Sunshine : There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, here

There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, here

Don't get me wrong, I liked the movie. I'm a big sci-fan in general, although a lot of the time we get recycled plots and ideas over and over. But lately it just seems like they're all the same: A) something makes them deviate from the plan and B) everything that goes wrong after that is a coincidence and just happens to spell doom for them.

I could buy one thing going wrong, but not so many things in a row. It's one thing if they depend on each other, like dominoes or some sort of cascade effect. But you've not only got Icarus I suddenly showing up out there with a distress call, you've also got Trey making a huge mistake. And you just happen to have a dude left alive on the Iracus I. Who just happens to have gone psycho. And you just happen to have a ship's therapist who's slightly crazy on his own.

Just too much of this movie didn't work for me. I can suspend my disbelief...you have to if you're going to be a fan of sci-fi movies. But for this movie to work I had to suspend disbelief about the following:

1) And this was my big problem with Prometheus, too: I cannot believe, I simply cannot stop myself from disbelieving that there would not be an *extremely* rigorous process to weed out people who buckle under pressure, people who have their own agenda, people who will not put the mission first, etc. Instead we've got movies where regular people seem to be thrown together in a tin can millions of miles from Earth, and then their personalities start dictating how the movie goes. I cannot believe, especially for missions so terribly vital, that they would not be EXTREMELY selective in who they send. Why would we have a therapist obsessed with the sun to the point where he's sunburning himself? Why would we have a second-in-command who puts himself above the mission? The only character in this movie that I really bought was Mace.

2) I don't think they ever adequately address their decision to divert to the Iracus I. Sure, I get that a second chance at delivering a payload is seductive. But is there any particular reason why they endangered their primary mission by diverting instead of delivering their payload FIRST, then going for the Icarus I if it didn't work?

3) Things start going wrong when Trey makes a heinous mistake in not adjusting the shields after entering their course correction. I won't even go into how unlikely it is that he would forget something so important. Human error definitely exists. But I can't believe there wouldn't be an automated failsafe that would prevent that from happening. Icraus II is so intelligent that it can detect five living humans when there should be four, and it can override Cassie when it feels the mission is in jeopardy. I can't believe they'd leave something like sun-shielding to chance.

4) When they make it over to Icarus I, they comment on all of the dust. One of the crew members says dust is mostly human skin. Which is A) incorrect...that is a common myth and B) probably impossible in the amounts they're seeing, even if it were true. Particularly since most of the crew died six and a half years ago and presumably aren't shedding skin cells anymore, and the only living person doesn't seem to have much skin left!

5) While we're on the subject of those dead crew members, and the Searle's fascination with watching the sun through the screen... Why does the screen even have the option of viewing the sun at anything more than 3.1% if it causes irreparable damage? Just seems like another one of those safety features that would've been built in.

6) Pinbacker, the crazy captain of Icarus I: Why did he go crazy? What about that rigorous selection process? Why didn't the crew of Icarus II bother counting bodies? How did he survive for seven years? We're supposed to believe that he's *beep* crazy AND sane enough to work the hydroponics section? That he's lost his grip on reality and yet somehow knows how to keep vegetables growing and oxygen flowing and to ration his water? How is all of his flesh burnt and he's surely malnourished, and yet he's stronger than every crew member of Icarus II? How does he know the codes to Icarus II? Sure, he'd probably have the knowledge on how to sabotage the ship, but surely the security codes would have changed? For that matter, in seven years probably the technology changed, too. Why was not only HIS vision all blurry and crazy when he looked at someone, but everyone else's vision was blurry and crazy when they looked at HIM? How did he get to the Icarus II? Did Icarus II not notice that the airlock had been engaged? How did he violently de-couple the airlocks from *inside* the airlock? Just...come on, already!

7) Really? There's only one suit in the airlock on Icarus I? Any particular reason there'd only be one suit on a ship full of seven people or so? Any particular reason Kapa couldn't have blown over to Icarus II, picked up a new suit, blown it back over there for someone? Or towed over an extra? Any reason they couldn't have just kept doing that until they got transferred?

8) I realize that the mainframe is probably meant to be worked on when it's not sitting down in the coolant, but I'd also have to think the designers would understand that perhaps it might become jammed at some point. You'd think they would have, at the very least, included something akin to a dry suit for Mace to wear when he's trying to fix the mainframes after putting them back in the coolant. But given that Mace is one of the few characters in this movie who I feel accurately reflects what a real crew member would be like in this type of situation, and it's a good scene, I'll allow it.


There's a lot of other little stuff, but I won't go on anymore. In general, I feel that this had potential, and was still a decent movie, but it took too many liberties and shortcuts, and embraced too many sci-fi movie cliches to really be original.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, here

All very solid points. I strongly agree with most of them if not all.

Because it's a movie and certain things need to happen, I'm okay with some of these faults, but what really killed it was the whole Pinbacker storyline. Until then I was very into the movie but that was too much and introduced too many ridiculous questions, faults in the story, and was just too outrageous in general. Not only that, it really was not needed.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

2) This could have been completely explained away if they had just said, "Once the bomb detonates, we'll be locked onto a course back to Earth".

3) It seems like the computer liked to give warnings half the time and let you screw everything up the other half. Completely unbelievable. Of course, Cappa was just as bad. He finds out that a crewman from the other ship came aboard and doesn't bother to tell anybody.

6) Literally, my first thought when he found the bodies was this: Of course he's not going to count them, because if he did, he'd notice that one is missing. And of course he did not count. And of course one was missing.

8) Or there could be a big tank underneath that you could drain the water into when you need to enter the area.

