'Sunshine', did ya like it?

[XFozzboute]

I liked it up until the Event Horizon ending.

[Salvator]

To quote Jeremy Clarkson

"bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored....."


I can't really think of a scifi film that's as boring as that one!

[bbzwbbzw]

Originally Posted by Salvator

To quote Jeremy Clarkson

"bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored....."


I can't really think of a scifi film that's as boring as that one!

Something tells me Solaris wasn't a big hit 'round these parts either.

[juanxer]

One despairs seeing some of the most beautiful VFX, great actors, great music... riding on such a terrible story: it felt like a "Commiting suicide by spaceflight for dummies" course. The characters sabotage themselves at each and every step. Couldn't they simply stop these comm arms? Couldn't they simply use spacesuits when docking to a ship whose integrity is unknown? etc. And then having this artificial gravity working against them, this stupidly refrigerated computer... Arrgh! It's not about requiring suspension of disbelief but a lobotomy.

Even so, it really is a beautiful spectacle to watch and listen to.

There are lots of "making of" material here, including the dubious rationale behind the bomb (if it is the size of Manhattan, how come they can go through that ship's area from the observation room to the bridge so quickly, by the way?).

Sunshine - U.K. - The Film

About the Bomb:

SUNSHINE SCIENCE
I’ve put up an interview with Dr. Brian Cox, ‘Sunshine’s’ Science Advisor, in the Video Section. His job on ‘Sunshine’ involved discussing the science of the film with Danny Boyle and Alex Garland well before the script was completed in order to make sure that the concepts and terminology used were correct. The interview explains how the Sun could die prematurely.

The following was put together by Alex Garland after many discussions with Dr. Brian Cox. It explains, very simply, the background science in ‘Sunshine’.

Q: WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE SUN?
A: A Q Ball is eating the Sun from the inside out.

Q: WHAT’S A Q BALL?
A Q Ball is a super-symmetric nucleus, produced in the early Universe. That is to say, a nucleus made up of super-symmetric particles, formed shortly after the Big Bang.

Q: WHAT ARE SUPER-SYMMETRIC PARTICLES?
They are the super-symmetric counterpart to ordinary matter.

Q: WHAT IS ORDINARY MATTER?
Ordinary matter is what makes us up. Ordinary matter is constructed of atoms. The nucleus of an atom is constructed of protons and neutrons. Protons and neutrons are, in turn, composed of quarks.

Q: WHAT ARE QUARKS?
Quarks are elementary particles. Protons and neutrons are each composed of three quarks. The super-symmetric counterpart of a quark is a squark, and the Q Ball is composed of squarks.

Q: WHY IS THE Q BALL SO DANGEROUS TO THE SUN?
The protons and neutrons of ordinary matter would ‘rather’ be squarks. When ordinary matter is placed in close proximity to a Q Ball, the protons and neutrons are disrupted, ripped apart, and turned into squarks.

In other words, a Q Ball turns ordinary matter into itself. And unless it was stopped, this process would eat the Sun from the inside out, until a critical masa had been reached, at which point the Sun would explode.

Q: ARE SUPER-SYMMETRIC PARTICLES AND Q BALLS REAL?
This question should be answered by work that will be undertaken at CERN, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, which has its headquarters in Geneva. In 2007, scientists will use the laboratory’s vast particle accelerator to search for super-symmetric particles. It is considered very likely that they will find them.

Q: IF Q BALLS EXIST, DO THE REALLY DESTROY STARS?
It is speculated that the origin of gamma-ray bursts may be the cataclysmic destruction of neutron stars by precisely this method. Gamma-rays are the most energetic form of light, and are produced by events such as supernova explosions.

Q: HOW WILL THE ICARUS MISSION STOP THE Q BALL FROM DESTROYING THE SUN?
The Icarus mission carries a Stellar Bomb, which it will detonate in the Sun. The bomb will destroy the Q Ball.

Q: HOW WILL THE STELLAR BOMB DESTROY THE Q BALL?
The bomb creates the same super-heated conditions in which the Q Ball was made. To be specific, Q Balls were formed at a particular time after the Big Bang: 10 to minus 35 seconds. The heat at this moment of the Big Bang was 10 to the power of 32 degrees.

By recreating these conditions, the Q Ball will split up, separating it into squarks. Squarks on their own decay quickly into normal or stable (benign) supersymmetric particles. Put simply, the Stellar Bomb makes the Q Ball fall to bits.

Q: WHAT IS THE STELLAR BOMB MADE OF?
Dark matter and Uranium. In the same way that an atomic bomb uses normal explosives to trigger uranium into a nuclear explosion, the stellar bomb uses uranium to trigger the dark matter.

