According to Norman Reedus perspective, if the black technician had really intended to murder him, then why would he save him when he was suffocating while testing the hibernation unit? He used the boxcutter to cut open the plastic so he could breath... that's the opposite of murder. Pretty good otherwise.
Comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable
You aren't looking at it the correct way, put yourself in his shoes and think about the kind of trust you would need to have with your partner while going through these cycles of maintenance, think of how maddening it would be to have to go through that again and again never knowing if it will ever make a difference whatsoever. Strap that to a ticking clock of oxygen in which you need to perform these duties and tuck yourself back away safely. The word stress would be one hell of an understatement. Now imagine yourself basically dying slowly, getting the life squeezed out of you until you finally pass out then to find out all the while the man you trust with your life was standing there just watching you die! Seriously? To Reedus it had nothing to do with murder, it was clear to him that his trusted sidekick, the one and only person he had to watch his back was fcking losing his mind, to what degree is irrelevant. The trust is gone, unrepairable, the clock was ticking and the choice is crystal clear. He acted out of what normal human behavior would be to a T.
shareI remain unconvinced by unrealistic motives and actions, if security cameras were able to show the black technician looking/talking to his wife's photo, there would also be footage showing if he had been guilty, nearby watching Reedus suffocate or innocent, distracted further away - as the viewer knows, the answer is obviously that he was innocent.
We will agree to disagree.
Comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable
It's great if the dilemma exists in our minds, as it did in that of the character(s); because that's (exactly) what happened.
:))
Edit: Whether, at the end, he realized that he had made a mistake (and not fired the gun), gave up, forgave his (very best?) friend... Or thought that he was punishing him, leaving them alone. Them, because of the discovery, in the tank.
IMO, though, the resolved ending IS a problem in this movie... Should've been different, because it isn't like The Mist (2007).
^^ And then, yes, people would complain about that - probably, hehe. ;$
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(In retrospect, after having written all that, it seems that I quite like the movie, btw. :))
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the resolved ending IS a problem in this movie
I really liked the movie as well, but it left me with a lot of unanswered questions.
But what do you mean exactly by
Them, because of the discovery, in the tank
the resolved ending IS a problem in this movie... Should've been different, because it isn't like The Mist (2007).
I take your point but don't think the situation was in any way realistic. The best analog would be Apollo 13. Do you recall any of them ever considering killing their crew-mates for the extra oxygen? Of course not. It probably never entered their minds. In a situation as dire as this one, they'd have chosen teams most likely to get along incredibly well, and they'd train and become so bonded that that they'd each rather die than to let anyone else die. Also, these techs would be the best of the best and would know the systems inside-out rather than being some glorified janitors like these guys. The survival of the human race is riding on them, so they can afford to be choosy.
shareThe situation was too dire, they even mentioned how quickly they slapped all of "this" together, that they didn't even give them spare parts to work with. The sleep group ABC was found to be built under only a couple of inches of concrete which is why they had all died from a simple collapse of the ceiling, more to show how ill advised and time constricted they must have been in building it. I can't imagine they had much of a bonding period for their maintenance techs, possibly just during training and running exercises.
Everyone was dead, the air was destroyed. The way I saw it was they took the best they could find at the time, which they did actually include the husband of one of the long sleepers to help ensure it's survival, probably the safest move to make at the time. For all we know this deep sleep center was one of hundreds all over the world and the occupants of each all believe it is up to them to save the human race, just as the computer screen read that abc had checked in every time when they've been dead for a very long time.
As for the situation being in any way realistic, it's not realistic it's skewed sci-fi from the door with plenty of unrealistic sci-fi sleep pods and a world destroyed by chemonuclear weapons launched by the middle east. Not to mention it seems to have taken place in the 80's(or 70's even). Point is, the film wasn't taking place in what we know our world to be as.
Yeah, I vaguely recall the bit about the plan being slapped together quickly and suppose that could account for their abysmal hiring practices, so that gives them enough cover on that front I suppose, so thanks for that.
And since you mentioned it, I also didn't get the bit about having the teams "check in" with the other teams supposedly getting those messages but not being able to communicate with each other in any other way. With the ability to change their check-in status, they should at least be able to use Morris code, so it can't be a technical issue. If each team is supposed to think that they're the last hope, then none of the other teams should show as checked-in. Still, I would think that each team would have been suitability motivated to succeed if for no reason other than that their lives depend upon it, let alone the rest of their species.
Of course you're right about this being science fiction and that we therefore can't expect perfect realism. I'm ready to suspend a lot of disbelief but I strongly prefer it when they avoid a lot of avoidable dumb stuff that has nothing to do with the movie logic, and you'll have to forgive me on that account.
