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Post by neiru2012 on Aug 19, 2007 0:33:56 GMT -5
You know the drill. If it came down to it and you were sitting at that table, how would you vote?
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Post by kaliszewski on Aug 19, 2007 1:44:00 GMT -5
I'm thinking there's a third option: Would you volunteer your own life in place of Trey's?(This is another of "Sunshine"'s many "no-sale" areas for me; like Cassie, I'm not voting. Just thought I'd toss in that number three.... ) I did think it blackly funny, though, how fast Mace went from "We vote" to "We kill him" when Cassie declined to support murdering Trey. Democracy in space-- like sex in space-- just doesn't work, I guess....
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Post by nimue on Aug 19, 2007 8:39:26 GMT -5
I would have answered like Cassie.
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Post by aroreiel on Aug 19, 2007 9:57:50 GMT -5
I couldn't vote to take a life. Yeah, the world is at stake, and someone needs to be sacrificed in order to save humanity. You can see the logic to it. But it'd be compromising my morality and my humanity. At least in then, in death, I would feel that I was still able to keep whatever humanity I had left. Being in Cassie's position, her decision wouldn't have changed the outcome anyway. I think she knew that and that's one reason why she refused to vote.
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Post by neiru2012 on Aug 19, 2007 12:07:17 GMT -5
I'm thinking there's a third option: Would you volunteer your own life in place of Trey's?Yep, I thought of putting that up there, since that'd be the one I would choose too. I'm pretty sure Trey would've volunteered. But I wanted to recreate the exact scenario in the movie. For the record, I would vote that somebody has to go. Ideally by choice, but if nobody's noble enough to volunteer, we'd have to take drastic measures. Yeah, I'd feel guilty that we had to kill someone, but the way I see it, if we hadn't, it would mean killing billions more instead. Besides, we're all dying anyway, there's no way around that. At the point the vote was taking place, it was more about how much of the mission can we still save and perhaps ensure all the other deaths were not in vain. Being concerned with my morality/humanity at a time like that would seem selfish to me. Well, perhaps not my morality, since my morality would say that taking a life under these circumstances, even by force, is the most compassionate thing to do for the billions depending on us back home. And actually, not my humanity either, because I wouldn't be on that ship trying to save humanity. My concern would be with the solar system as a whole, the biosphere of the Earth, and the sun itself. It would be quite romantic for alien history books to recount the wonderful achievements of the human race. How they mastered math, science, philosophy, and were advanced enough to build a stellar bomb to save a dying sun. How they sent a crew that almost made it, but at the last minute decided that humanity was not worth saving if they had to sacrifice it themselves, and died - with the rest of the solar system soon to follow - protecting this cherished ideal, the highest achievement of the human race. It makes for a great story, and I'm sure other civilizations would praise it on moral grounds. But is it something I can live/die with? I don't think so. Still, I have a lot of respect for people like Cassie who can. EDIT: I remember the first time I watched the movie, and agreed with the majority vote at the table scene, I felt pretty ashamed when they found Trey had already killed himself (I'll get to the Pinbacker variation in a bit). It really puts that choice into perspective. Here they were having the cold, logical discussion of how morality and humanity took a back seat to the success of the mission and the good of the many, yet they find themselves saved by one of humanity/morality's greatest virtues. Not suicide, heh, but self-sacrifice. I wonder how Mace must've felt at that point, seeing as how he took all the weight of the decision onto himself. In the unfolding events of the movie, it would've been safe for everyone to vote not to kill Trey and just have faith that in preserving their humanity they might still be able to complete the mission. Pinbacker would've done it for them, which would have made it easier on their conscience, but the end result would be the same.
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Post by kaliszewski on Aug 19, 2007 16:09:49 GMT -5
Yeah, when they found Trey already dead, it seemed like an "out" to me, too. A big, cheap "out."
Which makes me think: okay, I'll vote.
And I'll vote for the unwritten "number three."
I'd volunteer my own life.
Two reasons:
1. You ought to be willing to put your money where your mouth is when it comes to bandying people's lives about.
2. If there's anything I've learned from my "Earth job" as a legal editor, it's that killing other people isn't polite. Volunteering other people to die is REALLY not polite.
But this now makes me think of a very, very black number four:
I'd volunteer Capa. Up yours, pal: we'll get your password and your payload key and your notes, and we'll launch the bomb ourselves. Thanks ever so much for making the incredibly poor (dare we say jaw-droppingly dumb? Oh, I think we can: we're all about to die--!) judgment call that led us to the Icarus I and certain, inescapable doom. You're outta here, little buddy!
