Is Sunshine the best sci-fi flick of the century? - Page 3

Still one of my TOP movies that I watch over and over again. I also enjoyed Moon

Based on this thread I put Sunshine in my Netflix cue. Popped the BD in the PS3 last night, jazzed for some serious sci-fi goodness. But the "play" function kept defaulting to a branching version of the movie where a commentary window would pop up in the lower right-side quadrant of the screen and the actual movie volume was muted. Try as I might, I couldn't get rid of that commentary track and get the "raw" movie version. Never seen anything like it in any other shiny disk I've ever watched. I guess the disk was damaged somehow, but the surface was blemish free and flawless to the eye. Sending it back as "damaged" and hope to get a new disk and try again.

I had this very same experience with a BD of Sunshine from Blockbuster. I think it's an anomaly with the entire batch....

I think they were recalled.

 

Sunshine Blu-ray Exchange Program

Same problem with Netflix rental disc except the volume wasn't muted.

There were plenty to nitpick about the details of this move (especially last 20 minutes) but it's not done for some reason.

Was there any explanation on artificial gravity?

Until Mr Crispy Chicken showed up, I thought it was one of the best movies that I had ever seen.

I wish that they had left him out of it. I still think it is one of my favourite movies, and really full of suspense - but that one rage filled guy with the bad sunburn just irked me.

edit -
I should add that I didn't have a problem with him being there (and what he did on his ship on the first mission) but I didn't need to see him still alive and kicking, not to mention with the strength of two men.

LOL! I actually liked Moon quite a bit better than Sunshine (as others have indicated, I could do without the 'Friday the 13th' ending in Sunshine). But, I have to agree that I think Avatar is by far the best Sci-Fi Film of 'This' century.

I take District 9 any day over Avatar.

The 'FP, Blair Witch' crap, destroyed that movie for me.

An update to the BD problem with this movie: I've now gotten 4 copies of this disk from Netflix. Each time when I sent it back, I gave them an explanation and directed them to the website referenced by iamian above. Each time they sent me back another defective disk (maybe the same one, who knows?). The last time, I got a nice American girl (which means we at least spoke the same native language) from Netflix customer service on the phone, explained the issue, and she assured me they'd send me a corrected disk. That time I thought I had finally gotten through! Of course, when it arrived and I eagerly plugged it into the PS3, up popped the commentary track just like all the others. Unbelievable.

So, I'm now resigned that if I ever want to see this movie, and you guys have convinced me that, as a science fiction fan I need to see this movie, I'm going to have to wait for it to pop up on premium cable. I get HBO, Showtime, and Starz. I'll be keeping my eyes open. If it never makes it to premium cable - some films don't - I guess I'll never get to see it.

Me, too. Avatar is the best looking movie, maybe even of all time, but the story was pretty weak. District 9 got better each time I watched it.

Don't worry. You're not missing much. The lead character is a miscast. Cillian Murphy, who played a twisted psychiatrist in Batman Begins, is Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show) And if you like to nitpick sci-fi movie, you can chuck this one in a trash can. There are so many unrealistic things in this movie that it's hard to choose where to begin.

Your stormy experience to get Sunshine up and running inspired me to go down to my batcave to check if I still had my BD copy.
However, it looks like I pitched it in the gutter long ago...otherwise, I would have sent it to you.

+1

The plot isn't the problem, it's the "hilarious" characters.

LOL. Actually, I anticipated this type of reaction when I wrote, "And if you like to nitpick sci-fi movie, you can chuck this one in a trash can." You fell right into it. It shows why you reacted the way you did about Prometheus.

My God your stock just shot up.

It speaks volume, imho, when in a thread about good sci fi....Avatar is mentioned in a positive way, and Moon is mentioned in a negative way. Wow.........

It seems to me that the posters who spoke negatively about Moon have been in a decided minority here. Actually, I liked Avatar as much as I did Moon, which is to say a whole lot. They are very different films but each did a first rate job of entertaining me. I have the BD of both in my library.

