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QuoProQuid posted:tbqh, I very rarely think any protagonist's personal safety is in doubt in a movie, especially character-driven dramas. I didn't watch Gravity wondering if Sandra Bullock would die in the first fifteen minutes. Before I saw The Martian, I knew that Matt Damon would get off Mars. Realistically speaking, you know John McClane isn't gonna die when he's getting shot at through the table. However because the film-making is so good, you forget that. When the film-making is bad, you remember that they're the main character and absolutely are not going to die. When it gets thrown in your face with very convenient stupid physics or stunts, you just stop caring.
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Sep 23, 2019 03:40
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I thought it was decent but I just wonder how Brad Pitt jerked off in zero G during the 79 day trip to Neptune
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Sep 23, 2019 08:00
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I'm sure they would have found a way to gently caress up the physics of that too
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Sep 23, 2019 08:51
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Most of the movie was bad and I won't say what others have talked about. But I did want to mention that TLJ's huge 20 year mission of no return could have been something that was a mission of return since apparently it only takes 80 days to get from Mars to Neptune. I know the heliopause is further but it seems like with their tech it would be possible to setup a crew rotation.
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Sep 23, 2019 14:55
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Movie was awesome, though of course CineD is full of morons with bad taste so now there will be controversy as always the same people that are saying this movie was bad fawn over zack snyder and the dcu lmao
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Sep 23, 2019 15:06
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quote:Gray also described the film as "sort of like if you got 'Apocalypse Now' and '2001' in a giant mashup and you put a little [Joseph] Conrad in there." Imagine Apocalypse Now but with a little Joseph Conrad influence. Just imagine I still want to see this movie, but I watched Gray's The Yards he other dag and thought it basically sucked
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Sep 23, 2019 17:13
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Phi230 posted:Movie was awesome, though of course CineD is full of morons with bad taste so now there will be controversy as always This is false but carry on.
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Sep 23, 2019 17:17
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QuoProQuid posted:Ah, apologies. I see what you're saying but the sense I got from the film was that we aren't meant to see those costs as a good thing. It's just that the movie sees the solution to addressing those problems as beginning at a very individual level, whether that be accepting responsibility for what your lovely dad did or learning to do emotional labor for your spouse. Pitt only gets to his dad because of small, individual rebellions by other people empathizing with his situation (e.g. Sutherland handing over the USB, the Martian official getting him to the rocket). Pitt ends with not so much a retreat inward, as a chance to make amends. This isn't handled perfectly (prob should have shown some consequences for killing those four dudes or had Pitt exposing SPACECOM), but the handling isn't completely botched either. I just don't particularly see the ending as him making amends. He's having a beer, enjoying the simpler things in life, and looking to hook back up with Liv Tyler. As you say, it doesn't address at all either his personal actions (murdering three people) or his complicity in a system of death and destruction (SpaceCom). Even if he was cold with his wife, they're showing the form of making amends that would be more personally rewarding for him. Which is particularly notable when the things that aren't addressed are so similar to what his father did. They both murder a crew of astronauts and put the solar system at risk in pursuit of their personal obsession. And where it destroys Tommy Lee Jones, it actually works out for Brad Pitt: he gets closure, he undergoes a little emotional growth, and now he's ready to be a functional middle-class professional family man. And, in general, it leaves the conclusion of the movie totally disconnected from the entire first half. Which I'd say is a general disappointment for me, that both the political/economic commentary and pulp sci-fi weirdness get jettisoned at the halfway point, never to be seen again, like so many astronaut corpses.