See, one of the many things I find impossible to accept about the script is the lack of cross-training among the crew. A crew that small would HAVE to be cross-trained. So, from Trey making that fateful calculation all on his lonesome without any cross-checking from the pilot, to Kaneda sending himself and Capa out to fix the shields when second-in-command Harvey and ship's mechanic Mace should have gone, to the idea that only Capa could turn the key and press the "Launch" button, Alex Garland did his best to shake my belief in the logic of the crew's actions. And, guess what? He succeeded. He was setting them up for the "kill Trey" scene and Capa's lovely "death porn" demise (Cillian Murphy is a singularly beautiful young man, and his beauty contributes immeasurably to the marketability of that last scene, something of which I can't help but think the film's makers were very much aware); he wanted to wedge that "philosophical" debate into the story, and he was willing to wedge it in there by any arbitrary means necessary. To me, it's an artificial situation: it happens only because Garland wants it to happen, not because the drama, left to a more logical, less contrived sequence of events, would necessarily have called for it.
So, fine. Kill me. Or I'll beat Capa's password out of him, and we can kill Capa. Deal...?
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Post by neiru2012 on Aug 19, 2007 16:48:14 GMT -5
I'd volunteer Capa. Up yours, pal: we'll get your password and your payload key and your notes, and we'll launch the bomb ourselves. Thanks ever so much for making the incredibly poor (dare we say jaw-droppingly dumb? Oh, I think we can: we're all about to die--!) judgment call that led us to the Icarus I and certain, inescapable doom. You're outta here, little buddy! Lol, I knew it would come to this eventually. NO! NOBODY TOUCHES MY BABY!! *pulls Capa into payload and stands at the door brandishing a knife at any who come near* Personally, I don't think of any screw ups among the crew in terms of blame. And if we had to try to untangle the web of blame, it would get pretty complicated. First off, going to Icarus I was not Capa's idea. Capa was sitting off to the side keeping his pretty little mouth shut... It was Harvey who brought up the Icarus I distress beacon. It was Searle who championed the idea to rendezvouz with it. Why does nobody blame Searle? It was Kaneda who agreed to consider Searle's idea as an option, gave Capa the authority to make a major decision, then both accepted and enforced that decision after it was made. Why did a Captain give athoritative decision power to a physicist, and not just take Capa's input as a guiding suggestion? It was Trey who, under mounting pressures of their mission, forgot to realign the shields... resulting in the death of Kaneda and loss of the oxygen garden. What did Capa do? He certainly didn't want to make any decisions. He was very straightforward about that. He tried to explain to Kaneda the variables he is dealing with, and how it's not a decision at all, it's a guess at best. But Kaneda forced him to basically flip a coin, so he did. Cassie, by the way, agreed with Capa's decision on the same moral/humanitarian grounds she used to cast her vote at the table later. And it wasn't exactly a bad decision, in either moral or logical terms. If we're dealing with the success of the mission here, and the theoretical success rate of the bomb is less than 45%, then 2 bombs are better than one. How were they supposed to know there's a crazy guy on that ship? If there were any survivors, it wold make a lot more sense for them to be greatful at being rescued. I understand that it is this uncertainty that's being called into question (same can be said about the bomb tho), but if Trey didn't forget to reset the shields, the crew would have been much better prepared to deal with Pinbacker. If Capa's to blame, he should get in line. Cillian Murphy is a singularly beautiful young man, and his beauty contributes immeasurably to the marketability of that last scene, something of which I can't help but think the film's makers were very much aware. No argument there!
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Post by kaliszewski on Aug 19, 2007 17:06:43 GMT -5
You might want to check my mods to my last post-- and then get out the torches and pitchforks! I'm also from the "they had no business going to the Icarus I" camp. They didn't know why the other ship stopped. The most logical up-front explanation was "catastrophic mechanical failure." So even if they GOT the second bomb, they had no way of knowing whether they could actually USE that bomb. Their mission-- that of the Icarus II-- was conceived with one bomb-- THEIR bomb-- in mind. I'm also a pessimist. To me two bombs does not equal twice the chance. Each bomb is equally apt to fail. And you'd have to think that (a) in seven years, design improvements have been made (that is, the second bomb is likely better designed than the first) and (b) the first bomb may have suffered physical degradation in the intervening years. You go to launch it-- and a meteorite-peppered section of the housing gives way. Going to the Icarus I was a bad call. But Alex Garland wanted those bad calls-- his cynical, doomed view of things obviously demanded them-- and Danny Boyle has said that the one character he really couldn't stand was Mace, whom he saw as cold-hearted and inflexible. Well, Mr. Boyle, I see Mace as a desperately needed voice of reason on this ship of fools (Katherine Anne Porter or Robert Plant: take your pick ). Had they followed Mace's advice and stayed clear of the Icarus I-- better, had it never existed in the first place-- Alex Garland would have had a twistier, tastier task cut out for himself. After all, it's harder to trip up characters who possess their fair share of common sense. And it's a lot more fun, too.
