MovieChat Forums > Sunshine (2007) Discussion > There's just too much suspension of disb...

There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, here

posted 10 years ago by PiaPuffytail
39 replies | jump to latest

Don't get me wrong, I liked the movie. I'm a big sci-fan in general, although a lot of the time we get recycled plots and ideas over and over. But lately it just seems like they're all the same: A) something makes them deviate from the plan and B) everything that goes wrong after that is a coincidence and just happens to spell doom for them.

I could buy one thing going wrong, but not so many things in a row. It's one thing if they depend on each other, like dominoes or some sort of cascade effect. But you've not only got Icarus I suddenly showing up out there with a distress call, you've also got Trey making a huge mistake. And you just happen to have a dude left alive on the Iracus I. Who just happens to have gone psycho. And you just happen to have a ship's therapist who's slightly crazy on his own.

Just too much of this movie didn't work for me. I can suspend my disbelief...you have to if you're going to be a fan of sci-fi movies. But for this movie to work I had to suspend disbelief about the following:

1) And this was my big problem with Prometheus, too: I cannot believe, I simply cannot stop myself from disbelieving that there would not be an *extremely* rigorous process to weed out people who buckle under pressure, people who have their own agenda, people who will not put the mission first, etc. Instead we've got movies where regular people seem to be thrown together in a tin can millions of miles from Earth, and then their personalities start dictating how the movie goes. I cannot believe, especially for missions so terribly vital, that they would not be EXTREMELY selective in who they send. Why would we have a therapist obsessed with the sun to the point where he's sunburning himself? Why would we have a second-in-command who puts himself above the mission? The only character in this movie that I really bought was Mace.

2) I don't think they ever adequately address their decision to divert to the Iracus I. Sure, I get that a second chance at delivering a payload is seductive. But is there any particular reason why they endangered their primary mission by diverting instead of delivering their payload FIRST, then going for the Icarus I if it didn't work?

3) Things start going wrong when Trey makes a heinous mistake in not adjusting the shields after entering their course correction. I won't even go into how unlikely it is that he would forget something so important. Human error definitely exists. But I can't believe there wouldn't be an automated failsafe that would prevent that from happening. Icraus II is so intelligent that it can detect five living humans when there should be four, and it can override Cassie when it feels the mission is in jeopardy. I can't believe they'd leave something like sun-shielding to chance.

4) When they make it over to Icarus I, they comment on all of the dust. One of the crew members says dust is mostly human skin. Which is A) incorrect...that is a common myth and B) probably impossible in the amounts they're seeing, even if it were true. Particularly since most of the crew died six and a half years ago and presumably aren't shedding skin cells anymore, and the only living person doesn't seem to have much skin left!

5) While we're on the subject of those dead crew members, and the Searle's fascination with watching the sun through the screen... Why does the screen even have the option of viewing the sun at anything more than 3.1% if it causes irreparable damage? Just seems like another one of those safety features that would've been built in.

6) Pinbacker, the crazy captain of Icarus I: Why did he go crazy? What about that rigorous selection process? Why didn't the crew of Icarus II bother counting bodies? How did he survive for seven years? We're supposed to believe that he's *beep* crazy AND sane enough to work the hydroponics section? That he's lost his grip on reality and yet somehow knows how to keep vegetables growing and oxygen flowing and to ration his water? How is all of his flesh burnt and he's surely malnourished, and yet he's stronger than every crew member of Icarus II? How does he know the codes to Icarus II? Sure, he'd probably have the knowledge on how to sabotage the ship, but surely the security codes would have changed? For that matter, in seven years probably the technology changed, too. Why was not only HIS vision all blurry and crazy when he looked at someone, but everyone else's vision was blurry and crazy when they looked at HIM? How did he get to the Icarus II? Did Icarus II not notice that the airlock had been engaged? How did he violently de-couple the airlocks from *inside* the airlock? Just...come on, already!

7) Really? There's only one suit in the airlock on Icarus I? Any particular reason there'd only be one suit on a ship full of seven people or so? Any particular reason Kapa couldn't have blown over to Icarus II, picked up a new suit, blown it back over there for someone? Or towed over an extra? Any reason they couldn't have just kept doing that until they got transferred?

8) I realize that the mainframe is probably meant to be worked on when it's not sitting down in the coolant, but I'd also have to think the designers would understand that perhaps it might become jammed at some point. You'd think they would have, at the very least, included something akin to a dry suit for Mace to wear when he's trying to fix the mainframes after putting them back in the coolant. But given that Mace is one of the few characters in this movie who I feel accurately reflects what a real crew member would be like in this type of situation, and it's a good scene, I'll allow it.