I thought the biggest problem with the movie was the original purpose for the mission. Create a star with materials from the Earth. To anyone that understands anything about physics, that's pretty darn stupid. Maybe, and I stress MAYBE, with extremely advanced technology it could happen. But their technology was not anywhere near the level that would be needed for that to be even remotely possible.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

Your #3 was my one (aside from it becoming a *beep* horror movie) big problem. Why not warn of the hole in the ship, of the coolant running low, of... etc. The ship sometimes just pops up to say what's wrong, and the rest of the time lets there be explosions and wild course changes and you have to ASK it. A 1950s level of needles and blinky lights would do a better job of warning you than this stupid computer.

And it's therefore IMPOSSIBLE to believe. And no reason it had to happen. Every time they were surprised it could have been easily tweaked to tell them the issue with just not quite enough time, or have them running to fix stuff, but it's a big ship (think of the running through hallways in The Abyss, as it goes bad early on). So, hard to believe, needless, stupid.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

Biggest problem for me with this movie is the very premise: The sun going out.
That is simply not going to happen. At least not until WELL after the Sun swells up to a red giant and swallows the Earth.
Finally, the Sun will end up as a white dwarf star.
The Sun will not "go out" ... and even if it did, there's really absolutely nothing we could do about it. It's a fusion reaction DEEP within the sun, in its very core, that drives it. .. MAYBE we could seed it with massive amounts of hydrogen or helium to keep it going .. however, the amount of either of those elements needed is pretty much beyond anything we could gather up.

In other words, the concept of this movie is utterly ridiculous from the get go, and the writers clearly no nothing about astronomy, cosmology, or physics.

Beyond that, the movie was fairly decent I guess. .. I just can't get beyond that.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

My solution to the dying sun plot issue:

Prologue:

After dancing to the edge of complete ecological failure, like a reformed addict getting rich with a reality show, despite all expectations, the nations of the Earth with all their industrial prowess and greed finally realize the financial benefit of free, unending, politically-clean solar power for themselves and anyone capable of plugging into the Smart Grid.

The last nuclear, coal and petroleum operations go offline in 2038, all internal combustion engines are recycled, carbon dioxide levels begin drop precipitously, wild climate variations re-balance, and polar bears everywhere celebrate around their seal-holes!

Then, for a final grand and unifying gesture to sweep away the old and embrace the new and better, in 2040, mankind gathers up all the nuclear waste and assorted toxic materials which gave birth to their bright new future, places it aboard an orbiting superstructure, and fires it into the sun, content that the intensity of such a furnace would do the rest.

Unfortunately, like the chaotic butterfly whose stirring wings create hurricanes an ocean away, a remnant of the heavy metals and unusual radiations sent into the sun is just enough to begin winding down the mighty fires, thus robbing mankind of the seemingly eternal winds into which it had turned all its sails.

But it would also be what they learned about the effects of small variables within complex systems which would lead mankind to gamble the very last of its quickly dwindling resources on a couple throws of the dice in a crazy hope to fix what their own ostensibly good, but unexpectedly foolish choices had broken.

It is basically the plot from The Core, but at least there would be a reason the sun was dying, it'd be related to the effort revive it, and it'd be topical and ironic as all get-out.

Otherwise, I can't do a damn thing about most of the other good points made by the OP. Esp the doofus replacement captain willing to sacrifice the most important mission of all time and space for his expendable ass. And the navigation guy and the pushy computer both managing to miss the shield problem. And everything about Pinbacker. Etc. :p

And yet I still very much enjoyed it.

"I like to watch" Chauncey Gardiner, 'Being There'

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

While imaginitive, that's not how it would work out. We couldn't possibly send enough material of any sort into the sun to make any difference in its nuclear reactions or its lifespan. Anything we sent toward the sun would get incinerated LONG before ever reaching the "surface" of the sun .. and the solar wind would, most likely, push the remaining detritus-dust back out into space.
Good try tho!

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

Of course, my little theory is based in the modern sci-fi mainstay of chaos theory's "butterfly effect" which allows for the improbable possibility that a very tiny factor might have a huge effect on a vastly complex and dynamic system (though I suppose in this case, one might be arguing that the butterfly accidentally shuts down the climate...). In this case, there'd be a scientist in a lab coat explaining something about how dense neutrino factors interpolated negatively with critical solar fusion reactions and began a sudden reversal of thermal sustainability due to blocked hydrogen nuclei. Yada yada.

As to whether anything man-made could be successfully projected into the sun without complete vaporization, it would seem to depend on the size and density of the materials involved (and the bomb apparently is as big as Manhattan), and how long it would be exposed to the searing radioactive output of the corona. As long as it doesn't burn completely up, gravity would do the rest with accelerating effect.

And don't forget that at that point, the sun had significantly cooled, which might've been a useful factor for the plot.

"I like to watch" Chauncey Gardiner, 'Being There'

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

It's The Core with an unhealthy dose of Superman IV thrown into the mix.

108 193 23 8114 246* 47.73 22 42

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

Yes indeed - a crew of incompetents kick-starting a dying sun back to life is a bad beginning - and the film accelerates downhill from there.
Sunshine's supporters babble about suspension of disbelief, but when every plot element requires that kind of effort, one soon runs out of energy.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

The theory in the movie is that a Q-Ball has made its way into the sun and has "infected" it, basically a giant dark matter ball that is getting larger and larger, effectively putting out the Sun. The Payload will destroy the Q-Ball.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

Actually, I don't think they said the sun was going through the process you are thinking of, they said there was something at it's core that was causing it to stop the fission process, the purpose of the bomb was to blow up that core.

