Hacker Cinema
Sunshine
2007 · Film · 108 min
Directed by Danny Boyle
Fifty years into the future, the sun is dying, and Earth is threatened by arctic temperatures. A team of astronauts is sent to revive the Sun — but the mission fails. Seven years later, a new team is sent to finish the mission as mankind’s last hope.
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40 comments on Hacker News
Great first half of a movie, by the way. Up there with Sunshine for "Sit down for a great hour-long ambiance".
I usually end Legend after the mannequin trap, and end Sunshine after the transit of mercury.
I started to watch the film last night but only got a bit into it. Feels basically like a "Sunshine" ripoff to me but I'll watch the rest tonight.
Sharing some in my all-time top ratings which are not in the list (would be cool if other folks shared some of theirs as well):
- Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022): Newer than the cutoff date of the list.
- Your Name (2016): I'm not usually a fan of Anime but this newer film hit different.
- Sunshine (2007): This one I know I consider far better than most do, but it's one of my favorite variants on this kind of story for some reason. Also Cillian Murphy is my favorite actor in the modern era.
All 3 of these happen to be from after the original 2003 book from Steven Jay Schneider as well (though they aren't in the newer list either). I find he did a really good job of covering the classics, but I'm sure if I dug through my top 100 I'd hit something older I liked a lot that didn't make the cut. I'm just too lazy to :D
> a movie or TV show
Any movie or TV show recommendations from the past 10 years that is actually enjoyable?
I am pretty much done with movies. I don't even remember the last one I really enjoyed. Sunshine, Interstellar, Hateful Eight, Once Upon a time in Hollywood... Nothing notable in the past 5 years though.
TV shows? Most require a subscription, which I am not willing to do for just a show or two.
Sunshine is one really fine piece of film. Beautiful.
The music is "Adagio in D Minor", and probably cliche more because it's been used so much rather than because it was cliche when written. It was originally composed by John Murphy for the 2007 film Sunshine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine:_Music_from_the_Motion_Picture#%22Adagio_in_D_Minor%22
I watch a lot of sci-fi films and read a lot of sci-fi books - because I enjoy it when it's any good, so I don't need suspension of disbelief explained to me at all, thanks.
I personally found this specific film not deserving of being called a "great example" of anything. It's at best a plodding, uneven, middling example of something, IDK what. Yes, I know that your milage may vary, but this film's status baffles me and others https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39917027
If anything, calling parts of it "good" and other parts "original" is generous. Most of it is neither. Perhaps if you just haven't seen or read that much, then some of it appears novel and good?
It is not trying to be the same genre at all as Marvel or Star Wars fantasy films - some of which succeed on their own terms. Unlike "Sunshine". So that straw man distraction question is irrelevant.
Sunshine is one of my favourite sci-fi movies for all the wrong reasons. The premise and setting is total bullshit handwavium.
But I absolutely loved the story, tension and slow boil. The cast as you say was brilliant.
It's a B-Grade disaster movie /really/ well executed.
Danny Boyle and Alex Garland's 2007 film Sunshine is another great example of this genre. Rather than abandoning a frozen earth due to the dying sun, they send a mission to deliver a bomb into it to "restart" it.
A real all-star cast featuring not only a young Cillian Murphy, but a young Michelle Yeoh, Chris Evans, Hiroyuki Sanada, Benedict Wong, Cliff Curtis, and Rose Byrne!
Highly recommended, despite never satisfactorily explaining why they require a manned spacecraft to do the job rather than sending a robotic drone ship. Seems to me that adding humans to the mix greatly increased the complexity and risk of the mission.
That'd make for a good story setup: aliens park a shadeship (c) at L1 and wait. They block out most but not all of the sun. After some time (months? years?), conditions on Earth become unbearable, so earthlings have to mount an attack.
Kind of like the movie Sunshine, but with more believable physics.
Edit: as a bonus, it could take place in ~50-100 years, when global warming has gotten worse. The aliens could disguise their motives for a while, claiming to be there to help counteract global warming. Warnings from a lone scientist would be ignored. Then, as things start getting too cold, their true purpose would become clear to all.