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Post by neiru2012 on Aug 19, 2007 17:22:44 GMT -5
You might want to check my mods to my last post-- and then get out the torches and pitchforks! I did, I just thought your revisions started in the next paragraph. Fixed the quote for you. Didn't mean for it to be torches/pitchforks, hehe. I just... love... Capa..... ^_^;; As I understand it, though, your problem isn't really with Capa's decision but with the contrived progress of the script?
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Post by aroreiel on Aug 19, 2007 19:43:32 GMT -5
I disagree with Danny Boyle's feelings on Mace. Hot headed yes (yeah, he could've communicated his feelings with a bit more restraint). And inflexible yes...but for a darn good tootin' reason! His objective was clear; follow the course set, no deviating into unknown territory, deliver the payload. I think that's perfectly reasonable. Maybe I sound like a wuss, but I'm not a big risk taker, and I wouldn't have risked the "last, best hope" mission to save mankind based on a 'hunch' that the Icarus I bomb may or mat not be working. To me, they were risking the one bomb that they had.
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Post by kaliszewski on Aug 20, 2007 2:14:59 GMT -5
You might want to check my mods to my last post-- and then get out the torches and pitchforks! I did, I just thought your revisions started in the next paragraph. Fixed the quote for you. Didn't mean for it to be torches/pitchforks, hehe. I just... love... Capa..... ^_^;; As I understand it, though, your problem isn't really with Capa's decision but with the contrived progress of the script? Yeah. Think I read a review that said it was like watching someone walking a flaming tightrope whilst being shot at with a machine gun-- and then having a snarling lion thrown at them for good measure. I won't go into vast detail here (good grief, once I get ranting, I don't stop until I turn blue and pass out from lack of oxygen), but I think I would have forgone Icarus I and Pinbacker and one or two miscalculations and dicey judgment calls and just let them fall victim to personal quirks (such as Harvey's latent cowardice), mechanical failures, and nature's heartless whims. The way I see it is kind of like this: When you do everything right and you still run the risk of absolute failure, that's tragedy. When you go from bad judgment calls to mistakes to the shortfalls of poor design (I still can't get over the mainframe coolant you can DROWN IN. What: the case couldn't have been horizontal rather than vertical-- and, hence, four to six feet SHALLOWER?) and murder at the hands of a madman (whom you yourself stopped and picked up), that's what I call asking for it. It's as though Garland wants them to fail and then wants us to celebrate when they succeed almost by accident. I disagree with that type of plotting. They're professionals, if working wearily and under stress; let them utilize their professional and personal strengths. THEN hit them with something that leads to death and self-sacrifice. And let one of them be the Pinbacker. They're that close to snapping, some of them; let the betrayal come from within the team. That's more realistic-- and more painful. Sorry: got going there...! If you ever get the chance, watch "The Letter That Was Never Sent." It's a 1950s Soviet film about a team of geologists seeking diamonds in the forests of Siberia, and it examines beautifully how quickly and savagely nature can turn triumph to tragedy. No Pinbackers or Icarus Is required! Epic and very rare-- and well worth seeing. (The lead character, he of "The Letter," reminded me very much of Capa.) We caught it at the Tribeca Film Festival this last April; maybe it'll turn up on DVD soon. Oh-- and thanks for the quote fix!
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Post by nimue on Aug 20, 2007 5:37:16 GMT -5
NO! NOBODY TOUCHES MY BABY!! *pulls Capa into payload and stands at the door brandishing a knife at any who come near* Count me on your side!
