At the end of 2001 a man is pulled through a giant, black object into some bizarre hole that transports him to a surreal hotel room where he rapidly ages and then turns into a baby. What about that situation screams "This could happen in reality!!"? Nothing! However, you believe that it could be possible because of the way in which it is presented. Kubrick took so much care into making sure every other aspect of the movie came across as being deeply rooted in the laws of reality. We don't know how the aliens turned Bowman into a baby, we don't know what the hotel room really is, and we don't know what mechanism the monolith used to transport Bowman through time and space. But it, and let me emphasise this one more time, simply does not matter.
The unbelievable parts, which are actually quite few, are simply laid out as being facts of the situation in question. All other parts of the movie are done in the most realistic way possible to lend further credibility to the former parts.
And if you didn't feel a sense of awe about the universe and, in particular, the sun, then you probably fell asleep before the movie started and woke up as the credits were rolling.
There is no such thing as "bad taste". There is no objective standard for that.
At any rate, you concentrate on different aspects of the movie. I actually care about those "WTF" moments. Never saw 2001 but I've heard enough about it that I think the entire plotline from start to end has been well and truly spoiled for me at this point. Man becomes giant space baby, yeah, I guess. It seems more like weird just for the sake of being weird than actually meaning anything... like... at all. I also thought the whole architect speech in the second Matrix movie was pretty silly.
Again, different tastes. I actually WOULD like an explanation for why the sun is "going out".
Contact was good, but not great. I saw it a long time ago, but I remember mostly liking it.
Gattaca was great.
Blade Runner was good, but not great... same for Solaris (the newer one, haven't seen the older one). Blade Runner, though... I saw the Director's Cut version, and thought it was okay, but not "one of the greatest scifi movies ever" or something, for sure.
Quote:There is no such thing as "bad taste". There is no objective standard for that.
Hey, if you want to eat poop and say it's the best thing you've ever tasted, that's fine. But don't try to convince me that you have good taste. I mean, come on now, we're talking about CONTACT. One of the few scifi movies that actually takes its subject seriously and doesn't try to bombard the viewer with overblown explanations, has amazing special effects that still look as good now as they did when the movie first came out, and actually manages to walk a fine line between science and faith.
Quote:Again, different tastes. I actually WOULD like an explanation for why the sun is "going out".
What's the point in trying to explain something like that? Does it move the plot along? Does it provide some deeper understanding of the character or their actions? Does it somehow improve the overall product? The answer to those questions, minus the first one, is no, it does not. This is not a documentary, whose point would be to explain WHY the sun is dying. It is a movie about the FACT that the sun is dying. There's no reason to make up an obviousy phony reason for why this fact IS. "Oh, there is this...celestial particles...and something...obstructing the nuclear reaction...whatever."
It wouldn't work. Because all it would do is pull you out of the movie. Throwing out some theory as to what's going on would only act is target to direct your disbelief towards. "What did they say? There's no way something like that could happen! It defies all the knows we know to be true!!" and so on.
Quote:same for Solaris (the newer one, haven't seen the older one)
Okay, for the record here, the version of Solaris that I've been talking about in this thread is the original one. The original version is a great movie, the George Clooney version is merely good.
Quote:Man becomes giant space baby, yeah, I guess. It seems more like weird just for the sake of being weird than actually meaning anything... like... at all.
You could write an entire series of books about the layers of meaning that are present in virtually every single scene in 2001, not that I profess to understand that much about it but the analyses are out there. Kubrick rarely ever did anything just for the sake of being weird or contrary.
Quote:What's the point in trying to explain something like that? Does it move the plot along? Does it provide some deeper understanding of the character or their actions? Does it somehow improve the overall product? The answer to those questions, minus the first one, is no, it does not. This is not a documentary, whose point would be to explain WHY the sun is dying. It is a movie about the FACT that the sun is dying. There's no reason to make up an obviousy phony reason for why this fact IS. "Oh, there is this...celestial particles...and something...obstructing the nuclear reaction...whatever."
It wouldn't work. Because all it would do is pull you out of the movie. Throwing out some theory as to what's going on would only act is target to direct your disbelief towards. "What did they say? There's no way something like that could happen! It defies all the knows we know to be true!!" and so on.
Because otherwise why should you believe the story? I know that the goal is to focus on characters, etc, but really, it is best to explain WHY...
Actually I hated the ending of Contact too. It was too wishy washy, and really there was no reason to believe her. I was left saying "so what, she dreamed it all?".
Again, different tastes. I'm not saying my taste is "good". Objectively speaking, the most I can say is my tastes ARE. I can, at most, say this. You liked Contact. I didn't. I explained why I didn't like it, you explained why you do like it.