To say the writers "no nothing about astronomy, cosmology, or physics" is not true, they had Brian Cox consulting them the entire time.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

I think you meant "fusion".

Hama cheez ba-Beer behtar meshawad!

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

1)No matter how much pressure or how rigorous the training to "weed people out" you can't predict what will happen on a space mission that will take 2 years. Also, it iseems to me that they may have had limited options on crew members who would volunteer for what might be a one way mission.

2) As I recall the film points out that once they sent the payload into the heart of the sun they will have a limited amount of time to escape the resulting explosion. I think that the plan is sound but what they mightnot have explained is the plan to ignite both stellar bombs at the same time thus ensuring one of them is successful.

3)Mmmmm....why would the ship's computer HAVE to notify them of this? There were never plans that there would be more than the crew they had so, unless it's asked, it's not exactly going to tell them.
4)The dust isn't from human skin (it's an interesting comment but as you accurately point out, it's not completely true) but from the burned remains of the crew.

As far as counting the body count, do you REALLY think they would take the time to count the bodies when they are there to gather supplies to continue the mission? Also, the destruction of the docking ring of the I2 kind of distracted them from that.

Ferrying other suits? They were low on oxygen and they couldn't repressurize.

5)Who knows? It's a plot device and its related to the intoxicating effect of the Sun which creates the feeling that they have been touched by god and, hence, drives the Captain of the I1 made. Of course it's a plot device. I'm OK with it but what bugged me about the film was the shift in tone in the last third from a suspenseful science fiction thriller to a slasher flick.

6)Why is Pinbacker stronger? Physically he's badly burned but he did have the ship's stores that would normally have fed the crew for over 2 years on the return trip plus the garden to survive. He's stronger because he's crazy and his adrenline is flowing, etc. but he is still physically fragile as is evident when Cassie tears off the flesh from his arm.

Why is he crazy? Again, there's only so much you can do to weed people out but you can't predict human behavior in a journey that we've never made before. Even the early Mercury astronauts sometimes didn't behave as predicted. However, I think I can cut the film a bit of leeway and suspension of disbelief for this particular portion of the film.

As far as Capa notifying them, he does try to warn the crew but is unable to when he is locked in another part of the ship.Before that, Capa calls to the rest of the crew members in the ship after he loses his communications device and trying to get away from Pinbacker.

7) We don't know that they didn't have other suits and Pinbacker didn't pop them into space to prevent the crew from hiding from him and, later, coming back or trying to "escape" to another part of the ship. There's one suit left because there was one survivor--Pinbacker who might need to use it for some other reason. Just because everything isn't explained doesn't mean there isn't an explanation or that it's a plot hole.

8)Mace may have had a 'dry suit' as you mention that would protect him but time was a factor here. Perhaps he felt he didn't have time to suit up or, perhaps to work on it, it had a draining system that would recycle the fluid when it was reactivated. If the latter, he wouldn't have time to do that. Again, just because it isn't explained doesn't mean that there wasn't something there but I agree this could have easily been cleared up with a stray line of dialog.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

lol....we'll have to agree to disagree. Most of your points seem to boil down to, "just because they didn't bother to explain, doesn't mean there's not an explanation".

Which is fine. I can buy that for one plot point. Maybe two. But when THIS thing doesn't make sense, and THAT thing doesn't make sense, and there are a whole bunch of other things that don't add up....we really shouldn't have to be inventing reasons for why things don't make sense in the movie.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

All good points, especially the first one. They chose complete loons to go on the most vital missions to save Earth. Even forgetting whatever the hell went on during Icarus I and Pinbacker, the new team is completely unprofessional and unstable. Even Mace wouldn't be allowed to go due to his temper, even though he made the most sense out of them all. Austronauts are specifically trained to stay cool in any situation, to deal with any type of stress, and as importantly, to deal with each other. Yes, they spend a long time in there but some austronauts stay up on ISS for about a year without gravity, regular food and cooking (huge morale boosters), and without any virtual reality rooms. You are telling me that the most vital space mission is going to include THAT psychatrist and THAT second in command?

It's also frustrating how they simply went with whatever someone suggested within the first 10 seconds. These are supposed to be top scientists, they should brainstorm every important decision with several options and reasons why some are better than others.

I also don't get why the manned mission was necessary in the first place. Why couldn't the bomb be shot by itself? They could simply set a timer, since they can calculate these space trips down to a second. There may be a legitimate reason for this so it might be me.

Also, what was up with gravity in this movie? Is it ever explained how the ships have a close to earth gravity in space? As demonstrated toward the end of the movie, the bomb is a huge cube with its own gravity so how on earth did the freddy krueger hold Kapa over the edge that way? A cube wouldn't only have gravity at the center of each side.

Finally, one airlock and one suit? What? What if repairs need to be done on the other side of the ship? And what if the repairs require more than one person? If their mini hovering thingy was good enough to take them all over that huge ship, they could easily go back and forth between Icarus I and II without docking to rescue people.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

Agree, but fundamentally I don't see why such a mission would need to be manned at all. It's extremely difficult to keep that many people alive and bring them back. Would be easier to just shoot the stuff out from earth. The whole thing would be more believable if it was set way far into the future.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

I have to disagree on most of the points you made. While there is a rather large element where one must suspend their disbelief to be able to follow the plot, I dont think anything that happens after the movie starts is way out there. As for the things all going wrong and it being a coincidence, well its actually one thing and its not too far of a stretch. Icarus 1 had to be out there, it would have been stranger if they hadnt encountered them. Treys mistake isn't super relevant beyond losing the captain and everything from that point is sabotage.

