by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright October 2013
Gravity was a breakthrough movie in many ways. I loved the weightless portrayal, and I loved that it never flashed back to events happening on Earth -- it stayed with the crisis in space through the whole movie. Kudos to Alfonso Cuarón and the crew he assembled for some innovative weightless special effects, and to Bullock and Clooney for their acting in these innovative circumstances.
All-in-all, pretty good! But there were some Technofiction issues. Time for the down-and-dirty.
Here are the Technofiction problems I saw:
o The views looking down on Earth were dramatic and fun. And I liked how they handled moving from day light side to night side of Earth. But the locations that showed up that I recognized -- Sinai, Italy, Malaysia -- are at different latitudes -- Italy in particular is way to the north. We wouldn't see these from a space station orbiting the equator, which most space stations and all geostationary satellites do. If we did, this is not a typical orbit and we would also need to see places such as Tasmania and New Zealand which are way to the south.
o Space is an empty place, a really empty place. This business of satellites getting into a chain reaction of collisions to start the disaster side of this story was a sad, sad lapse into end-of-the-world plot device. Ouch! No, this isn't going to happen.
o Relating to the above, the usual Hollywood disregard for time and distance, and in this case velocity, is also in full effect. When the shuttle is destroyed, just putt-putting along with space suit jets is not going to get the survivors to the next space station. If it does, there's going to be a serious velocity difference when they get there, and the putt-putt suit engine won't be enough to compensate for that.
o Relating again to the above, Clooney says the debris will circle back around in 90 minutes. Right! But as my friend Martin pointed out, Bullock and Clooney are orbiting around in 90 minutes, too! Either the debris won't catch up, or it is moving twice their speed and will change to a higher orbit and not be a problem again. Or... it can be orbiting in the opposite direction, yeah! that's the ticket! But in that case it will be back in 45 min, not 90.
o Bullock runs out of oxygen, then continues to perform vigorous gymnastics for many minutes following. This run out of oxygen, classic plot device that it is, should have been better timed.
o The cliff hanger with Clooney latched on to Bullock who's held to the space station with straps around her foot made no sense. At that point Clooney's velocity was matched to the station's. All he had to do was crawl up the straps, then Bullock would follow him. Both make it handily.
o While the images of weightlessness were generally well handled, and believable, there were some problems. Here are a few:
oo Outside, the ropes and cords moved around too much. The internal friction of the ropes moving against themselves would dampen all that twisting around.
oo Inside, stuff floated around aimlessly too much. Inside, where several rooms are connected to each other, there are going to be air currents that move from room to room and will carry floating stuff to the exhaust vents -- trash will gather at these exhaust vent grills. In the self-contained capsules this not as much an issue, stuff can float aimlessly there for a longer time.
oo Bullock sheds tears which then float off aimlessly. No! When it is not fighting with gravity, surface tension becomes an important adhesive -- it's like sticky tape. I've seen some neat videos about this from the real ISS. Surface tension would keep the tears firmly attached to Bullock's face unless she vigorously shakes her head.
Back to other issues.
o The second suit Bullock gets into looks to be designed for inside work, not outside. It's a lot thinner and slimmer than her first suit, and those outside suits are bulky for a reason.
o The instructions in the emergency pods on the ISS weren't bilingual? This station is international right? And this pod is designed for emergencies, right? Only Russian crew members get into emergencies? If that Chinese station she visits second was planned to host international visitors, I'd say the same for it.
Update: I had a neat idea inspired by fellow MIT alum Dan Swanson. At some point, hauling out a fire extinguisher and jetting around with it is going to become the "skateboarding" of space walks. Of course "dad" in his putt-putt jet pack is going to have to be out, too, to clean up the mess by catching people who are spinning off into the wild black yonder. And this is a wonderful example of a surprise use of a technology. This is what makes life with new technologies so fun.
Gravity is an engaging movie to watch. It breaks new ground in portraying adventure in space. I loved that part of it. But it's not perfect yet -- some Hollywood story cliches are still there. That said, I'm sure glad it got made. There's hope for... the Hollywood version of mankind!
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