History WMG / Gravity

This plays partially on the “Kowalski” was always an hallucination.

[[WMG: The film is set in 2018, but in an AlternateUniverse.]]
In two instances, the astronauts state that the Space Shuttle Explorer's mission designation was STS-157. In real life, the final space shuttle mission was STS-135, which was launched in 2011. This film is set in an alternate universe where NASA never ended the shuttle program, and there have been 22 additional shuttle launches. If you assume NASA kept up its launch rate of approximately 3 missions per year, you can deduce that STS-157 flew approximately 7 years after STS-135. Therefore the film is not set in an alternate history, but an alternate future, approximately 2018. The completed Chinese space station also reinforces this theory, since this universe also slightly accelerates China's plans for their modular space station, which should be launching around 2020.
* Seeing as the ISS is [[spoiler:completely annihilated by the debris field]] during the film, it's definitely an AlternateHistory of some kind.

[[WMG: The radiation Ryan picked up in orbit plus the water she splashed into increased her size.]]
When Ryan finally stands up on shore, it's a low shot - kind of like she's AttackOfThe50FootWhatever.

[[WMG: Kowalski wanted to die with dignity]]
Maybe he knew getting back to Earth was a long shot, so he wanted to go out on his own terms. He knew Ryan had him and could pull him in, but he still felt their chances were slim to none.

[[WMG: Something bad happened on Earth.]]
One would assume Mission Control would have contacted them ''somehow'' losing the satellites would be a hinderance, but wouldn't knock out communication altogether. They have dishes all over the earth to broadcast up directly without the use of satellites. SO... some horrible thing is happening on Earth, too. Not a nuclear exchange or anything like that - that would stick out like a sore thumb to the astronauts.


[[WMG: Ryan died on the Soyuz]]
When Ryan shuts down the oxygen on the Soyuz, she dies; the rest of the movie becomes far more optimistic from that point on, Ryan herself is much more proactive and confronts her fears, and she is able to pull off some magnificently lucky tricks without anything major going wrong, aside perhaps from the near-drowning. Given that the third act opens with the reappearance of Kowalski, which was clearly a hallucination, it's not a large stretch to assume that the rest of the film as AllJustADream too as she slowly lost consciousness and suffocated.


[[WMG: Kowalski was ''always'' a hallucination.]]
Ryan's a bit of a Walter Mitty - she's not crazy, just a daydreamer. All the support Kowalski gives her is actually from inside herself. The astronaut who got hit in the head with the debris was actually the only astronaut outside with her. The opening conversation and events there go back and forth between her imagination and reality. Ryan actually has her own maneuvering pack - she just hallucinated Kowalski saving her and setting her attitude, she got to the ISS on her own. When she had gotten back to the ISS she realized she didn't need the hallucination anymore, so she let it go. Then, when she felt like all was lost, it came back for one last final bit of help.
* This is supported by the fact that Kowalski was Commander of the mission. Mission Commanders (and pilots) don't perform spacewalks; that's what the Mission Specialists are for. So Kowalski would never have been outside the Orbiter in the first place.

[[WMG: This is a sequel to Apollo 18]]

[[WMG: Kowalski was a Time Lord ]]

[[WMG: The whole film is Laika's dying dream.]]

Kowalski died just about the time that Ryan decided to end it all by turning off the oxygen. Since the last thing he was doing was trying to save her, his spirit on the way out to its final destination was allowed by the powers that be to go visit her to talk her out of suicide and give her the idea she needed (the landing rockets) to save herself. And to brag to her that he broke the spacewalk record, of course.

[[WMG: Anime/Planetes is related to thsi movie.]]

Here, she embraces the cause of her fears and learns to confront it; bringing her two halves together and resolving her internal conflict. From the viewer’s perspective, it looks like Kowalski’s last appearance, but really, for the rest of the story, Ryan IS Kowalksi: a truly competent astronaut who has all the answers she needs to achieve her goals.

How does Kowalski die? Ryan loses what little confidence she has remaining while frantically looking for easy answers, only to get disappointed. Her ‘rebirth’ and merging with Kowalski happens during the ‘dream sequence.’ When Ryan turns her oxygen low, she’s effectively giving up. By this point she has nothing left to lose, even hope. Only when she is fully prepared to lose absolutely everything, does Kowalski come back, in a symbolic removing of the shields between Ryan and the harsh vacuum of space. Here, she comes to terms with the terror of the situation and learns to confront it; bringing her two halves together and resolving her internal conflict.

Because that'll be a SugarWiki/Heartwarming Moment|s}}. She'll buy him a dog or, better yet, ''he'' will give her a dog so she won't be alone

Because that'll be a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming. She'll buy him a dog or, better yet, ''he'' will give her a dog so she won't be alone

[[WMG: The radiation she picked up in orbit plus the water she splashed into increased her size.]]
When she finally stands up on shore, it's a low shot - kind of like she's AttackOfThe50FootWhatever.