The real stretch for me is that they where able to get a football stadium sized dish, with the same mass as manhattan island into orbit. There was also a lot of gravity on both ships and no obvious source of it. Then there is the subject of the sun getting dimmer, contrary to how we know stars work. That one at least has a sci fi explanation.

1) I dont think any process could prepare you for that situation no matter how rigorous. For me Mace was the archetype "good guy soldier". He has a temper and he keeps coming up with "ideas" to macgyver his way out of everything. You could tell from early on that he was going to sacrifice himself at some point to save the mission. It almost seemed as though they were trying to make chris evans into the hero because he was higher billed than Troy Garity(harvey). Trey and cassie were human but most of the others seemed to have a rather defining single trait and were simply there to die.

2)The decision to divert to the Icarus 1 I think came from a number of motivations. Mainly they wanted to try to save anyone left alive, and probably had a fear that they could end up the same way. They wanted to know what happened and the payload I think was more of an excuse. They also couldnt just come back for a second shot if the first didn't work. The plan would have been to use both at once for a better chance of success rather than have 2 shots. Once they deploy their payload they had to get out of there or the sun would fry them up.

3)Treys mistake is bad, but its not entirely unplausible. As for the system not alowing him to make the mistake, he had manually overridden the settings and basically had the "safetys" turned off. If he hadnt then he wouldnt be able to change the course of the ship without it correcting itself.

4)This one I agree with. I thought there was going to be some supernatural element with all the dust. There really was a lot of it, and the bodies were found intact in the sunroom so I dont know where it all came from.

5)As for the sun room, the closer they are to the sun the lower the filter would have to be. They started on earth remember, so 3.1% of the sun from orbit would be far less than we get on earth. It would only cause damage in this instance because they were right up at the sun when the movie starts.

6)Icarus 1 and Icarus 2 are only separated by 7 years, not 70. The technology would be exactly the same as would the layout. Work on Icarus 2 probably started as soon as Earth realised Icarus 1 had failed. There would be no time and no point in redesigning the ship that you built for that one specific purpose. As for security codes there weren't any. Space is a rather secure place and only the payload had a code panel. As for the going crazy, it seemed that everyone who looked at the sun for long enough saw the face of god in it. I take this as just being in awe of the shear amount of energy and the sun is after all the source of all life on our planet so to some maybe it is god. The blurry vision was for the viewers benefit, to portray the lack of oxygen and the intense situation, but Pinbacker and the crew didnt have blurry vision, just like they didnt see the flashing images we saw.

7)There is one suit LEFT, no mention of how many it started with. And the reason they couldnt shuttle over and back is because they had to vent the atmosphere to make him blow over in the first place. The airlock was broken to pieces and there was no way to repressurise the chamber so once it was vented that was it. There was also no way for him to make the trip back. This wasnt a standard procedure, it was more of a "hope to god this works" kind of situation.

8)This one I have to disagree with. Mace was one of the cheesiest characters Ive seen in a long time. He keeps having "ideas" that save the day, even though most of them are silly. Vent the atmosphere to kill the flames, dont make it flash(I feel this was included just because its a cool science thing). The leg getting stuck thing was just overkill on the cheese. I thought he was done the first time he went in, but no he comes out for a little speech, then goes back in...surely to his death. But no, he survives a second time, only to get half way out and then get caught by the leg, as if his character wasnt archetypal enough already. The physics dont seen to work out. This guy can survive in space, goes for a swim in "coolant" but a gash to the leg does him in? he didnt even seem stuck. If his leg wasn't at a 45 degree angle it would have fit just as well as his entire body which somehow managed to get out just fine. It felt as though there was absolutely nothing stopping him from getting out of the coolant other than he had to die a hero. What was his role on the ship in the first place? All the other characters did something on the ship, and had an actual role. Mace didnt. He was just drame for the first half and action hero for the second half. There is no reason for him to even be on the ship.


I agree that the movie asked a lot in terms of what you can and cant believe, but I thought that as a story it worked out quite well. The ending was a bit meh, and the mace character was excruciatingly cheese but overall its a decent remake of Event Horizon.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he


Why would we have a therapist obsessed with the sun to the point where he's sunburning himself? Why would we have a second-in-command who puts himself above the mission?


Agreed but they're nothing compared to the failure that was Pinbecker. This is the man selected to lead a mission to save the entire planet, the best of the best, the captain to end all captains, yet he ends up being so mentally unstable that he has a nervous breakdown and becomes a religious fundamentalist in less than 2 years? OK. Whatever.

Overall I liked the movie but I just didn't buy half of it.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

agreed. the only explanation is a sort of "space madness" brought on by sun exposure...but still weak.

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I agree

Yes, I agree. Just way too much "suspension" here. I'll always give a movie some, but in this movie...

Do the film makers actually know just how immense the sun actually is? The sun is like a million times larger than the earth, right? The Sun weighs about 333,000 times as much as Earth. It is so large that about 1,300,000 planet Earths can fit inside of it. So they idea of us humans detonating a small "black mass" bomb, and that would affect the sun is comparable to the pin-prick of a mosquito on something the size of the roof of the Superdome in New Orleans. If anything, the bomb would probably have to be the size OF Earth, if not larger.

Also, even though the sun is "dying", the heat would still be so intense, I don't even think the heat shield would manage to get close enough without melting. I'm not even going to get into the issue with the gravity of the sun.

