8 ms·

Poking holes in the "Gravity" trailer with NASA's help

44 points by RougeFemme 13y ago

Nursie 13y ago
Just saw the trailer. Not sure I can cope with two hours of sandra bullock trying to grab hold of stuff regardless of the physics...
- krapp 13y ago
  Not even in space?
- jonrisk 13y ago
  For what its worth, it's only an hour and a half long.
- melling 13y ago
  I didn't like the trailer either. However, the movie was excellent. I took a chance because James Cameron called it the best space movie ever. http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a521285/james-cameron-gravity-is-the-best-space-film-ever-made.html http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a521285/james-cameron-...
- objclxt 13y ago
  See it in IMAX (proper IMAX, not those 'fake' IMAX you sometimes get in multiplexes) and I think you'll have a fantastic time. I saw it today, and as a piece of film making it's really impressive. I think if you saw it on a smaller screen you would come away less enthused. I thought there were definitely plotting and script problems, but that the visual impact of the film compensated for that. Sandra Bullock is definitely not the best choice, but she's not terrible (I don't think she was Alfonso Cuaron's first choice either).
  - nzp 13y ago
    > I don't think she was Alfonso Cuaron's first choice either According to Wikipedia, Angelina Jolie was the first choice, but in my opinion that would have been a much, much worse choice. What's wrong with Bullock? To me she seems plausible as an astronaut at least as far as physique and appearance go.
    - hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
      She's not a career astronaut though, from what I understood she's playing a scientist, sent there to fix the station, having to face her fears and thinking quick on her feet, which makes it all the more believable.
gkoberger 13y ago
In the trailer, they use sounds in space (explosions, collisions, etc). In the actual movie, these are silent (since you can't hear sound in space).
noonespecial 13y ago
The problem with space is that its really really boring and really really quiet, and then, if something goes wrong, you die in 10 seconds. It doesn't make for much of a movie.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  Actually its the 'something goes wrong and you're going to die in 7 hrs' that makes for the drama. If you died in 10 seconds then I agree, its a sad short film. The story of the Cosmonaut that knew he was going to die was pretty poignant in that way. I found the discussion about the recent failure with the water in the helmet thing more interesting. The weird thing is that in space you can drown in a half liter of water if you cannot get it to move away from your face. It is perhaps the scariest thought about a zero-g swimming pool where your own gravity pulls you into the center of a ball of water.
- anologwintermut 13y ago
  Apollo 13 disproves this point. I was stuck wishing Gravity was either Apollo 13 or 2001 A Space Odyssey. The sad part is, the technical points could have been fixed, they clearly had a lot of technical help. They just decided to ignore orbital mechanics completely and in fact I think that killed some of the tension. If you just have to line up, aim at the space station, and go, it's a lot less tense than if you actually have to figure out how to get there (see the incredible scene in Apollo 13 with the Jim Lovel siting out the window to get a re-entry trajectory).
cjreyes 13y ago
See the movie before poking holes in the trailer.
- nitrogen 13y ago
  This article was released before the movie was available for viewing.
Ogre 13y ago
Phil Plait's (Bad Astronomer) review(1) on Slate is based on the actual movie rather than the trailer. The summary is that despite some big problems with the science, it's a fantastic movie and you should go see it. I agree with him, I saw it yesterday and loved every minute of it. I'm able to both recognize that it's not scientifically accurate and still enjoy the hell out of an otherwise well written, acted, directed, and beautiful film. (1) http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/10/04/ba_movie_review_gravity.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/10/04/ba_movie...
- te_chris 13y ago
  Entirely agree. Hater's gonna hate and all that applies more than ever here. I saw it with my GF in IMAX 3d last night and we both loved it - though it was touch and go at the beginning with her as the motion was making her feel a tad ill!
  - bpicolo 13y ago
    I loved it. The only part that actually annoyed me for impossibility was the: SPOILERS BELOW: The pivotal moment between Clooney and Bullock. They were both moving at 0 velocity relative to each other, yet somehow he's 'pulling' her away? Definitely not physically accurate how it's portrayed. A simple pull of any sort should have brought him her way. Was annoying to me that such a key moment was brought on by a physics inaccuracy.
moultano 13y ago
Buzz Aldrin liked it: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gravity-review-by-astronaut-buzz-639883 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gravity-review-by-astr...
cyanoacry 13y ago
I saw the movie yesterday, and I really don't think it's fair to blame the movie producers for their inaccuracies. The premise is real[1], and much of the rest of the movie is constructed by taking the minimal liberties necessary to make the movie work. If the premise of the movie happened in real life, it'd be a 5 minute movie with no survivors, which is no fun, right? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
- jhandl 13y ago
  I agree with some of the liberties they took, for example the ISS, the shuttle+hubble and a chinese space station being next to each other, but I'm not so sure about staying in micro-gravity during acceleration phases. Was it because they didn't think the public would understand what acceleration looks like?
rajivtiru 13y ago
While I love orbital mechanics, I want a movie like Gravity to be made by artists like Cuaron, not NASA scientists. The movie was utterly stunning. Just go see it.
spikels 13y ago