Instead of just saving themselves the Chinese deorbited their station so it did not become part of the debris field

* Seeing as the ISS is [[spoiler:: completely annihilated by the debris field]] during the film, it's definitely an AlternateHistory of some kind.

Instead of just saving themselves the Chinese deorbited their station so it did not become part of the debris field

The Russians fired a missile at a satellite, and it destroyed a space shuttle (with almost all of its crew), the ISS, and a Chinese station to boot. NASA will pull out all the stops to rescue its own. Imagine what they will do when someone else's negligence ''kills'' their own. My guess is a speech by the director of NASA that ends with "...or the next shuttle mission will be an attack on the Kremlin!"

The poor dog that the Soviets sent up in Sputnik, in her last moments, dreams she is a human astronaut. The bit where you hear Aningaag's dog howl and Ryan doing so along with it is a cue to her real self.

The debris field is as big as it because of a chain reaction that started with a missile strike on a spy satellite. Mission Control states that both the missile strike and the target satellite were Russian. Kowalski speculates that the satellite was shot down because it went rogue. I think it's possible that the reason the satellite got shot was because someone hacked it. Its owners couldn't control what it was doing, they took action to disable it the only way they could. All this death, decades of work, and trillions of dollars in damage was started inadvertently by some PlayfulHacker just because EverythingIsOnline.

* Except that, just before she splashes down in Lake Powell, Ryan is picked up by Mission Control again, who ask her (over the radio) that she identify herself. When she does splash down, he clearly states that there is a rescue mission being sent to her, she's just too busy trying to open the hatch to listen. If Mission Control can take the time to keep tracking the sky for survivors for approximately four to five hours after the initial incident, they're probably fine.
** I assumed a nuclear war was occurring on Earth because it didn't make any sense to me that the high earth orbit communications satellites could all be destroyed by a low earth orbit missile strike, so I assumed comm satellites were getting hit by missiles all over the place. Also, it didn't make sense that the only people on Earth Ryan could talk to seemed to be some random Chinese people with a ham radio, so I assumed they were rural survivors. Also, why the hell was the Chinese space station randomly falling to Earth for no reason? Maybe it's an automatic defense tactic, pull the space station out of orbit so the Americans can't get to it.
* It's a FreezeFrameBonus, but when we see from Ryan's perspective when she's first flung from the shuttle and spinning, you can very briefly see bright streaks of large debris burning up... over brightly lit cities. So Earth may have been just as affected by the film's problems as the astronauts.
** That's probably a matter of perspective with relatively small debris burning up in the atmosphere close enough to the astronauts that it looks like large debris compared to the cities below.

When Ryan shuts down the oxygen on the Soyuz, she actually does die; the rest of the movie becomes far more optimistic from that point on, Ryan herself is much more proactive and confronts her fears, and she is able to pull off some magnificently lucky tricks without anything major going wrong, aside perhaps from the near-drowning. Given that the third act opens with the reappearance of Kowalski, which was clearly a hallucination, it's not a large stretch to assume that the rest of the film as AllJustADream too as she slowly lost consciousness and suffocated.
* As stated above, Mission Control tries to communicate with her during reentry, while Shenzou's various consoles are bursting and flaming. If it were a dying dream, why would her subconscious reintroduce Mission Control at the last minute, without also giving her the ability to respond? Furthermore, when she splashes down, we can also hear interference from a local Midwest radio station cutting into Mission Control's transmission. That's... awfully detailed and superfluous for her mind to make up on the spot.\\
As for the "magnificently lucky tricks," they're really not much different from what she had already accomplished before --like that extreme close-up of the ISS' disintegrating solar panel that nearly scraped her off the Soyuz's hull, or her being able to yo-yo the Soyuz on the parachute ropes without ever hitting the ISS itself. She simply had the luck of the devil all the while.

** Than that makes Ryan even MORE awesome...

[[WMG: I'm not the only one who thought Anime/Planetes when I saw the trailers and mentions of this]]
Please tell me I'm not alone.

* I will grudgingly admit I laughed at this. Koalsky is just an incarnation of The Doctor.

Because that'll be a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming
* She'll buy him a dog.
** Better yet, ''he'' will give her a dog so she won't be alone

She is not only going to whip the SciFiGhetto into submission, but also the idea that women can't lead in science fiction movies!

Not all of those satellites burned up on reentry. They struck cities and those are the impact points.

[[WMG: Kowalski telling Ryan that everything will be okay is really a {{Meta}} about this movie.]]

[[WMG: The clouds on Earth are were the falling satellites hit.]]

** Better yet, ''he'' will give her a dog so she won't be alone

* She'll buy him a dog.

Because that'll be a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming

Staring with all the nations blaming Russia for the whole fiasco.

Please tell me I'm not alone.

Yes, I know, definitely not (I read up on the town and the lake the end was filmed in) - but it would be cool!

He's a GeorgeClooney character. All it took was for him to flash a perfect roguish smile at the right time and the very laws of physics swooned. A gentle force that defied all notions of science then lowered him safely through the atmosphere and to a nice bar somewhere.

[[WMG: The lake she lands in is Lake Zurich, Illinois]]