Also, this mission is Earth's last chance at survival. That the Captain of "Earth's Last Chance" is going to alter the mission and divert from his trajectory to meet up with the Icarus I is very unlikely. Also, the ship is going very fast, with millions of tons of mass, so where does the Icarus II get the fuel to reverse thrust and stop the ship? And where does it get the fuel to once again take off and head towards the sun again?

We are talking millions and millions of tons of heavy mass, which requires a hell of a lot of thrust and fuel, and also the weight of the fuel itself....sorry, it's to too much. I did like the first 3/4 of the movie, however. Just the worst ending ever in a film.

*Spoiler*

*Spoiler*

*Spoiler*

And the fact that the Captain of Icarus I managed to live alone for 7 years, in a burned state?

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he


1) And this was my big problem with Prometheus, too: I cannot believe, I simply cannot stop myself from disbelieving that there would not be an *extremely* rigorous process to weed out people who buckle under pressure, people who have their own agenda, people who will not put the mission first, etc. Instead we've got movies where regular people seem to be thrown together in a tin can millions of miles from Earth, and then their personalities start dictating how the movie goes. I cannot believe, especially for missions so terribly vital, that they would not be EXTREMELY selective in who they send. Why would we have a therapist obsessed with the sun to the point where he's sunburning himself? Why would we have a second-in-command who puts himself above the mission? The only character in this movie that I really bought was Mace.
No matter how well-planned the mission or how well-selected the crew, the fact is that prior to the Icarus I mission, they’d never before had to send eight people on a three-year round trip to drop a giant nuke into the sun, with the fate of all mankind hanging in the balance. There was no way of predicting what kind of toll that would take on even the strongest minds, but the fact that the ship has a psychiatrist instead of a physician suggests that they knew it was going to be a stressful gig. And they didn’t know what had happened to Icarus I when they sent Icarus II, otherwise they might have approached things differently.

It’s also worth noting that they’ve been on board for sixteen months already when we meet them, so whatever toll the mission might take on them, it’s already well underway. It’s a safe bet they were all very different people when they left Earth.


2) I don't think they ever adequately address their decision to divert to the Iracus I. Sure, I get that a second chance at delivering a payload is seductive. But is there any particular reason why they endangered their primary mission by diverting instead of delivering their payload FIRST, then going for the Icarus I if it didn't work?
”Two last chances are better than one,” addressed it quite neatly. As for why they didn’t “deliver their payload first, then go back” - was the ship even capable of doing that? It was essentially a delivery vehicle designed to fly straight to the sun, drop the payload, and then reverse back to Earth with the crew. They made a course adjustment to rendezvous with Icarus I (which was probably originally on the same course as they were) but it’s never suggested that they can just chuck a three-point turn, drive back to the Icarus I, and then go back to the sun again. They’re not on the USS Enterprise.


3) Things start going wrong when Trey makes a heinous mistake in not adjusting the shields after entering their course correction. I won't even go into how unlikely it is that he would forget something so important. Human error definitely exists. But I can't believe there wouldn't be an automated failsafe that would prevent that from happening. Icraus II is so intelligent that it can detect five living humans when there should be four, and it can override Cassie when it feels the mission is in jeopardy. I can't believe they'd leave something like sun-shielding to chance.
You’re putting a lot of faith in automated systems and failsafes, especially ones meant to compensate for situations the designers probably wouldn’t predict. They were never meant to change course, so why would anyone assume that the ship would need to account for a course change? It can tell there are five people on board, but assumes the fifth is just another "crew member" and doesn’t think to bring it up until Capa accidentally stumbles across the fact himself, which casts serious doubt on how “intelligent” or independent it is - it was just processing the information it was asked to process at the time, and responding to the questions it was asked. It overrides Cassie when the crew’s meddling with its normal routines leads to a major disaster on board, but a slight shift in shield alignment due to a new course - which didn’t actually cause a problem until hours or days later - apparently just wasn’t in its programming to detect or try to address.


4) When they make it over to Icarus I, they comment on all of the dust. One of the crew members says dust is mostly human skin. Which is A) incorrect...that is a common myth and B) probably impossible in the amounts they're seeing, even if it were true. Particularly since most of the crew died six and a half years ago and presumably aren't shedding skin cells anymore, and the only living person doesn't seem to have much skin left!
The “dust is mostly human skin” line was clearly the result of bad research on the part of the writer - or maybe he knew it was a myth, but assumed the audience wouldn’t know this, and kept it in because it’s a nicely ominous line, especially given what they find later.


5) While we're on the subject of those dead crew members, and the Searle's fascination with watching the sun through the screen... Why does the screen even have the option of viewing the sun at anything more than 3.1% if it causes irreparable damage? Just seems like another one of those safety features that would've been built in.
It was built in. The computer warns Searle against viewing the sun at too high a percentage, and - when asked - tells him what percentage will be safe, and for exactly how long. So there’s your safety feature. The crew of the Icarus I figured out a way to shut off their filter completely, but their computer apparently wasn’t running by that point.


6) Pinbacker, the crazy captain of Icarus I: Why did he go crazy? What about that rigorous selection process?
Again, they had no way to predict what would happen to the crew’s mental state in the situation they were in.


Why didn't the crew of Icarus II bother counting bodies?
Well, they only found three. And immediately after finding those, they had a slightly more pressing situation to deal with (ie, not joining them).


How did he survive for seven years? We're supposed to believe that he's *beep* crazy AND sane enough to work the hydroponics section? That he's lost his grip on reality and yet somehow knows how to keep vegetables growing and oxygen flowing and to ration his water?
Does being crazy make you technically inept and unable to perform tasks? Ed Gein was crazy as a fruitbat, and he used to make clothes and furniture out of dead bodies.


