Didn't Kirsten Dunst already do this movie?
Yeah, it was "Another Earth"
Okay, so...there are two planets with completely opposite gravitational fields, close enough to be connected by skyscrapers. Your high-school science teacher is doing a facepalm right now.
Of course it's a parable. Something about topsy-turvy priorities favoring the rich, two people from "different worlds," got it. Because love actually isn't stronger than gravity. Love only makes you think your insides are being crushed.
The visuals, however, are extremely pretty, and for once, I wish something were in Imax that isn't. Trailer after the jump.
Tags: Bad Science, Upside Down
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47 comments
"Love is stronger than gravity."
If this wasn't to be taken completely at face value it wouldn't be such a horrible tagline.
My first thought is cool, is it based on a book, because I'd read that book. Read the crap out of it.
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I remember that episode of Pinky and the Brain! They got everyone to move to the other Earth by promising them all free tee shirts. Brilliant plan.
Tim
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1) "Two twin planets." So... there are four planets?
2) "Gravity. They saw you can't fight it." Really? Do they? What about airplanes? See also: satellites, helium balloons.
3) So every sci-fi trailer is going to include BRAAAAAAHM now? Alrighty then.
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That looks like the worst office to work in. Imagine if the cubicle above me kept spilling things? I would get so angry.
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Love might not be stronger than gravity, but is coffee? Or paperclips?
I bet post-its aren't.
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Sorry, what's this about two Earths?
Admittedly, I stopped paying attention as soon as I saw Kirstin Dunst and returned to that YouTube video of a cat chasing a laser pointer.
Someone should option the movie rights to that cat. It would probably gross higher than this.
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So, each person and/or object is bound only to the gravity of its own world and not the other, and both of them seem to be connected at several points? Doesn't make any sense, but it is a very creative concept.
You know, if they said it was some sort of multiverse overlapping quantum bullshit, it would make more sense than "I come from the only solar system with twin planets" (and are they even called Earth? Also, I take there are no airplanes there, right?)
@FabioRezende You have to take it as an allegory, or metaphor, or one of those words that sounds all smarty pants, and just go with it.
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" Because love actually isn't stronger than gravity."
i think you fail to appreciate just how pathetically weak newtonian gravity is. your basic refrigerator magnet alone is enough to overpower the entire gravity of the earth.
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@Canadian.Scott @toupence1 I flashed to Doctor Who - Stormageddon, Lord of All... and whatever his dad's name is.
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Love defeated The Beast at the end of Krull. What did gravity do to defeat The Beast? Not a goddamned thing, that's what.
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The metaphor gets old ten seconds into the trailer and just ends up nauseating the rest of the time. I can only imagine how sick I'd be after two hours of this and that's not even taking into account the motion sickness, just the idea of having to watch Jim Sturges in a chick flick that doesn't involve Eddie Izzard covering the Beatles.
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This almost seems like a parody of a sci-fi film. Like an SNL skit or something, or a fake movie you'd hear mentioned in a sitcom (heard something similar on a King of Queens episode once...). That being said, this is one of those cases where it seems so goofy that I honestly kinda really want to see it (& like Luke said, the visuals seem awesome).
Of course, this film is going to never come to my damn Maritime Canadian town anyway...At least not in theaters. I'm starting to think that every time I send Luke a video game tip he's not interested in, he retaliates with news on a sweet film that I'll never get to see. =P
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@SlyDante777 meh - just rewatch Avatar and focus on the fact that the smurfs are poor and the humans are rich. It'll be the same thing.
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@Gallen_Dugall @SlyDante777 Or just watch this episode of Star Trek The Cloud Minders
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmhw1cBtnEQ&playnext=1&list=PLA4A81B295A196614&feature=results_video
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@SlyDante777 Well You, Canadian.Scott, Lithroe, Kegs, and all the other Canadians need to rent a bus over here and we can all party and see whatever movie you want. When you get to the border just tell them you are there for the Bridge Building thing of Snyder's and they will let you right in.
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@Someguy @SlyDante777 This actually reminds me of a story by Italo Calvino I read years ago. I wish I could remember it better, but it had something to do with people travelling to another world/realm/whatever in a similar way, floating up in the sky. It was fantasy more than sci-fi.
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@Someguy @SlyDante777 "The distance of the Moon" in Cosmicomics. It was the moon they travelled to.