There's a lot of other little stuff, but I won't go on anymore. In general, I feel that this had potential, and was still a decent movie, but it took too many liberties and shortcuts, and embraced too many sci-fi movie cliches to really be original.

[–] Conquerer13 10 years ago

All very solid points. I strongly agree with most of them if not all.

Because it's a movie and certain things need to happen, I'm okay with some of these faults, but what really killed it was the whole Pinbacker storyline. Until then I was very into the movie but that was too much and introduced too many ridiculous questions, faults in the story, and was just too outrageous in general. Not only that, it really was not needed.

[–] humanjuggernaut 10 years ago

2) This could have been completely explained away if they had just said, "Once the bomb detonates, we'll be locked onto a course back to Earth".

3) It seems like the computer liked to give warnings half the time and let you screw everything up the other half. Completely unbelievable. Of course, Cappa was just as bad. He finds out that a crewman from the other ship came aboard and doesn't bother to tell anybody.

6) Literally, my first thought when he found the bodies was this: Of course he's not going to count them, because if he did, he'd notice that one is missing. And of course he did not count. And of course one was missing.

8) Or there could be a big tank underneath that you could drain the water into when you need to enter the area.

I thought the biggest problem with the movie was the original purpose for the mission. Create a star with materials from the Earth. To anyone that understands anything about physics, that's pretty darn stupid. Maybe, and I stress MAYBE, with extremely advanced technology it could happen. But their technology was not anywhere near the level that would be needed for that to be even remotely possible.

[–] shoobe01-1 8 years ago

Your #3 was my one (aside from it becoming a *beep* horror movie) big problem. Why not warn of the hole in the ship, of the coolant running low, of... etc. The ship sometimes just pops up to say what's wrong, and the rest of the time lets there be explosions and wild course changes and you have to ASK it. A 1950s level of needles and blinky lights would do a better job of warning you than this stupid computer.

And it's therefore IMPOSSIBLE to believe. And no reason it had to happen. Every time they were surprised it could have been easily tweaked to tell them the issue with just not quite enough time, or have them running to fix stuff, but it's a big ship (think of the running through hallways in The Abyss, as it goes bad early on). So, hard to believe, needless, stupid.

[–] artao 10 years ago

Biggest problem for me with this movie is the very premise: The sun going out.
That is simply not going to happen. At least not until WELL after the Sun swells up to a red giant and swallows the Earth.
Finally, the Sun will end up as a white dwarf star.
The Sun will not "go out" ... and even if it did, there's really absolutely nothing we could do about it. It's a fusion reaction DEEP within the sun, in its very core, that drives it. .. MAYBE we could seed it with massive amounts of hydrogen or helium to keep it going .. however, the amount of either of those elements needed is pretty much beyond anything we could gather up.

In other words, the concept of this movie is utterly ridiculous from the get go, and the writers clearly no nothing about astronomy, cosmology, or physics.

Beyond that, the movie was fairly decent I guess. .. I just can't get beyond that.

[–] Vibradiant 10 years ago

My solution to the dying sun plot issue:

Prologue:

After dancing to the edge of complete ecological failure, like a reformed addict getting rich with a reality show, despite all expectations, the nations of the Earth with all their industrial prowess and greed finally realize the financial benefit of free, unending, politically-clean solar power for themselves and anyone capable of plugging into the Smart Grid.

The last nuclear, coal and petroleum operations go offline in 2038, all internal combustion engines are recycled, carbon dioxide levels begin drop precipitously, wild climate variations re-balance, and polar bears everywhere celebrate around their seal-holes!

Then, for a final grand and unifying gesture to sweep away the old and embrace the new and better, in 2040, mankind gathers up all the nuclear waste and assorted toxic materials which gave birth to their bright new future, places it aboard an orbiting superstructure, and fires it into the sun, content that the intensity of such a furnace would do the rest.

Unfortunately, like the chaotic butterfly whose stirring wings create hurricanes an ocean away, a remnant of the heavy metals and unusual radiations sent into the sun is just enough to begin winding down the mighty fires, thus robbing mankind of the seemingly eternal winds into which it had turned all its sails.

But it would also be what they learned about the effects of small variables within complex systems which would lead mankind to gamble the very last of its quickly dwindling resources on a couple throws of the dice in a crazy hope to fix what their own ostensibly good, but unexpectedly foolish choices had broken.

