Thoughts on the movie gravity

[Tristonwilson12]

I want to know your thoughts on the movie gravity. Do you think it is accurate at all. Or was it just a big failure

[Superfluous J]

I'll go with neither.

It was a fantastic movie that did a lot right and portrayed near-to-the-you space (i.e., everything within say 1km of the camera) more accurately than I can remember ever seeing in a movie.

The fact that it got a lot of fiddling details wrong (What exactly was pulling on Clooney when they were stuck to the solar panel?) and also mucked up most everything that had to do with actual orbital mechanics (Hubble->ISS takes quite a bit of dV and it's nowhere near as easy as just aiming at it and firing) can be forgiven, I think, in light of what they got right.

[PakledHostage]

I and many others already posted our thoughts in the Gravity (Movie) and the Gravity Movie --- Factual mistakes and goofs threads.

[KerbMav]

It ... the ... I cannot do this anymore!

In short: I liked it, first 3D movie actually worth having 3D that I saw on the big screen.

[cicatrix]

Generally, this is a good movie. Of course, there are many (VERY MANY) tiny things that can spoil the overall impression if your knowledge about details is a little bit more than average, but nevertheless it is a good movie. Compared to everything else I've ever watched (even Interstellar which many fans find great) this is probably the best and credible(!) sci-fi movie about space so far.

[Dodgey]

It is a very well made film, to be honest I don't think that there are any major inaccuracies that are not there because of the story. WRT the "phantom force" that seems to pull Cloony away if you look closely you can see that they are rotating, hence the force, it is rediciously subtle but it is there.

[Superfluous J]

The rotating pulling Clooney away is fine except for the fact that it just pushes the problem one step forward. They didn't come in on the side and Indiana-Jones style bullwhip themselves to the solar panel. They were sliding down the panel in a straight line, almost directly away from the point where the tether snagged on it. Therefore: where did all this rotational energy come from?

[Dodgey]

I'll have to re-watch that scene my memory might be destorted.

[Nikolai]

Therefore: where did all this rotational energy come from?

They weren't rotating very fast. And it's extremely rare for something to have zero angular momentum.

For whatever little it's worth, I think they met the end of the parachute lanyards at an angle, and the lanyards used their centripetal force to bend their path. In other words, the axis they pulled "down" through would run from the connecting point of the lanyards to where they got tangled in them. The odds that it would be exactly parallel to the rotational axis of the station are slim. The difference between the two vectors has some angular momentum. We simply see that manifested when the centripetal force of the lanyards changes the direction of the individual components.

Consider a smaller example -- a tennis ball tied to a larger, long mass through a shoelace. The whole system is in freefall. You gently throw the tennis ball. Unless you manage to match the longitudinal axis of the long mass precisely, there will be some angular momentum in the system, and different parts will twang and rotate.

EDIT: Fixed a nonsensical phrase ("For whatever little" to "For whatever little it's worth"), and added an example.

Edited January 27, 2015 by Nikolai

[lajoswinkler]

I've explained this in the original, main thread PakledHostage linked. They have angular momentum and the centrifugal force is there. It simply must happen in real world.

Whether or not it's dangerous depends on the parachute rope vs suit friction, and that's where the scenario freedom fits in. It's an elegant, superb moment in the movie that not even some scientists have recognized, which is a shame.

[Fingal]

Gravity is the film that superseded The Empire Strikes Back as my favourite film. I've never seen anything on screen so beautiful, especially the re-entry scene which is the only scene in my entire life that's made me shed tears in a cinema. As to the accuracies of it, well they have a shuttle called Explorer and the mission number suggests it's in a slightly alternative future where the shuttle wasn't decommissioned and a new one built. In those circumstances I guess it would make sense to move Hubble nearer the ISS as if they have any issues with the heat shield on a repair mission they now have a safe refuge. And as for the exact details of the orbital mechanics, well I just have one thing to say. It works in Kerbal Space Program!

[Thesla]

One of the biggest sadness in my life, is knowing that ill never be able to see that movie in a giant imax 3d screen

Seriously, that movie changed my life. I dont think it can be judged for its innacurate science, since most of the movies visual language is transmitted trough metaphores, even that absurd scene when Clooney dies.

