9th February 2008, 1:38 PM
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.
Sometimes you get the scorpion.