It is basically the plot from The Core, but at least there would be a reason the sun was dying, it'd be related to the effort revive it, and it'd be topical and ironic as all get-out.

Otherwise, I can't do a damn thing about most of the other good points made by the OP. Esp the doofus replacement captain willing to sacrifice the most important mission of all time and space for his expendable ass. And the navigation guy and the pushy computer both managing to miss the shield problem. And everything about Pinbacker. Etc. :p

And yet I still very much enjoyed it.

"I like to watch" Chauncey Gardiner, 'Being There'

[–] artao 10 years ago

While imaginitive, that's not how it would work out. We couldn't possibly send enough material of any sort into the sun to make any difference in its nuclear reactions or its lifespan. Anything we sent toward the sun would get incinerated LONG before ever reaching the "surface" of the sun .. and the solar wind would, most likely, push the remaining detritus-dust back out into space.
Good try tho!

[–] Vibradiant 10 years ago

Of course, my little theory is based in the modern sci-fi mainstay of chaos theory's "butterfly effect" which allows for the improbable possibility that a very tiny factor might have a huge effect on a vastly complex and dynamic system (though I suppose in this case, one might be arguing that the butterfly accidentally shuts down the climate...). In this case, there'd be a scientist in a lab coat explaining something about how dense neutrino factors interpolated negatively with critical solar fusion reactions and began a sudden reversal of thermal sustainability due to blocked hydrogen nuclei. Yada yada.

As to whether anything man-made could be successfully projected into the sun without complete vaporization, it would seem to depend on the size and density of the materials involved (and the bomb apparently is as big as Manhattan), and how long it would be exposed to the searing radioactive output of the corona. As long as it doesn't burn completely up, gravity would do the rest with accelerating effect.

And don't forget that at that point, the sun had significantly cooled, which might've been a useful factor for the plot.

"I like to watch" Chauncey Gardiner, 'Being There'

[–] Fiery_Boycs 8 years ago

It's The Core with an unhealthy dose of Superman IV thrown into the mix.

108 193 23 8114 246* 47.73 22 42

[–] tigerfish50 10 years ago

Yes indeed - a crew of incompetents kick-starting a dying sun back to life is a bad beginning - and the film accelerates downhill from there.
Sunshine's supporters babble about suspension of disbelief, but when every plot element requires that kind of effort, one soon runs out of energy.

[–] hrstar24 10 years ago

The theory in the movie is that a Q-Ball has made its way into the sun and has "infected" it, basically a giant dark matter ball that is getting larger and larger, effectively putting out the Sun. The Payload will destroy the Q-Ball.

[–] motter25420-153-699254 9 years ago

Actually, I don't think they said the sun was going through the process you are thinking of, they said there was something at it's core that was causing it to stop the fission process, the purpose of the bomb was to blow up that core.

To say the writers "no nothing about astronomy, cosmology, or physics" is not true, they had Brian Cox consulting them the entire time.

[–] DurakSuka 9 years ago

I think you meant "fusion".

Hama cheez ba-Beer behtar meshawad!

[–] tlklein2-559-946930 10 years ago

1)No matter how much pressure or how rigorous the training to "weed people out" you can't predict what will happen on a space mission that will take 2 years. Also, it iseems to me that they may have had limited options on crew members who would volunteer for what might be a one way mission.

2) As I recall the film points out that once they sent the payload into the heart of the sun they will have a limited amount of time to escape the resulting explosion. I think that the plan is sound but what they mightnot have explained is the plan to ignite both stellar bombs at the same time thus ensuring one of them is successful.

3)Mmmmm....why would the ship's computer HAVE to notify them of this? There were never plans that there would be more than the crew they had so, unless it's asked, it's not exactly going to tell them.
4)The dust isn't from human skin (it's an interesting comment but as you accurately point out, it's not completely true) but from the burned remains of the crew.

As far as counting the body count, do you REALLY think they would take the time to count the bodies when they are there to gather supplies to continue the mission? Also, the destruction of the docking ring of the I2 kind of distracted them from that.

Ferrying other suits? They were low on oxygen and they couldn't repressurize.

5)Who knows? It's a plot device and its related to the intoxicating effect of the Sun which creates the feeling that they have been touched by god and, hence, drives the Captain of the I1 made. Of course it's a plot device. I'm OK with it but what bugged me about the film was the shift in tone in the last third from a suspenseful science fiction thriller to a slasher flick.