While this article contains many interesting points the premise is just silly: criticizing a (very good) 90 minute movie based on a 5 minute trailer. Perhaps some of the "problems" we're explained away in the other 85 minutes? SPOILER ALERT Problem 1: debris - The debris were created after the space walk started by a chain of collisions began by a Russian anti-satellite weapon. So they could would not know to abort the spacewalk before it began. Problem 2: Clooney's jetpack - The movie explains that he is testing an experimental jetpack that has very long duration. He could apparently set a spacewalk duration record while fly around almost continuously. Maybe this is impossible but the move seem to take place in the future, there is a Chinese space station, and/or alternate reality, the Space Shuttle still flies. Problem 3: Clooney's Superman impersonation - As explained above this was a more advance jetpack than ever actually used by NASA. Problem 4: Clooney's rescue attempt - Again the advance jetpack means it would make sense for her to rescue her. The BIIIIIIG problem 5: From HST to ISS - Since it is an alternate and/or future world there is no reason orbits have to as they are today. It may even make sense to have the HST in a close orbit to IIS to make repairs such as this. And again the more advanced jetpack would make such a journey easier. Problem 6: Suit abuse - Here I think the article may have a good point seems like the suits would not be able to take all the damage.
- kelnos 13y ago
  Maybe this is impossible but the move seem to take place in the future, there is a Chinese space station Err... there is a Chinese space station: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong-1
  - Zoepfli 13y ago
    The Chinese space station portrayed in the film is about the size of ISS.
  - tanzam75 13y ago
    > Err... there is a Chinese space station: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong-1 The Chinese space station portrayed in the film is Tiangong-8. Not number 1. Thus, the movie takes place in the future. Actually, too far into the future. The Chinese are currently planning to launch their modular space station as Tiangong-3. They're not planning to go through 7 Salyuts first.
orionblastar 13y ago
I saw the movie today, had to chaperon my son and his girlfriend to the movie. I noticed some flaws, but for a Hollywood movie they were using "comic book physics" which most scifi movies and TV shows use. I assume that it takes place in an alternative universe where NASA didn't scrub the Space Shuttle program, and space stations are placed close to each other as some form of disaster planning, and of course commercial companies like Space-X and Virgin Galactic didn't exist. I kind of thought it was like "The Net" but instead of running from the police and computer hackers, she was trying to escape from space and get back to Earth. :) Anyway my son and his girlfriend saw it and loved it, and both decided to take astronomy because of it. They are both freshmen in high school taking physical science. I think the movie was meant for them. I had to explain after the movie how in space there is no air, and the space capsule parachute was tangled on the ISS and she had to cut it free. That it wasn't because it would slow down the capsule but that it had tethered it to the ISS. That if the chute was free there'd be no air to slow it down. They thought there was something in space the chute would slow it down on, but I told them it was a vacuum. Chutes only work in the atmosphere. That the friction of reentering the atmosphere is what had caused the heat that was burning up the other capsule she had to get on the Chinese station. Some spoilers Warning Let me see, Explorer Space Shuttle trying to repair a telescope with a new circuit board. Russians go crazy trying to blow up out of control spy satellite with some super missile that just wipes out all satellites and throws debris everywhere. NASA was not aware of it, and had miscalculated the velocity of the debris so there was no way to abort the mission before they got hit. Some super space suit thruster pack got George Cloney to fly around like Superman and save Sandra Bullock and get to the ISS. But the ISS has problems and the Russian space capsule has a deployed parachute in space. Bullock gets snagged on parachute cord, Cloney has to let go to save her or else she'll get lose. She has to use Russian capsule to get to the Chinese station that has a clone of the Russian capsule with a working parachute to get back to Earth. I won't say how it ends though. Sure it was mostly animation for 90 minutes, and we saw it in IMAX. But the main point is that it gets teenagers to study more math and science as a result of seeing the movie and asking questions about the physics involved. So I can forgive the mistakes and "comic book physics", if it promotes education.
electronous 13y ago
The bigger problem with this movie is all the male gaze and gross gender roles, not the slightly inaccurate physics.
nzp 13y ago
Since I don't really follow Hollywood I found out about this movie only yesterday. I haven't seen it yet, but watched the trailer. So apparently there's something about this movie that provokes poking holes in its portrayal of physics -- I immediately got very annoyed while watching the trailer. First, they don't have their visors (those Sun protective, gold plated ones). I'm not sure, but I guess that's a big no-no on EVAs, having the Sun enter your field of vision so close to it (in Earth's orbit) would probably do some eye damage. Again, I'm not sure the visor is always mandatory but I don't remember seeing any photos of actual EVAs without it being down. Second, Sandra Bullock rotating while attached to Canadarm... My impression was that the g force would be too high for her to stay conscious, or able to communicate. But it turns out intuition was wrong on that one: back of envelope calculation gives ~3 g (assuming 15 m length for the Canadarm [assuming it is the Shuttle Canadarm], but it was slightly retracted so it would be less, and a period of ~4 s) while still attached to the Shuttle, and ~1.5 g when the arm broke off (~3 m radius, 2-3 s period). So, that's OK. :) Third, the abuse those suits were getting! That's just crazy. At that point I got so annoyed that I didn't bother to notice all the other stuff the article talks about. Now I'm just bummed out that all this might have spoiled the movie for me (I tried not to read the plot section on Wikipedia, but got a glimpse of the ending as I was scrolling). Nerd rage is a horrible thing. :)

