I would list Real Time; I don't think Fridge Logic (which is what the bolded text amounts to) disqualifies anything from any trope, since it's on the audience side.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
KVLFON
Well, if you ask me, calling this film's ending bittersweet is like calling a disaster movie's ending bittersweet because there's been a disaster, but it's not like I'm gonna start an edit war over that.
"Atheism is the religion whose followers are easiest to troll" Hide / Show Replies
On second thought, I'll try it. It's Esoteric Happy Ending if anything.
"Atheism is the religion whose followers are easiest to troll"
Is it really a "scifi thriller" and not just a "thriller"? It's set in the modern day and doesn't have any fantastical aspects to the story. Other than the setting being in space, which really isn't fantastical nowadays.
Hide / Show Replies
It's sciencey and fictional, so it does fit the "science fiction" bill. The folks out there who think you have to have aliens, etc to be scifi are contributing to Sci Fi Ghetto even though they don't think they are.
When you think about it, many murder mystery stories could indeed happen in real life, but that doesn't mean they aren't still detective fiction.
"Freedom is not a license for chaos" -Norton Juster's The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics
Using that definition of science fiction The Social Network, The Manhattan Project, and Something The Lord Made could be considered scifi. That would make the scope of that definition so broad as to be meaningless.
Also, you fail analogies forever because there's nothing about the detective genre that requires fantastical or futuristic elements.
"Also, you fail analogies forever because"
Oh, gotta love people giving out personal attacks in a discussion they started.
Edited by 67.171.103.170 "Freedom is not a license for chaos" -Norton Juster's The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics
pittsburghmuggle does have a too broad definition of Sci-Fi. However, this movie is Sci-Fi.
Science Fiction is any work in which stuff that can't happen in real life is explained with "science" (as opposed to fantasy, in which the explanation is magic) within that universe, because the scientific law applied doesn't work the same as it does in our universe.
Basically, any work that has Artistic License - (Insert science here) can be considered science fiction. And, as the Main Page points out, this movie does have some Artistic License in a couple of backgrounds. Mind you, it's extremely realistic Sci-Fi, but Sci-Fi nonetheless.
Edited by 190.146.225.228
That is a very unorthodox definition of science fiction, there.
No, artistic license is not a requirement. Yes, usage of scientific stuff such as stars or advanced genetics is one. While definitions are floaty, space is considered by many to be sci-fi by default.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
By your definition then Apollo 13 would be Science Fiction too, and it obviously isn't.
My "unorthodox" definition is condensing what it says in the Science Fiction and the Mohs Scale Of Science Fiction Hardness pages in this very wiki.
From the SciFi page: The one defining(-ish, definitions differ) trait of Science Fiction is that there is technology that doesn't exist in the time period the story is written in. Consider 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The story was written in a time when submarines were still at the prototype stage, so 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea falls within the boundaries of Science Fiction.
From the Scale page: "Hard" Science Fiction is firmly grounded in reality, with few fantastic flights of fancy not justified by Science. "Soft" Sci-Fi is more flexible on the rules.
Mind you, all the technology in Gravity exists nowadays, it just that some things that happen there can't happen in our universe (minor things but still...). In other words, this movie is about as hard as they come in the Mohs scale whitout entering the realm of Real Life.
Edited by 190.146.225.228
It's not "obviously isn't". There are several different definitions of sci-fi and there is not a one correct one. Yours is not the only one that is used in the world.
Also, you should not make an argument based on a work. Not everybody is going to be familiar with it. Plus, I see plenty of places calling Apollo 13 sci-fi. It's just primarily horror.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
... what
Apollo 13 can't be Science Fiction because it isn't fiction. The events in that movie actually happened...
Edited by 190.146.225.228
So? People are calling it one regardless. Again, there is not One True Definition of science fiction.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Pittsburghmuggle
Taking this out of Edit War and into discussion.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The ISS crew evacuated without checking on the status of the Space Shuttle crew by radio to see if they needed assistance or could assist.
Tallon says "Evacuating ISS was Houston's call. And by the time the astronauts got there the station had taken some damage, which caused the fire and the Soyuz capsule's parachute to deploy."
Yep, true - but that doesn't stop it being a story point that they bailed so that the writers could ensure Ryan arrived at a functional but still operational space station. I think this trope was used here.
"Freedom is not a license for chaos" -Norton Juster's The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics Hide / Show Replies
I don't think it qualifies. The ISS crew didn't abandon the main characters out of cowardice, they were ordered to abandon the station and did so, squeezing into a single Soyuz and coming down who-knows-where.
I only saw the movie in the theaters once, just saw it again. Yep, the ISS had been ordered out.
"Freedom is not a license for chaos" -Norton Juster's The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics
Pittsburghmuggle
I just saw it again, only in 2D. Glad the movie was just as exciting, and that the 3D wasn't required for the story to move as it did.
Edited by 24.131.245.140 "Freedom is not a license for chaos" -Norton Juster's The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics
Retirony would work here since George clooney's character is on his last voyage before retirement. What do you think?
Edited by 121.7.191.40
Would the trope *Men Are the Expendable Gender work here? Update: I have not seen the movie, but I read about the ending.
Edited by 50.192.103.89 Hide / Show Replies
I don't think so, but am open to discussion. The man in this case deems himself expendable.
"Freedom is not a license for chaos" -Norton Juster's The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics
Is she deemed 'expendable?'Most likely not, or the content in the spoiler tags would be very different, but was there any discussion about Sandra Bullock's character sacrificing herself? Alternately, was there any foreshadowing that directly correlated to Clooney's character's actions? If not, then it could have been done by anyone. Thank you for responding to my question, pittsburghmuggle. Have an excellent day!
Ignoring the fact that the debris would not stay clustered but would begin to spread out and form a ring (which is essentially what Saturn's, Jupiter's, and Uranus's rings are), the debris and spacecraft/people may take an hour and a half to return to the same point above the Earth, but not to meet up with each other again. The debris are either in an elliptical or heavily inclined orbit relative to the orbit of our heroes (since, otherwise, they would be travelling fairly slowly relative to the spacecraft and people). If it's an elliptical orbit (which it appears to be since the debris seem to be travelling in the same direction as everything else, just at a much higher speed) then it would be extremely unlikely that they'd meet up again for many years (a larger orbit would take longer to traverse than a smaller one). The time it took would greatly depend on the orbital resonance of the two objects (in this case our heroes and the debris cloud); with a 1:2 resonance (the shortest possible time), the debris would return to the altitude of the characters after two of the characters' orbits (so three hours, not 1.5). The likelihood they randomly fell into a 1:2 resonance is less likely than Ryan falling out of the spacecraft after re-entry, landing on her living room couch just as her favourite program came on TV and surviving (doing it on purpose is still pretty damn difficult). Any realistic time period is equally as unlikely and are all integer multiples of the smaller orbit's period, in other words none smaller than twice the period) If it's an inclined orbit then they'd meet up TWICE per orbit: once on one side of the orbit, and again on the other. But as I said above, this is unlikely since the debris is travelling in the same direction. In fact if it WAS an inclined orbit the debris would be travelling so fast relative to the characters (most likely (75% chance) somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000 km/h, or 17,000 and 34,000 mph, the lower end of that estimate is over six times faster than the fastest bullet ever invented) they'd come and go before we ever noticed, leaving behind whatever destruction they'd wrought.
My question is, since orbital mechanics are pretty much ignored in this movie (and all movies, for that matter, I have yet to see orbital mechanics portrayed even remotely correctly in any movie), is it worth mentioning this exception to Real Time at all?
Edited by 49.183.2.230 Hide / Show Replies