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Sep 23, 2019 17:48
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Sir Kodiak posted:I just don't particularly see the ending as him making amends. He's having a beer, enjoying the simpler things in life, and looking to hook back up with Liv Tyler. As you say, it doesn't address at all either his personal actions (murdering three people) or his complicity in a system of death and destruction (SpaceCom). Even if he was cold with his wife, they're showing the form of making amends that would be more personally rewarding for him. Saying he murdered that crew is a little far. Maybe manslaughter's not out of line, though. They attacked him, and none of his actions as I recall explicitly led to their deaths. It's more like they died attacking him--the woman falls during a rocket boost, and the shot that messed up the oxygen in the shuttle was fired by the other attacker. Pitt's actions led to their deaths, but he didn't explicitly try to harm them.
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Sep 23, 2019 18:18
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heckyeahpathy posted:Saying he murdered that crew is a little far. Maybe manslaughter's not out of line, though. They attacked him, and none of his actions as I recall explicitly led to their deaths. It's more like they died attacking him--the woman falls during a rocket boost, and the shot that messed up the oxygen in the shuttle was fired by the other attacker. Pitt's actions led to their deaths, but he didn't explicitly try to harm them. Obviously we don't know about Martian law, but a comparable circumstance on Earth where people died trying to expel someone illegally boarding a military vessel would likely fall under felony murder, in addition to all the other charges. You don't need to intend for anyone to die for it to be murder if they die as a result of a serious enough crime. Morally speaking, their deaths were a predictable result of what he did. The idea that he could just be like "no, it's cool, I'm here to help" and they'd go along with it is insane. It's a multi-month voyage with limited fuel, food, and water in an attempt to save everyone in the solar system and he's just going to hop onboard and hope it works out? There is a point where your plan is so poorly thought out that whether or not he figured out this could only end in either him or them dying, he's responsible for it when that happens. And it makes sense he'd do it, he's his father's son and all that. But it's just another thing that the movie never grapples with in its conclusion.
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Sep 23, 2019 18:34
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That would depend on the felony murder rule being applied, what felony murder rule is applied in maritime law (space is ocean)
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Sep 23, 2019 18:48
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I really don't want to get into a legal argument about hypothetical space law, which is why I focused mostly on the moral aspect of things. The point is simply that there are any number of circumstances in which if you do something stupid/bad enough and people die as a result, we're willing to call it murder, even without an intent on your part to kill.
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Sep 23, 2019 18:52
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Sir Kodiak posted:Obviously we don't know about Martian law, but a comparable circumstance on Earth where people died trying to expel someone illegally boarding a military vessel would likely fall under felony murder, in addition to all the other charges. You don't need to intend for anyone to die for it to be murder if they die as a result of a serious enough crime. Logistics aside (you've got good points, but we could assume that SpaceCom would cover it up regardless, which means Pitt likely isn't going to be punished), he does reckon with it all immediately after. The first thing he tries to do is save the captain's life. The very next bit of monologue is him saying something to the effect of "I'm my father's son, but I don't have to be my father," which I read as tacit admission of responsibility and an intention to own responsibility (which he does in his broadcast) and change (which he does by rejecting his father and going home to connect with people interpersonally instead of being another lost voyager who died "nobly" in pursuit of knowledge). Overall, I think the movie's pretty busted, but the emotional journey and its conclusion feel pretty well earned to me, even though I hated the voiceover (like why even do that when he has a built-in reason to monologue via the psych evals?). I get the impression the director doesn't really give a poo poo about Pitt's job status and career/legal/maybe even moral consequences, and neither does the character. The point of the movie seems to be "being alone makes you monstrous, so don't do that." The rest is by-the-wayside stuff.
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Sep 23, 2019 19:00
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heckyeahpathy posted:I get the impression the director doesn't really give a poo poo about Pitt's job status and career/legal/maybe even moral consequences, and neither does the character. The point of the movie seems to be "being alone makes you monstrous, so don't do that." The rest is by-the-wayside stuff. Yeah, I think I was hoping the movie would incorporate more of that by-the-wayside stuff into the conclusion, since I ultimately found it more interesting. But then that's me just wanting a different movie. Agreed that SpaceCom likely just covered it up to have a cleaner result, given they got the outcome they wanted and he even brought back some of the research. But it would have been an interesting return to the capitalist hellscape future stuff to actually have a scene about that.