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Somehow, I'm reminded of Romeo and Juliet...only in SPACE!
Also, yeah. Science? What's that?
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It reminds me immediately of Avatar where it makes me think that it is going to br shallowly preachy and the viewer is going to be subjected to MESSAGE and special effects spectacle and MESSAGE and a really generic story and MESSAGE and really lame dialog and MESSAGE. I'm guessing this has all the subtle story telling of repeated hammer blows to the face.
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@Gallen_Dugall "But movie, you make a point of making it a non-fantasy setting, but the problems with science and simple logic mean the story you're trying to tell doesn't really add up—"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdlAufJkLZ4
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@Ranchoth @Gallen_Dugall The problem with combining spectacle/message movies is that all the eye candy doesn't leave room for much beyond pandering. When you don't have time to present argument/counterargument it's a lot easier to simply deny the existence of the counter argument. This leaves you with a shallow "RAH RAH RAH GO TEAM GO" narrative where logic is abandoned in favor of doubling down with the pandering - of which Avatar holds the title as the worst offender and clearly this is hoping to copy its success in order to rake in the money in the most hypocritical way possible.
The most convincing arguments concede aspects of opposing points of view, because that shows that they are reasonable arguments. Of course I'm being very old fashioned in that sentiment. Now-a-days what passes for a point of view is all about shouting down or more preferably shutting out opposing points of view completely. Look we blew up the Buddha statues - that proves our religion is the real one. Look I killed all these people who were different than me - that proves I'm superior. Look I invited the opposition to a meeting where I lectured them for two hours about why my point of view is the only one that matters - that proves I'm right.
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@LYT @Gallen_Dugall @Ranchoth Logan's Run was about societal values and what it would cost to value the pursuit of pleasure over everything else. I think it does a fairly good job there. Mad Max (the first one) I never got the impression was specifically post nuke apoc - it was post resource depletion apoc after which some nukes got tossed around while the last resources were fought over, but primarily it was about the continuity of life through repeated tragedy and how people respond to that. Planet of the Apes as originally written by Rod Serling was about societies tendency to phrase everything in the terms of an us verses them mentality and the way this is exploited by the various classes/factions (political/religious, military, science) - the revelation at the end that these same forces led to mankind's extinction in the setting was classic Rod Serling twist.
The difference between these with their classic setup of "this is my presumption and this is what I take away from it" and the modern Avataresque "this is an escapist fantasy based on what our marketing department discovered that you believe and that we will add nothing to" is night and day
You can debate the presumption of those other films, they are well thought out and give you a lot to debate, is quality of life more important than duration? Is survival at all costs ultimately self defeating, do our societies tend towards self destruction?
In Avatar there is only shallow pandering and two dimensional characters whose motivations are never explained or explored specifically to avoid any depth. Oh, you can infer that unobtanium was an important war resource, but even with that stretch then why is that war being fought? The "bad guys" were the "bad guys" because the "good guys" needed them to be bad in order for them to appear good by contrast much in the same way modern political campaigns avoid discussion of their candidates' positions and merits in favor of trashing the opposition so they appear to be good candidates by contrast. It gets so bad in Avatar that the "good guys" are thrown into jail for no reason just to give the "good guys" an excuse to "escape" while stealing lots of the "bad guys" stuff.
@Gallen_Dugall @Ranchoth Would you say there are a lot of sci-fi films that do the counter-argument thing well, though? Like, does Logan's Run give a good argument why young people should be killed? Or Mad Max/Planet of the Apes present any argument for a strong nuclear deterrent?
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I'm good with it on the condition that they don't try to give some bullshit pseudo-science reason to explain how it "works". If they can just accept that it breaks all kinds of rules of nature and, probably, logic, as well, and allow the audience to just accept that, too, it could be good. People are stupid enough to think that Looper made sense and tried to figure out the "paradoxes" when it actually makes absolutely no sense at all. They would just do the same with this, no doubt, and I don't think I'd be able to stop myself from murdering someone if they tried to argue with me after I said gravity doesn't work like that.
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@Someguy I rebooted after the Non-Rotation Paradox crash failed to resolve itself. Now looking for a patch to hold me over...
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Does it count as a certain amount of self-restraint if I can only could two instances of the BRAHHHHHM sound effect in this trailer?
