Sunshine

[Great Rumbler]

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.



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069293/

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.