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Sep 23, 2019 19:04
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Anyone notice Hollywood sci-fi movies, despite how much they profess to be cerebral, cannot ever escape from the problem of sudden and constant emergencies as a way to create drama Like, when was the last big budget scifi space movie you can remember where the drama came from the scope of the journey rather than a constant series of inexplicable disasters? Its like Hollywood has no faith in the ability of the vastness of the unknown to fascinate us and most constantly resort to explosions and baboons and unstoppable skin melted off serial killers and what have you. Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Sep 23, 2019 |
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Sep 23, 2019 19:45
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I hear you, but I'm wary of any argument that concludes there should be less face-eating baboons in cinema.
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Sep 23, 2019 20:02
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Sir Kodiak posted:I hear you, but I'm wary of any argument that concludes there should be less face-eating baboons in cinema. I mean don't get me wrong I would line up for Shakma In Space just don't put the killer monkeys in my morose space drama
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Sep 23, 2019 20:12
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This movie felt a lot like it could have been a much better movie, except they sliced off the actual ending, inserted some nonsensical action setpieces, and sprinkled pointless voiceovers on top like confetti.
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Sep 23, 2019 21:45
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heckyeahpathy posted:Saying he murdered that crew is a little far. Maybe manslaughter's not out of line, though. They attacked him, and none of his actions as I recall explicitly led to their deaths. It's more like they died attacking him--the woman falls during a rocket boost, and the shot that messed up the oxygen in the shuttle was fired by the other attacker. Pitt's actions led to their deaths, but he didn't explicitly try to harm them. I think that filmicly he murdered them. This comes right after the Mars Commander shows him a video where his dad admits to murdering a number of his crew by shutting off their life support because some of them mutinied against him. Then Brad Pitt goes through some rebirthy water imagery, and is involved in a fight where the crew dies attacking him by losing their life support. He's in the process of becoming his father. This is part of the movie's greater thrust, that capitalism, broadly speaking, will kill us all. Capitalism is narrowly understood, for the most part, as "just doing the job." People take mood suppressors and are constantly under psychological supervision to make sure they're totally "balanced." On a personal level, this leads to a kind of isolation, with Dad as the most extreme example. He's also so committed to the job even though it's failing (the Lima Project is starting to crash into Nepture) and it's hopeless (there is no life to be found) that without familial intervention he'll destroy life in the Solar System. Now if only all this were plugged into a better move, then we'd have something.
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Sep 23, 2019 22:29
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Ad Astra: I really don't want to get into a legal argument about hypothetical space law So I actually liked this a lot. It looks and sounds amazing, Pitt’s performance is phenomenal, and the story totally worked for me, although I can also admit it has flaws like Liv Tyler being underused and the physics being sorta inconsistent and wonky. But the main thing I really didn’t like about it was that it absolutely should have ended five minutes earlier and the last two or three scenes feel really studio-mandated in an annoying way. I think it would have been much better if it had ended with Pitt using the explosion for propulsion and then the final shot was his ship going way off into the distance. Having it be more open-ended, with us not knowing if he’ll make it back and not knowing what would happen if he did, if he would be imprisoned for the crew’s death, etc, would have been way more satisfying to me. The only issue is that you would lose the end of his arc with him accepting his more positive worldview, but you could have added that via narration/an evaluation before the explosion went off, and it may even have been more satisfying if we know he feels that change but don’t know whether or not he will ever get to act on it. Also re the tear in zero gravity I remember a story that Pitt told Gray “you’re gonna have to make that fly up in post” and he was just like gently caress no that’s too good. So Pitt acted so well he broke gravity.