In the film Sunshine, mankind has been able to construct two of these Stellar Bombs. The fact that the Stellar Bomb uses uranium is the reason that mankind is limited to only two payloads – because Earth does not contain enough uranium to build a third.

Q: WHAT IS DARK MATTER?
We don’t know, but we have considerable gravitational evidence that it exists. Simply put, the gravitational effects that we can observe in the Universe require much more matter than we can see. Because we can’t see this hidden matter, it has been termed ‘dark’. Dark matter might make up as much as 95% of the Universe.

It is widely speculated what dark matter actually is. Planets, dim stars, neutrinos, exotic particles, and weakly interacting massive particles. But Q Balls are a good candidate.

Q: ARE THERE ANY CAVEATS ABOUT THE SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND TO THE FILM?
There are, not least because the film assumes that large areas of theoretical physics are correct. In addition, the Sun may not actually be dense enough to stop a Q Ball, but for the purposes of the film, we assume it is. Also, the rate of ‘eating’ is proportionate to the density of Sun - so the rate might be very slow.

[bbzwbbzw]

Originally Posted by juanxer

One despairs seeing some of the most beautiful VFX, great actors, great music... riding on such a terrible story: it felt like a "Commiting suicide by spaceflight for dummies" course. The characters sabotage themselves at each and every step. Couldn't they simply stop these comm arms? Couldn't they simply use spacesuits when docking to a ship whose integrity is unknown? etc. And then having this artificial gravity working against them, this stupidly refrigerated computer... Arrgh! It's not about requiring suspension of disbelief but a lobotomy.

Even so, it really is a beautiful spectacle to watch and listen to.

Excellent points about the plot holes. I also wondered if diverting to the Icarus I was so outside mission guidelines, why not deliver their own payload first. then go check out the ghost ship if theirs doesn't work.

I agree with you in feeling that it was an excellent experience to watch and listen to, not the best story ever made. I tend to like a lot of movies that would fit into that category.

[Tovette]

I don't really have a desire to see the movie, but I am interested in the soundtrack but I can't find it anywhere... anyone know where I could look? Amazon doesn't have it.

[juanxer]

I've found some old data about that matter here:

Sunshine Fan Forum - SOUNDTRACK

Apparently there is some legalese to solve before it being released. But some people have gotten the movie's signature theme via some press kits' mp3 tracks.

[JeffrySG]

Just watched the movie on DVD. I really liked it. No complaints whatsoever... To each his own I guess.

[Redeyes]

When I see these plots gone so very wrong movies, I always wonder why they don't pull from the huge pile of stories written by people that have a clue. All the Clarke, Asimov etc stories that will probably never see the light of day on the screen, it's really a shame.

[Shadowman99]

It was a decent enough film until "Space Freddy" shows up and goes on a slasher rampage.

Up until that point they did many things well enough that I was willing to let a few things slide. But once they screwed up I started my list:

1) Computer science problems: Seriously, you don't need to keep a fluid-cooled mainframe that cold. And if you are going to supercool it, you'd use gas. But since they went with this concept, why would they not have an environmental suit to work on the mainframe? And since you can't run it outside the cooling tanks, why not put a real access port to the submerged area?

The computer overrode a command decision to save the mission, but it allows itself to be sabotaged by operating outside the cooling tanks. Who programmed this stupid thing?

Bonus points: When is the last time you saw anyone use a crescent wrench on a computer?

2) The sun it dying. Why? I shouldn't have to listen to the commentary track to learn this. The first part of the film moves at a pretty leasurely pace, give me the background.

3) The moral dilemma of killing a crew member to have enough oxygen was undermined when it was shown they have a room the size of Manhattan and it's pressurized and breathable. They have air for weeks, even if they did lose the garden room. They can easily make it to the sun. Also: what a waste of resources pumping all the air into the room with the big ass cube. That's what suits are for. Keep the air in the crew areas.

4) Even if we can create a chain reaction to fix the sun and restore it to normal (yeah right!), don't you think there'd be a damn powerful blast that might still end all life on Earth? Just one good Gamma burst and it would be all over.

5) The damn computer sure picks and chooses when to be useful. There's a crew member on suicide watch slashing his wrists. It might have told a few people this was happening.

6) Based on the AI they demonstrated, the computer should have been able to complete the whole mission by itself. You're going to die of oxygen starvation? Oh well, HAL still can do it.

7) They are less that a week from the sun. It's too damn late to change the mission. Period.