You make some excellent points.. When you refer to the unrealistic sci fi sleep pods, in your opinion what would make realistic pod?
That is a hard question that every sci-fi film seems to try to answer in their own way, some are similar with their own unique signature to them.
There is film realistic and life realistic, the best I think is to blend the two in the simplest way possible as to not take you out of the film and not to waste time explaining the process in too much detail. I tend to go for liquid stasis such as seen in films like Event Horizon(1997)(odd old reference but just saw it again the other day so it's freshest in my mind), provided that we had developed the right kind of "amniotic" fluid for suspension. That would take care of the skin, oxygen and act as a sort of lubricative protectant for the body, something similar to a baby's womb. This can be executed in a few ways, from full self contained hibernation/stasis body suits to tanks full of this fluid. Then throw in the necessary computer monitoring contacts and I'm buying into the concept without question.
Long ago I remember watching something that delved into what would be necessary to accomplish such a feat, but very little was said or known at the time. I know there has to be a recent "would this be possible" documentary around(links anyone?) that I would definitely like to check out as I'm fascinated by the concept. Ever since I read that article about how certain frogs freeze themselves 100%, every cell in their body frozen, heart completely stopped through the entire winter season only to thaw out in the spring as their heart once again begins beating, I have been extremely interested in developments into the research into that as well. I guess you could say if there was ever a procedure invented and they needed a volunteer to go in for a 100 years I would first in line. Even if I only lived for a short time after awakening it would be worth it to see what another 100 years of innovation and tech have produced. My luck the earth would be mess, the tech would have peaked shortly after my internment and nuclear war had destroyed half the globe.
*As for the film Air there is was one thing that was unclear to me regarding the sleep pods. Every six months the pair of techs wake up for a weekend of maintenance then return back into the hibernation pods for another six months. At the film's end the black guy appeared to have aged a good 20+ years. So are we to assume that he aged two days at a time every six months to accumulate 20 years of ageing? Mathematically for him to have lived 21.91 years that means that exactly 2,000 years have passed in real time, 4,000 wake maintain and return to sleep sessions indeed for a guy who was vividly hallucinating to the point where a schizophrenia diagnoses would be applicable from early on into his duties.
First of all, thank you for the well throughout response.
I agree on the first point you make, as the precise doses of film realistic and life realistic to be blended is a delicate balance that many Sci Fi movies struggle with, resulting in disastrous over exposition.
I love Event Horizon, the Sci Fi film that Clive Barker never made, theres a scene toward the end where the doors to the drive room open and they appear to be made out of wood and brass, looking very much like the Lament Configuration box. The lines “I have such wonderful things to show you” and “we have such sights to show you” are too close not to be intended homages.
Anderson gets a lot of well deserved criticism, but this was a great haunted spaceship flick. It genuinely gets spooky in a lot of great ways, and it nails the isolation angle too. The production design its amazing, the interior sets of the ship and the ship itself are a visual delight.
About the liquid stasis in the film, the crew floats in the amniotic fluid but they are wearing oxygen masks, there's another film, which I can't recall, where the stasis process consisted of the surrounding liquid actually being inhaled by the subject going into stasis.
It's funny that you mention the frozen frogs, I have a fascination with this subject as well, when I was a kid, me and my brother actually froze lizards and brought them back to normal on more than one occasion, we would just throw the lizard into the freezer which we had turned down to the lowest temperature my mom's old fridge could muster. We would then leave the poor lizard in the freezer overnight and the next day it would be completely frozen, mom would even chastise us for animal cruelty, but we would place the frozen creature somewhere in the backyard and let the sun do its job. Every time we did this, maybe 3 or 4 (with different lizards), the lizard would 'come back to life' after several hours under the sun as if nothing happened and whisk away into the garden, wholly unaware that two southamerican kids had given her an extra 24 hrs into the future.
I don't know about the documentary you mention but here's a short excerpt from some tv show talking about the frozen frogs http://youtu.be/hIGtLKxoFeA
Like you, I would also happily volunteer for a procedure involving cryogenics. I guess the concept of death has always bothered me more than the norm, I think.
I've always had this ambition of having enough resources when the times come to be able to afford one the very expensive cryogenic alternatives available nowadays, even if it's just my head, apparently the cheapest way to go. By default the idea of walking into a glacier and let Mother Nature do her thing has crossed my mind in more than one occasion, anything to avoid cremation or the conquering worm, after all I'm from a country renowned for its freezing cold weather and the areas where the cold weather would do the trick are just a walk away.
