Oh, 7 Ep 2 - (Ain't no) Sunshine

Lucy and Tae rip 2007's Sunshine a new space hole and discuss what could have been, who dies the worst death, and why it caused a rift between Alex Garland and Danny Boyle. Tae was hurt during the making of this episode. Spoilers for Sunshine, obviously. 

Content warning

(approx timings) 29.00 - 32.00 - Discussion about suicide 

Links and things

Review - Tarantino on Sunshine (he agrees with us, gets everyone's name wrong)

Video essay - A Visceral Experience of Life, Death and Meaning

Collider Article - Alex Garland and Danny Boyle rift explained

Transcript

0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to the 07 podcast, a show exclusively about the films of 2007. I'm Taye  and I'm joined by my co-host Lucy Alfred. Lucy, how are you doing today? I'm great, thanks Tay.  Bit tired today. Had a long day at work. Well, how about we tear Sunshine, a new space hole. Uh,  see if that makes you feel any better. How's that sound? Yeah, sure. Let's Let's do it. All right.  Sunshine is an epic science fiction thriller from Danny Bole and Alex Garland. Set on a spaceship,  the Icarus 2. Crewed by eight astronauts, they are on course to our dying sun to try and kickstart  it back into life with the biggest nuclear bomb our planet could possibly create. Yes,  let's go and nuke the sun. America, that's what I thought. It feels positively Trumpian. He wanted  to nuke hurricanes. So this just feels like a natural step up for him. He also wanted to inject  people with bleach to cure them of COVID. So peak Trump, I think. Wait, so does that mean that Danny  Bole was imagining or uh prophesying about the future like The Simpsons did with Trump? Yeah,  there's a lot we could speculate on um not least the differences in opinion that rose up between  Alex Garland and Danny Bole when they were making this film. But before we get into it, I just want  to point out that Sunshine does feature stuff about suicide and we're going to talk about it.  Um, but we will put time codes in the show notes for when we talk about that. So, if you are in any  way sensitive to that subject, then maybe skip that section. Just refer to the show notes for  the timings. Lucy, tell me about your reaction to this film. I get the impression that you found it  a bit frustrating. Well, it started off great. I even messaged you in caps lock. Everyone is  in this film. Exclamation mark. Exclamation mark. Very excited to see that. Yep. There's an amazing  cast. Let's get them in here. Now, we have a crew of eight scientists uh made up of a physicist,  Kappa, played by Killian Murphy. The captain Caneda played by Hiroyuki Sonada. The second in  command and the comm's officer Harvey played by Troy Garity. The psychologist S played by Cliff  Curtis. Cassie the pilot played by Rose Burn and Corazon or Cory the botist played by Michelle Yo.  Mace the engineer played by Chris Evans. And Trey the navigator played by Benedict Wong.  And Benedict Wong, who is great in this film, is doing something interesting with his accent. Um,  I was trying to place him because I've seen him in something recently. I remember what it was.  He's in Threebody Problem, isn't he? He is in the Threebody Problem. Yes. And he plays like he's  like from Sheffield or Manchester or something in that. Maybe that's his natural accent. Yeah,  I think it's his natural accent. Yeah. I think he's a northerner. He's from Eckles. There you  go. Yeah, his accent is doing stuff in this film. Um, I think it's I I want to say New England. Um,  but I'm not sure. I'm not 100%. It is a weird one. It could be down to Well, the idea for the casting  of the crew was that this was a global problem. And so all of these nations collaborated and mined  all of the planet's remaining nuclear materials to make this bomb after the original mission,  Icarus one, had failed seven years earlier. And so they did this second one and it was their  last chance to do this. So the crew would be fully international because of all of the rich economies  that had contributed so much to the mission. But I don't think it would have been too distracting  for Benedict Wong to just have his regular British accent. I think I think this crew was missing a  Brit um just to make jokes or to flip a table or something. Be the baddie. Be the baddie. You've  also got Mark Strong. He's barely in it though. Yeah, Mark Strong is also in this. He plays Pin  Backer who is the captain of Icarus One. So you've got some big names and they were already fairly  big for the time but much bigger these days. So I was really excited. I love a sci-fi but t you  had warned me that it's a film of three and the first two/3s are sort of much loved and the last  third is much maligned. Um, and I kind of wish I