Edit: Movies, unsorted, from the top of my mind:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_of_Control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_East_(2013_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter%27s_Bone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagion_(2011_film) , seen before Covid, deemed to be realistic, and therefore better than stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warning_Sign_(film) somewhere in between. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_IV_(1974_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizards_(film) The remakes of the Planet of the Apes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28_Days_Later , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28_Weeks_Later a little less so, though it had some great scenes of flying into London City Airport and the modern parts around that. Bladerunner in the original versions, the remake not so much. 2001: A Space Odyssey, the intro and first parts, spaceflight to the moon and such, the rest not. Too boring. I liked the sequel 2010: Odyssey Two better, actually. Avatar. Part one only. All of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(franchise) with the exception of the crossover stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film) for the almost cyberpunkish fuckedupness of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula_Untold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beach_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_(2005_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THX_1138 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropia_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerball_(1975_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_Dealer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southland_Tales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendence_(2014_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puppet_Masters_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Survivalist_(2015_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova_(2000_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_(2007_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_(1987_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Zero_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capricorn_One https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangar_18_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_(2001_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timecop Ron Silverman Badass! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(2014_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Blonde https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_the_Night_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(1997_American_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombiana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowing_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Zone_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_(1998_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adjustment_Bureau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeforce_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Protocol_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_(2013_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_(2009_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Countdown_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paycheck_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypher_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigger_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_Conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anderson_Tapes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parallax_View https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Seduction
TV-Series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors_(1975_TV_series) and the remake linked from there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Train_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jericho_(2006_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strain_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayward_Pines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silo_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_All_Mankind_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_(American_TV_series) and its prequel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_(TV_series)
WESTWORLD!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100_(TV_series) Praimfaya! Yeehaa! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterpart_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ark_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_Carbon_(TV_series) All of Black Mirror! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Experiments_Lain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelers_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_Skies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devs_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peripheral_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporated_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raised_by_Wolves_(American_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_the_Loop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschland_83 and sequels. ÄXZÄLLÄNNT! JAWOLLJA! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humans_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Night_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Worlds_(2019_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Nova_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gods_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozark_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_(miniseries) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_One https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_(American_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvation_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Dome_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_(2009_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caprica
This all began about 2006 with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica_(2004_TV_series) after having abstained from possessing a TV, or watching that by other means (with some exceptions for news and documentaries) since 1996, and mostly no cinema either.
That stuff rehooked me in a binge-watching session. Shit happens :-)
Do yoo vanna häff fries wiff thät?
/nerdsnipe off
Really nice.
I'd love to eventually have voice models that sounds like AI's from movies or games such as Sunshine, Dead space, Halo etc.
Ghost in the Shell, Sunshine, Children of Men, 12 Monkeys, Edge of Tomorrow, Moon
The Expanse show/books are great
I’m waiting til 13 for Akira
Mine is 11 and matrix, terminator, back to the future, arrival were all too slow. He liked the Jurassic Park books but the movie was “too hokey.”
Sunshine. Awesome movie
Sunshine? I watched a review of it[0] recently and it took me back to when I watched it at the cinema.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3QdcvfXMHk
Or for another fun “the core has stopped!” disaster film: Sunshine.
A warning however, it takes a sharp left turn towards horror at one point.
Such a good soundtrack. If you aren’t already aware, Rick Smith and Danny Boyle have done some great things elsewhere too. Trance’s soundtrack is excellent, the London 2012 opening ceremony music was wonderfully composed and curated, and it all got me into Underworld who have been around for decades with some great hits.
Lucky the Sunshine soundtrack got released. It got tied up in copyright disputes I think and only came out 2(?) years after the film.
Sunshine is worth watching for the soundtrack alone
Sunshine[1] should be on this list as well!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448134/
>a sci-fi movie (can't remember)
Sunshine, perhaps? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_(2007_film)
Brilliant, brilliant film. The premise is shonky as they come but it's obvious that the film itself has little to do with the premise. Awesome acting, literally-awesome SFX (their ability to give the sun so much weight is amazing, you really get a sense of an immortal unstoppable force), and a message that's neither shallow nor deep but prompts some self-reflection in ways you don't expect.
Then why is their search such utter crap?
When I search on a specific title, I get anything that roughly matches any keywords in combination, then also any title that remotely associates (even conceptually):in any possible way with any individual keyword.
But what it won't tell me is "we don't have the title you want".
Specific example from earlier: look for the 2007 film "Sunshine". Then, go plug "sunshine film" into duckduckgo and see what comes up as the very first item.
That weird sequence is Garland's signature. He does a similar event in one of my favorite scifi movies, Sunshine.
It's fun to think about what a combat spaceship would actually look/function like.
For armor, all you'd need is a large shield in front (similar to the movie Sunshine). You can turn to face inbound enemies quickly enough so that you'd only need to defend one angle. Enemies will try to maneuver missiles around it, which could be shot down with lasers behind the shield, making that an ineffective tactic. Then you'd have your own missile banks with which to attack the enemy's shield.