How is all of his flesh burnt and he's surely malnourished, and yet he's stronger than every crew member of Icarus II?
Well, he’s stronger than Capa and Cassie. And Corazon, who he ambushes from behind. So, yeah - the 6'2" homicidal maniac who's survived in space for seven years by himself can beat up two average-sized women, and the nerdiest male on the ship. Not that much of a stretch, really.


How does he know the codes to Icarus II? Sure, he'd probably have the knowledge on how to sabotage the ship, but surely the security codes would have changed?
When did anyone mention codes?


How did he get to the Icarus II? Did Icarus II not notice that the airlock had been engaged?
It was never disengaged. The boarding party just left the airlock attached and open. All he had to do was step through a couple of doors.


How did he violently de-couple the airlocks from *inside* the airlock?
Who said he was “inside the airlock”? The lock was decoupled and the door on the Icarus II side was closed, so clearly he wasn’t.


7) Really? There's only one suit in the airlock on Icarus I? Any particular reason there'd only be one suit on a ship full of seven people or so?
Probably the same reason the computer’s off, the sun filter’s disengaged, the crew are mostly dead and the ship’s not moving.


Any particular reason Kapa couldn't have blown over to Icarus II, picked up a new suit, blown it back over there for someone? Or towed over an extra? Any reason they couldn't have just kept doing that until they got transferred?
"Shuttle back with more suits? The airlock is ripped in half! Once we break that seal, how are we gonna re-pressurize?"


8) I realize that the mainframe is probably meant to be worked on when it's not sitting down in the coolant, but I'd also have to think the designers would understand that perhaps it might become jammed at some point. You'd think they would have, at the very least, included something akin to a dry suit for Mace to wear when he's trying to fix the mainframes after putting them back in the coolant.
Would they, though? Again with the failsafes for situations that were never meant to arise.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

Weeellll....


I'm gonna just have to flat-out disagree with you on number one. I mean yes, it's no doubt very stressful, and there's no way they could anticipate everyone's state of mind x-amount of months into the mission. But it's not as if people have never been sent on long, perilous missions before. It's not as if there have never been double-agents or submarine crews sent out for months and months at a time. I'm just saying I would expect the process to be extremely rigorous, with most people acting like Mace rather than everyone else being ruled by their emotions. One person cracking, sure, I could believe that. Not multiple people.

Some of your other points have to do with me "putting a lot of faith in automated systems and failsafes, especially ones meant to compensate for situations the designers probably wouldn’t predict."

Um...yeah. I do have a lot of faith in automated failsafes. I don't think that's at all unrealistic. I mean...when I go to empty my recycle bin, Windows asks me if I'm sure I want to permanently delete those items. You cannot convince me this state of the art SPACE SHIP would not have some sort of warning indicating a fatal error was about to be made.

Some of your other "points" aren't really adequate explanations. Bad research doesn't in any way negate my point about the skin / dust. The computer being off, sun filter being disengaged, the crew being dead and the ship not moving still don't account for why there's only one EVA suit on a ship meant for over a half dozen people. My original point was that all of these things lead to me having to suspend too MUCH disbelief. A certain amount is expected, but all of these things combined really took me out of the movie.

Pretty sure you're wrong on the other points, too, but there's no way I'm going back and watching this movie again just fo remember it all clearly, lol.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he


But it's not as if people have never been sent on long, perilous missions before.
Once again - with the exception of the Icarus I crew (and look what happened there) no other humans in history had ever bent sent on a mission to restart the sun (the physics of which were uncertain anyway, by Capa's own admission) with the knowledge that they were literally mankind's last hope, and that if they failed the entire planet/species would die. Strikes me as a bit more of a weight on the old noodle than a tour of duty on a submarine, and goes a bit beyond what even the most rigorous screening/training process could prepare for.

In fact, considering Pinbacker turned into a crazy god-bothering serial killer and at least half of his crew committed suicide by self-immolation, I'd say the Icarus II crew were holding it together pretty well, all things considered. You said that Searle slow-cooking himself in the observation room was cause for concern (and it is) but it's likely Pinbacker was doing the same thing, and that's what drove him nuts. Yet Searle was, in many ways, the sanest man on the ship. He was certainly the calmest.

The rest of the crew had their breaking points (well, two of them did) but by and large they were coping pretty nicely by comparison, the odd fist-fight notwithstanding. Especially since this time around they didn't have a backup (because they were the backup).


Um...yeah. I do have a lot of faith in automated failsafes. I don't think that's at all unrealistic. I mean...when I go to empty my recycle bin, Windows asks me if I'm sure I want to permanently delete those items. You cannot convince me this state of the art SPACE SHIP would not have some sort of warning indicating a fatal error was about to be made.
The problem is, you're dreaming up imaginary cure-all failsafes to cover everything that goes wrong on the ship. It only has the safety features that the designers thought to give it, to cover the situations they could predict. A slight course change resulting in a slight misalignment of the shield apparently wasn't one of those situations... because why would they ever have to change course? Nor did it occur to them that someone would sabotage the mainframe (you know it was sabotaged and not just "jammed", right?) resulting in one of the crew having to submerge himself in coolant to fix it... because without the knowledge that Icarus I was still out there with a homicidal maniac lurking on it, why would they imagine that situation would ever arise?


Some of your other "points" aren't really adequate explanations.
Well, not if you're just going to disregard the explanations, which is what you did with the last two points. But moving on...


Bad research doesn't in any way negate my point about the skin / dust.
Well, to be honest, your point about the dust was a little confused. You acknowledged that the "dust is human skin" thing is a myth, then went on to question whether there was enough skin on the ship to make that much dust.