didn't know that, but I was I was waiting for that  third to start. And then when it did start, I knew it was starting and I thought, "What  the actual f?" Um, and I proceeded to then be completely distracted. It completely lost me. Oh,  no. I [ __ ] it up. No, no, you didn't [ __ ] it up. Uh, Danny Bole [ __ ] it up. I just was like,  this film, it's just become another film. It started off as a kind of sci-fi thriller,  everyone's got to save the world kind of vibe and then it ended up becoming a sort of monster  horror film and just was completely unnecessary. And when we were messaging, I likened it to my  reaction to the the original it film, the Stephen King adaptation, which for most of the film is a  really creepy horror that absolutely terrified me. I watched it at a sleepover with my friends  and we all just kept imagining it coming down the chimney upside down and so we couldn't sleep. Um,  and then right at the end he turns into this massive giant spider thing and flies off into  space or something like that and I just was it completely lost me. All that is to say I didn't  hate it. I just was super let down by the end. The Last Dead. You see, I think I benefited from  watching this in the cinema in 2007 because you had the scale and the spectacle of it and  the sound. The sound is amazing in a cinema. I remember that. And all of these crisis that  this crew had to deal with just felt so much more palpable in the cinema. Um, and another  thing I remember from the time was one of the things they did to market this film was they put  a load of film journalists into stump planes with a stump pilot. And uh, and they they each each of  them held a branded Sunshine sponge. Uh, and the idea was that the pilot would do some moves that  generate zero gravity and then you'd have some footage of the sponge floating in front of you.  So, somewhere in the BBC archives, there's some footage of my face being contorted into rubber um,  while this branded sponge floats in front of me. Um, epic, epic content. And also the also what  I remember is that the screening that I went to, there was a little talk at the end with Brian Cox,  uh, who wasn't as big then as he is now. Um, I also read recently that Killian Murphy's  character Kappa is based on Brian Cox, but that that can't be true, can it? He's nothing like him  apart from being a physicist. He hasn't got that Hi, I'm Brian Cox voice. What do you think of my  impression of Brian Cooks? I thought it was good. You should do that more often. Can you bring that  in as a regular character? Um, yeah. As I say, I had the benefit of seeing this in the cinema,  and I think that that carried me over the line, but I do appreciate that the third act  is a bit of a right turn into horror. Some people say that it it goes supernatural,  but I I don't think it does really. Um, Pinback Mark Strong's character is just a guy. I think I  think at first it's set up as that because he's got this kind of otherworldly voice and says,  "I've been waiting a long time for you." And my immediate thought was, "Oh my gosh, is this the  devil?" Because he says something like, "At the end of the end of time, there'll be one man blah  blah blah." and he's talking to Killian Murphy who has been set up as the most important person on in  the crew because he is the only person that knows how to detonate the payload as they call it. So by  this point you know that he it's like it's all on him and he knows it too. All of these other crises  have occurred. We haven't really touched on those yet but we we'll get into it. I think at first I  thought it was going to be the devil because it had already been set up that someone on Icarus  one was a bit of a religious nut and had left this strange message that they had managed to get hold  of when they found Icarus one. But by that point that was all it was. So I would I just wondered  if it if he was a demon or the devil or something. Um and then realized that he wasn't. But it was so  unbelievable. Yeah. I mean, naming your ship after the Greek figure who flew too close to the sun,  melted his wings, and died is maybe not the best omen. Lucy, how does the crew find Icarus  one? They find the Icarus one after a crew member on Icarus 2 hears a distress signal,  Harvey. Yeah. That's been magnified from uh the back of Mercury and out of Mercury's bum. Yep.  