6)Why is Pinbacker stronger? Physically he's badly burned but he did have the ship's stores that would normally have fed the crew for over 2 years on the return trip plus the garden to survive. He's stronger because he's crazy and his adrenline is flowing, etc. but he is still physically fragile as is evident when Cassie tears off the flesh from his arm.

Why is he crazy? Again, there's only so much you can do to weed people out but you can't predict human behavior in a journey that we've never made before. Even the early Mercury astronauts sometimes didn't behave as predicted. However, I think I can cut the film a bit of leeway and suspension of disbelief for this particular portion of the film.

As far as Capa notifying them, he does try to warn the crew but is unable to when he is locked in another part of the ship.Before that, Capa calls to the rest of the crew members in the ship after he loses his communications device and trying to get away from Pinbacker.

7) We don't know that they didn't have other suits and Pinbacker didn't pop them into space to prevent the crew from hiding from him and, later, coming back or trying to "escape" to another part of the ship. There's one suit left because there was one survivor--Pinbacker who might need to use it for some other reason. Just because everything isn't explained doesn't mean there isn't an explanation or that it's a plot hole.

8)Mace may have had a 'dry suit' as you mention that would protect him but time was a factor here. Perhaps he felt he didn't have time to suit up or, perhaps to work on it, it had a draining system that would recycle the fluid when it was reactivated. If the latter, he wouldn't have time to do that. Again, just because it isn't explained doesn't mean that there wasn't something there but I agree this could have easily been cleared up with a stray line of dialog.

[–] PiaPuffytail 10 years ago

lol....we'll have to agree to disagree. Most of your points seem to boil down to, "just because they didn't bother to explain, doesn't mean there's not an explanation".

Which is fine. I can buy that for one plot point. Maybe two. But when THIS thing doesn't make sense, and THAT thing doesn't make sense, and there are a whole bunch of other things that don't add up....we really shouldn't have to be inventing reasons for why things don't make sense in the movie.

[–] alienlion 10 years ago

All good points, especially the first one. They chose complete loons to go on the most vital missions to save Earth. Even forgetting whatever the hell went on during Icarus I and Pinbacker, the new team is completely unprofessional and unstable. Even Mace wouldn't be allowed to go due to his temper, even though he made the most sense out of them all. Austronauts are specifically trained to stay cool in any situation, to deal with any type of stress, and as importantly, to deal with each other. Yes, they spend a long time in there but some austronauts stay up on ISS for about a year without gravity, regular food and cooking (huge morale boosters), and without any virtual reality rooms. You are telling me that the most vital space mission is going to include THAT psychatrist and THAT second in command?

It's also frustrating how they simply went with whatever someone suggested within the first 10 seconds. These are supposed to be top scientists, they should brainstorm every important decision with several options and reasons why some are better than others.

I also don't get why the manned mission was necessary in the first place. Why couldn't the bomb be shot by itself? They could simply set a timer, since they can calculate these space trips down to a second. There may be a legitimate reason for this so it might be me.

Also, what was up with gravity in this movie? Is it ever explained how the ships have a close to earth gravity in space? As demonstrated toward the end of the movie, the bomb is a huge cube with its own gravity so how on earth did the freddy krueger hold Kapa over the edge that way? A cube wouldn't only have gravity at the center of each side.

Finally, one airlock and one suit? What? What if repairs need to be done on the other side of the ship? And what if the repairs require more than one person? If their mini hovering thingy was good enough to take them all over that huge ship, they could easily go back and forth between Icarus I and II without docking to rescue people.

[–] gunlock 10 years ago

Agree, but fundamentally I don't see why such a mission would need to be manned at all. It's extremely difficult to keep that many people alive and bring them back. Would be easier to just shoot the stuff out from earth. The whole thing would be more believable if it was set way far into the future.

[–] makbeth-1 10 years ago

I have to disagree on most of the points you made. While there is a rather large element where one must suspend their disbelief to be able to follow the plot, I dont think anything that happens after the movie starts is way out there. As for the things all going wrong and it being a coincidence, well its actually one thing and its not too far of a stretch. Icarus 1 had to be out there, it would have been stranger if they hadnt encountered them. Treys mistake isn't super relevant beyond losing the captain and everything from that point is sabotage.

The real stretch for me is that they where able to get a football stadium sized dish, with the same mass as manhattan island into orbit. There was also a lot of gravity on both ships and no obvious source of it. Then there is the subject of the sun getting dimmer, contrary to how we know stars work. That one at least has a sci fi explanation.

