3022 |
USA • 2019 • 91m •
  • Directed by: John Suits. • Starring: Miranda Cosgrove, Kate Walsh, Omar Epps, Jorja Fox, Angus Macfadyen, Enver Gjokaj, Haaz Sleiman, Audrey Looye, Faith Alexis Oliver. • Music by: Jimmy LaValle.   A group of astronauts living in the haunting emptiness of deep space awake to find earth has suffered an extinction level event.
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Review:
Director John Suits said, "I was attracted to this story because of the huge stakes and scale and because it's ultimately a very intimate human story. Ryan Binaco, the writer, is incredibly gifted and was able to write a script that felt emotionally honest." Well, Binaco may (or may not) be able to write an emotionally honest film, but when it comes to spaceflight realism, Suits and Binaco are hopelessly clueless.
The year is 2190. Earth's first space colony is on Jupiter's moon Europa. So they just skipped the Moon and Mars and went straight for Europa? The space station Pangea refuels ships bound for Europa. What kind of fuel? Nuclear? Storage batteries? Where do they keep it? Because the station's far too small to store fuel. If it's liquid fuel, where does it come from? Earth? So space missions have to come out to Pangea to deliver fuel and then turn around and go home? There are far easier ways to get a manned space mission out to Europa than stopping for gas. And if you still wanted to refuel spaceships, then you'd put Pangea station on an asteroid and mine the asteroid for the raw materials with which to manufacture fuel.
Both Earth and Jupiter orbit the Sun in elliptical paths; the distance between them changes constantly: From closest approach at 365 million miles to maximum separation 601 million miles. So where IS Pangea, anyway? Does it orbit the Sun? A Lagrange point? It seems to be out in the middle of absolutely nowhere. The station would be lined up with both Earth and Jupiter only for a couple of weeks a year. Or is it in a solar orbit that keeps it always the same distance from Jupiter? Earth is visible to the naked eye from Pangea. So it must be awfully close to Earth. Why do you need a refueling station that close to Earth for ships going out to Jupiter? To any station far enough out there to serve as a refueling stop, Earth would be invisible without a telescope.
Rotating crews from different countries maintain Pangea in 10-year shifts. Four American astronauts arrive to begin their term: Captain John Laine, engineer Jackie Miller, doctor Richard Valin, and Lisa Brown. Would you REALLY select crew members like Jackie, a loving mother who is LEAVING BEHIND her 10-year-old daughter on Earth, or Richard, a loving husband who is LEAVING BEHIND his wife? Where are these crew members' priorities? Ten days, maybe, ten weeks, even ten months; but ten YEARS?
Pangea consists of two Stations, each of which is a rotating ring to create artificial gravity. But the rings rotate far too slowly to provide Earth's 1-G gravity. You'd expect that it would be about the same as the Moon, i.e., about 16-G. But it doesn't really matter, because a space shuttle docked to Pangea also has gravity although it shouldn't, and then later on, after the two Stations have been separated (to allow oxygen supplies aboard one Station to replenish adequately), Station Two is found, adrift in space and not rotating, but there is STILL GRAVITY aboard.
With each passing year, the crew, amicable at first, drifts apart. By the fifth year, isolation takes a toll. There are tired old shopworn physical correlates of the psychological toll: Laine having annoying and totally uncompelling facial twitches and Miller has some minor and equally uncompelling tremors of the right hand. Laine also experiences night terrors. Valin is forced to deem the crew mentally unfit to continue the mission. As the crew comes to terms with failing their mission, shock-waves from a massive explosion damage Pangea. It's Earth exploding from some ground-based experiment gone awry; exactly what will never be known. We see the explosion through the eyes of someone on the International Space Station. The explosion is far too fast; to explode completely like that would take many minutes or even hours. And the ISS is only damaged, which is also ridiculous. The shock-waves were felt out at Pangea; an explosion like that would have obliterated everything around the Earth, including, most likely, the Moon. Fragments of the Earth, from small to asteroid-size, would be blown out into the solar system and travel for years, either hitting other planets and moons or being knocked completely out of the solar system.
Eventually, Miller and Laine are the only two people left. When the Station is separated (using timed charges), Miller is accidentally stuck on Station Two. Station Two drifts away into space. Laine then alters the mission of Pangea from fuel station to a search for Station Two. How is he going to do that? Pangea isn't a spaceship, it's a space station. It can't maneuver in space under its own power. But no matter; the film has already committed so many goofs that what's one more? And what do you know, 3 years later, he DOES find it. And what do you know, Miller is aboard and STILL ALIVE. And although Laine has gone all gray, Miller still has a full head of completely red hair, with not one single strand of gray. At that point, the film doesn't so much end as just stops. John Suits also said, "I hope people engage with the film in a way where they ask themselves, 'If I were in this scenario, what would I do?'" Well, most of the time, the characters' motivations and behavior did NOT ring true to me.
