Noisy Little Sunbeams

I just watched Sunshine and wow, outer space sure is loud. Especially the sunlight.

But that was just the third or fourth biggest complaint I have about the movie. The biggest thing is that it was mainly a less-scary version of Event Horizon. Is it a sci-fi movie or a horror movie?

Well, it was derivative whichever it was. Should we have an homage to Silent Running or to Nightmare on Elm Street? (Or was it Solaris vs The Ring?)

Not much happened for about the first 20 minutes, and when klaxons do sound, we see people running, spliced in with. . . different people running. And then they fix the problem by suiting up and going for a space walk. Real astronauts going on a space walk was historic. Actors doing a space walk "in a Hollywood basement" is boring. Do we really want to try boring the audience for over half an hour?

Furthermore, the silly premise of the sun having aged countless millennia while technology remained relatively stagnant from the early 21st century. (It looked like Cilian Murphy was cruising around the ship on an unpowered scooter.) If we want audiences to face the prospect of a dying sun (help me out here, but something like the 3,000th century, right?) with mid-21st century technology, how do we explain the dearth of scientific achievement between now and then?

And of course, the nonsensical sound effects: is there sound in outer space? Even if there is, why is sunlight loud out there, and silent here on earth?

--Spoiler Alert--


During a crisis, the crew faces the threat of an oxygen shortage, and the oxygen farm babe suggests killing three of the remaining seven crew members. She gets two others, the mission-focused meanie and --guess who-- the bleeding-heart liberal babe who cried when the captain died! Had they even met? Why wouldn't she mention this plan to mission-minded Cilian Murphy, or the 1st officer later revealed to be self-serving and afraid to die (who was in charge at the time and could've ordered them to carry out her plan), or even the vaguely Middle Eastern-looking psychiatrist?


--Spoiler Over--

And the female lead reminds me of Katie Holmes Cruise (probably because she shares so much screen time with Cilian Murphy). Is that girl cute, or does she just grow on you after months in relative isolation?

Just kidding about that last one. But the first few questions were ones the producers and directors should have asked themselves before or during the making of Sunshine. It would have been fun to MiSTify, but I'm beginning to think that about every movie. 2 of 5 dying suns. (Okay, sorry about that awful pun.)

Backlog Bob

--Update--
Comments on this post also contain spoilers. I mean real spoilers, not this baby-bottle stuff.

--Spoiler Alert--

P.S. Would a man's face really freeze and not explode in outer space? I remember being told that it would explode from the imbalance of pressure before it would freeze solid. Haven't the Russians done experiments to find this out?

4-letter tickers are the new 4-letter words

What's in a name? Well, a name is often the first thing a person hears about you. So, for publicly traded companies, what's in a ticker symbol? A lot, apparently. Here's the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)'s take on Nasdaq's petition to the SEC to be allowed to use 1, 2, and 3-letter ticker symbols on its exchange: (If you're wondering why this matters, it doesn't.)

"We will continue to assign one-, two- and three-letter symbols to NYSE listed companies," the NYSE said, "both to reinforce our brand distinction and to reassure the investing public of the superior quality and value of a NYSE listing."

I feel reassured. I think that while Sony is overvalued and losing piles of money by selling the PS3 at a fraction of its cost and selling huge quantities of tvs that it barely makes any profit on, its 3-letter ticker symbol (SNE) makes it a good investment. And I can't wait to get my hands on some Sprint Nextel stock. Their debt-leveraged return on equity of 1.18% (source: Yahoo! Finance) looks scary at first, as does their reputation for being the worst phone company in the world, but their stock symbol is only one letter! A lone, noble S. Like Superman. I'm the bull, so brand me with Sprint's S.

Backlog Bob