Sorry. Sorry. I'm gonna I'm gonna stop now. Keep it in. Um, they hear the distress signal and they  make a decision whether or not they're going to find the Icarus one. Um, there's quite a lot of  uh a difference of opinion. Chris Evans's character who's kind of pitted as the sort  of like jarhead. I think at one point Michelle calls Michelle Yo calls him fly boy. He says, "No,  our main mission here is to deliver the payload into the into the sun." Which at first I was like,  "Yeah, he sounds like the only one making sense." Long story short, if they go to find Icarus one,  they then have two chances to deliver the payload. If their one doesn't work, they've got another  payload to use. And that conversation is interesting because they say, "Okay,  should we vote?" And they decide not to vote. They put all of the pressure on Kappa because he's the  physicist. And then ultimately that sets in motion a whole series of crises that they have to deal  with. I feel it was maybe they should have had a vote. One thing we should point out about the  Icarus 2 is that the whole front of it is like a massive heat shield. So, the opening shot is where  you think you're looking at the sun and then the camera moves around to the side of it and then you  realize that you're seeing a reflection of the sun in the heat shield and it's actually this massive  golden dome basically and the ship is tucked in behind it. So when Trey makes the calculations  around fuel and trajectories, he forgets to adjust the angle of the shield relative to the sun. So as  they change trajectory, then some of the panels that make up the heat shield get damaged. So  the first crisis sees Cassie having to well first override the computer and then align the ship in  such a way that the damaged panels are in shadow and then that enables Kappa and Canada to go out  and fix the panels. Now why Kappa and Canada? Well, I guess Canada is the captain, so he goes  out and Kappa seems to go out purely because Mace volunteers him. I I don't think that Mason Kappa  are are big fans of each other. I don't think they get on. So, yeah. So, they go out in these insane  looking spaceacuits. Um they have like a tiny little slot at the front just for seeing the,  you know, you don't want to see too much of the sun. Um they're really good design. You know,  they make you feel really claustrophobic. Um, and they're out there and they quickly figure out  that, yeah, they can repair these panels. So, it's big size of relief all around. Uh, especially for  Trey because he blames himself for the predicament that they're in. Um, May says something to Trey at  this point. Um, but we'll talk about it later when it's when it's more relevant. So, yeah,  it initially looks like they're going to be okay, but then a problem arises. the their new alignment  to the sun has meant that their comm's tower keeps rotating outside of the protection of the heat  shield. And every time it rotates outside of that, it gets hotter. Um, and at one point it's so hot  that it ignites the oxygen in their oxygen garden, which is where they grow all their food and get a  lot of their oxygen. um that starts a fire and then the fire compels the ship's computer to  kind of take back control over the ship and try to realign itself so that it can fully protect  the ship. And then this causes the crew to fight over whether or not to let the computer regain  control. Because while it would safeguard the bits of the ship that are exposed, it also risks  exposing Kappa and Canada who are outside trying to fix the panels. So, uh, Mace, because he's all  about the mission, he refuses to add a kind of second, uh, authorization to override the ship.  and Canada backs him up. So there's a race against time for Kappa and Caneda to make these repairs  and get back inside. Canada orders Kappa to go inside because he knows that Kappa is the  highest priority crew member. He's the only one who can operate the bomb or the payload as they  call it. Um and Canada sacrifices himself and gets fried by the sun. I think it would be good here to  talk about the surrealistic elements that litter this film. Of course, yes, Canada, the captain,  does sacrifice himself, but there's an illusion to this sort of magnetic pull to the sun,  which had been set up by is it S? Cliff Curtis. S. Yeah. You'd seen him earlier in the film sat  on a bench looking at the sun and asking the computer to change the filters so he could see  the sun more closely and and the computer says if I do that you'll blind yourself essentially. But  when Canada sacrifices himself he looks at the sun and it's just he's just drawn to it and then  there's the it's intercut with S saying what can you see? What can you see? And the sun is suddenly  not this big star. It's got this otherworldly, slightly ethereal element to it. Um, which  does sort of carry on throughout the rest of the film. But yeah, there's there's an element of the  surreal. It could also be that's what he's spent his life up to this point focusing on. The son's  been dying. He's now on a mission to save the sun. So, I guess you're looking down the barrel  of the gun in a way. Um, but it's