44 points by RougeFemme 13y ago

Just saw the trailer. Not sure I can cope with two hours of sandra bullock trying to grab hold of stuff regardless of the physics...

krapp 13y ago
Not even in space?
jonrisk 13y ago
For what its worth, it's only an hour and a half long.
melling 13y ago
I didn't like the trailer either. However, the movie was excellent. I took a chance because James Cameron called it the best space movie ever. http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a521285/james-cameron-gravity-is-the-best-space-film-ever-made.html http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a521285/james-cameron-...
objclxt 13y ago
See it in IMAX (proper IMAX, not those 'fake' IMAX you sometimes get in multiplexes) and I think you'll have a fantastic time. I saw it today, and as a piece of film making it's really impressive. I think if you saw it on a smaller screen you would come away less enthused. I thought there were definitely plotting and script problems, but that the visual impact of the film compensated for that. Sandra Bullock is definitely not the best choice, but she's not terrible (I don't think she was Alfonso Cuaron's first choice either).
- nzp 13y ago
  > I don't think she was Alfonso Cuaron's first choice either According to Wikipedia, Angelina Jolie was the first choice, but in my opinion that would have been a much, much worse choice. What's wrong with Bullock? To me she seems plausible as an astronaut at least as far as physique and appearance go.
  - hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
    She's not a career astronaut though, from what I understood she's playing a scientist, sent there to fix the station, having to face her fears and thinking quick on her feet, which makes it all the more believable.

gkoberger 13y ago

In the trailer, they use sounds in space (explosions, collisions, etc). In the actual movie, these are silent (since you can't hear sound in space).

noonespecial 13y ago

The problem with space is that its really really boring and really really quiet, and then, if something goes wrong, you die in 10 seconds. It doesn't make for much of a movie.

