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Post by chero on Oct 4, 2007 9:51:06 GMT -5
This is just my opinion, keep in mind, but I looked forward to Icarus II's journey to Icarus I just for the sake of finding out what happened to the latter. We are told in the first half of the film that the first mission failed simply from Capa's monologue in the beginning ("Welcome to Icarus II."). We also see Captain Kaneda watching a video feed showing one of Captain Pinbacker's last transmissions while everyone else is sleeping or is on night shift. For me, Kaneda's facial expression echoed my own. What made a sophisticated and trained team fail? The whole idea seems unbelievable. After the scene, I was left with a sense of melancholic and frightening foreshadowing. I was sad because of Kaneda's obvious concern for the previous mission and the fact that all the people onboard Icarus I were probably dead. The image of Pinbacker provided the foreshadow. The extreme close-up to his mouth and eyes scared me and shots like that tend to make the viewer uncomfortable since personal space is invaded. And if you ever study film, you will learn about a technique or rather a rule of thumb: If a gun is introduced in the first stage, then it must go off in the third. I want to say that Kuleshov said this, but it doesn't really matter, the concept does. This "gun" is Pinbacker and his team. The audience is presented with him in the first stage of the film and is then partially vindicated in the third. I say "partially" because we never know what actual events led up to the Icarus I crew's conclusive states (which makes for an interesting prequel if you are a fan). To answer you more blatantly, if Pinbacker wasn't introduced in the film, there would have been an even greater hole in the plot.
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Post by chero on Oct 4, 2007 14:53:15 GMT -5
Ah! I'm sorry I didn't address your full question before. Anyways, this is my opinion again, in regards to the religion vs. science theme it was touched upon in the very first character scene. We see Searle, the team's Psych Officer, enjoying some sort of solar experiment in the Observation Room. Later at the table in the Social Area when everyone is preparing for lunch/dinner, Searle explains his sensation with the Sun and even "recommends" doing the experiment. He indirectly brushes on Pinbacker's belief that God is in the sunshine. Mace calls Searle crazy and gives the audience a chuckle or a thought or both. Further into the film, Searle's skin is burnt and peeling which suggests the amount of time he has spent observing the Sun. Has Searle really discovered something or has he gone crazy? Unlike Searle, however, Pinbacker is willing to sacrifice the world for his beliefs. This creates a sharp contrast between these two characters.
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Post by chero on Oct 4, 2007 15:45:20 GMT -5
No problem, starshine! You're welcome!
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Post by brittany on Oct 4, 2007 18:28:16 GMT -5
Has Searle really discovered something or has he gone crazy? Unlike Searle, however, Pinbacker is willing to sacrifice the world for his beliefs. This creates a sharp contrast between these two characters. Furthermore, this has been confirmed in one of the latest September articles in the SFO Article Archive. It's a Cliff Curtis interview. He is asked about his character and how he is related (or should I say NOT related) to Pinbacker.
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Starshine
Pilot
There will be nothing to show that we were ever here - but stardust.
Posts: 297
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Post by Starshine on Oct 7, 2007 5:31:54 GMT -5
I think Pinbacker is very important for the movie because he express the religon vs science conflict in a very intensive way.
I know he makes some people problems because at the first view it looks like he destroys this nice ScFi-movie with horror elements. This is what I read in many reviews of Sunshine.
But I don't find a way to introduce the religion vs science conflict better than by Pinbacker. I love the scence when he speaks with Capa in the observation room.
Pinbacker pushs the thrill-level of the movie in extraordinary highs what is good for it. But he destroys a bit the possibilty of Sunshine to get a masterwork like 2001 because he is not so exceptionally like the rest of the movie.
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Post by chero on Oct 7, 2007 12:08:42 GMT -5
Pinbacker also proves that "aliens" aren't our enemy; it's ourselves.
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Post by cococi on Oct 7, 2007 13:40:27 GMT -5
but aliens could be our enemyes.. be afraid ... be very afraid... im breeding one in my drawer!
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Post by redshift on Nov 16, 2007 3:01:50 GMT -5
Pinbacker isn't the only one to have had an "epiphany"; to be affected by the Sun on many levels. Searle, from the very outset, is spellbound by the Sun. So much so he burns his own skin and virtually blinds himself in the process. At the beginning, in the dinner table scene, Searle is recounting how the Sun's light "envelops you; it becomes you", and Mace jokes that he's more sane than the psych-officer (Searle). Even as Kaneda was about to die, he couldn't help but watch in awe, spellbound as the wall of flames approached. Searle - far from being concerned - simply says "Kaneda! What can you see?!" This seeming lack of perspective, is unbecoming of someone who's supposed to be caring for everyone's mental well-being. Could we not conclude that the Sun affected Pinbacker in a similar way, to a greater extent where he completely forgot his humanity?
Sunshine isn't the first movie to blur the line between religion and science: 'Event Horizon' brought the terrors of Hell as discovered accidentally through a scientific endeavour. Sunshine simply went the other way and suggested the idea that the Sun itself is the face of God; a concept Pinbacker truly believes in, as much as any earth-bound fundamentalist back home. Indeed, for many millennia the Sun has held a firm place at the centre of most ancient societies as representing one god or another, and the Sun as represented in Sunshine is both a scientific reality defined by Capa's equations, and as a religious deity. The question it leaves us asking is: Are these manifestations mutually exclusive?
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Post by warduria on Oct 12, 2009 2:23:20 GMT -5
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