definitely sort of po posited as this kind of magnetic  force that they can't resist. Um, which brings me nicely on to the point that I wanted to make,  which is for the first twothirds of the film, the son is the bad guy. There isn't really like  a baddie in the film. Like Chris Evans's character Mace is kind of set up as like I said that kind of  jockey guy and he's a bit of an idiot but you know ultimately he's there to do a job and he's there  to save the world. So the son is this evil force that is damaging their ship but also it's dying so  they need to save it. It is their savior. So it's kind of this dichotomy there. And then of course  the last third we get a new baddie. I like to talk about baddies and goodies when I talk about films.  So, yeah. But there's also there is also something about I don't know if you noticed this or remember  this. There's so many super extreme close-ups of eyes and like the corners of people's faces. So,  you see S's eyes looking at the sun from inside his glasses super super close. And I'm not really  sure what the significance of that is apart from because you can't really see reaction because it's  too close. You can't see really any emotion. I don't know if you had any insight or ideas  as to what that significance of it is. Yeah. So, I suspect that some of this might have been down  to budget, but they but to hear the commentary, they wanted to find different ways to show the  relationship between the sun and humanity. So, you know, as you point out, S discovers early on that  you can almost take a bath in light if you dial up the sun's power in the observation deck. Um,  and that's where we see the first of these close-up sort of eyeball shots. Um, yeah,  they wanted creative ways basically to show the sun and its relationship to the crew and also to  underline, you know, while the sun is essential, it's also deadly to them even to look at. Uh, they  actually shot a lot of these shots with all of the crew. And I think at one point Danny Bole says  that they swapped an actor's eyeball for someone else. Um, so I think one point you're looking at  S and you think it's S, but and the close-up of the eye is actually that of Canada. Um, I think  it's just because they didn't get the right angle uh that they needed with Cliff Curtis. So yeah,  there's some definite intentions about visualizing the sun and its relationship to the crew here.  Um, another interesting thing that they did to try and make this look more distinctive was that  they deliberately lit the crew and the quarters just very just in very dreary colors. There's no  orange in there. It's just all grays and blues and greens. And they did that because they wanted to  save all of the orange for those shots with the sun and the heat shield so that they would just  be that much more impactful when you saw them. It's stuff like that that just sells the idea  that this film technically is really amazing. Like it looks so legitimately science fictiony. There's  obvious nods to Solaris and 2001 and and Alien to a degree. Um, clearly a lot of thought and effort  went into uh making it look as sort of timeless as possible, but yeah, it's just a shame that the  two people behind this film didn't agree on the ending. And so there's tension there. And you've  really got to wonder what chance it had. And I don't know if the studio had an issue with the  original ending, if we don't have the original ending, or if they pushed for a shift in genre.  Um, it could be down to limited budget. Horror is cheaper. So, but it is definitely the thing  that most people talk about when they talk about Sunshine is, you know, what happened with the  ending. I think the ending once you know what happened between Danny Bole and Alex Garland,  it kind of makes sense. Um, but I the way that I interpreted the endings representation of their  disagreement was not so much that the ending was disagreed upon. It was more that the ending was  a way of kind of appeasing both parties. I could be wrong here, but from what I had gleaned from my  research, Danny Bole wanted it to be a film about sort of heroes saving the world and giving life  on Earth a second chance. Whereas Alex Garland uh one he had felt opposed to that because his  philosophy was that's fine but then you're just delaying the inevitable because the son will die  at some point and you're just delaying death for future generations. um which is kind of you know  apt when the the article that I read they said you know today people are questioning whether  or not to have children because we are existing in a climate crisis and they are concerned for  future generations lives. Um and so I think you know I think they both had a point. I would say  probably in a way I can understand the philosophy of Alex Garland a bit more than Danny Bole which  it felt like he wanted to kind of make a bit more of a sailable Hollywood film where scientists and  nerds go and save the world. Um, but I feel like the ending as it is was a way of kind of going,  well, they do still save the world, but there is someone, some force who opposes that,  and that is why the Icarus one failed because it was sabotaged by a religious fanatic who has said  we shouldn't play God. Um, which I also agree with. So, uh, it's one it's one of those where  I can understand why the ending is the way it is now that I know that, but it's still I just still  don't feel like it it's not satisfying. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer to that, and  I don't think we'll ever know now. So, yeah. Well, I wonder if I wonder if the film looked different  to start with. The ending I wonder if the ending looked different. Maybe his idea was that they  didn't succeed and the world ended and then Danny Boy was like, "No, we absolutely can't do that.  We've got to have some sort of heroic ending." I don't know. I was just thinking actually a a  a fun film to compare this to in an essay. Uh if anyone's listening studying film, this you can  have this one for free. comparing this one with um Don't Look Up, the Leonardo DiCaprio film about  the comet that's coming to Earth. And the whole film is about different parties trying to work  out what to do about the problem. Eventually, the comet comes. Yeah, good shout. Yeah. Anyway, back  to the story. Shut up. Um yeah, so they've averted one crisis, uh but at great cost. They've lost  their captain and they've got lost a lot of food and oxygen and Trey has been sedated and is now  deemed a suicide risk. Um Cory, Cassie, and Mace have a conversation about whether they have enough  food or air. And Cory estimates that they would need to lose three more crew members in order to  have enough oxygen to complete the mission. So that's kind of like lurking in the background.  And in the meantime, they rendevous with Icarus one. Um, Mace, Kappa, S, and Harvey go on board  and try to figure out whether or not they can salvage food, oxygen, uh, and the payload. And,  and really just to try and figure out what happened to the crew of Icarus one. Uh, this  this section for me just felt like the closest to Alien. I guess there's even a reference to Alien.  It's just it felt like an excuse just to do a bunch of um jump scares. So, they find the remains  of the Icarus one crew in the ship's observation deck and it looks like they've all sort of self  incinerated, so they must have just lifted up all the filters. The ship is caked in dust,  so implying that, you know, they're walking around in the remains of the crew. On the plus side,  they do find a really thriving oxygen garden and the Icarus one payload is intact. So, it feels  like the initial risk that they took seems to have paid off. So, you know, cheers all round and then  obviously naturally everything goes to [ __ ] Um the dock that they've established with Icarus one  is mysteriously damaged and ripped apart basically and they're now stuck on the Icarus one. Uh the  only way that they can get back to the Icarus 2 is using space suits and the catch then is that  there's only one working space suit. And it's at this point where Harvey, who's always been sort  of talked down and overlooked, uh but he's now in command. He makes a point that he should be the  one in the spac suit because a mission needs its captain. And Sir Mace immediately put him down and  uh point out that he can't operate the payload. Um so he's overridden. There's a great line about him  being a comm's officer on a ship with no comms. So you know what good is he anyway? Um it's I  start to feel for Harvey at this point. To make matters worse, the ship's computer is down. So,  one of them would need to stay behind and open and close the ship's seal so that the others can  escape back to the Icarus, too. And it's at this point that Harvey's like complete redundancy just  kind of peaks and he he says, "All right, I get it. It's me. I'm not important. I'll be the one  to stay behind." Um, it's really funny moment. Um, and in fact, S kind of steps up here. And this is  kind of Sell's moment to be a hero. Harvey breathes a sigh of relief and joins Mace in  trying to insulate himself using like materials from the ship for when they spacew walk over to  Icarus 2 with Kappa. Presumably, they're going to huddle up close to Kappa for warmth. I guess the  cold is pointed out by Michelle Yo's character uh Corazon when she says it's like -20 and something  degrees and then they wrap themsel Yeah, they wrap themselves up in insulation and hope that  that is going to that really I was like this is so ridiculous. That bit annoyed me. I've got quite  a lot of notes where I've written ridiculous things like this would never happen. That was  one of them. Like they wrap themselves up in a bit of bloody tin foil and they're jumping  out into space and then all that Chris Evans gets is a blanket and he got a bit of frostbite on one  of his fingers. Ridiculous. Totally ridiculous. They're like, "Close your eyes and jump." Yeah, we  could argue the merits of a film about astronauts traveling to the sun and things being unrealistic.  