Sunshine is about the end of the world. Sort of. It’s really about the eight person crew on a mission to re-ignite the sun, which is burning out. The story is set either fifty years, or two hundred and fifty years or some unknown length of time, in the future. This is the second mission sent to deliver the payload that will jump start the sun. This first failed to complete the mission for unknown reasons.
The model for just about every hard SF story ever written is called Cold Equations. This is a sci fi classic that tugs at the heart strings and works out the old logic muscles. Our hero sets out on a deep space flight, his ship is calibrated to carry an exact amount of weight, or else. So when he finds a stowaway, it is major bad news. He has to think of something to do. He decides to jettison the stowaway. He has to, the numbers tell him he has to. It’s a fun story and well written. But would anyone really build a ship that had to fly with an exact weight?
Sunshine is a great looking movie and I am all for supporting anyone who makes Hard SF films. The images of the sun are amazing and the ship is pretty nifty as it moves in and out of shadow and visibility. We have the standard crew of eight that soon enough becomes a crew of seven, and then six, and then. . .you get the idea. At one point in the story our heroes loose their air supply and decide that they can still make the mission work, if only they kill three more crew members. The only problem with this is that they are often walking around in rooms the size of football stadiums, maybe you could seal off a few bulkheads instead of killing off a few people?
Nah.
One thing leads to another, people die, the other ship is found and lost again, a villain shows up. It has a very familiar feel to it. It’s like Sphere, Event Horizon, and Supernova, a film that tries to be Hard SF but can’t quite keep a straight face. The idea that they are flying right into the sun and think they can head back home again afterwards is kind of silly after all. But I liked it. It was fun. The soundtrack was a bit annoying, but they can’t all be John Williams classics, can they?
Go and see it. Maybe if it makes enough money, the next movie will be really great, not just good.