In the end, it is a story about perseverance, and in the end, victory.

[lajoswinkler]

One of the biggest sadness in my life, is knowing that ill never be able to see that movie in a giant imax 3d screen

Seriously, that movie changed my life. I dont think it can be judged for its innacurate science, since most of the movies visual language is transmitted trough metaphores, even that absurd scene when Clooney dies.

In the end, it is a story about perseverance, and in the end, victory.

Why is it absurd?

[Bill Phil]

It's good for what it is ", which isn't an accurate movie about physics.

[KerbMav]

One of the biggest sadness in my life, is knowing that ill never be able to see that movie in a giant imax 3d screen

Why is that?

[Janos1986]

Good movie, not great IMO.

I felt the director tried too hard to give the movie a philosophical layer and ended up with cheesy 2DEEP4U shots (i.e. the "umbilical cord" scene in the ISS).

[lajoswinkler]

Good movie, not great IMO.

I felt the director tried too hard to give the movie a philosophical layer and ended up with cheesy 2DEEP4U shots (i.e. the "umbilical cord" scene in the ISS).

Why on earth is that cheesy? If anything, most people actually didn't get the meaning of the protagonist's rebirth.

[TheSaint]

I actually just watched this the other night with my wife, DVD from Netflix. About halfway through I looked over at my wife and said, "I'm so glad we didn't see this in the theater, because we have been laughing out loud at very inappropriate moments." Things like astronauts horsing around on EVA. (Personally, if I were an astronaut, I would have been incensed watching that.) Or the absurd orbital mechanics of the space debris. (We started calling it the "magic pixie dust".) Or the way in which the writers just couldn't grasp how big space is. (I kept pretending to be a writer and saying, "It's about the size of West Los Angeles, right?") Or that there is a Shenzhou attached to Tiangong, but no astronauts on board. Or that someone with no training who can't read Chinese can just start pressing buttons and bring a spacecraft in to reentry. (Look! They have picture books!) It wasn't just the esoteric physics problems, there were giant gaping common sense plot holes they were asking me to overlook.

I (probably) could have forgiven this, if there were some character development. But they were all flat. The only reason we have to care about her is that she's the only person on the screen for most of the movie. I have more reason to care about the guy sitting in the seat in front of me in the theater with the hiccups.

They did get micro-G and vacuum right. The visual effects were stunning. But the writing was terrible. And at some point in my life I just got tired of making excuses in my head for the intellectual laziness of Hollywood screenwriters.

[tater]

Much wrong physics wise (how were they being overtaken by debris? If it was a crossing orbit, the chances of them seeing it again would have been small). The horsing around… golfballs, singing on the moon… unlikely, but certainly not impossible. The lack of proper, cooling undergarments was glaring, but I was fine with that, I preferred the yoga shorts

[TheSaint]

Much wrong physics wise (how were they being overtaken by debris? If it was a crossing orbit, the chances of them seeing it again would have been small).

At one point I was making the West Los Angeles joke again. Then I stopped for a moment and thought about it. Lets say I took your average spy satellite, suspended it, say, five miles over West Los Angeles, and blew it up with a big bomb. The debris from that explosion wouldn't be enough to destroy the Hubble, the IIS, and Tiangong, EVEN IF ALL THREE OF THEM WERE JUST SITTING IN WEST LOS ANGELES!!! The odds of any of them being hit by a single piece of debris from the explosion would be remarkably small. I was making jokes about the writers thinking space was about the size of West Los Angeles, when in fact West Los Angeles was still too large an area for their plot device to actually work! They were thinking that LEO was more about the size of Santa Monica Boulevard. That's how little thought goes into a script in Hollywood these days.

[lajoswinkler]

At one point I was making the West Los Angeles joke again. Then I stopped for a moment and thought about it. Lets say I took your average spy satellite, suspended it, say, five miles over West Los Angeles, and blew it up with a big bomb. The debris from that explosion wouldn't be enough to destroy the Hubble, the IIS, and Tiangong, EVEN IF ALL THREE OF THEM WERE JUST SITTING IN WEST LOS ANGELES!!! The odds of any of them being hit by a single piece of debris from the explosion would be remarkably small. I was making jokes about the writers thinking space was about the size of West Los Angeles, when in fact West Los Angeles was still too large an area for their plot device to actually work! They were thinking that LEO was more about the size of Santa Monica Boulevard. That's how little thought goes into a script in Hollywood these days.