About the 2000 years and the 4000 wake, maintain and back to stasis, I agree wholeheartedly that the end of the film should have portrayed him as, at the very least, raving mad. Actually I think the whole talking to the sleeping 'ghost' of his wife thing, was a gimmick the movie would have benefitted without. Don't you think?
I ended up rewatching Event Horizon after bumping into the name and not remembering much other than Fishburne, Neil and images of the device and the ship, the rest was pretty foggy so I happily took another look. That's definitely one of the rare sci-fi space horror films that are truly horror, the kind of which we don't see made anymore because Hollywood won't make anything that edgy or dark. Love the Hellraiser imprint that EH has over it, there were definite homages as you mentioned, many people discussed where the ship went, but it seemed pretty clear it was a dimension very similar to the plain of the Cenobites, not biblical hell, but dimensional hell, chaos, suffering and pain.
It can almost be said that Neil's character built that elaborate drive configuration under some sort of Cenobite influence, that it was all smoke and mirrors and that the drive's core was exactly that, the lament configuration box. It would explain how it activated on it's own, sucking in the kid early in the film when the power was down and explain the almost instantaneous deep connection Neil's character had to the ship, not wanting to leave it, but to take it back through the portal. Just speculative BS of course as I do believe that wasn't the intention of the writer at all.
As far as the end of Air, yeah it didn't fit. Knowing that they were going to tack on the storybook ending like that, they should have shown him pausing while showing us a flashback of the two of them together at different points in the their relationship then show him snapping back out of his daydream. Not have regular conversations with a total hallucination, that stuff isn't a temporary thing that I would imagine getting any better along his 1,000's of wake ups, instead it would likely get much much worse over that time combined with his total isolation.
As for stasis reasons, I think these days it's the looming fact that there's no telling when we will reach our technological or informational peak, that is if there even is a peak. If and how we integrate tech into extending life expectancy, if we discover all of the unknown factors in how the brain works in order to evolve, become smarter, live longer
and expand further. There's nothing I wouldn't do to get a glimpse into 2515, but knowing human nature and the past I believe there is a also a chance that it may just be a nightmare.
I really liked your take on Neill's character being under some kind of Cenobite nspiration/influence when constructing the ship's device for jumping dimensions, it would have fleshed out the characters motivations much more satisfactorily, but that would have required a completely different script, one where Barker would some how had been directly involved in the production, which as far as I know wasn't the case. We have to settle with Hellraiser IV Bloodline, which I can't really recall how much did I like or dislike, since I watched it more than 10 years ago, may have to watch it again, though I know Barker didn't have much input in the final result.
Have you watched Supernova? It's an interesting film in the sense that it's original plot was indeed referred to as 'Hellraiser in outer space', and the production designer was to be none other than H.R.Giger himself. Unfortunately Hollywood, again afraid of material too disturbing and grotesque ended muddling up the whole production even going as far as to firing Walter Hill and hiring Coppola to re-edit the whole film. Though the final result is a bit of a mess, it's Space/Horror, a genre I love and of which there's such few precious few films to recommend. Also there's a sex scene in zero gravity between Angela Basset and James Spader that's well worth watching the whole movie.
As for the end of Air I was expecting Cartwright's wife waking up from stasis and finding her husband now a decrepit old man, smiling resigned but content at her, but that may have been a bit too twilight zone-ish.
Talking about Sci-Horror and stasis films I recommend Pandorum in case you haven't catched it, but I have a feeling you already have.
I also recommend the original version of Vanilla Sky; Abre Los Ojos, for a great film dealing with Cryonics and its effects on the mind. Infinitely superior to the Tom Cruise flick.
"There's nothing I wouldn't do to get a glimpse into 2515, but knowing human nature and the past I believe there is a also a chance that it may just be a nightmare."
Funny, I'm working the nuts and bolts of a screenplay that deals with precisely that, I'd love to get your feedback on its synopsis, I'll send you a PM shortly.
No, he cut him out only after he thought Reedus was dead.
sharenope, he sees him sealed up and shouts his name worried and cut him out immediately.
My guess is he was hallucinating again while seeing the picture and forgot what he was doing, snapping out of it at the last moment
After he has stopped struggling. Rewatch the part on the monitors. He cuts him out only after he thinks he's killed him, remorseful and emotionally torn.
shareHe cut him out while repeating "I'm so sorry." And he didn't seem particularly frantic while he was doing it. I agree that he thought he was dead.
shareGood point :)
shareDjimon' character had no intention to kill Norman's character. Norman's character knew this.
The whole point was that Djimon is losing his mind, which is completely dangerous. He couldn't be trusted to continue with the mission
much better than "Transcendence" for example, and smaller note on IMDB... weird or what?
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