Sunshine

[El Dingo]

Remember that scene in 'Trainspotting' where the guy dives into the toilet? This movie is what he was swimming in.

Let's see:

8 beautiful 20-somethings piloting a massive spaceship? CHECK! (Ok Michele Yeoh is 44 but she looks 28).

Asian woman tending space garden? CHECK!

Testosterone impaired white guys beating the crap out of each other for no reason, then apologizing? CHECK!

Mysterious derelict spacecraft with now-they-work, now-they-don't lighting system? CHECK!

Sure - it has all the makings of a Star Trek episode, except for decent acting and comprehensible plot. Beautiful CGI can't save this confusing, artsy, badly edited piece of crap.

Actually I want you guys to see it so you can explain it to me.

[cranefly]

Am I correct in deducing from your review that Michelle Yeoh spends some time on her hands and knees?

No need to bash me. Lady Cranefly already has.

She says I'm not worthy to kiss Michelle's big toe.

Needless to say, I am crushed....

--cranefly

P.S. The review has sorely tempted us.

[cranefly]

Just when I think I've got the laws of physics figured out...
I really don't have a clue.

The sun is dying. Humanity holds psychological tests to determine the 6 most incompatiible human beings, who are launched toward the sun in a windmill-powered spaceship named Icky-poo II. Soon problems arise. First, their Steadicam breaks. Then their vegetable garden catches fire. These are easily remedied -- the first by switching to hand-helds, the second by flooding the garden with pure oxygen. Of course, that leaves them short on breathable air. Then the navigator decides to calculate a trajectory change in his head and gets it wrong. Then the ship's computer rebels, only to then unrebel, and then they have enough oxygen, but then they don't, and the Icky-poo I (on the dark side of Mercury) surprises them, and there's another course change, maybe, or maybe I've got some of this out of order.

Eventually there's lots of lens flares and other flashy camera tricks, along with these long parallel planes that threaten to merge but then seem to go on to infinity, and I'm thinking,
Stanley Kubrick is back.
Stanley Kubrick is back!!!
But he's not, as it turns out, and the incomprehensible camera-work and special effects was likely an artifact of Kubrik turning over in his grave...

In the end, the main dude (a pretty-boy physicist) needs to toss the firewood into the sun to rekindle it, but he trips and falls and has a terrible time getting back to his feet in zero gravity and nearly grunts himself to death.

All in all, I'll give it a 3 on a scale of 10. My rating would have been higher, but the projectionist was playing a slasher movie in the background -- and I'm gonna have to dock the movie for it, since movie-going is a subjective experience.

I'm leaving a lot out. I must be. Michelle Yeoh falls in love with a seedling. The captain goes for swims in liquid nitrogen. The psychiatrist is obsessed with staring at the sun. The physicist is indispensable, so they say, though he never does anything indispensable -- except survive, I suppose. Hmmm. Why were humans even necessary for this mission? Oh, right. To toss the firewood in.

To their credit, every crew member performs a courageous act. At least I think they do. And I have to admit the whole aim-for-the-sun, along with the unforgiving and extreme nature of the Sun as they draw near, did give me the heeby-geebies. That is one space trip I would NOT want to take.

--cranefly

[El Dingo]

That movie actually got me thinking.

What if the crew members weren't really 25? What if they have advanced anti-aging processes to such a degree that aging is effectively halted?

Maybe they were all 150 years old!

Maybe future Earth is populated with great-grandparents physically indistinguishable from their offspring! A war breaks out between the old and the young, with both sides using gadgets and mind-tricks that let them know their true ages!

Maybe a young scientist releases a compound into the atmosphere that restarts and accelerates the aging process. People grow old and wither in the streets! The young are stuck in a world they don't know how to control!

I want to see that movie.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Go write it. Keep it to 120 pages. Make sure there is nudity. Young nudity would be preferred over old nudity.