Greatinga science fiction fans. I will attempt a movie review.
Danger Will Robinson!
Warning! Warning!
Spoilers ahead!
I watched the movie ISS yesterday. It was disappointing.
It pretends to be a science fiction movie. In fact it is a story of the conflicts, both internal and external, worthy of the old cold war. While it
is on the International Space Station, there is no science fiction in it, other than the magic gravity that keeps blatantly waving at the
audience.
They did a good job with the hair. Short or tight, no waving around in micro gravity. But the cloth entirely fails to get the message that it is in
orbit. The floating scenes are reasonably well done with lots of exceptions.
The big problem is the EVA. One man outside with no partner and no suited up backup man. The teather is quite inadequate in both length and use.
The man overboard incident totally misses orbital dynamics. The ISS has gravity in itself that keeps any one floating free in the area of the
station. Given time, you would return to the station by it's gravity or by the orbital dynamics of being in an almost identical orbit. The two would
encounter each other every 45 minutes in a 90 minute orbital period..
The rescue is accomplished by the astronaut grabbing onto a solar panel and just hangs on there. No attempt to return to the safety of inside the
station as one would expect.
Also, there is no pre breathing of pure oxygen before EVA. This takes hours and is necessary to prevent the bends as the suit pressure is much lower
than the station pressure to allow the suit elements to flex.
The treadmill is just unbelievable. It is attached to a wall in the scene where it is used. The problem is not the wall placement but the fact it is
attached solidly. The actual ISS treadmill has to be free floating with spring teathers to not transfer the motion of the user to the stations
structure itself. The oscillations tend to break things like the section couplings.
This also brings up the fact that there is a single down direction in most scenes. Why? All surfaces and positions are utilized in the real ISS but
not here. Just a few scenes where there is no down as it should be.
The global nuclear war is noticed by someone seeing it through the window. Really? No other clue? Everything with a speaker on the station would be
poping like an AM radio in a thunderstorm. The EMP must have been on vacation that day.
The foreshadowing of events, the action of the mice versus the actions of the humans, is blatantly obvious.
Now for the worst part. The station moved to a lower orbit to pick up the most recent arriving capsule. Why waste the fuel? It then looses power after
the mushrooms bloom on Earth. Oh no, they are falling towards the atmosphere and only have a day before the station burns up. Instead of artificial
gravity, this station has artificial, life threatening, delimas.
Overall pretty scenery with a predictable storyline that makes many mistakes and a technically inept presentation.
If you like small scale political conflict with hand to hand combat at the end of the world, you might like it. But science fiction does not show up
in this movie.
Worth watching it for free or a subscription, but don't bother paying at the theater.
I give it a remote manipulator thumbs down.
Sorry if you don't like the review but I like hard scifi to even science fanticy but this is neither.
edit on 21-1-2024 by BeyondKnowledge3 because: hitched up trailer
That’s pretty much what I expected.
Hollywood will take a story, plop it in a difficult location and pretend it’s something new.
I can overlook the bad science of movies and just enjoy the story but there better be something good to catch my attention. Unfortunately this sounds
like a side A vs side B story with a ticking clock countdown until the boat sinks, bomb blows, plane crashes, train hits the station..etc kinda movie.
You pretty much covered it with some intrigue with who exactly is the bad guy and good guy on both side A and side B. As to who is following orders
and who just wants to survive and save who they can.
Edit: I almost forgot the typical forbiden love interest between one of A and one of B. Also the hunt for secrete treasure to help others on the
planet below but just happens to be on the station.
edit on 21-1-2024 by BeyondKnowledge3 because: (no reason given)
Thank you for your review...it was very, almost too critical, but nevertheless honest.
Everyone has their own flavour and taste in movies...the concept of the movie is good....stuck in ISS with conflicts while there is a nuke war
happening on Earth. WHo would have thought that could possibly happen in life? It might happen, you never know.
Aside from the nitpicky astrophysics, which I love physics btw (one of my sciences I did really well in), I am sure there are some cheesiness parts in
the movie, can't blame the producer. Mind you there were lots of broken physics in Armageddon, but I fuc*ing loved that movie! Same went for Starship
Troopers.
Now if this was to be on par with Interstellar, I don't think ISS would be that comparable to it.
But I love space movies just for the imagination and not the calculation
It has the overall treatment of technology as the movie 'Gravity' but it outdated itself in the first minutes. Only soyuz capsules go to the station.
This means only Russia and guide the capsules.
I can also go for the more story and less technical accurate movies, but this one tries to go very real but misses all the details. The story concept
is great but the telling needs tweaking all the way through. I think the writer and director were not space fans.
The second Avatar movie was pretty good. It was all made up though. This one was supposed to be and could easily have been 90% realistic but it turned
out to be about 30 to 40%. That is where the disappointment comes in.
If you make a science fiction movie set in reality and roughly in the present, put some effort into getting it right instead of just somewhat close to
the general direction.