The One Where I Rant About a Bad SciFi
I used to say, "I don't like SciFi." In the past few years, I've learned something very important. I actually love SciFi. I'm just very particular about my SciFi. Sometimes, I summarize it by saying, "There's no shame in fantasy."
I actually love fantasy too. But fantasy demands suspension of disbelief. SciFi rejects it. I just need SciFi that isn't actually fantasy. Every once in a while, I'll find SciFi I can accept. For well-known ones,The Martian did it, Ender's Game did it, Gattaca did it. Just some examples. For some completely unknown reason, I also accept Firefly (though how, I don't know. Maybe it's just good enough that I'm willing to accept its scientific pitfalls). I'll admit that I'm still learning what SciFi I'm okay with. For example, I haven't attempted Asimov yet, but I'm told that it will fit my criteria.
All this said, I found a new SciFi movie which spits on science (and its audience's intelligence) so inexcusably that I have to share: The Space Between Us.
I think I first saw a preview for this when I saw Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I don't know if Sarah remembers my disgust with the premise of the preview the first time I saw it, but it was difficult to contain. But I kept on seeing more and more previews and promotions, and I felt somehow compelled to watch it. So, now that it's out of theatres and I can do so quite inexpensively, I did.
For those are just dying to see this film, I'm not going to side-step any spoilers from this point on. SPOILER ALERT.
For those who aren't familiar with the film, a quick run-down: In the not-too-distant-future (I believe they say 2034), a science group is attempting to be able to colonize Mars. An expedition group is sent off, and their female leader is found to be pregnant after they're almost to Mars. The baby is born on Mars and then the mother dies in childbirth. Unfortunately, they're not sure that the baby would be able to live on Earth as almost all of gestation occurred in zero gravity, and it was born on Mars. The colonization group decides to keep the existence of this child, a boy named Gardner, secret. Sixteen years later, Gardner wants to go to earth, meet his father, experience the world and meet up with his intergalactic penpal, a girl in foster care named Tulsa who is just angry at everyone in the world. Unfortunately, our Interplanet Janet can't live on Earth. They do some fancy stuff to make it so he can. Then when he gets to earth, they realize that he can't. But he's run-away with the most obnoxious teenage girl ever on an epic roadtrip to meet his dad. But he's dying every minute he's in Earth's atmosphere. And apparently they never thought to tell him that.
Slight tangent: I'll admit that I really WANTED this to be good. Mostly because the main character is played by Asa Butterfield, and I really want him to get cast in a successful movie as a teenager. His early work shows that he's talented: Hugo, Boy in the Striped Pajamas, even Merlin. But whatever agent he has is abysmal and can't seem to secure him anything successful. You can tell that Hollywood is pulling for this guy. He keeps getting cast into teen leads that are supposed to do well. But then they never do for reasons other than him. He's always good at what he's given. (And no, I don't have a crush on him, he's too young for me, he's just a good actor).
He played Ender Wiggin in the Ender's Game. I thought it was a respectable adaptation, and he absolutely nailed the character. But it wasn't enough to overcome box office issues--partially related to people boycotting on account of Orson Scott Card for his Mormon beliefs in regards to homosexuality,but I'm not going to give them full credit--and fully short-sighted adaptation changes that would hamstring any attempts to make it into a franchise. Though the producers said they wanted to make the full series, blending the characteristics of Alai and Bean (even though they kept both characters) shut the door to Ender's Shadow. Character slaughtering Valentine cut off Ender in Exile and anything down that path. Removing the parallel plot of Peter and Valentine taking over the world through pure rhetoric while Ender saved the world closed of the entire Shadow of the Hegemon series.
Then he played Jacob Portman in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. He did a good job at it. A very different character from what he'd played in the past, he touched the soul of who Jacob was. But I really don't know what the production team was trying to do. Tim Burton basically found his YA book series eHarmony match, but he completely botched it. Strange plot points added and subtracted, the themes completely muddled, and strange choices like swapping Olive's and Emma's peculiar powers. I guess he though floating was more romantic than lighting things on fire, and he wanted the floating girl to be the love interest, not the fire girl.
Unfortunately, whoever Asa Butterfield's agent is got Butterfield roped into yet another high budget endeavor that just couldn't cut muster.
Ultimately, here's the situation with this movie: first, there are plot holes all over it. Why would they keep him a secret? Wouldn't addressing whether or not children could be born on Mars be an important point in attempting to colonize it? Why don't they just tell him when he comes to earth that they aren't sure he can live on earth. He's sixteen, be honest with him, and maybe he wouldn't have run away. Instead, you keep him in an isolation chamber, even though you promised him he could come to earth, and now he doesn't understand why you seem to be dangling a carrot. Why doesn't NASA have any information about the fact that his mother had a brother (the person who he figures is his father is actually his uncle, because all he has is a picture of the two of them together)? They use nanotechnology to reinforce his bones before sending him to earth, but not one scientist thought to check that his heart was able to pump fluid in Earth's atmosphere? They even discussed that being a concern when they first confronted the situation when he was a baby!