1) I dont think any process could prepare you for that situation no matter how rigorous. For me Mace was the archetype "good guy soldier". He has a temper and he keeps coming up with "ideas" to macgyver his way out of everything. You could tell from early on that he was going to sacrifice himself at some point to save the mission. It almost seemed as though they were trying to make chris evans into the hero because he was higher billed than Troy Garity(harvey). Trey and cassie were human but most of the others seemed to have a rather defining single trait and were simply there to die.

2)The decision to divert to the Icarus 1 I think came from a number of motivations. Mainly they wanted to try to save anyone left alive, and probably had a fear that they could end up the same way. They wanted to know what happened and the payload I think was more of an excuse. They also couldnt just come back for a second shot if the first didn't work. The plan would have been to use both at once for a better chance of success rather than have 2 shots. Once they deploy their payload they had to get out of there or the sun would fry them up.

3)Treys mistake is bad, but its not entirely unplausible. As for the system not alowing him to make the mistake, he had manually overridden the settings and basically had the "safetys" turned off. If he hadnt then he wouldnt be able to change the course of the ship without it correcting itself.

4)This one I agree with. I thought there was going to be some supernatural element with all the dust. There really was a lot of it, and the bodies were found intact in the sunroom so I dont know where it all came from.

5)As for the sun room, the closer they are to the sun the lower the filter would have to be. They started on earth remember, so 3.1% of the sun from orbit would be far less than we get on earth. It would only cause damage in this instance because they were right up at the sun when the movie starts.

6)Icarus 1 and Icarus 2 are only separated by 7 years, not 70. The technology would be exactly the same as would the layout. Work on Icarus 2 probably started as soon as Earth realised Icarus 1 had failed. There would be no time and no point in redesigning the ship that you built for that one specific purpose. As for security codes there weren't any. Space is a rather secure place and only the payload had a code panel. As for the going crazy, it seemed that everyone who looked at the sun for long enough saw the face of god in it. I take this as just being in awe of the shear amount of energy and the sun is after all the source of all life on our planet so to some maybe it is god. The blurry vision was for the viewers benefit, to portray the lack of oxygen and the intense situation, but Pinbacker and the crew didnt have blurry vision, just like they didnt see the flashing images we saw.

7)There is one suit LEFT, no mention of how many it started with. And the reason they couldnt shuttle over and back is because they had to vent the atmosphere to make him blow over in the first place. The airlock was broken to pieces and there was no way to repressurise the chamber so once it was vented that was it. There was also no way for him to make the trip back. This wasnt a standard procedure, it was more of a "hope to god this works" kind of situation.

8)This one I have to disagree with. Mace was one of the cheesiest characters Ive seen in a long time. He keeps having "ideas" that save the day, even though most of them are silly. Vent the atmosphere to kill the flames, dont make it flash(I feel this was included just because its a cool science thing). The leg getting stuck thing was just overkill on the cheese. I thought he was done the first time he went in, but no he comes out for a little speech, then goes back in...surely to his death. But no, he survives a second time, only to get half way out and then get caught by the leg, as if his character wasnt archetypal enough already. The physics dont seen to work out. This guy can survive in space, goes for a swim in "coolant" but a gash to the leg does him in? he didnt even seem stuck. If his leg wasn't at a 45 degree angle it would have fit just as well as his entire body which somehow managed to get out just fine. It felt as though there was absolutely nothing stopping him from getting out of the coolant other than he had to die a hero. What was his role on the ship in the first place? All the other characters did something on the ship, and had an actual role. Mace didnt. He was just drame for the first half and action hero for the second half. There is no reason for him to even be on the ship.

I agree that the movie asked a lot in terms of what you can and cant believe, but I thought that as a story it worked out quite well. The ending was a bit meh, and the mace character was excruciatingly cheese but overall its a decent remake of Event Horizon.

[–] scootergirl9988 9 years ago

Why would we have a therapist obsessed with the sun to the point where he's sunburning himself? Why would we have a second-in-command who puts himself above the mission?

Agreed but they're nothing compared to the failure that was Pinbecker. This is the man selected to lead a mission to save the entire planet, the best of the best, the captain to end all captains, yet he ends up being so mentally unstable that he has a nervous breakdown and becomes a religious fundamentalist in less than 2 years? OK. Whatever.

Overall I liked the movie but I just didn't buy half of it.

[–] mdelvecchio 9 years ago

agreed. the only explanation is a sort of "space madness" brought on by sun exposure...but still weak.