movies Archives

May 10, 2013December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Hang On! Trailer for “Gravity” Previews Spacewalk Disaster Film

'Gravity' teaser poster. Via Warner Brothers.

Yikes! The trailer for an upcoming film “Gravity” is absolutely terrifying. This movie won’t hit theaters until October 4, 2013, so we can expect to see more trailers after this first ‘teaser.” We do know it is directed by Alfonso Cuarón and stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. But with an emergency spacewalk likely taking place tomorrow at the International Space Station, the timing of the release of this trailer is just a bit eerie.

Bullock plays a medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (Clooney) in command of his last flight before retiring. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, the space station is damaged, leaving the two astronauts completely alone and tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness.

Watch the teaser below:

The word on the street is that NASA was not consulted at all for this film, so we can only hope for a hint of reality (i.e., let hope it’s not another “Armageddon.”) But from the trailer, it seems to follow the recipe for any space disaster film: go into space, have the mission go awry, bring in the heroes to save the day. Guesses on thumbs up or down?

January 3, 2013April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Helmets in Space Supercut

It was only a matter of time: An epic mashup of movies with people wearing helmets in space, edited by Keith Melton. “A tribute to all space helmets in cinema,” he says. Even the music he uses is a mashup (‘Ground Control to Eleanor Rigby’ by ‘Daft Beatles’)

Here’s all the movies that are featured (in order):
Continue reading “Helmets in Space Supercut”

December 6, 2012December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Star Trek Teaser: “Into Darkness” Trailer Released

James T. Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise will be back for a second pre-quel of the young original Enterprise crew with next summer’s “Star Trek Into Darkness.” From this new teaser trailer just released today, it certainly looks dark, with lots of explosions, fight scenes, women screaming, Chris Pine’s Kirk having omnipresent cuts on his face, and what looks like a starship falling into an ocean.

The description of the film on the IMDb website:

After the crew of the Enterprise find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction.

The bad guy (actor Benedict Cumberbatch) has a British accent (wasn’t that big in the 1960’s?) and rumors are starting to surface with Cumberbatch playing either a villain similar to the classic ‘Trek’ nemesis Gary Mitchell, who gains glassy eyes and superpowers and tries to take over the world in the second pilot episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before” for the 60’s TV series, or Khan, the genetically-engineered tyrant who first appeared in the original Trek TV series episode “Space Seed” but was killed in the “Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan” movie. So, in my mind, revisiting Khan would would cause the Trek world to get complicated.

But while the villain hasn’t yet been revealed, it is someone who “has returned,” so expect it to be a familiar name.

From the teaser, it appears all the main actors from the 2009 “Star Trek” film have returned, but does Spock have a new haircut?

A disclaimer: this was posted for all our Trek fans, so don’t complain that this isn’t space or astronomy news, because in our Trekkie minds it is space news.

November 13, 2012December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Enticing Trailer for New Movie about a Mission to Europa

Here’s a trailer from a new movie called “Europa Report” about a near-future mission to Jupiter’s moon, Europa, in search of extraterrestrial life. From the trailer, the film looks to be of extremely high quality, and it stars Sharlto Copley (District 9), with music score from composer Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica).

And while this is a sci-fi flick, the makers of “Europa Report” say they are trying to steep it in real science.

The PR for the film is just getting underway, but they have a realistic-looking website that appears to show webcam views from a spacecraft heading to Europa.

Screenshot:

Here’s the blurb from the website:

For decades, scientists have theorized the existence of liquid water oceans on Jupiter’s moon, Europa. We’ve recently discovered new, captivating evidence that these sub-surface oceans do exist and could support life.

We’ve sent six astronauts from space programs throughout the world on a three year journey to Europa to explore its oceans and confirm these findings.

We’re proud to be at the forefront of the effort to prove the existence of extra-terrestrial life within our solar system, within our lifetimes.

And yep, like any film about spaceflight, something has to go wrong during the mission.

The release date for the film has not yet been set.

January 18, 2011January 19, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

NASA’s Top Movie Lists That Never Were

Just after the first of the year, a story came out that NASA had held a private meeting at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to discuss the movies Hollywood has been releasing, asking filmmakers “to stick to more rational plots.” Additionally, the article — which was widely passed around and republished on lots of big news sites — reported that the people at the meeting came up with two lists of movies: one was the top seven worst science fiction movies ever and the other was the seven most realistic science-based movies. Comments about the story ranged from disagreeing with the lists to, more importantly, people wondering why NASA suddenly taken on the task of being movie critics. It turns out, they didn’t.

“This was a case of spectacularly bad reporting,” said Don Yeomans, a senior research scientist at JPL, in an article on the Planetary Society blog by Charleen Anderson. “We would never be so foolish as to compile a list of the worst science-based films.”
Continue reading “NASA’s Top Movie Lists That Never Were”

November 9, 2009April 26, 2016 by Nicholos Wethington

Why did HAL sing ‘Daisy’?

Okay, so this may not be important breaking news about astronomy, but it may answer a burning question posed by most people who have watched or read “2001: A Space Odyssey”: that is, why does the computer HAL-9000 sing the song ‘Daisy Bell’ as the astronaut Dave Bowman takes him apart? Well, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke made HAL’s final act in the world this song as a tribute to HAL’s great ancestor, the first IBM computer to ever sing. Click below for more on this geeky topic!

In 1962 Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote the novel – and co-wrote the screenplay for the movie – “2001: A Space Odyssey”, visited Bell Labs before putting the finishing touches on the work. There, he was treated to a performance of the song ‘Daisy Bell’ (or, ‘A Bicycle Built for Two’) by the IBM 704 computer. This evidently inspired him to have HAL sing the song as an homage to the programmers of the 704 at Bell Labs, John L. Kelly, Carol Lockbaum, and Max Mathews. Kelly and Lockbaum programmed the lyrics, and Mathews the accompaniment.

‘Daisy Bell‘ was originally composed in 1892 by Henry Dacre, and English composer. Upon coming to the U.S., he was charged a duty fee for his bicycle. A friend remarked that it was lucky that he didn’t bring a bicycle built for two, or he would have had to pay double duty. Taken by the phrase, he used in in a song to acclaim both before it became a smash hit with computers with a penchant for song, and after.

Here’s a recording of the 704 talking and singing the song. If you want to sing along karaoke style to the original singer, here’s a video of the 704 doing its ditty (ignore the different model name and year – the 7094 exists but can’t even sing backup):

And, of course, here is HAL-9000 in his death throes with a more maniacal version of the classic:

Source: Switched, MOG, Bell Labs