THE MARTIAN | Oct 2, 2015 | Will compete as a comedy at the Golden Globes

[kayumanggi]

GRAVITY was said to have scientific inaccuracies, right?

[Dementeleus]

I don't see how it could be science fiction under any definition I've come across, unless your definition of sci-fi is "it's in space"

 

It's an alternate near-future universe. Admittedly, this isn't obvious unless you follow NASA's shuttle missions reasonably closely. The mission that Clooney/Bullock are on is STS-157 (I think, it's definitely in the 150s). The actual shuttle program was in the 130s when it was shut down. Therefore this mission takes place in an alternate near-future (that's very similar to ours except that the NASA shuttle program wasn't shut down). We know it's also in the future because the Chinese space station is shown as essentially complete and fully operational.... right now the Chinese have just started building it and it's not scheduled to be complete until the mid-2020s.

 

edit: there are also some creative decisions made that could theoretically be explained by this alternate universe: in ours, the Hubble and the various stations are in dramatically different orbits that wouldn't be reachable in the way shown. (That's really nerdy nit-picking, though.)

Edited March 16, 2015 by Telemachos

[Dementeleus]

GRAVITY was said to have scientific inaccuracies, right?

 

Sure.

[Avatree]

It's an alternate near-future universe. Admittedly, this isn't obvious unless you follow NASA's shuttle missions reasonably closely. The mission that Clooney/Bullock are on is STS-157 (I think, it's definitely in the 150s). The actual shuttle program was in the 130s when it was shut down. Therefore this mission takes place in an alternate near-future (that's very similar to ours except that the NASA shuttle program wasn't shut down). We know it's also in the future because the Chinese space station is shown as essentially complete and fully operational.... right now the Chinese have just started building it and it's not scheduled to be complete until the mid-2020s.

I didn't know that the Chinese don't have a space station, but still, by that reasoning, almost every movie ever would be sci-fi - that's just basic fiction. There are things in every film that aren't entirely true. That's the nature of storytelling and fiction.

 

What is more important is the fact that the way the world (or universe) is portrayed in Gravity is identical to ours. However you define sci-fi, I don't see any reason to believe that Gravity is set in a fundamentally different world than ours. If it occurred on land and was about some truck in a desert rather than a ship in space, no one would be calling it science fiction. It's just a disaster thriller set in space.

[Dementeleus]

 It's just a disaster thriller set in space.

 

Genre definitions are only for categorization. It's definitely a disaster thriller set in space too. But GRAVITY pretty clearly (though subtly) chooses to posit a "what if?" that's based in the future, and it uses those future elements as key resolutions in the story. (Bullock needs the Chinese space station in order to rescue herself, it's not just window dressing). In the same way, if a movie was set in 2009 but the Twin Towers were still standing, it'd be an alternate past, especially if those buildings featured prominently in the movie's resolution.

[Avatree]

I don't think I'm going to ever understand how Gravity is set in the future in any meaningful way, let's just agree to disagree.

[Dementeleus]

Fair enough.

[The Futurist]

At this point, I firmly believe Ridley Scott was abducted by aliens and was replaced by a faulty clone a long time ago.

[marveldcfox]

Exodus was meh. I actually liked Prometheus but that's because I watched it a year after it's release so had no expectations or pre conceived notions.

This sounds interesting, but could go either ways.

[4815162342]

Gravity inspires genre arguments 18 months later.

 

Sci-fi by the way.

[The Futurist]

Bullock s light saber fights were amazing, great choreography and great VFX.

Glad it won the VFX Oscar.

And woah, when she goes into warp speed.

Amazing !

[Black Hawk]

Oh no ... Not this war of 'sci-fi or not' again.

[Michael Gary Scott]

So then space cowboys and Apollo 13 are sci-fi then

[Avatree]

Exodus was meh. I actually liked Prometheus but that's because I watched it a year after it's release so had no expectations or pre conceived notions.

This sounds interesting, but could go either ways.

I'm in a similar position with Prometheus, I saw it only recently (relative gave it to me on blu-ray for xmas) and thought it was pretty good, if flawed. I thought Exodus was good but suffered from Scott's vision being compromised by Fox (or vice versa, you can spin it both ways).

[DAJK]

Is moon sci-fi? I'm just starting it now, and while I have no idea where it's going to go, so far it seems like it would fall into the "Gavity" category instead of sci-fi...

[Michael Gary Scott]

Moon is sci-fi

[Ethan Hunt]

Is moon sci-fi? I'm just starting it now, and while I have no idea where it's going to go, so far it seems like it would fall into the "Gavity" category instead of sci-fi...

I support the viewing of Duncan Jones films

[Empire]

Gravity is not sci-fi.

I am so glad it didn't win BP as we would be arguing till the end of time whether it was the first sci-fi film to win BP or not.

[marveldcfox]

Is moon sci-fi? I'm just starting it now, and while I have no idea where it's going to go, so far it seems like it would fall into the "Gavity" category instead of sci-fi...

Sci fi, suspense, thriller

[4815162342]

So then space cowboys and Apollo 13 are sci-fi then

 

Apollo 13 is based on a true story, so it is historical fiction.

 

Space Cowboys is Sci-Fi since at its core it is about weaponized space satellites, which is something that has been theorized but never done in practice.