ChuckMcM 13y ago
Actually its the 'something goes wrong and you're going to die in 7 hrs' that makes for the drama. If you died in 10 seconds then I agree, its a sad short film. The story of the Cosmonaut that knew he was going to die was pretty poignant in that way. I found the discussion about the recent failure with the water in the helmet thing more interesting. The weird thing is that in space you can drown in a half liter of water if you cannot get it to move away from your face. It is perhaps the scariest thought about a zero-g swimming pool where your own gravity pulls you into the center of a ball of water.
anologwintermut 13y ago
Apollo 13 disproves this point. I was stuck wishing Gravity was either Apollo 13 or 2001 A Space Odyssey. The sad part is, the technical points could have been fixed, they clearly had a lot of technical help. They just decided to ignore orbital mechanics completely and in fact I think that killed some of the tension. If you just have to line up, aim at the space station, and go, it's a lot less tense than if you actually have to figure out how to get there (see the incredible scene in Apollo 13 with the Jim Lovel siting out the window to get a re-entry trajectory).

cjreyes 13y ago

See the movie before poking holes in the trailer.

nitrogen 13y ago
This article was released before the movie was available for viewing.

Ogre 13y ago

Phil Plait's (Bad Astronomer) review(1) on Slate is based on the actual movie rather than the trailer. The summary is that despite some big problems with the science, it's a fantastic movie and you should go see it. I agree with him, I saw it yesterday and loved every minute of it. I'm able to both recognize that it's not scientifically accurate and still enjoy the hell out of an otherwise well written, acted, directed, and beautiful film. (1) http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/10/04/ba_movie_review_gravity.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/10/04/ba_movie...

te_chris 13y ago
Entirely agree. Hater's gonna hate and all that applies more than ever here. I saw it with my GF in IMAX 3d last night and we both loved it - though it was touch and go at the beginning with her as the motion was making her feel a tad ill!
- bpicolo 13y ago
  I loved it. The only part that actually annoyed me for impossibility was the: SPOILERS BELOW: The pivotal moment between Clooney and Bullock. They were both moving at 0 velocity relative to each other, yet somehow he's 'pulling' her away? Definitely not physically accurate how it's portrayed. A simple pull of any sort should have brought him her way. Was annoying to me that such a key moment was brought on by a physics inaccuracy.

moultano 13y ago

Buzz Aldrin liked it: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gravity-review-by-astronaut-buzz-639883 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gravity-review-by-astr...

cyanoacry 13y ago

I saw the movie yesterday, and I really don't think it's fair to blame the movie producers for their inaccuracies. The premise is real[1], and much of the rest of the movie is constructed by taking the minimal liberties necessary to make the movie work. If the premise of the movie happened in real life, it'd be a 5 minute movie with no survivors, which is no fun, right? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

jhandl 13y ago
I agree with some of the liberties they took, for example the ISS, the shuttle+hubble and a chinese space station being next to each other, but I'm not so sure about staying in micro-gravity during acceleration phases. Was it because they didn't think the public would understand what acceleration looks like?

rajivtiru 13y ago

While I love orbital mechanics, I want a movie like Gravity to be made by artists like Cuaron, not NASA scientists. The movie was utterly stunning. Just go see it.

spikels 13y ago

While this article contains many interesting points the premise is just silly: criticizing a (very good) 90 minute movie based on a 5 minute trailer. Perhaps some of the "problems" we're explained away in the other 85 minutes? SPOILER ALERT Problem 1: debris - The debris were created after the space walk started by a chain of collisions began by a Russian anti-satellite weapon. So they could would not know to abort the spacewalk before it began. Problem 2: Clooney's jetpack - The movie explains that he is testing an experimental jetpack that has very long duration. He could apparently set a spacewalk duration record while fly around almost continuously. Maybe this is impossible but the move seem to take place in the future, there is a Chinese space station, and/or alternate reality, the Space Shuttle still flies. Problem 3: Clooney's Superman impersonation - As explained above this was a more advance jetpack than ever actually used by NASA. Problem 4: Clooney's rescue attempt - Again the advance jetpack means it would make sense for her to rescue her. The BIIIIIIG problem 5: From HST to ISS - Since it is an alternate and/or future world there is no reason orbits have to as they are today. It may even make sense to have the HST in a close orbit to IIS to make repairs such as this. And again the more advanced jetpack would make such a journey easier. Problem 6: Suit abuse - Here I think the article may have a good point seems like the suits would not be able to take all the damage.