Beyond the plotholes, there's the fact that the script is as banal as Nebraska's stereotype. I was watching and could actually say to myself, "I'm supposed to laugh here. But I have no impulse to," "I'm supposed to find that touching. I guess my heart maybe got flicked a little," "Oh, that's supposed to be romantic."
The character of Tulsa is just irritating, and the trope of Gardner being socially unable to interact on earth is wholly ridiculous. Yes, he was raised on Mars--in a science station. So, he talked to people. Granted, he only talked to a bunch of astronauts and uber-scientists. So, probably not the very best examples of well-adapted social skills, but he could interact with them. He did not appear at all socially-stunted on Mars when he was talking to them. But he gets to earth, and it's immediately fish-out-of-water scenario for attempts at easy laughs that make no sense. He goes to Tulsa's science classroom and pulls the safety shower for example. I'm fairly certain that anyone raised in a science base on Mars would fully understand the function of a laboratory safety shower.
Other reviewers have pointed out the plain lazy choices about details. For example, the fact that they're apparently in Santa Barbara, but very openly use Los Angeles emergency vehicles. Or they have futuristic lap-top-like devices and yet have completely modern cars, cell phones and tablets. Even branded ones! Mars bars has very open product placement, but the Mars bar he eats is in limited-edition packaging.
But I'm most upset about the science. The writers bragged that they talked to an astronaut to make it scientifically accurate. And I believe they talked to an astronaut. Once. Early in production. Because there are the kernels of scientific accuracy, but then they just take it on the crazy train. Some of them I can get over. For example, the idea that you could instant message someone from Mars. We have no way of doing that right now, but I can stretch my mind to believe that at some time in the future we will be able to. But they used up probably half their "okay I'll let it slide" points on that.
Their interpretations of the effects of zero gravity gestation have home-base in reality. NASA has actually investigated this question, so they took mice up to the space station to find out what happens to mammals that undergo gestation in zero gravity. They have brittle bones and enlarged hearts. Just like our character. They also probably have some neurological impairments, which are hard to identify what exactly they are in mice, but scientists believe that a human gestated in zero gravity would have nearly debilitating anxiety and depression, though all theory points to it being anxiety and depression very responsive to psychopharmacology. They got rid of this part in the dialogue, though there are some things that would indicate they didn't (like the fact that he has a psychological breakdown on earth and decides he wants to throw himself into the Pacific Ocean, and he appears to have a panic attack over the fact that Las Vegas isn't "real"). But I don't think they were imagining that it was at all pathological when they wrote it into the script. I don't think our script-writer and director were that savvy.
So sure, they acknowledge the hypertrophic cardiomyopathy issue. In fact, they say that that's the thing that will kill him. But I don't know who they consulted on what hypertrophic cardiomyopathy looks like in terms of how it kills. He seems to be dying of nosebleeds, lethargy and seizures. The lethargy I'd believe. But how exactly the nosebleeds and seizures are caused by heart failure, I'm not really sure. Other than the fact that if you want to emphasize in a movie that someone is sick, you have them have sudden uncontrollable nosebleeds and then when you want to say they're REALLY sick, they have a tonic-clonic seizure. It's basically Hollywood for "dying."
Then they hatch a scheme of fixing this when he's dying by flying up high into the sky to decrease the gravity...umm, I guess we've never run into the issue of someone being from Mars, but I'm 99.9% sure this would make him die faster. When he first arrives on earth, they take him out of the space capsule and put a mask on him (presumably to protect his immune system, but they don't specify if it's an oxygen mask or a filtering mask), and sunglasses (because Earth is brighter), but then just ask him how he feels. NASA has a ready-made experiment here! They would be slapping at least a pulse-oximeter on him. Probably 12-lead EKG.
I don't know what medical advisor they had, but I want to smack them. If only because they refused to insist that "troponin," a word said no less than seven time by at least three characters, be pronounced correctly. It's pronounced "truh-POH-nin." In the movie, they say "TROPE-uh-nin." It's such a small thing that could soothe so many souls.
It's actually a nice plot bunny for a scifi story--the question of an astronaut accidentally having a baby and what would you do with the kid. As a recreational novelist, there's a part of me that wants to run with it and do it better. But, this was so badly executed. Sometimes you can say, "Well, it was a bad scifi,but it was a really good romance." Or "It was a lame romance story, but the scifi was rocking it."