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Sep 23, 2019 23:00
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Zero One posted:Most of the movie was bad and I won't say what others have talked about. But I did want to mention that TLJ's huge 20 year mission of no return could have been something that was a mission of return since apparently it only takes 80 days to get from Mars to Neptune. I know the heliopause is further but it seems like with their tech it would be possible to setup a crew rotation. That was another thing that shat me. TLJ had gone further than anybody. I'm pretty sure that was a line in the movie. ...but according to the movie, at that point in time it was only 79 days out. Doesn't seem to be such an amazing accomplishment. But never fear! ONLY ONE MAN CAN STOP HIM. HIS SON. WHO IS ICE-COLD AND HEART RATE NEVER GOES ABOVE 80 AND DOESN'T CARE ABOUT PEOPLE LIKE LIV TYL-oh he cares about his Dad? Right. Oh well. We'll kick him off the mission after we forget that audio recordings, encryption and email exists so that we can artificially create tension with a scene where he crawls through pipes like Shawshank Redemption (one of our 28 movie references) and climbs up through the engines of the rocket which is currently turning on. Don't worry, him climbing through rockets which are warming up for space-flight absolutely wouldn't have vaporised him (which ignited while we still saw him climbing) because he has plot armour. So this next fight sequence on-board the ship has absolutely no tension because you've been made aware of his plot armour and ohhhhhhhhhhhhh they're setting it up so that he can have a solo one-on-one confrontation with his Dad. Well that's just removed all tension of the journey to the Lima project or any questions about if he gets there or if he goes insane first. Oh look, he can't get into the space-station? Is this movie pretending that everybody on-board the Lima project is dead by showing it abandoned? Not gonna work movie, you already showed your hand far earlier with the lovely plot armour you waved in my face. This movie was a snowball of problems that was generally caused by the obstacles they put in his way. It mostly felt like padding. The only SORTA genuine scene in the movie was when Pitt and TLJ finally met, but I think that was more because they're both fantastic actors. However even that had a moment of stupidity 'cos a tear, oh so poetically rolled down Brad Pitt's face as though gravity is a thing in space and good lord what a load of wank.
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Sep 24, 2019 00:32
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Sir Kodiak posted:Obviously we don't know about Martian law, but a comparable circumstance on Earth where people died trying to expel someone illegally boarding a military vessel would likely fall under felony murder, in addition to all the other charges. You don't need to intend for anyone to die for it to be murder if they die as a result of a serious enough crime. I'm pretty sure Martian Law has been well studied. Under it, doctors and other wizards are forbidden. That said, The morality is complicated by how Three Stooges the scene gets. It's a bit like the Gundam SEED remaster, where to make the protagonist look better a sympathetic antagonist is changed to literally run onto the hero's sword instead of getting attacked.
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Sep 24, 2019 00:41
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This movie might have been cool if it was about Ruth Negga's character.
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Sep 24, 2019 00:53
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turtlecrunch posted:This movie might have been cool if it was about Ruth Negga's character. I was totally expecting her to go on the mission but in the end she just drops him off and goes away.
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Sep 24, 2019 03:46
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Zero One posted:Most of the movie was bad and I won't say what others have talked about. But I did want to mention that TLJ's huge 20 year mission of no return could have been something that was a mission of return since apparently it only takes 80 days to get from Mars to Neptune. I know the heliopause is further but it seems like with their tech it would be possible to setup a crew rotation. I felt like that's because TLJ's trip was made when space travel wasn't as advanced as it was when the movie takes place (keep in mind it's been more than a decade since he disappeared). They also imply the Mars base is somewhat recent (at least when compared to the Moon base), and I imagine launching from there instead of from the Earth helps things a little.
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Sep 24, 2019 04:25
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Re: the fight, "hey so go ahead and immediately murder the guy who wants to de facto surrender to you" is an unlawful and unethical order in the first place, so there's nothing wrong with doing the bare minimum to defend himself from being shanked. He'd still be in deep poo poo for being a stowaway and for stealing the spaceship, but any good space lawyer should be able to take murder or manslaughter off the table, given not only the legal arguments, but also the risk of blowback against the establishment when whoever was giving such a blatantly stupid order gets dragged in to testify and then somebody plays back "get back in your seats!" (fwoosh) (crunch). Of course, this is also a universe where monkeys get to roam free in space habitats and where somehow the US military decides it can't be bothered to protect or fortify its only route across the moon to its deep-space rockets, so logic already fled the solar system long ago.
