9.81 m/s^2

SPOILER WARNING: The following post contains spoilers. If you have a problem with spoilers, please just close the window and come back when I have written a new post (or you have watched Gravity (2013), whichever comes first).

I just came back from watching Gravity (2013). As of the time of writing, the movie has done really well with critics (Metacritic score of 98/100).

I think, from a literary standpoint, the movie did quite well. For example, there is effective use of “checkpoints” to indicate to the viewer progress in the storyline. The progression from Shuttle to ISS to Chinese Space Station to Earth feels structurally similar to After Earth (2013) and Dora the Explorer. (Who do we go when we don’t know which way to go? The map! That’s right.)

But, still, I rage:

  1. Why the hell was the chinese spacecraft so faulty? (The panel bursts into flame during landing.) In every Sci-Fi story where the Chinese are mentioned, the Chinese make a shitty product and it always bursts into flame. Like, I don’t even.

  2. Why didn’t the cockpit fire use all the oxygen in the capsule and/or kill the astronaut inside? (For example, there was a fire in the cockpit of Apollo 1.)

  3. How the hell did she land in water that was so shallow she could crawl to shore? Would the craft not have hit the bottom of the body of water if the water was that shallow?

  4. Why could she stand after exiting the craft and all those injuries? She did spend a week in space; what about muscle atrophy and all those things? Like, the whole “taking a first step from a really low camera angle” makes for a nice shot, but it is also really cliche.

That is all.