Discussion Film / Sunshine

Oops. The plot IS sensible. Well... more sensible than The Core.

Exotic particles (somehow) entered into the sun which drastically reduce the rate of fusion. The bomb is designed to knock the exotic particles out of the sun.

Theoretical physicists were consulted.

"Theoretical physicists were consulted."

Too bad, that it was only a marketing BS. They'll fail physics forever.

Gravity of the Sun is nonexistent in the entire film. It doesn't affect either starship. They are headed for the Sun, on a straight trajectory. It is IMPOSSIBLE to stop that way. The Icarus I parking in place is a Wall Banger, a really painful one. Also, the escape plan is really stupid too. The gravity pull is astronomical that close to the Sun, and you have to have STRONGER engines than that, to stop and reverse. We need a big friggin rocket, to escape the gravity of EARTH. The Sun weights 333THOUSAND times much than Earth. Go, figure, what kind of rocket do we need for that stunt!

The astronaut freezing is completely Hollywood Physics, too. Real astronauts have OVERHEATING problems, not freezing. The actual spacesuits are white because of this, to reflect as much sunlight and heat as possible. The big "backpack" on them is for storing the heat, cooling the astronaut. And people don't get frozen in an instant without spacesuits, either. There's no matter in space to transfer heat to, so the only possible way to cool down is heat radiation, and that's a real slow process.

And the garden... What is it good for? The trip last for months, not decades. They don't NEED a renewable oxygen source. A large oxygen tank weights less and needs less space, than a freaking forest. It DOES matter, when you have to take them to (Earth) orbit, and to the Sun, especially if time is a factor.

This movie is no more accurate in terms of science, than Star Wars.

"Too bad, that it was only a marketing BS. They'll fail physics forever. "

They consulted theoretical physicists and Cillian even worked with the CERN crew. But remember, since it's a movie, they don't have to get everything right.

"The gravity pull is astronomical that close to the Sun, and you have to have STRONGER engines than that, to stop and reverse. "

Or they just add velocity around the Sun (like what the ISS does around the Earth) and use one or more slingshot around the Sun, Mercury and maybe Venus to get near enough the Earth. Is harder to go to the Sun than to leave the Solar System and we don't need a magical tech to add velocity and in this world, we can't remove the possibility that whatever the Stellar Bomb did with the Sun could be used to boost the Icarus to a safe distance.

"The big "backpack" on them is for storing the heat, cooling the astronaut."

You can't store heat. The backpack have liquid coolant that is moved in the astronaut inner clothes in a way to make him/her fresh.

"And the garden... What is it good for? The trip last for months, not decades."

The idea was that the garden could help with their sanity. Something physical like the Earth where they could relax and even get their O2 and food.

"This movie is no more accurate in terms of science, than Star Wars."

Paraphrasing Brian Cox: it's a movie, not a documentary.

"This movie is no more accurate in terms of science, than Star Wars."

Star Wars doesn't even try, but Sunshine assumes that a lot of theoretical science is right - and you can buy that, in the movie universe. And is interesting to cite Star Wars, because Boyle said that the creation of a hard scifi like Sunshine (without all the abracadabra of SW), where the cast had to learn how scientists and astronauts work, is so tiring that this movie was his first and last science fiction.

Well, remember it wasn't the course correction itself that was the problem, it was just that he forgot entirely that he had to adjust the sun-shields, too. He probably should have had somebody nearby to check is work afterwards or there should have been some kind of checklist to follow, though...