Dirk Strasser
  • Home
  • Dirk's Blog
  • World of Ascension
  • World of Aurealis
  • Dirk's Short Story Worlds
  • Dirk's Children's Fiction Worlds
  • Dirk's Other Worlds
  • Dirk's Real-life World
  • Dirk's Giveways

How (un)real is Gravity?

10/8/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
There are two sorts of people in the universe. Those that will think Gravity is one of the best movies of all time, and those who will find it unbearable to watch.

I think I'm still recovering from seeing Gravity. Space movies based on current technology don't usually do much for me.  They tend to have a lot of silent static images, slow-moving people with faces hidden in spacesuit helmets, and staccato disembodied voices. They're often just dull. No aliens. No interstellar battles. No exotic planets. Just a dose of space reality.

Gravity has changed my mind about 'real space' movies. Big time. It's without a doubt the best movie I've seen this year and would have be in my all-time top ten. The tension is ramped up higher than in any other movie I can think of. It feels so real you literally struggle for oxygen.

Movement in zero gravity can be dance-like, calming, even poetic. In Gravity it reveals itself to be the most frightening thing in the universe. When Sandra Bullock is spinning and screaming and spinning and screaming, you desperately wish for some air resistance to act against the motion, anything to slow her down, anything to stop your head spiralling with her. Anything.

But you're in a vacuum. Newton's First Law is at work and if there is no other force stopping it, it goes on forever. (I know the Second Law of Thermodynamics means Sandra would eventually slow down, but she'd die waiting.) So she just keeps spinning and screaming and spinning and screaming.

There are some Cold Equations at work in this movie. The oxygen is going to run out. When it comes to orbits, what goes around really does come around. You can argue with the laws of physics, but you'll always lose.

And that turns out to be terrifying.

So how real is Gravity? It certainly feels breath-takingly hyper-real.

And don't just take my word for it. Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon has given it high praise in his review in The Hollywood Reporter magazine. He says: 'I was so extravagantly impressed by the portrayal of the reality of zero gravity. Going through the space station was done just the way that I've seen people do it in reality.' He felt that the movie has come at a good time to stimulate people's interest in advancements in space.

Or totally freak them out!

I wonder how Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space tourist plans are going now?
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Dirk's a writer, editor and publisher of science fiction, fantasy and horror

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    October 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    March 2017
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed


Copyright text © 2013-2023 Dirk Strasser unless otherwise attributed

Credits and Acknowledgements
Photo used under Creative Commons from col&tasha