kelnos 13y ago
Maybe this is impossible but the move seem to take place in the future, there is a Chinese space station Err... there is a Chinese space station: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong-1
- Zoepfli 13y ago
  The Chinese space station portrayed in the film is about the size of ISS.
- tanzam75 13y ago
  > Err... there is a Chinese space station: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong-1 The Chinese space station portrayed in the film is Tiangong-8. Not number 1. Thus, the movie takes place in the future. Actually, too far into the future. The Chinese are currently planning to launch their modular space station as Tiangong-3. They're not planning to go through 7 Salyuts first.

orionblastar 13y ago

I saw the movie today, had to chaperon my son and his girlfriend to the movie. I noticed some flaws, but for a Hollywood movie they were using "comic book physics" which most scifi movies and TV shows use. I assume that it takes place in an alternative universe where NASA didn't scrub the Space Shuttle program, and space stations are placed close to each other as some form of disaster planning, and of course commercial companies like Space-X and Virgin Galactic didn't exist. I kind of thought it was like "The Net" but instead of running from the police and computer hackers, she was trying to escape from space and get back to Earth. :) Anyway my son and his girlfriend saw it and loved it, and both decided to take astronomy because of it. They are both freshmen in high school taking physical science. I think the movie was meant for them. I had to explain after the movie how in space there is no air, and the space capsule parachute was tangled on the ISS and she had to cut it free. That it wasn't because it would slow down the capsule but that it had tethered it to the ISS. That if the chute was free there'd be no air to slow it down. They thought there was something in space the chute would slow it down on, but I told them it was a vacuum. Chutes only work in the atmosphere. That the friction of reentering the atmosphere is what had caused the heat that was burning up the other capsule she had to get on the Chinese station. Some spoilers Warning Let me see, Explorer Space Shuttle trying to repair a telescope with a new circuit board. Russians go crazy trying to blow up out of control spy satellite with some super missile that just wipes out all satellites and throws debris everywhere. NASA was not aware of it, and had miscalculated the velocity of the debris so there was no way to abort the mission before they got hit. Some super space suit thruster pack got George Cloney to fly around like Superman and save Sandra Bullock and get to the ISS. But the ISS has problems and the Russian space capsule has a deployed parachute in space. Bullock gets snagged on parachute cord, Cloney has to let go to save her or else she'll get lose. She has to use Russian capsule to get to the Chinese station that has a clone of the Russian capsule with a working parachute to get back to Earth. I won't say how it ends though. Sure it was mostly animation for 90 minutes, and we saw it in IMAX. But the main point is that it gets teenagers to study more math and science as a result of seeing the movie and asking questions about the physics involved. So I can forgive the mistakes and "comic book physics", if it promotes education.

electronous 13y ago

The bigger problem with this movie is all the male gaze and gross gender roles, not the slightly inaccurate physics.

nzp 13y ago

Since I don't really follow Hollywood I found out about this movie only yesterday. I haven't seen it yet, but watched the trailer. So apparently there's something about this movie that provokes poking holes in its portrayal of physics -- I immediately got very annoyed while watching the trailer. First, they don't have their visors (those Sun protective, gold plated ones). I'm not sure, but I guess that's a big no-no on EVAs, having the Sun enter your field of vision so close to it (in Earth's orbit) would probably do some eye damage. Again, I'm not sure the visor is always mandatory but I don't remember seeing any photos of actual EVAs without it being down. Second, Sandra Bullock rotating while attached to Canadarm... My impression was that the g force would be too high for her to stay conscious, or able to communicate. But it turns out intuition was wrong on that one: back of envelope calculation gives ~3 g (assuming 15 m length for the Canadarm [assuming it is the Shuttle Canadarm], but it was slightly retracted so it would be less, and a period of ~4 s) while still attached to the Shuttle, and ~1.5 g when the arm broke off (~3 m radius, 2-3 s period). So, that's OK. :) Third, the abuse those suits were getting! That's just crazy. At that point I got so annoyed that I didn't bother to notice all the other stuff the article talks about. Now I'm just bummed out that all this might have spoiled the movie for me (I tried not to read the plot section on Wikipedia, but got a glimpse of the ending as I was scrolling). Nerd rage is a horrible thing. :)