Gravity is the sci-fi blockbuster du jour. Director Alfonso Cuaron's space thriller is smashing October box office records, and it's getting almost flawless reviews, too, with many critics praising its attention to scientific accuracy and detail. But just how realistic is it?
Hayden Planetarium astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson — one of the internet's favourite nerds — took in a screening of Gravity recently, and had a few notes for Cuaron.
The film #Gravity should be renamed "Zero Gravity"
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013
The film #Gravity should be renamed "Angular Momentum"
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013
Mysteries of #Gravity: Why Bullock, a medical Doctor, is servicing the Hubble Space Telescope.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013
Mysteries of #Gravity: How Hubble (350mi up) ISS (230mi up) & a Chinese Space Station are all in sight lines of one another.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013
Mysteries of #Gravity: When Clooney releases Bullock's tether, he drifts away. In zero-G a single tug brings them together.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013
Mysteries of #Gravity: Why anyone is impressed with a zero-G film 45 years after being impressed with "2001:A Space Odyssey"
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013
Mysteries of #Gravity: Why Bullock's hair, in otherwise convincing zero-G scenes, did not float freely on her head.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013
Mysteries of #Gravity: Nearly all satellites orbit Earth west to east yet all satellite debris portrayed orbited east to west
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013
Mysteries of #Gravity: Satellite communications were disrupted at 230 mi up, but communications satellites orbit 100x higher.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013
Mysteries of #Gravity: Why we enjoy a SciFi film set in make-believe space more than we enjoy actual people set in real space
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013
Mysteries of #Gravity: Astronaut Clooney informs medical doctor Bullock what happens medically during oxygen deprivation.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 7, 2013
Don't just take deGrasse Tyson's words for it (although, yeah, it'd probably be pretty safe to do that). Former astronaut Tom Jones told Entertainment Weekly that the decision to place the Hubble, the ISS and the Chinese station in the same orbit is "one of the biggest shortcuts the movie takes with physics", while former astronaut Leroy Chiao added that the chain reaction of debris depicted in the film is "not credible".
In one key scene, Sandra Bullock removes her space suit to reveal a bra and shorts underneath. In reality, astronaut Catherine Coleman told the Los Angeles Times, Bullock would have been wearing less flattering undergarments — one-piece long johns, cooling tubing and a diaper. Whereas Bullock removes her suit quickly, Chiao told Entertainment Weekly that the process of removing the suit would take "close to an hour or so unassisted".
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Of course, if we accept that Gravity isn't completely accurate, the obvious question is: Does that even matter?
Cuaron has created a work of fiction, not a documentary, and it would be plainly absurd to expect otherwise. He's been quite honest about the liberties he took to tell his story, particularly the much-discussed decision to place the telescope and the two space stations in the same orbit. What's important is verisimilitude — does the movie feel real when you're watching it? In that regard, it's hard to think of another sci-fi filmmaker who's ever done a better job.
Astronaut Mike Massimino told the Los Angeles Times that the film "shows what it's like to be in space as far as the views, the space suits, the look and feel of the payload bay", while astronaut Tom Jones notes that "in the last 20 years, it's the best space film by far in terms of accuracy".
Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon and a guy who knows a thing or two about space travel, reviewed the film for The Hollywood Reporter and said he was "so extravagantly impressed by the portrayal of the reality of zero gravity."
"Going through the space station was done just the way that I've seen people do it in reality," Aldrin wrote.
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Even deGrasse Tyson, after seeing his criticisms of the film go viral, felt the need to correct the record in a lengthy Facebook post:
What few people recognize is that science experts don't line up to critique Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs or Man of Steel or Transformers or The Avengers. These films offer no premise of portraying a physical reality. Imagine the absurdity of me critiquing the Lion King: "Lions can't talk. And if they could, they wouldn't be speaking English. And Simba would have simply eaten Pumba early in the film."
The converse is also true. If a film happens to portray an awesome bit of science when there's otherwise no premise of scientific accuracy, then I'm first in line to notice. In Chicken Little, for example, the hexagonal sky tiles, each mirroring what lies beneath them, was brilliant. So too are the factory-made doors in Monsters, Inc. As portrayed, they're, functional wormholes through the fabric of space-time. In A Bugs Life the surface tension of water, which makes it ball up in small volumes was accurately captured at the Bug Bar, and for the little fella's makeshift telescope.
To "earn" the right to be criticized on a scientific level is a high compliment indeed. So when I saw a headline proclaim, based on my dozen or so tweets, "Astrophysicist says the film Gravity is Riddled with Errors", I came to regret not first tweeting the hundred things the movie got right:
1) the 90 minute orbital time for objects at that altitude;
2) the re-entry trails of disintegrated satellites, hauntingly reminiscent of the Columbia Shuttle tragedy;
3) Clooney's calm-under-stress character (I know dozens of astronauts like that);
4) the stunning images from orbit transitioning from day to twilight to nighttime;
5) the Aurorae (northern lights) visible in the distance over the polar regions;
6) the thinness of Earth's atmosphere relative to Earth's size;
7) the persistent conservation of angular and linear momentum;
8) the starry sky, though a bit trumped up, captured the range and balance of an actual night sky;
9) the speed of oncoming debris, if in fact it were to collide at orbital velocity;
10) the transition from silence to sound between an unpressurized and a pressurized airlock; ...
and 100) the brilliantly portrayed tears of Bullock, leaving her eyes, drifting afloat in the capsule.
So I will continue to offer observations of science in film -- not as an expression of distaste or disgust but as a celebration of artists attempting to embrace all the forces of nature that surround us.
So if you spot a scientific inaccuracy in Gravity, don't be that guy. If it's realistic enough for Buzz freakin' Aldrin, it's probably realistic enough for you, yeah?
After all, it could have been a lot worse...
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