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Post by neiru2012 on Aug 20, 2007 17:48:32 GMT -5
See, one of the many things I find impossible to accept about the script is the lack of cross-training among the crew. Maybe it's a statement about society becoming more and more specialized and restricted as we go along, hehe... I really like the fact that there are mistakes made by top professionals and design flaws in the equipment. Given the pressure, the age of the crew, their isolated specializations, and existing bugs in the functioning and design of modern equipment, it is very realistic to me. You only have to look a the failures of NASA or the blundering of any government to see that it's commonplace for professionals to make bad decisions, miscaclulations. Think I read a review that said it was like watching someone walking a flaming tightrope whilst being shot at with a machine gun-- and then having a snarling lion thrown at them for good measure. Lol, that sounds like an awesome movie!! ;D I just have different standards for movies, I guess. After all, I'm a fan of horror, fairy tales, and mythology. I'm less concerned with how practical or "believable" a movie is, and more concerned with the emotional impact it has on me. Sometimes, a movie can even make me think, can make me identify with a character, and can make me see layers of symbolism woven into it that resonate with my own. Sunshine fulfilled all those requirements and more, so I don't really care about any objective flaws it might have. Movies are by nature a subjective experience. It could've been interesting to see the crew fall apart internally, but I honestly don't know which version I'd like better. I really like the idea of an alien psychopath wreaking havoc on a ship. I want my movies dark and bloody.
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Post by kaliszewski on Aug 20, 2007 20:50:31 GMT -5
See, one of the many things I find impossible to accept about the script is the lack of cross-training among the crew. Maybe it's a statement about society becoming more and more specialized and restricted as we go along, hehe... I really like the fact that there are mistakes made by top professionals and design flaws in the equipment. Given the pressure, the age of the crew, their isolated specializations, and existing bugs in the functioning and design of modern equipment, it is very realistic to me. You only have to look a the failures of NASA or the blundering of any government to see that it's commonplace for professionals to make bad decisions, miscaclulations. See, I can't stand that. I mean, I REALLY, REALLY can't stand that. ("That," of course, referring to the fact that they've come this far only to let some very stupid blunders put them in jeopardy.) If NASA had that level of failure-- and I'm not saying that NASA never makes mistakes-- we'd lose every fourth shuttle at takeoff or landing. We'd lose someone nearly every time a mission calls for a spacewalk. And we most certainly would never have made it to the moon. Yes, professionals make miscalculations and bad decisions, but that's why we have procedural checklists, cross-checking, process improvements, and CROSS-TRAINING. I can't believe-- nope, can't do it-- that Capa's the only one who can launch the bomb, for instance. I can't believe that Trey can just cook up some figures and change course without informing anyone. It makes for drama; it does not make for realism. Maybe I've been a professional in my chosen field for too long, but after sixteen years, I know what would happen to me if I displayed even half the unprofessionalism and carelessness that Garland wants us to swallow as plotting in "Sunshine": I'd get sacked. Period. Never mind falling into the sun: in some ways, I honestly think losing that almighty paycheck would be worse! Politicians aren't technical professionals; it's a different standard. And if the crew were too young, they should have had an older, more seasoned crew. That's all. As well as a crew roughly twice the size of the one they had. But then the deaths wouldn't have been nearly so mission-crippling or photogenic. Imagine Anthony Hopkins rather than Cillian Murphy on that catwalk for the finale. Uh huh. One more thing: as much as I'd like to believe it, I really don't think any of our tech dweebs have to die-- or even suffer random and likely deserved mutilation-- fixing one of our many, many mainframes here in The Pit. No swimming required. Which is good: many of our tech dweebs are of a "Pro-Cannonballer" size. Garland sets up the drama in "Sunshine," and it is an utter, shameless set-up. You enjoy that type of scripting: that's okay. But I can't stand it. It makes me cringe, personally and professionally (given the hours I work, sometimes it's hard to distinguish between the two), and it makes me want to FIX THINGS. (Editors are a lot like border collies. Sometimes we look at an "untouchable" manuscript, and it's more than a lot like watching a flock of roly-poly sheep heading blithely for A CLIFF, and we just start to twitch.) I guess I just have a sneaking, unshakeable suspicion that Garland is here to torment these characters arbitrarily and without good reason, and it makes me feel sad-- and a little sick. Again: sorry for the rant. I'll keep my hands in plain sight and back slowly away from the thread, okay...?
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Post by neiru2012 on Aug 20, 2007 23:57:10 GMT -5
Understandable, I'd probably get just as annoyed if somebody made careless mistakes in a movie about a field I'm more professionally familiar with. Or I might just think it's amusing, would depend on how they do it. But yeah, I see it as a dark fairy tale, so I don't mind. (And here we both go repeating ourselves again)
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