I know it's pointless to discuss about personal taste, and movies are a great example and reminder of that. But to me Sunshine characters looked like a bunch of Big Brother contestants, spending their time in petty arguments, making trivial mistakes, and dealing with mostly imaginary physics, until Freddy Krueger shows up. And how do you solve an existential threat like the sun shutting down? But with a huge bomb, of course. As usual.
Here are my recommendations:
* Sunshine: I'll second this one, about a crew on a mission in space, turns into a different kind of film in the second half, which many people didn't like; has breathtaking visuals and a strong soundtrack.
* Her: A guy falls in love with an AI; has a wonderful atmosphere
* Gattaca: Set in a future of genetic engineering and how the protagonist fights against class discrimination
* Ex Machina, this was pretty hyped I'd say, but takes the opposite approach of Her and shows us the dangers of AI
* The Day the Earth Stood Still: a representative of aliens arrives on earth to tell humans to knock off their douchebaggery; still highly relevant today
* Metropolis: a silent film with a powerful score, set in a future with a large class disparity where the workers rebel
Honorable mentions that I'm not sure are really sci-fi: Brazil, The Prestige, Watchmen
Danny Boyle's "Sunshine" is excellent. It strays away from scifi in to horror a bit occasionally, but the premise is great and the science is accurate. Dr Brian Cox was scientific advisor to the film.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Sunshine
Blade Runner, gattaca, the matrix, alien etc.etc. basically just google "best sci fi movies of all time"
However after District 9, Neil Blomkamp is on a downward trend. His recent movies are much less engaging, and Chappie was really, really bad: it tried to copy the frame of District 9 but every story aspect was much worse and smelled fake kilometers away. Really disappointing after the excellent experience District 9 was.
I found Sunshine quite poor, too. First the whole story makes no sense (even the largest spaceship you could build would anyway be way too small to do anything meaningful, it's so obvious it's preposterous), and the last scene is a deal breaker: after they succeed, you see a woman and a child playing on the snow. Oh, I thought people were starving on Earth, but no they are actually enjoying the snow and winter sports? So what was the big emergency all about? That was stupid.
There are exceptions. I recently watched District 9 and was very pleasantly surprised. The CGI effects were beyond reproach, but the movie did not use them as a substitute for plot or character.
Sunshine was very good, too - the script had logical holes in it that could swallow an entire galaxy, but the actors were so good, and the atmosphere so dense it was still a really, really good SciFi movie. Again, the special effects were good, but used sparingly.
So not all hope is lost.
Sunshine was a criminally under appreciated movie.
Even though I liked the article it didn't mean I didn't like the movie. I think Interstellar is a better movie than most films because at least they tried to incorporate some true science into it (as opposed to 100% wrong movies like armageddon, sunshine, etc). So Nolan, Kipp, et al definitely do get the credit for that!
The author makes the case that the 2007 film Sunshine is a better alternative to the recent release Interstellar. Personally, I couldn't get past the implausible premise of humans attempting to reignite the sun with a giant bomb that's also a ship.
It's worth contrasting against contemporary SF films that don't stylistically tie themselves to the past - look at Sunshine with its touchscreens, or Children of Men with the hyperflat TVs, or minority report with the gesture-driven holograms.
Reminds me of the movie Sunshine, with their striking gold space suits. I thought it was just for theatrical effect until I read it was actually based on this theory.
The gold-leaf shielding in Sunshine was influenced by NASA satellite designs for deflecting heat and other forms of radiant energy. Boyle designed the gold-coloured space suits along these lines despite persistent encouragement to model them after the NASA template.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_(2007_film)
music is - Thomas Sunshine (Adagio in D Minor) by John Murphy
theme from scifi movie sunshine
Also the movie Sunshine.
Looking at this list renews my appreciation for the Netflix recommendation engine.
Also, I think I'm going to re-watch #1772 - Sunshine [1].
1: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448134/
Regarding the perceived gravity on a cube planet, the movie Sunshine tries to portray accurate physics for a similar situation. It has great sci-fi visuals, though the end gets a bit... silly.
Truly breathtaking images of our central star.
I met one of the project scientists 13 years ago, and it's great to see the culmination of his and the teams work.
As an aside, a great movie about the Sun is 'Sunshine' (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448134/), by Danny Boyle of Slumdog Millionaire fame, no less. Worth a view, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BZa93i6kl4.
Now back to stargazing.
After watching the movie Sunshine, I got the name for my company IcarusONE