A few days ago, Shorty and I watched what was the best movie we’ve seen this year. Okay fine you got me.. it’s so far the only movie we’ve watched this year but really we really liked it.
We watched it even though Rotten Tomatoes rated it a shitty 31% but the good thing is that I never let Rotten Tomatoes throw me off. I can’t help but feel that the critics there are really out of touch with what a more mainstream audience likes. A better measurement of how good a movie is though is IMDB and there it rates a decent 7.1.
So we decided to watch it and we loved it. One of the things that Shorty and I love to do immediately after watching a good movie is read the Trivia on IMDB and read the discussion threads on Reddit.
Here were the main discussion points about the movie and what my thoughts are. Please note that the following includes SPOILERS so if you haven’t watched it yet then stop reading now. Oh and go watch the movie because it is in my opinion really worth watching.
- Jim Preston is an asshole for waking Aurora up
Many of the comments I read online found it unacceptable that Jim woke Aurora up to the extent that they hated the movie just because of that. I think this feeling partly stems from the notion we all have in movies that the good guys are pure good guys. They can’t do any bad or selfish bad thing.
Increasingly though in recent movies we’re seeing good guys and bad guys that aren’t plain good or bad but kinda grey. Like there is a reason why they do those bad things they do.
The thing about what Jim did though was in fact perfectly understandable in my books. There is a man who is surrounded by people who are sleeping and has nobody to talk to. Literally solitary confinement which alone drives many prisoners crazy.
But here’s the kicker… he has a choice. A choice to do something unethical to wake someone up to keep him company and sane. As unethical as it was, I don’t think it was inhumane. In fact I think 90% of human beings in that same position would have done the same, just a matter of how much longer they would last on their own. The remaining 10% would probably have gone insane.
I liked the show because of this. Because the good guy isn’t plain vanilla good guy and the script writers could have taken the lazy way out. Have her wake up on her own or as part of a malfunction but I’m glad they didn’t. What they did sparked a whole lot of conversation online.
2) How scientifically accurate the movie is
I love watching movies like this because of how imaginative they are. The concept of taking a hundred years to reach another planet and hybernation to keep us young and healthy until then. Sure there are many things that don’t make scientific science, like how he could still cry a tear that ran down his cheek when he was in zero gravity.
But hey… I’m totally cool with that. We don’t have to really get everything do we?
3) The movie could have been so much more
I agree! I feel that Lawrence Fishburn’s part was kinda rushed and there could have been a lot more to it. Especially over the discussion of why Jim woke Aurora up but hey I’m okay with that.
I read one comment where this guy said the movie could’ve had a huge twist in the end where Aurora found out she wasn’t the first and only passenger that he woke up but the 27th or something. And the rest were dead after Jim got bored of them. Okay holy shit that’s quite a twist but I think that would move far way from romantic adventure to that is some sick twisted shit.
Overall I still really enjoyed the movie and heck it was a movie that I probably would be happy to watch again.
So yeah overall… I loved this poorly-rated-on-Rotten-Tomatoes-movie.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space