MovieChat Forums > Gravity (2013) Discussion > Wouldn't everyone be freaking out?

Wouldn't everyone be freaking out?

posted 7 years ago by truther
2 replies | jump to latest

At the end, when her capsule returns to Earth, we hear the garbled radio transmission from Houston telling Dr. Stone that a rescue mission is on the way. But we also hear other broadcasts coming over the same frequencies -- a Spanish-language soccer game, and what sounds like some bright and chipper weekend weather forecast. Just normal mundane crap from a regular day.

But hasn't every communications satellite just been obliterated? "Half of North America just lost Facebook" was the quote that came at the start of the chain reaction. Haven't the ISS, the space shuttle, the Hubble telescope, and the Chinese station just been destroyed, and almost all astronauts in space killed?

Just seems hard to believe that the Earth would be carrying on like nothing had happened even while its entire communications grid had just collapsed.

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[–] CGSailor 7 years ago

There is a lot wrong with that scene that's a goof, but your complaint isn't one of them and explainable.

Goof 1
The last confirmed orbital location would have the capsule coming down somewhere in far eastern asia, maybe Siberia, Mongolia, ect.. but nothing is confirmed. Yet the radio overlaps with NASA are of several AMERICAN radios, as shown by the weather reports and used car lot commercials and country music.

Goof 2
The Radio overlaps themselves. NASA and the Capsule would not be using the same radio frequency spectrum, much less that specific frequency as being used by commercial radio broadcasts. And even if they were on the same frequency, you wouldnt have multiple other commercial radio statiins in the same rgion on the same frequency or their listeners would always be getting those overlaps (minus NASA of course).

The reason your complaint is not a goof is because we dont have enough information. Are these major radio stations or just a small town station (there are a lot of amaller radio stations out there) What day of the week is it? A weekend?
Most smaller stations and even major stations on a week end and even a lot of weekday stuff as well is PRERECORDED. All the commercials are prerecorded and on tracks. Since the satellite networks are down so major syndicated live shows would be off the air... most stations are going to be local and prerecorded. It is not without plausibility that the stations being picked up at that moment were just being pre-recorded shows and commercials fo fill dead air time and not live talk discussing the worldwide disaster.

In point of fact, losing worldwide communications actually mitigates towards them being pre-recorded shows and would preclude them discussing the disaster.

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[–] truther 7 years ago

Yeah, your point about the recorded broadcasts occurred to me, and it's a good one, but remember that we hear something in Spanish that sounded like an in-game commentary. Pretty sure I heard a "goooooal!" being shouted.

I'd also tend to believe that they would preempt their scheduled recordings since everything else was down. Who the hell would want to listen to some day-old rerun of something when it's hit the proverbial fan?

IMDB suggests the scene was filmed at Lake Powell, AZ. Doesn't mean that's where it takes place in the movie, but since Houston was radioing to her that they were sending a rescue mission it makes sense that she'd be that close as opposed to on the other side of the planet. It would also explain why she was picking up English and Spanish language commercial radio.

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