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Sep 24, 2019 10:03
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People have already pointed out the many, many flaws in both plot and science and I'd just like to add another that I haven't seen mentioned. That lunar rover scene. So apparently they drove from the near side to the far side of the moon. But isn't the moon like, actually quite big? Would that not have been a days- or weeks-long journey? Unless they were taking turns napping and just building up days of poo poo in their suit colostomy bags.
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Sep 24, 2019 11:52
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Phi230 posted:Movie was awesome, though of course CineD is full of morons with bad taste so now there will be controversy as always tell us more about your daddy issues, op JeremoudCorbynejad posted:People have already pointed out the many, many flaws in both plot and science and I'd just like to add another that I haven't seen mentioned. Eeh, I kinda feel that that's the kind of stuff that's unhelpful nitpicking. Like yeah, maybe the moon is supposed to be bigger and all, but if it makes for a neat setpiece feel free to just ignore it. But then again, if one of the selling points are that this is a realistically grounded sci fi that sort of oversight might rankle a bit. Generally speaking, I think if you're the type of person who can engage in the drama of the main character this movie will probably be pretty good, but if it kinda just bounces off you like it did me then the part from mars onward is kind of a rough ride. Random questions and observations: Why did they bother putting in the scene where they respond to the SOS? I mean, it's clearly there because the movie wants to say something, but I can't for the life of me figure out what. Don't help strangers in need, or a monkey might eat your face? Don't have lax security protocols when dealing with murderous chimps?  Did the US suddenly gain like 5 states? I wasn't sure but it seems like the patch on Brads arm had more stars than it should. The room they recorded the laser transmission in was one of those super silent rooms where the room is designed to absorb sound, which was neat https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/anechoic-chamber-worlds-quietest-room/index.html Also, it's a bit weird they cast Liv Tyler, TLJ and Donald Sutherland for their respective roles, considering their previous roles in Armageddon and Space Cowboys respectively.
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Sep 24, 2019 15:28
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McCloud posted:
So I think first and foremost, this fits with what I identified earlier in this movie where just going about doing your job will get you killed. Having that be "answering an SOS" seems to sit kind of maliciously(?) next to the other examples, bit it does fit. You also have the theme pop up in Pitt's decision there: he refuses to commandeer the ship because he would have to announce his mission, so in sticking to what he was told to do ("nobody is permitted to know") he ends up getting the captain killed. I think it also serves as character development for Pitt: we get to see him identify that the co-pilot is nervous, and offer to go in his place. I think it's the first we see that Pitt is actually capable of empathy, and it's a step on the path along the way to the emotionality he shows when dealing with his father. IIRC, while he passes the psychological check after the rescue mission, his report/vitals are off from the one we get at the start of the movie. (Or I'm wrong about the timeline here. Was that still on the Moon?) The scene also gives us a particular relationship between Pitt and the rest of the crew. He's put himself in danger for them, and definitely saved the co-pilot's life by going in his stead. This underlines the kind of moral failure that we see from the crew when they decide to "just follow orders" and attack Pitt when he sneaks on board the rocket. He put himself in danger for them, but they don't reciprocate because they received orders. Once again, they're just doing their job, and just doing your job gets people killed.