Unfortunately, this was just bad.
I actually love fantasy too. But fantasy demands suspension of disbelief. SciFi rejects it. I just need SciFi that isn't actually fantasy. Every once in a while, I'll find SciFi I can accept. For well-known ones,The Martian did it, Ender's Game did it, Gattaca did it. Just some examples. For some completely unknown reason, I also accept Firefly (though how, I don't know. Maybe it's just good enough that I'm willing to accept its scientific pitfalls). I'll admit that I'm still learning what SciFi I'm okay with. For example, I haven't attempted Asimov yet, but I'm told that it will fit my criteria.
All this said, I found a new SciFi movie which spits on science (and its audience's intelligence) so inexcusably that I have to share: The Space Between Us.
I think I first saw a preview for this when I saw Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I don't know if Sarah remembers my disgust with the premise of the preview the first time I saw it, but it was difficult to contain. But I kept on seeing more and more previews and promotions, and I felt somehow compelled to watch it. So, now that it's out of theatres and I can do so quite inexpensively, I did.
For those are just dying to see this film, I'm not going to side-step any spoilers from this point on. SPOILER ALERT.
For those who aren't familiar with the film, a quick run-down: In the not-too-distant-future (I believe they say 2034), a science group is attempting to be able to colonize Mars. An expedition group is sent off, and their female leader is found to be pregnant after they're almost to Mars. The baby is born on Mars and then the mother dies in childbirth. Unfortunately, they're not sure that the baby would be able to live on Earth as almost all of gestation occurred in zero gravity, and it was born on Mars. The colonization group decides to keep the existence of this child, a boy named Gardner, secret. Sixteen years later, Gardner wants to go to earth, meet his father, experience the world and meet up with his intergalactic penpal, a girl in foster care named Tulsa who is just angry at everyone in the world. Unfortunately, our Interplanet Janet can't live on Earth. They do some fancy stuff to make it so he can. Then when he gets to earth, they realize that he can't. But he's run-away with the most obnoxious teenage girl ever on an epic roadtrip to meet his dad. But he's dying every minute he's in Earth's atmosphere. And apparently they never thought to tell him that.
Slight tangent: I'll admit that I really WANTED this to be good. Mostly because the main character is played by Asa Butterfield, and I really want him to get cast in a successful movie as a teenager. His early work shows that he's talented: Hugo, Boy in the Striped Pajamas, even Merlin. But whatever agent he has is abysmal and can't seem to secure him anything successful. You can tell that Hollywood is pulling for this guy. He keeps getting cast into teen leads that are supposed to do well. But then they never do for reasons other than him. He's always good at what he's given. (And no, I don't have a crush on him, he's too young for me, he's just a good actor).
He played Ender Wiggin in the Ender's Game. I thought it was a respectable adaptation, and he absolutely nailed the character. But it wasn't enough to overcome box office issues--partially related to people boycotting on account of Orson Scott Card for his Mormon beliefs in regards to homosexuality,but I'm not going to give them full credit--and fully short-sighted adaptation changes that would hamstring any attempts to make it into a franchise. Though the producers said they wanted to make the full series, blending the characteristics of Alai and Bean (even though they kept both characters) shut the door to Ender's Shadow. Character slaughtering Valentine cut off Ender in Exile and anything down that path. Removing the parallel plot of Peter and Valentine taking over the world through pure rhetoric while Ender saved the world closed of the entire Shadow of the Hegemon series.
Then he played Jacob Portman in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. He did a good job at it. A very different character from what he'd played in the past, he touched the soul of who Jacob was. But I really don't know what the production team was trying to do. Tim Burton basically found his YA book series eHarmony match, but he completely botched it. Strange plot points added and subtracted, the themes completely muddled, and strange choices like swapping Olive's and Emma's peculiar powers. I guess he though floating was more romantic than lighting things on fire, and he wanted the floating girl to be the love interest, not the fire girl.
Unfortunately, whoever Asa Butterfield's agent is got Butterfield roped into yet another high budget endeavor that just couldn't cut muster.
Ultimately, here's the situation with this movie: first, there are plot holes all over it. Why would they keep him a secret? Wouldn't addressing whether or not children could be born on Mars be an important point in attempting to colonize it? Why don't they just tell him when he comes to earth that they aren't sure he can live on earth. He's sixteen, be honest with him, and maybe he wouldn't have run away. Instead, you keep him in an isolation chamber, even though you promised him he could come to earth, and now he doesn't understand why you seem to be dangling a carrot. Why doesn't NASA have any information about the fact that his mother had a brother (the person who he figures is his father is actually his uncle, because all he has is a picture of the two of them together)? They use nanotechnology to reinforce his bones before sending him to earth, but not one scientist thought to check that his heart was able to pump fluid in Earth's atmosphere? They even discussed that being a concern when they first confronted the situation when he was a baby!
