solaris - io9

posts about #solaris more →
10 Of Our Favorite Space Cases
Dumbest Space Operas Of All Time!
What's Wrong With Science Fiction TV?
A Clone And His Own Corpse Go On A Crazy Road Trip
Say Hello to Your Shiny, Happy Future
Bad Movie Physics: A Report Card
Must See: Solaris

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GiltProto
09/20/09

In reply to 10 Of Our Favorite Space Cases
I can't decide if Dr. Zachary Smith on Lost in Space (TV series) was crazy before he sabotaged the Jupiter 2 or went crazy after spending a lot of time meeting aliens and being turned into a giant stalk of celery.
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Jrsy Devil's Bright Idea® promoted this comment GiltProto was starred GiltProto was unstarred

Jrsy Devil's Advocate®
09/20/09

@GiltProto: He went crazy after spending some time locked in that tin can with an annoying boy and a pain-in-the-ass robot, a robot who's mission programming changed I might ad since he was reduced to being nothing more than a bubble-headed babysitter. Yeah, the kid's parents thought he was annoying too which is why the robot and a middle aged man spent more time with him than his own family..
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Jrsy Devil's Advocate®
09/20/09

@Jrsy Devil's Bright Idea®: *add*
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Soupytwist
09/20/09

In reply to 10 Of Our Favorite Space Cases
Space Madness is no excuse for Space Rudeness.
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Swearengen
09/20/09

In reply to 10 Of Our Favorite Space Cases
Has there ever been an actual incident of someone going batshit crazy in space? I've never heard of any case. Is this because they screen out people susceptible for it, or because it doesn't exist?
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GreyHammer promoted this comment Swearengen was starred Swearengen was unstarred

GreyHammer
09/20/09

@Swearengen: i think they try to limit the amount of time an individual is in space. not only for psychological reasons but because of the bone loss that occurs when you are up there.
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Alizarin
09/19/09

In reply to 10 Of Our Favorite Space Cases
Three words: Crackers Don't Matter.
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Belabras ate my dingo! promoted this comment Alizarin was starred Alizarin was unstarred

Brisco_County_Jr
09/19/09

@Alizarin: Frelling right! WHERE IS IT?!
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Belabras ate my dingo! promoted this comment Brisco_County_Jr was starred Brisco_County_Jr was unstarred

Brisco_County_Jr
09/19/09

@Alizarin: Previous scene of insanity^
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Belabras ate my dingo! promoted this comment Brisco_County_Jr was starred Brisco_County_Jr was unstarred

Belabras ate my dingo!
09/21/09

@Alizarin:
YES!
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Cory Gross
09/19/09

In reply to 10 Of Our Favorite Space Cases
I guess I'm in the minority, but I actually kind of liked Event Horizon... not so much that it was in any sense good, but it is one of the only modern horror movies to actually scare the bejezzus out of me. Seeing what happened to the people via security cam and the metaphysical implications messed me right up for weeks. I still get shivers.
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zetetic23
09/20/09

@Cory Gross: Event Horizon is great, excellent music also. i will always remember being bored one night and going to the movies and not having ever heard of the film it blew me away.
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GreyHammer
09/20/09

@Cory Gross: yeah it was a great movie in my opinion. it did what it set out to do and very well. probably the only jarring 'horror' movie i have seen in a long time.
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jamesryan
09/19/09

In reply to 10 Of Our Favorite Space Cases
The best explanation for the ending of THE BLACK HOLE is simple: The folks at Disney engaged in a major homage/rip-off of FANTASIA!

Compare the sequence above with the "Night on Bald Mountain" and Ave Maria" sequences that ended the earlier film, and you can see how much thematic usage, imagery and even shot-for-shot sequencing came from 1940 into the 1979 film:
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Cory Gross promoted this comment jamesryan was starred jamesryan was unstarred

Cory Gross
09/19/09

@jamesryan: OMG! That's brilliant! I need to watch Black Hole again!
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Bill-Lee
09/19/09

@jamesryan: Can a studio really rip themselves off and/or pay homage to themselves?
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jamesryan
09/19/09

@Bill-Lee: I think there are plenty of studios and other content creators that sometimes 'go back to the well' more often than a writer at a SoHo event grabs a glass of chardonnay from a passing waiter. Sometimes it's for reasons other than creative bankruptcy...
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regis
09/19/09

In reply to 10 Of Our Favorite Space Cases
i think "event horizon" may be one of the worst major movies ever made. i mean, it's not quote "alice's restaurant" levels of bad, but... my god. it had such potential -- sexily awesome production design, a pretty good cast... but the only suspense trick the director/writer/producers seemed to know was "look over there! 3.. 2.. 1.. BOO!"

i mean, i could TIME IT. I COULD COUNT DOWN OUT LOUD TO THE "BOO" MOMENT.

naked now? awww yeah. data gets his human-robot-sexing groove on. denise crosby (who i kind of had a crush on before st:tng, since "desert hearts", where she has one of the best one-line bits in the film) being all scenery chewing? what's not to love, there.

speaking of 2001, i really love the bit in the trippy lights sequence where there's a shot of dave bowman looking like he has CLEARLY lost his shit. that, for me, really drives home the inconceivableness of the cosmos that kubrick tries to get across with that sequence.

ren and stimpy? DO NOT PUSH THE BRIGHT RED CANDY-LIKE BUTTON!
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vulcanized
09/19/09