You throw away BD's? I don't buy many shiny disks anymore since I a) became a Netflix subscriber, and b) overcame that obsessive disc collection pathology (OMG! It's Caddyshack II but it's only $5...!), so when I do purchase one now, it's a BD and it's a keeper.

But thanks for thinking of me. Hey - favor from my AVS peeps: If anyone sees Sunshine pop up on premium cable, give a shout-out in this thread so us beleaguered PS3 owners can finally see it.

I don't actually throw 'em away, I donate them to the local library and write it off on taxes.
It's simple and accomplishes the same thing as selling.

Although still a NF subscriber, I haven't overcome my "collecting addiction."

If I see Sunshine pop up on DirecTV, I'll shoot ya a PM.

I had forgotten about the problem the Sunshine BD created for PS 3 owners. That glitch bit me when I picked up the BD as an in store exchange at BB. I did finally get to see it, but can't remember when or by what medium that was.

They eventually ended up sending me 4 copies, all the same. I finally just sent the last one back with no further complaint. If the studio had actually made a non-defective version, Netflix clearly wasn't going to "go the extra mile" to obtain any of them. So I'll wait for it to show up on TV.

It's odd there hasn't been a firmware fix for this....

I have a vague recollection that the problem with the Sunshine BD that the firmware glitch created for PS3s was cleaned up later but can't recall for sure. I haven't a clue why Sony couldn't clean up the difficulty at its end with a PS3 firmware update. Maybe they did but, if so, I don't know about it.

IIRC, it wasn't only the PS3 having a problem with it.
However, if ONLY the PS3 now has problems with Sunshine, it would mean Sony hasn't addressed it with FW.
It's amazing if that is the case.

I may be mistaken, but I thought that Sony did fix the problem with firmware, only to break it again with a later firmware. Fewer people noticed because the window when the majority of people actually tried to watch the movie had elapsed by that point.

Most people buy discs at or around release, and most either watch the discs soon after purchase or leave them to sit unwatched in their collection.

I bet that there are a lot of Sunshine owners out there who think that the PS3 problem was fixed and never bothered to check again later.

Raises hand....

No doubt.
Maybe some other PS3 owners ought to check theirs and see what the deal is?
Sony may be unaware there is a problem.

I watched this last night. It was pretty good, but not really one I'd go out of my way to see again. Having just recently watched Solaris (the new one), I kind of get this wierd neo-Kubrickian thing from those movies that, I dunno. It's not bad, but it gives me a wierd vibe. The look of the sets, the very minimalist dialog, the flat emotional state of the characters to a large degree, the slightly psylocibin'esque story in parts, it's not that it's bad or anything. But sometimes maybe it's just so self-consciously stylized that it pulls me out of it? I dunno. And not that I think that 2001 is the height of the genre and everything else is a pale imitation. I don't actually even like 2001 all that much honestly, though I appreciate it intelllectually, and as a technical achievement for its time, and it does have some tingly moments.

I guess in a way I hardly ever see a sci-fi movie I really think is great. Maybe because I know a little to much physics and find them pretty factually light in the loafers. Maybe because I read so much sci-fi and fantasy fiction that anything that manages to make it past the mid-west screening tests is going to be too watered down for my tastes. The first Matrix for sure, but it was more fi than sci, and was heavily dependent on visual style. I thought that Melancholia, strange as it was, was pretty interesting and affecting, but hardly any sci at all.

At least The Fifth Element had Milla's nippies. Oh, Deep Impact definitely, though that ultimately wasn't THAT much sc-fi, more a human drama in which the motivating mechanism was something from space (not unlike Melancholia I guess) with some very incorrect science bits thrown in. Bit it wastes me every time I see it.

Maybe I'm just forgetting some of them that I did think were really good; but, given the size of the sci-fi world, I just can't think of many movies made in that genre that really worked for me, at least not off the top of my head.

When a filmmaker is to influenced by other filmmakers, his/her movie risk looking like a cheaper copy of the orginal.

I never realized that before, but I have to agree.

Sadly, I don't think psilocybin or even some fresh mescaline would have helped me thru those 2 flicks.

I understand your point, sometimes I can "take it" and sometimes not.
I try to remind myself the genre is called "Science FICTION" for a reason....