Beyond the plotholes, there's the fact that the script is as banal as Nebraska's stereotype. I was watching and could actually say to myself, "I'm supposed to laugh here. But I have no impulse to," "I'm supposed to find that touching. I guess my heart maybe got flicked a little," "Oh, that's supposed to be romantic."
The character of Tulsa is just irritating, and the trope of Gardner being socially unable to interact on earth is wholly ridiculous. Yes, he was raised on Mars--in a science station. So, he talked to people. Granted, he only talked to a bunch of astronauts and uber-scientists. So, probably not the very best examples of well-adapted social skills, but he could interact with them. He did not appear at all socially-stunted on Mars when he was talking to them. But he gets to earth, and it's immediately fish-out-of-water scenario for attempts at easy laughs that make no sense. He goes to Tulsa's science classroom and pulls the safety shower for example. I'm fairly certain that anyone raised in a science base on Mars would fully understand the function of a laboratory safety shower.
Other reviewers have pointed out the plain lazy choices about details. For example, the fact that they're apparently in Santa Barbara, but very openly use Los Angeles emergency vehicles. Or they have futuristic lap-top-like devices and yet have completely modern cars, cell phones and tablets. Even branded ones! Mars bars has very open product placement, but the Mars bar he eats is in limited-edition packaging.
But I'm most upset about the science. The writers bragged that they talked to an astronaut to make it scientifically accurate. And I believe they talked to an astronaut. Once. Early in production. Because there are the kernels of scientific accuracy, but then they just take it on the crazy train. Some of them I can get over. For example, the idea that you could instant message someone from Mars. We have no way of doing that right now, but I can stretch my mind to believe that at some time in the future we will be able to. But they used up probably half their "okay I'll let it slide" points on that.
Their interpretations of the effects of zero gravity gestation have home-base in reality. NASA has actually investigated this question, so they took mice up to the space station to find out what happens to mammals that undergo gestation in zero gravity. They have brittle bones and enlarged hearts. Just like our character. They also probably have some neurological impairments, which are hard to identify what exactly they are in mice, but scientists believe that a human gestated in zero gravity would have nearly debilitating anxiety and depression, though all theory points to it being anxiety and depression very responsive to psychopharmacology. They got rid of this part in the dialogue, though there are some things that would indicate they didn't (like the fact that he has a psychological breakdown on earth and decides he wants to throw himself into the Pacific Ocean, and he appears to have a panic attack over the fact that Las Vegas isn't "real"). But I don't think they were imagining that it was at all pathological when they wrote it into the script. I don't think our script-writer and director were that savvy.
So sure, they acknowledge the hypertrophic cardiomyopathy issue. In fact, they say that that's the thing that will kill him. But I don't know who they consulted on what hypertrophic cardiomyopathy looks like in terms of how it kills. He seems to be dying of nosebleeds, lethargy and seizures. The lethargy I'd believe. But how exactly the nosebleeds and seizures are caused by heart failure, I'm not really sure. Other than the fact that if you want to emphasize in a movie that someone is sick, you have them have sudden uncontrollable nosebleeds and then when you want to say they're REALLY sick, they have a tonic-clonic seizure. It's basically Hollywood for "dying."
Then they hatch a scheme of fixing this when he's dying by flying up high into the sky to decrease the gravity...umm, I guess we've never run into the issue of someone being from Mars, but I'm 99.9% sure this would make him die faster. When he first arrives on earth, they take him out of the space capsule and put a mask on him (presumably to protect his immune system, but they don't specify if it's an oxygen mask or a filtering mask), and sunglasses (because Earth is brighter), but then just ask him how he feels. NASA has a ready-made experiment here! They would be slapping at least a pulse-oximeter on him. Probably 12-lead EKG.
I don't know what medical advisor they had, but I want to smack them. If only because they refused to insist that "troponin," a word said no less than seven time by at least three characters, be pronounced correctly. It's pronounced "truh-POH-nin." In the movie, they say "TROPE-uh-nin." It's such a small thing that could soothe so many souls.
It's actually a nice plot bunny for a scifi story--the question of an astronaut accidentally having a baby and what would you do with the kid. As a recreational novelist, there's a part of me that wants to run with it and do it better. But, this was so badly executed. Sometimes you can say, "Well, it was a bad scifi,but it was a really good romance." Or "It was a lame romance story, but the scifi was rocking it."
Unfortunately, this was just bad.
Comments