Gravity, Interstellar, and The Martian

[lil_shepherd]

I finally saw 'Gravity' several years after everyone else. I regret not seeing it on the big screen, but no regrets at all for missing the 3D version. If a film can't hold up on the TV screen in 2D then it is not worth seeing in the first place

Comments

[madfilkentist]

Gravity has quite a few scientific errors, but most of them didn't occur to me till well after I'd seen the movie. Since I've taken physics through special relativity, that says it did a good job of feeling plausible. (The most obvious problem is that so many orbiting units were so conveniently close to each other.)

By the way, I've now read The Martian and thought it was even better than the movie.

[lil_shepherd]

The most obvious problem is that so many orbiting units were so conveniently close to each other.

Which they aren't, of course. Hubble is in an entirely different orbit from the International Space Station. (There was a fair amount of whinging about this from NASA.) However, this is rather like the storm on Mars - necessary for plot reasons.

I really must read 'The Martian'!

[dickgloucester]

I absolutely loved Gravity. Haven't seen Interstellar and am unlikely to, unless it bumbles its way onto Netflix, and I'm still trying to work out when I can see The Martian before it's too late for the big screen. I love good science fiction.

And everything you say about Gravity is right.

[lil_shepherd]

Every SF fan on my flist here and Facebook adores 'The Martian.' Go see it.

[bedlamhouse]

Tesseract, don't run, to the nearest theatre to see The Martian before it is too late. If it is some sort of expanded screen theatre even better.

[bedlamhouse]

We re-watched Gravity the other evening and I felt the same way. I was afraid after my Interstellar experience I would find the scientific flaws intrusive, but I did not. I only actually noticed some orbital dynamics issues but everything else was still subsumed by the movie experience. It helps (for me) that the glossed over science is at least consistent through the movie and doesn't take a left turn into lala land.

[lil_shepherd]

and doesn't take a left turn into lala land.

Absolutely. Over on my Facebook, Mike (W) remarked that 'Interstellar''s problem is that it is trying to be an SF movie and a movie about the American Great Depression ...

He's spot on.