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Sunshine and Exposition; or, What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

[WARNING: SPOILERS ABOUT "SUNSHINE" IN THIS POST]

A couple of weeks ago, I saw Sunshine with Sammy. We both thought it was excellent. I was a little worried that it would be a little too scary... this is Danny Boyle, after all. But this movie was more about tension than anything else. One of those movies where when the credits roll, you realize you've been leaning forward with your teeth clenched the whole time. "What's going to go wrong now?" "Who's going to get killed off in an interesting way next?"

The strongest criticism against the movie is that the last third turns into a slasher flick. Garunya, for instance, was not a fan of this development. Ditto for the Avocado of Death. Dave T. was more okay with it, and I fall more on that side of the fence. But you know, reasonable people can disagree.

What I don't understand is the Slate Spoiler Special podcast for Sunshine. Usually their spoiler podcasts are enjoyable, but this one was really irritating, because the reviewers missed so many plot points. They were confused -- why did the airlock suddenly blow up? "Could that have been [Pinbacker]?" one of them wondered. Gee, you think? There was also a long discussion about why Capa the Dreamy Emo Physicist had to go into the "bomb" to set it off manually. The reviewers guffawed about this -- why would you design a device that had to be operated that way? How silly! Ha ha! Too true! And while we're on the subject, I never could figure out why Slim Pickens ended up riding the bomb down in Dr. Strangelove either. Stupid Air Force and their stupid bomb designs!

This has got to be one of the most frustrating aspects of storytelling, particularly SF. You get one chance to tell your story. If your audience misses a detail and gets confused, tough luck. I know that if I were the screenwriter for Sunshine, I'd be in a sputtering rage. "But -- but -- the computer was broken! We had a ten minute scene about that! With a nasty death-by-coolant to drive the point home! Gaaaah!" Sadly, you can't run around the country explaining to every indvidual reviewer and audience member how they got it wrong.

Although with enough forum sock puppets, you can sure give it a try.

Posted by Evan Goer on Aug. 13, 2007 at 9:24 PM | Comments (9)

Comments

Let's be honest: the last third of Sunshine reveals the entire film to be Nightmare on Elm Street in Space. The film to that point had nothing but potential, which it willfully squandered.

Meanwhile, I have always assumed that Danny Boyle fans were sock puppets themselves: are there really so many people who believe that "the z word" cannot even be mentioned in discussions about 28 Days Later?

Posted by Mike Mariano on Aug. 14, 2007 at 7:23 AM
Zombie, zombie, zombie! I'm with you on that, man. I've been yelled at for saying the "z word" before. The only explanation I can think of is that it's evolved into a kind of shibboleth -- a secret handshake that lets Real True Danny Boyle Fans know who's who.

Posted by Evan on Aug. 14, 2007 at 7:53 AM
I was more okay with the third act of Sunshine because I was expecting Nightmare on Elm Street. When it ended up being Pinbacker, I thought it was kind of stupid, but not as stupid as Freddy Kruger.

I still think the movie would've been better if they'd just stayed with the main crew instead of bringing Pinbacker into it. The characterization and tension was so good up until that point. But still, I enjoyed it and am glad I saw it on the big screen. I thought the first 2/3s were some of the best SF I'd seen on film since...er, Children of Men (okay, not that long ago, but those kind of movies seems few and far between).

Posted by Dave T. on Aug. 14, 2007 at 11:50 AM
And yeah, that Slate review is pretty funny :)

Posted by Dave T. on Aug. 14, 2007 at 11:53 AM
Damn, Children of Men was a spectacular movie.

Agreed, that first 2/3 is right up there with Children of Men. Sunshine did manage to creatively knock off crewpersons and make things get progressively worse and worse without needing a crazy serial killer for that first 2/3. Maybe they could have kept that up for the last 1/3. I dunno.

One thing did really bother me about Pinbacker was the bit where Capa decided to confront him all by himself. The computer has just creepily warned you that there's another person on board -- wouldn't you get the rest of the crew together first? And lock down the computer? Oh well.

Anyway, Sunshine did have this running theme of "if you get too close to this incomprehensibly awesome thing, the Sun, you go crazy." So I don't think even someone like Pinbacker was totally out of place in this film -- everybody was going crazy to one degree or another. I know that from an SFnal perspective, the Sun is just a very ordinary mainline G-type star, but being so close to something so extraordinary has got to do something to you.

Posted by Evan on Aug. 14, 2007 at 2:11 PM
I really liked the exploration of what happens to them when they get too close to the sun - the obsession and worship, the religious parallels, the idea that they were essentially on a mission to re-awaken god, from a certain point of view - I got nice vibes from all that in the first 2/3.

Looking upon the sun/god and going crazy/being destroyed all fit in pretty nicely to this, and, consequently, so did Pinbacker, in concept. It was the execution of his bits that completely failed for me.

Posted by Chris Azure on Aug. 14, 2007 at 7:16 PM
I was thinking exactly about that -- the visual execution of Pinbacker. Would I have been less annoyed if he didn't slice open Capa's chest, if he didn't seem like 5 times stronger than anyone else in the movie, if he didn't look like the Human Torch? Possibly.

The more I think about it, Pinbacker wasn't totally out of place. They talked about a crewmember surviving as soon as they heard the Icarus communication. But he certainly looked out of place.

Posted by Dave T. on Aug. 15, 2007 at 8:39 AM
Yeah, I do think the idea of Pinbacker makes sense, although maybe the execution leaves something to be desired.

And I agree with Chris, here's really something to Sunshine's theme of the Sun being a divine object. I think a lot of SF is too quick to pass this theme by, too quick to treat the stars and other incredible features of our universe as ordinary.

Posted by Evan on Aug. 15, 2007 at 10:55 PM
I was totally OK with the third act, except for the one thing Evan mentioned about Capa investigating the newcomer by himself. Aside from that I think the physical characteristics of a guy who survived 6 years staring into the sun would qualify him as the guy you needed 5 people to hold down to put a needle in his arm. Also goes a long way to explaining his appearance. Guy was CRAZY.

And it had one crucial difference from your normal slasher flick. When it appears Pinbacker is dead after his arm gets stripped off, he does in fact bleed to death instead of showing up one last time accompanied by screeching violins. I liked that alot. Its so nice when directors can resist the urge to use a few cliches.

Posted by Sam on Aug. 17, 2007 at 11:03 AM

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This entry was posted on August 13, 2007 by Evan Goer.

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