The computer being off, sun filter being disengaged, the crew being dead and the ship not moving still don't account for why there's only one EVA suit on a ship meant for over a half dozen people.
What I was getting at is that we don't know exactly what happened on the Icarus I prior to the second crew arriving. All we know is that Pinbacker went nuts and sabotaged the mission. So there could be any number of reasons why there's only one suit left. Maybe Pinbacker chucked the suits out of the airlock to prevent the rest of the crew using them. Maybe some of the crew went out in suits, and Pinbacker stopped them coming back in, or sabotaged the suits so they'd die outside (it's hard to tell how many charred bodies were in the observation room). And how many suits were there on board, anyway? One for each crew member? Waste of space, given that at least two of them would be staying on board at all times.

Point being, you don't have to suspend disbelief over something that's open to interpretation.


Pretty sure you're wrong on the other points, too
Well, as long as you're pretty sure.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

Haha, not confused, just more like...nail in the coffin. It was a two-part issue I had with that bit.

One, that even IF the skin thing weren't really a myth, it didn't make sense that there would be so much of it when only one person had existed that whole time, and it looks like he hasn't actually HAD skin in awhile.

And two, of course, that it IS a myth, and it takes me out of it to hear some allegedly very smart people being sent on a very important mission who apparently don't actually know any better.

On the rest, we'll just have to agree to disagree :)

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

As is the case with the vast majority of space flicks, one of the main aspects requiring extreme amounts of suspension of disbelief, is that the characters simply aren't believable as astronauts or scientists - here, too, we have a bunch of young hunks and a couple of attractive chicks (well, Michelle Yeoh isn't attractive, but I have the feeling she's supposed to be). Most of the time they all behave and interact more like tourists in space (or actors, if you will) and not tried, tested, experienced professionals. Plus, of course, the flat and banal dialogue they're given doesn't exactly help things. It's funny how so many complain about the astronaut's emotionless behaviour in 2001: ASO when Kubrick's one of the few who actually got it right - missions of such enormous responsibility very much requires people who are mentally resilient and calm under extreme pressure.



"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

[quote]here, too, we have a bunch of young hunks and a couple of attractive chicks (well, Michelle Yeoh isn't attractive, but I have the feeling she's supposed to be)/quote]

So first you're complaining that she's too attractive but then you clarify she isn't, but could be? That doesn't make any sense.

The question is, though, if realistic astronauts make for better filmmaking. All your characters being boring for the sake of realism probably isn't worth it. If 2001 was the 2 leading astronauts talking for 2 and a half hours it would have been insufferable. Fortunately, the character with the most personality is a robot.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

"Too much exposition" is possibly the worst thing a screenwriter can do. There is a common fad in screenwriter to simply not explain things to the point of surrealism, and Garland is one of those writers (check his recent directorial debut Ex Machina.) These are all easily explainable with your own imagination.

1) "Weeding out" isn't a magic process. You can't have a Star Trek: The Next Generation crew all the time. Sometimes things don't work out. Sunshine wasn't even a bad seed on this account. There was only one person who went insane, while there were a few others who had momentary lapses but eventually complied. Searle was also, clearly, the most sane of any of these people.

2) They were about to create a new sun. I don't think they really had the option to turn around and try again if things went bad. Plus, I guarantee they needed the slingshot around the sun to get back (it would be a lot of fuel to not.) Anyway, it seems the mission was 100% one way. The payload included the shield and I don't think they were told that. This was simply not an option. I don't know why you thought it would be. Garland probably never even thought he needed to explain this.

3) It's not really a ridiculous mistake. People often forget things like that. They explained that there was a fail safe, and it did work, but not before a few things shorted out. The sensors were burnt... remember?

4) It was just a comment.

5) The closer you get to the sun the more intense it gets... you know... so when we're closer to the Earth we can probably look right at it with no problem at ~90% or so and as you get closer you have to dial that number down... so the ship had the option to put the percentage up, but it didn't allow it at the point they were at (remember? The ship stopped him?)

6) They actually mention how a crew member could survive for that long in the beginning of the film (enough food for seven people for three years = a lot of food for one person.) He obviously wanted to live. He talked about how he was speaking to God. Why did he go crazy? I don't know. Figure it out yourself. Why do you need to know? That seems like quite a nitpick. He could've gone crazy for a million reasons. What makes you think they should've explained this? How could they have? What? Do you want the movie to stop and a narrator gives a year by year history of this man's life? That would be ridiculous. Technology was probably not changed. Why would they change something that worked to the best of their knowledge? And anyway, you could probably easily use a computer made in 2014 with all the knowledge you had in 2007 when you wrote this post. As for the visual effect, it was very clearly it was a stylistic choice on Boyle's part. I don't know why you'd assume it was a truth within the world of the film.

7) They actually explain this during the scene if you listened. They had to manually open the airlock. The entire ship would lose oxygen and be depressurized, which is why Searle died. They would've died before he came back with the second suit. Also, why do you think there was only one suit? Because the others weren't in the ship for some reason. Who knows where they went? Who knows what happened on Icarus 1? They had two suits on Icarus 2 (I assume the suits were hard to make.)

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

lol....as usual, most of the responses seem to be along the lines of, "I don't know, who cares? Why are you making such a big deal of it?"

It's not a big deal. I simply pointed out, quite awhile back, that this movie asks me to suspend too much disbelief for me to be able to really get into the movie. Things that don't make sense take me out of the movie.

One thing I did laugh at, in your response, is the line, "And anyway, you could probably easily use a computer made in 2014 with all the knowledge you had in 2007 when you wrote this post."