But you know, in for a penny, in for a pound, I say it's not that unbelievable that the sun is  dying in this film because the sun will die and it is something that we know will happen because  stars die. Whether or not the human race as it is today uh will be there to witness it. Who knows?  But it that is not that unbelievable. It's just unbelievable that it would be happening in 207. I  know the the film isn't completely solid with its logic, shall we say. So, yeah. So, they go on a  little spacew walk uh trying to zip across the gap between the two ships. When S steps up, I thought,  "Oh, great." You know, Harvey's going to survive. I was feeling sorry for him at that point. And  then he immediately dies um by letting go of Kappa suit. And he he gets frozen solid and then he gets  his arm smashed off and then he just gets zapped by the sun like a little bug. He's just like, well, as Pinterest says, we are but dust. From dust we came to dust we will turn. Poor  old Harvey. Poor Harvey. He went out bad. Um, so yeah. Uh, bye-bye Harvey and bye-bye Cell.  Soul incinerates himself. Uh, which kind of mirrors his beginning of the film. Um, he goes  to the observation deck on the Icarus one and just lets a shield up so he can, you know, top off his  town. Um, Kappa and Mace get back on to the Icarus 2 safely. They dock and the ship goes back behind  the heat shield and docks and then they carry on with the mission um, without a new bomb. Um,  so they're going to have to make do with the one they had and they've lost two more crew members.  Yeah. But but it is good because they lost, you know, two more crew members, which is kind of  vital for survival at this point because we've already found out that they basically need to  lose three crew members and then they I think they end up realizing they need to lose four. Yeah,  they could have enough air to survive, but not enough to save Trey. And just to hop back to  when Trey messed up and it looked like Canada and Kappa could repair the panels, May says to him,  "Don't kill yourself. All right, we've got this." Uh, which I think in retrospect is quite dark and  forboding. Um, and then we're on to what I think is the best scene where Mace, Corey, Kappa,  and Cassie sit down and firstly they discuss who might have sabotaged the airlock. And then they  get on to whether or not they let Trey live or die in order to secure the oxygen they need to  complete the mission. And this time they do have a vote. Um, the vote is three to one to dispenser  with Trey and unsurprisingly Mace volunteers to do it. Um, I really like this scene. It's really good  and tense and sad and Roseburn is particularly good in this as well. So, Mace goes to where Trey  should be. Um, and he's not there. And then they find Trey in the, you know, like the equivalent of  their holiday deck. Um, and it appears like he's committed suicide. So, Lucy, do you think Trey  committed suicide? Oh my gosh, I hadn't thought about it. Yeah. So, I completely missed this. Um,  but Boil explains it in the commentary. Um, certainly the crew think that he killed himself,  but there's a shot where Mace pulls out a tray of like surgical instruments and there's one missing  and he picks up the one that is there to dispatch with Trey and then discovers Trey in the holiday.  So, Boille explains in the commentary that Pinbacker is now on board the ship and in order  to hide the fact that he is on board, he makes it look like Trey killed himself, but in fact,  Pinbacker did it. I don't think I got that at all. Um, and I think you'd be forgiven for thinking it  was as it as it seemed. Uh, because also that's just very convenient for Pinbacker to have done  it to him. No, knowing somehow that everyone would believe that he had died by suicide, how how could  Pinbacha have known that he was on suicide watch, you know? Yeah. And I guess we'll never know,  right? Um but yeah, it's very sad and and then it's basically a horror film from here on out. Um  the ship's computer asks Kappa how they expect to survive still with five members on board.  