You explained your reasons for why this or that should or should not be included. The fact is, those only hold if you hold those as your primary concerns in a story. That's not the case for me. It's why I love Tolkein. That guy takes the time to explain every single frickin' thing in his world. Yeah I have some problems with it, but we're not identical.
I see explaining why something is happening as an end in itself, that's all.
At any rate, this whole thread you've been nothing but antagonistic here. I've only said I don't think I'd like it (still haven't seen it, might change my mind), and that I absolutely hated Contact, like the way I hated Armageddon (liked Deep Impact though). You really should take someone saying they hate the things you love as an insult so much, unless they go to the next step and say "also I think you are stupid for liking the things you like".
Seriously, it's just fiction, so who cares?
Quote:Because otherwise why should you believe the story? I know that the goal is to focus on characters, etc, but really, it is best to explain WHY...
You'd really hate Cloverfield.
Quote:2001 is indeed good, but I think it should be more accessible. I know I would have been lost had I not read the book, and its philosophical implications completely flew over my head until I did a bit more research on the film (of course, I was also 17 at the time, but I don't know that age was the factor there). I know film makers shouldn't beat their viewers over the head to get their points across, but I think Kubrick could have done more to make it a little less impenetrable. Of course, I DO have to commend him on making it one of, if not the most realistic science fiction movie made.
You haven't even gotten CLOSE to inaccessible scifi, dude! If you really want to delve into that, you can go straight to Stalker. It's by the same director as the original Solaris. It's beyond anything that I've ever seen before in the scifi genre. It's mindblowing in its inaccessibility. Even I could barely stand to watch the whole thing. Still, it is a very interesting movie.
Quote:Blade Runner, I need to see again, because my friends wouldn't stop fucking talking through it. Wasn't that re-released in theaters briefly? Maybe not worldwide, but I'm pretty sure with the recent special edition release, they at least played it somewhere around here. I really should have jumped on that.
Yeah, the Final Cut got released in a few theaters in the US. I was lucky enough to get to see it at a small theater in Dallas. It's not a huge difference over the director's cut, but it does make some changes that enchance the overall movie and cleans up a few mistakes. I'd suggest getting the 5-disc collection, preferabbly on a hi-def format if you have a player. If nothing else, it's worth it for the three hour making-of documentary. It goes into so much detail into just what went on during the production. I think that even if you're not a super fan of the movie, that you would still really enjoy the documentary.
Quote:Never heard of Planetes, but you seem to have a good taste in movies, so I'd give that a shot.
It's an anime series, by the way. Here's my review of it:
http://tcforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4819
Quote:Actually I hated the ending of Contact too. It was too wishy washy, and really there was no reason to believe her. I was left saying "so what, she dreamed it all?".
The movie was mostly good, but yeah, that ending was mostly unsatisfying... though they did try to show that she hadn't just dreamed it, but no one believed her... so it wasn't totally unclear. It was weak, though.
Quote:You explained your reasons for why this or that should or should not be included. The fact is, those only hold if you hold those as your primary concerns in a story. That's not the case for me. It's why I love Tolkein. That guy takes the time to explain every single frickin' thing in his world. Yeah I have some problems with it, but we're not identical.
Tolkien was amazing... detail, backstory, an absolutely believable world by the rules he creates... he pretty much did it perfect. Even developed languages for the other major races, something that is rare in fantasy. He's not perfect, but in terms of detail... nobody better, really.
Quote:At any rate, this whole thread you've been nothing but antagonistic here. I've only said I don't think I'd like it (still haven't seen it, might change my mind), and that I absolutely hated Contact, like the way I hated Armageddon (liked Deep Impact though). You really should take someone saying they hate the things you love as an insult so much, unless they go to the next step and say "also I think you are stupid for liking the things you like".
Eh, Armageddon was silly fun. I liked it well enough. It's not something you should be taking seriously... but it was entertaining. :)
Quote:Eh, Armageddon was silly fun. I liked it well enough. It's not something you should be taking seriously... but it was entertaining.
But they never explained why they needed to train oil drillers to be astronauts instead of training astronauts to be oil drillers!! *head explodes*
They also didn't explain why the government had those backup super secret awesome space shuttles... oh no!
solaris waisnt that a soviet era made film?
Yeah, it came out in 1972. Interestingly enough, Andrei Tarkovsky actually got permission from the Soviet government to film in Japan.
Soviet films were made in the same manner that someone would release a art gallerie; Making profit and selling tickets was not the motive for film making during that time so soviet films are unique. Films in the stalinist era were purely propaganda and every film had be given a rubber stamp by the ccp but by the 1970's it became more for entertainment and less political and the state gave film makers more liberty.
Saw sunshine ; Its ok as a space odyssey but its pretty implausible.