A) I wrote this post in 2014, not 2007. 2007's when the movie came out.

B) Are you kidding me? I'm STILL trying to figure out the most recent changes to Windows.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he


3) Things start going wrong when Trey makes a heinous mistake in not adjusting the shields after entering their course correction. I won't even go into how unlikely it is that he would forget something so important. Human error definitely exists. But I can't believe there wouldn't be an automated failsafe that would prevent that from happening. Icraus II is so intelligent that it can detect five living humans when there should be four, and it can override Cassie when it feels the mission is in jeopardy. I can't believe they'd leave something like sun-shielding to chance.


That's the one in particular that I just couldn't buy. They made the computer so smart and so focused on ship safety and the integrity of the mission that it was just unbelievable that it wouldn't detect the shield being out of alignment and warn the crew.

I disagree with your #1, however. Predicting how people will respond to extreme situations isn't easy. Most people have no clue themselves how they will respond until they're there experiencing it.


All this machine does is swim, and eat, and make little sharks. -- Matt Hooper, JAWS

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

Then how about these?

a) The Sun is already a fusion bomb, and you can't just stop it: its own matter provides both the fuel and the mass that results in the necessary pressure (thus heat) for the fusion; it will not only not stop, but THERE IS NO KNOWN FORCE ABLE TO STOP IT.

b) Let's ignore this for a moment, and assume something "stops it." How could a nuclear bomb restart it? It already has incomparably more of everything that a nuclear bomb could provide, so if a bomb can do it, it would happen by itself as well -- but then of course we don't need the nuclear bomb, so the movie doesn't make any sense.

However, if a nuclear bomb is not enough, then ... well, a nuclear bomb is not enough, so the movie doesn't make any sense (unless their physicists were selling snake oil, for example to give people some false hope; but it would be hard to say that's not a stretch of an interpretation.)

c) A spaceship won't just hover over the surface of the sun, motionless, as it is pictured in some of the shots; can we please not forget this star keeps freaking Jupiter in orbit, a million times farther than that??

d) But let's play along and assume you can indeed hang a spaceship over the surface of the Sun like that. Guess how much more would you weigh there than on Earth? About 28 times as much. What super annoying is that putting the spaceship on an orbit around the Sun would solve both of these problems: first, it's actually possible, second, you're basically free-falling, thus weightless.

e) I almost didn't mention the thing about getting the payload in the middle of the Sun. Let's forget that we can't even dig more than a few miles down into the Earth. Did you guys know that it's assumed that if you started to descend into the atmosphere of Jupiter, the pressure would go so great that the methane in it would first divide into its atoms, then the carbon from it would turn into small diamonds? Assuming you would be still alive somehow, you could see diamond rain! Then it would shred you into pieces. And that's only Jupiter, not the Sun. So, how exactly are they supposed to get the payload to the CENTER OF THE SUN? I mean, they spent a long time to get there, they are using "classic" nuclear bombs, so we can't assume they have some Star Trek tech.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

1) Despite madness being clearly thematically relevant, I must agree. No excuses for Trey and Pinbacker in particular. But having an entire cast of monotonous competent people who do nothing wrong wouldn't be that interesting I suppose. Still think the writers could have done a bit better. Like at least inform us that the world had very little time to put this team together or something.

2) Tons of reasons why that could be problematic, but most notably, passing it now would take a lot less time than going to the sun, failing, going to Icarus 1 and retrying. It would also eliminate the chance to try and use both bombs in one try.

3) Agreed.

5) We don't know if it does. It wouldn't be a problem with competent astronauts though. Either way it could be somewhat useful to, say, add sunlight to the plant life or make a UFO in the distance more visible. Maybe even intentionally blinding an astronaut beforehand could be helpful to make him tolerate the sun better. (I admit this is a huge stretch). But it's a minor issue.

6) Agreed, we know nothing about him, he's just an awfully realized conflict ex machina that ruined the 3rd act on its own. The way he's shot, "foreshadowed", killed off, everything about him was absolutely awful. Not to mention the huge tonal shift.

7) Tons of reasons why those could have been gone. Them all still being there sounds less realistic even, all things considered.

8) Mace can survive at 0 degrees Kelvin, he's clearly a cold resistant super soldier. No worries there :) I don't think it would have mattered much anyway though since I doubt he had the time to put on a full body raincoat during the climax.

Don't think this movie is particularly clichéd though. If anything it makes films like Gravity pretty irrelevant.

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

I can take most because I liked it. Till a certain point.

However the burnt guy from Icarus 1 ruined it all for me. The entire thing. His existence was already too much but him ofc being there till the end in the bomb... it's like the movie degenerated to a c-movie within 10 minutes.
Like a worse done Event Horizon - and I didn't like that movie.

It's like the director went to the rest rooms while filming and a random director, who only knows to make b horror movies, picked up and did the rest.



---
Lincoln Lee: I lost a partner.
Peter Bishop: I lost a universe!

Re: There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, he

Thank you for a well-written and obviously well thought-out post...you addressed pretty much all the issues I had with this movie. I am a Huge sci-fi fan as well & quite aware of a suspension of disbelief being essential to watch it. But as fun as this was to watch, I couldn't take any of it seriously, starting right at the get with the whole ridiculous premise of a manned ship being sent to bomb the sun. You couldn't even get close enough to Venus without going into meltdown in a very short amount of time and this business of hitting the sun with a bomb the size of Manhattan to "re-ignite" it would be akin to dropping a glass of water into the Atlantic in order to raise its sea level.

...and don't even get me started with the guy screwing up the course adjustment, I mean, really?













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