and Kappa lists the surviving crew uh as four and then the computer says no there's one more  person on board. But do you know what I thought? I thought it was that Rose Burns character that she  was pregnant. Okay. Because early on in the film you see Kappa and Cassie sort of in bed together  talking about their dreams and how they always dream about the surface of the sun. And so I  thought it was the story was going to take another turn. Was not expecting it to be a melted man.  Yeah. So at this point we're introduced to Mark Strong's character, Pimaca, Captain of the Icarus  one. We don't really see him. It's all prosthetics and shimmery effects, but he's obviously terribly  burnt. I think that also serves to set him up with a semi otherworldly vibe because he like you  say you never see a full frontal shot and there's always this kind of like kind of background noise  to his voice and you see him this caned angle and it's like you say it's all sort of shimmery and  pixelated whereas everyone else is you know shot normally. So, you know, potentially if you are  just going to look at that, perhaps you could say, "Yeah, he is sort of otherworldly." Um,  but I think it just helps to set him up as super monstrous, but it was annoying because I really  wanted to see him. I wanted to see his I wanted to I wanted to see the grotesqueness. Come on,  Danny. Show us the body. Yeah. Bloody hell, Danny Boy. I want I want to see his face. So Pinbecker  stalks the rest of the crew and ultimately everybody dies. The only person I think who dies  a true tragic death is Mace. And the way he dies is teased ahead of time. So earlier in the film,  we see that the ship's computer is kept in a kind of vat of coolant and Mace drops a spanner in the  coolant and reaches in to get it. And you see like the icy liquid crack up his arm and you so you  think like you don't want to fall in that mate. Um and when Pinbacker is on board, he takes the  computer out of the coolant and the systems start to fail. And to get it working, uh Mace has to get  in there with a spanner and tighten some nuts, I guess, or do something. Um anyway, he ends up  dying because of getting in there. um in the most I think genuinely tragic way. I thought Harvey got  it bad, but Mace really gets it bad. Uh I think he just gets his shoe caught on it or something. Um  and then gets dragged down. Um justice for Mace. Poor old poor old Mace. Yeah, but he was always  going to die a death like that because he really believes in the mission. Not that they all don't,  but like he's kind of super vocal about it. Um and he's the he's the most martyr like, isn't he?  going to sacrifice myself for America. I'm going to nuke that son of new space hole. Yeah,  I want to blast it into the back of space. I'm going to blast it back to the big bang. So, the end of this film is a whole mishmash of visual effects and a chase scene. You get Kappa  and Cassie racing to deliver the payload and Pin Backer is chasing them and h you know I really  like this film for all of its faults. Um but I'm not sure that even I have it in me to finish  describing this film. Um yeah, good. I'm going to do it for you cuz we've seen it before. It's like  just just at the end when the hero is about to save the day, the baddie comes in and tries to  jeopardize it like Yeah, we've seen it. We've seen it before. Seen it hundreds of times before. I was  actually thinking like when are we going to see a space film where like space isn't like the baddie?  Like where like all I could think about was is it is it called what's that film about where there's  the the sink the ship that's sinking? Oh. Um the Poseidon adventure. The the bloody Poseidon  adventure. And that film I think contributed to my fear of like claustrophobia and why I'd never  go on a cruise ship. Um, but it's that thing of you're in this like relative safety and all of a  sudden like you're just so vulnerable because you're in in a in a place that you're just not  designed to be. Yeah. I mean, cruises. Yeah. The film ends. There's a there's a happy ending of  sorts. There you go. Um, I don't really know how else could it have ended. It's obviously  a a man versus nature or and nature is nature God kind of film, right? Um Pinbacker talks a  lot about God. The thing that I like about it is that it goes to such great lengths to capture me  in the first two acts and you know it is really tense and tragic and really well played. And all  of that momentum generated enough goodwill in me to just carry me over the line on the last  act and you know where I'm at the point where it's like it's fine. But when I can be bothered,  I have struggled to think of alternatives for how it could end. I guess you could have like one of  the crew basically take on the pin backer role and just stop things from happening. So maybe  there's a tension between the remaining crew and the one who's a convert. But you know, I don't  know. Like Lucy, fix this film. Yeah, I disagree. I think it could have just carried on with the  various crises that happen when you are humans in space on a mission towards the sun, you know,  and that's what happens in the first couple of thirds where everything starts to go wrong from a  tiny error of calculation and uh sort of lapse in memory of changing the course of the computer. And  the sun is is what damages the ship and various things do go wrong on space missions frequently  and they are super high risk. So I just think there could have just been a few more crises.  