You do realize that without those key features of the script, the whole movie would end in the first 5 minutes, right? If you think you could do better, do it. I dare you.

[Teoman2]

KSP PLAYERS REACTION OF GRAVITY

Gravity was such a failure with physics (George Cloony falling away scene), The stupidity of how close all the space stations were, and just plain stupid basics that the script writers said "meh, they'll NEVER know, they'll all be distracted by George Cloony and Sandra Bullock (or watevs)

AVERAGE JOE'S REACTION

So that's why we never went to the moon! And George Cloony is getting old, but classy...

[Superfluous J]

You do realize that without those key features of the script, the whole movie would end in the first 5 minutes, right? If you think you could do better, do it. I dare you.

Sandra Bullock is on the ISS on her first ever space trip. She thought she could do it but realizes now it's just not for her, so she's happy that she's going home after a very short time. George Clooney is excited to try this new spacewalk suit that's more of a little spaceship than a big suit. He's planning on flying it to the Chinese station as a huge publicity stunt (and also to verify the suit/ship works).

The resupply ship has a malfunction and instead of breaking, it accelerates into the ISS, destroying it. Clooney shoves Bullock into the personal ship and slams the hatch shut, as the station falls apart around him. She thinks it's a noble sacrifice gone wrong, until he shows up outside in a suit and talks her through the maneuvers necessary to reach the Chinese station. Charting where she is relative to the station. Doing a burn to raise her apogee, etc etc.

Throughout this, we get scenes of her past where she's learning space flight, and maybe slept with her teacher or something. Don't know. That's all the fluff stuff that people will complain got thrown in at the last minute, so I figure the writers can throw it in at the last minute.

This whole time, Clooney's been hanging on to the outside, and we discover that in fact his suit has nowhere near as much air as he needs to survive. The personal ship has no airlock, just a docking port and Bullock has no suit inside the ship. So, Clooney dies.

Bullock, remembering what he said and her memories of her sparse training, makes it to the Chinese station and they're prepping to get her home. At this point we learn that in fact Clooney died on the ISS, was never with her along the way, and she just dreamt him up to give herself the courage to go on.

[lajoswinkler]

Yeah, I didn't mean completely different movie. Try to make a script where the initial set of parameters is the same. Debris impacts the shuttle.

I don't understand the jaded hatred towards this movie. OK, it's not the best movie of all times, but it's among the greatest pieces of SF ever filmed. Does such superiority turn some people into nitpicking twats? Amount of things where you'd have to close your eyes because of factual errors was negligible compared to 99% of all movies dealing with space. Saying it's "the worst film ever" is nothing short of an idiotic statement, and it's not my subjective opinion. Worst movies ever don't get a load of Oscars.

[Superfluous J]

Yeah, I didn't mean completely different movie. Try to make a script where the initial set of parameters is the same. Debris impacts the shuttle.

...well I did try to keep it under 5 minutes But it's close. It hits the basic idea of rookie on her own and Clooney helping then sacrificing. If you REQUIRE a basic EVA pack get 2 people about 50x farther (in terms of dV) than a single person could on his own then no. I can't write that movie in 5 minutes or 50 years.

I don't understand the jaded hatred towards this movie.

I don't either. I really really liked it, and if they do a re-release in my local IMAX I'll be sure to catch it this time (I waited until it was on DVD). It just happens to take place in a setting I'm EXTREMELY familiar with and it DOES get parts of it wrong. It's no different than if they made a movie about someone trapped on Mt Everest and had them running from Yeti in a light jacket*. It may be a really good movie and maybe they got all the not-running-from-a-yeti-while-wearing-a-light-jacket stuff spot on. But the people who know how to climb mountains are going to have trouble swallowing that part.

*What he was doing in that light jacket, I'll never know.