In reply to 10 Of Our Favorite Space Cases
Oh, The Naked Now. So much suck. Wil Wheaton wrote a recap of it:

[www.tvsquad.com]
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RandomFrequentFlierDent
09/19/09

In reply to 10 Of Our Favorite Space Cases
Reavers definitely had some space crazy going on.
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Clarox
09/19/09

@RandomFrequentFlierDent: Except that the space part of it was a myth, and it turned out to be plain drug crazy.
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RandomFrequentFlierDent promoted this comment Clarox was starred Clarox was unstarred

RandomFrequentFlierDent
09/20/09

@Clarox: The Star Trek episodes of space crazy were all caused by a virus/drug/spatial anomalies of some kind. I think being crazy in space is all that is require for criteria. So, reavers eating people alive, raping and making skin-shirts in space - pretty darn space crazy.
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Belabras ate my dingo!
09/19/09

In reply to 10 Of Our Favorite Space Cases
Nothing can top Ren's Space Madness. Nothing.
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Hamslicer
09/19/09

@Belabras ate my dingo!: You're talkin' crazy!
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Willow01
09/19/09

@Belabras ate my dingo!: I've had this ice cream bar since I was a chiiiiiild.
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Infernorhythm
09/19/09

In reply to 10 Of Our Favorite Space Cases
Sunshine unoriginal? No! It's one of the best films ever made. I agree, it is a brilliant psychological film, but it's far better than this article gave it credit for.
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Aidan_ promoted this comment Infernorhythm was starred Infernorhythm was unstarred

Aidan_
09/19/09

@Infernorhythm: Sunshine gets mondo points if only for having one of the best death scenes ever, at the very end of the movie. Fucking incredible.
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bakana
09/19/09

@Aidan_: What a colossal disappointment Sunshine was. It started off like Solaris, and somehow halfway through turned into Nightmare on Elmstreet.

It's a bad, bad, dumb movie.
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OW-Holmes--Upset with Polling promoted this comment bakana was starred bakana was unstarred

OW-Holmes:Bringer of Fear
09/19/09

@bakana: You're right that it kind of veered off into cliche about half way through, but it was still a good movie compared to a lot of dreck out there.
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Aidan_
09/19/09

@Aidan_: C'mon folks, Cillian Murphy's death scene. I don't want to spoil it too much more for folks who haven't seen the flick, but it was amazing both visually and conceptually. C'mon!
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omgwtflolbbqbye
09/20/09

@Aidan_: That death scene was easily topped by

*spoiler*

Kaneda's death scene. It obviously wasn't as spectacular as dying via the birth of a new sun/ nuclear explosion, but the way they gradually and beautifully build up the tension between the crew, the suspense of 'oh shit this mission has just turned into a clusterfuck', and beautiful scoring and editing made it the most memorable moment of that film for me.

FTR Sunshine was 75% awesome sci-fi drama followed by 25% 'oh come on! Really? This sucks!"
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Anekanta - Space Hippy!
09/19/09

In reply to 10 Of Our Favorite Space Cases
OH No. It's MY chocolate ice-cream bar! Ever since I was a little child, people have been trying to take it away from me! Why can't they just leave us ALONE?!
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OW-Holmes:Bringer of Fear
09/19/09

@Anekanta: At an old apartment complex there was a giant red button with a big sign that said "Do not Push".

I never found out what it did.
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Chip Overclock
09/19/09

@OW-Holmes--Upset with Polling: Mrs. Overclock (etc.) and I still joke about "the shiny RED button!" usually (but not always) in the context of one of our cats about to get killed by their curiosity.

(Only mildly related: years ago I worked in an office building where the overhead lights turned off automatically at 6PM. There were buttons at the end of each hallway that would turn your section back on again. Some wag labelled one of the buttons "Release the Hounds". I still laugh when I think of that.)
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Edited by Chip Overclock at 09/19/09 1:31 PM Chip Overclock was starred Chip Overclock was unstarred

radarskiy
09/19/09

@OW-Holmes--Upset with Polling: Maybe something good; maybe something bad.
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Chip Overclock promoted this comment radarskiy was starred radarskiy was unstarred

Chip Overclock
09/19/09

@radarskiy: That's thee problem! Nooobody knoowsss!
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CoffinDodger (If the typos crap. Blame my keyboard)
09/19/09

In reply to 10 Of Our Favorite Space Cases
Didnt Red Planet have a bit of space madness!?? Im sure someone gets thrown off a cliff or something like that. Not the best film by any standards but it did have a large robotic killer dog! That trumps most madness for any space travel in my books! Why bring something sentient into unknown space with buzzsaws for hands!!! Really!!
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Anekanta - Space Hippy!
09/19/09

In reply to 10 Of Our Favorite Space Cases
Event Horizon was just Hellraiser in space, with a couple of bad references to Solaris (the dead wife, etc.). Terrible, terrible movie. You can keep it.
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ManchuCandidate
09/19/09

In reply to 10 Of Our Favorite Space Cases
Can you include most first season Space 1999 episodes where someone went off their nut, blew up a whole bunch of eagles, killed a bunch of Alphans and then died a horrible death?

Isn't that right, Mr Fibbles?
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Edited by ManchuCandidate at 09/19/09 12:26 PM ManchuCandidate was starred ManchuCandidate was unstarred

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