They didn't need to have this voice of reason coming in but you can't be the grumpy old man for  every episode. T and I have taken on the go role for this episode. When they were doing publicity,  they rolled out Brian Cox a lot doing press and just saying, "Oh, oh, this is rooted in sound  science." You got to do it much more slowly. Take that down like two speed. Yeah. 4.5 speed. Oh,  sorry. It's all rooted in science. You know, you know space, right? Well, space is ace in it. I'm  Brian Cox. It's brilliant. I love space. There you go. It's got to be slow. Great. Thanks, Lucy. Um,  I really hope he listens to this. Brian, we love you. You're you're very cool. I do wonder if this  film would have fared differently in 2025. Lucy, uh, you would just never have a person making  decisions like that. Those calculations would be done by a computer. when Icarus takes over because  of the explosion, I thought, "Oh, this is a film about AI taking over." Um, so there was that. Um,  but actually I think it stands up. I don't think it felt dated in any way. Visually, like you say,  um, uh, narratively it does stand up. I think it I think that it is overall like it doesn't feel  like a dated film. doesn't feel like we're really like, oh my gosh, you can tell this  was made in 2007. The the CGI is great, super believable. Like, I think it's good. So, yeah,  I don't think there's an element of like 2025 goggles. I think there probably would be more  women in the film now. I I think, like I said, I think it stands up. I do like the fact that  it was early on having quite an international cast and no one was calling it woke or whatever.  Oh gosh. Yeah, I have nothing else to say apart from I I did enjoy the first two/3s. I like a  good sci-fi. This is a good sci-fi film. Uh, and it made me love Interstellar even more than I did  already. I feel pretty bad because when you were texting me initially, I I I got the sense that,  oh, Lucy's into it. Great. And then, you know, towards the end when you were still texting me,  I felt like I've walked a load of dog poop all around Lucy's brand new carpet. Um, Lucy, who do  you blame for the end? Danny Bole or Alex Garland? Danny Bole. You see, I blame Alex Garland,  but that's probably unfair because, you know, writers don't get much of a say ultimately, but  like I said, I I wonder if he wanted the story to go in a different direction and then couldn't. So,  we got the ending we got or we got the last third that we got, let's say. Yeah, that was Sunshine.  I'm going to say that in spite of everything we've said, I think it still stands within the pantheon  of good films of 2007. dust I would say with big asterisks everywhere. It does take a big swing and  you know points for effort. Um so Lucy, thank you for enduring Sunshine the film and the recording  of this podcast. So next week we're going to talk about Hot Fuzz and it will be joyous although I do  think it should be treated sensitively because of my West Country background. Your rural affliction  my lover. Yes. which is right. Uh so we would say homework time, watch Hot Fuzz. We're obviously  going to spoil it. Um but it is excellent. Uh there's no flaccid third act in Hot Fuzz. Um  it just ramps up, but I'm sure everybody's seen it who needs to see it. Yeah. I feel like of the  films of 2007, most people I guess who would be listening to this are going to be millennial slash  what are you? Are you Gen X? I am Gen X. Yes. I feel like you're not. I know you I know you are,  but you also aren't. That's the whole prem isn't that the premise of this podcast that I'm Gen X?  Yeah, I forget though. Should we get a Gen Z person in like a third wheel? Isn't there no  thanks? Isn't there such thing as a zelennial? Isn't that what you actually are? Hang on. So,  what? It's Gen X people that are young Gen X's who have more of a Wait, so is it a millennial  but spelled with an X? No, who have more of a foot in the millennial wheelhouse, I think. Google it.  Look it up. Look it up. Anyway, um, thanks Lucy and thanks everyone for listening and see you  next week. Uh, it's going to be awesome. Yeah, I can't wait. It's gonna be great.