Concerning the acting: Omar Epps and Kate Walsh have decent chemistry, but nothing special. Why they cast Jorja Fox as a Frenchwoman I'll never understand: I don't speak French, but even I can tell her accent is atrocious. Is France short of actresses?
In summary, this is a "relationship" movie poorly disguised as a sci-fi movie. If you prefer movies that are more about relationships and don't care that the entire premise of the film is ludicrous, maybe you'll like it.
The year is 2190. Earth's first space colony is on Jupiter's moon Europa. So they just skipped the Moon and Mars and went straight for Europa? The space station Pangea refuels ships bound for Europa. What kind of fuel? Nuclear? Storage batteries? Where do they keep it? Because the station's far too small to store fuel. If it's liquid fuel, where does it come from? Earth? So space missions have to come out to Pangea to deliver fuel and then turn around and go home? There are far easier ways to get a manned space mission out to Europa than stopping for gas. And if you still wanted to refuel spaceships, then you'd put Pangea station on an asteroid and mine the asteroid for the raw materials with which to manufacture fuel.
Both Earth and Jupiter orbit the Sun in elliptical paths; the distance between them changes constantly: From closest approach at 365 million miles to maximum separation 601 million miles. So where IS Pangea, anyway? Does it orbit the Sun? A Lagrange point? It seems to be out in the middle of absolutely nowhere. The station would be lined up with both Earth and Jupiter only for a couple of weeks a year. Or is it in a solar orbit that keeps it always the same distance from Jupiter? Earth is visible to the naked eye from Pangea. So it must be awfully close to Earth. Why do you need a refueling station that close to Earth for ships going out to Jupiter? To any station far enough out there to serve as a refueling stop, Earth would be invisible without a telescope.
Rotating crews from different countries maintain Pangea in 10-year shifts. Four American astronauts arrive to begin their term: Captain John Laine, engineer Jackie Miller, doctor Richard Valin, and Lisa Brown. Would you REALLY select crew members like Jackie, a loving mother who is LEAVING BEHIND her 10-year-old daughter on Earth, or Richard, a loving husband who is LEAVING BEHIND his wife? Where are these crew members' priorities? Ten days, maybe, ten weeks, even ten months; but ten YEARS?
Pangea consists of two Stations, each of which is a rotating ring to create artificial gravity. But the rings rotate far too slowly to provide Earth's 1-G gravity. You'd expect that it would be about the same as the Moon, i.e., about 16-G. But it doesn't really matter, because a space shuttle docked to Pangea also has gravity although it shouldn't, and then later on, after the two Stations have been separated (to allow oxygen supplies aboard one Station to replenish adequately), Station Two is found, adrift in space and not rotating, but there is STILL GRAVITY aboard.
With each passing year, the crew, amicable at first, drifts apart. By the fifth year, isolation takes a toll. There are tired old shopworn physical correlates of the psychological toll: Laine having annoying and totally uncompelling facial twitches and Miller has some minor and equally uncompelling tremors of the right hand. Laine also experiences night terrors. Valin is forced to deem the crew mentally unfit to continue the mission. As the crew comes to terms with failing their mission, shock-waves from a massive explosion damage Pangea. It's Earth exploding from some ground-based experiment gone awry; exactly what will never be known. We see the explosion through the eyes of someone on the International Space Station. The explosion is far too fast; to explode completely like that would take many minutes or even hours. And the ISS is only damaged, which is also ridiculous. The shock-waves were felt out at Pangea; an explosion like that would have obliterated everything around the Earth, including, most likely, the Moon. Fragments of the Earth, from small to asteroid-size, would be blown out into the solar system and travel for years, either hitting other planets and moons or being knocked completely out of the solar system.
Eventually, Miller and Laine are the only two people left. When the Station is separated (using timed charges), Miller is accidentally stuck on Station Two. Station Two drifts away into space. Laine then alters the mission of Pangea from fuel station to a search for Station Two. How is he going to do that? Pangea isn't a spaceship, it's a space station. It can't maneuver in space under its own power. But no matter; the film has already committed so many goofs that what's one more? And what do you know, 3 years later, he DOES find it. And what do you know, Miller is aboard and STILL ALIVE. And although Laine has gone all gray, Miller still has a full head of completely red hair, with not one single strand of gray. At that point, the film doesn't so much end as just stops. John Suits also said, "I hope people engage with the film in a way where they ask themselves, 'If I were in this scenario, what would I do?'" Well, most of the time, the characters' motivations and behavior did NOT ring true to me.
Concerning the acting: Omar Epps and Kate Walsh have decent chemistry, but nothing special. Why they cast Jorja Fox as a Frenchwoman I'll never understand: I don't speak French, but even I can tell her accent is atrocious. Is France short of actresses?
In summary, this is a "relationship" movie poorly disguised as a sci-fi movie. If you prefer movies that are more about relationships and don't care that the entire premise of the film is ludicrous, maybe you'll like it.
Review by ijdavidson from the Internet Movie Database.
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