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Sep 24, 2019 15:40
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Just seen the movie but I'm a bit sleepy did they explain who the people in the other moon buggies trying to kill Pitt were? That man was the touch of death to people
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Sep 24, 2019 17:44
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Roadie posted:"hey so go ahead and immediately murder the guy who wants to de facto surrender to you" is an unlawful and unethical order in the first place, so there's nothing wrong with doing the bare minimum to defend himself from being shanked. Nah. At the point where someone has broken into a military spacecraft mid-launch, it is entirely reasonable to believe they're not actually going to leave peacefully. At no point did he offer to surrender, which would mean allowing them to kick him out an airlock. He was demanding to come along, and made it clear he would endanger the mission to do so. bessantj posted:Just seen the movie but I'm a bit sleepy did they explain who the people in the other moon buggies trying to kill Pitt were? That man was the touch of death to people The space pirates knew runs like this would likely have VIPs onboard, and they make money by kidnapping and ransoming them, as well as looting the buggies. Sir Kodiak fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Sep 24, 2019 |
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Sep 24, 2019 18:11
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Sir Kodiak posted:The space pirates knew runs like this would likely have VIPs onboard, and they make money by kidnapping and ransoming them, as well as looting the buggies. I’ll respond to some of the other comments when I get out of work, but this is indicative of the things that I keep coming back to in this movie. I absolutely loved the set design and worldbuilding, from the tourist trap lunar base to the roving bands of space pirates to the neo-brutalist design of the Martian colony and its bizarre tranquility rooms.
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Sep 24, 2019 18:44
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What I have to say of this movie, I think it could end up like Blade Runner (original). There is a lot of cool world building with interesting set design and some good philosophical concepts, tied in with flat characters and some poor pacing. I saw this with a friend and made a joke about the Norwegian space station having the rage monkeys from 28 days later and then laughed my rear end off when there were murder baboons. I was glad there was only one other group in the theatre because otherwise I would have felt bad. McCloud posted:
I am pretty sure this was intentional and I am pretty sure they used some stills from Space Cowboys for TLJ's character. Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Sep 25, 2019 |
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Sep 25, 2019 05:23
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This thread is like a Cinemasins episode narrated by Neil Degrasse Tyson the movie owned. i don't care if space wasn't realistic
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Sep 25, 2019 06:56
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Sir Kodiak posted:The space pirates knew runs like this would likely have VIPs onboard, and they make money by kidnapping and ransoming them, as well as looting the buggies. Ah, thanks.
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Sep 25, 2019 14:39
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Article Q&A with the director of the movie. https://www.vulture.com/2019/09/ad-astra-ending-james-gray-explains-his-movie.html
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Sep 25, 2019 17:53
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Jack2142 posted:Article Q&A with the director of the movie. quote:With space movies these days, we hear a lot about all the scientific research that goes into them. Was that the case for you? Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha quote:It’s why good work sometimes is ugly. Francis Coppola is giving Martin Sheen triggers [in Apocalypse Now], and some people would say he’s torturing him, goading him, so when he punches that mirror, his actual blood, his real blood, is all over his fist and face. Social media would have torn Francis apart now. But to do good work, sometimes that’s demanded. I'm reminded of that scene in The Disaster Artist where Tommy Wiseau is justifying being a dick to his actors\actresses because that's what Hitchcock did. An awful lot of this interview is: [question] "Oh I didn't think of it that way!" I would suggest not a lot of thought was put into the movie overall.
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Sep 26, 2019 01:04
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I liked this movie but also just go to therapy?
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Sep 26, 2019 03:45
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I have questions about the antimatter generator - Why was it conveniently spewing its Bad Mojo directly towards Earth, when, you know, there are lots of directions in space? - Why couldn’t Tommy Lee shut it down, or at least point it somewhere else? It would have made more sense if he were attempting to destroy humanity on purpose, as another symptom of his Space Madness.
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Sep 26, 2019 17:46
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Chicken Butt posted:I have questions about the antimatter generator It's not clear that it's actually aimed at Earth. The initial presentation made it seem that way, if I recall, but then we see it's also affecting Mars. The movie gets real vague when it comes to what's practically going on at the Lima Project.
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Sep 26, 2019 18:25
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