Our sun is dying. Mankind faces extinction. Seven years ago the Icarus project sent a mission to restart the sun but that mission was lost before it reached the star. Sixteen months ago, I, Robert Capa, and a crew of seven left earth frozen in a solar winter. Our payload - a stellar bomb with a mass equivalent to Manhattan Island. Our purpose - to create a star within a star. Eight astronauts strapped to the back of a bomb. My bomb. Welcome to the Icarus Two.
Sunshine opens with a monologue by physicist Robert Capa giving the viewer some backstory. The sun is dying and humanity has launched Icarus Two to deliver a stellar bomb in a last-ditch effort to revive the dying star. From the jump Sunshine looks, sounds, and feels visceral. The film is an emotional rollercoaster ride from the optimistic beginning to utter pandemonium at the end. The cinematography, sound design and music score lend a psychedelic, spiritual feel to the film.
This might be one of my favorite space thrillers. Sure there were a few things which were unrealistic, like jumping between airlocks over and over, or the idea that we could build a bomb powerful enough to accomplish the mission, or the ship’s gravity field, but the film was exciting and powerful. Garland’s screenplay is excellent science-fiction. It’s been years since I’ve seen a creative space movie.
I love the sound of this beacon.
Director Danny Boyle succeeds in creating a sense of isolation for the viewer. When we encounter the crew, they are both the furthest from Earth than any other human and closest to the sun. Similar to being underwater in a submarine, being in space is equally dangerous. There is no air to breathe. We must wear special suits and travel in special vehicles. To prepare for filming, the cast and crew watched Das Boot and toured a nuclear submarine. That isolation, that feeling of being in awe of the fascinatingly deadly environment was very well done.
As for the science of the bomb, the film’s science advisor Brian Cox says its possible. In the movie we are told only that the sun is dying and it’s going to take a stellar bomb to reignite it. Cox says the plausible scenario here would be if a Q-Ball was eating the sun from the inside, a bomb could dislodge the ball and allow the sun to return to normal. This isn’t exactly spelled out in the movie.
From reading online reviews and comments, most viewers had an issue with the third act, when the film suddenly jumps from epic space thriller to slasher film with the crazed Pinbacker running around and killing everyone. Sunshine is dealing with big philosophical questions about God, man and our place in the universe. From the first scene we see how Searle is weirdly addicted to sun exposure. It’s not difficult to imagine how that might end, i.e. Pinbacker, who believes that it’s not man’s place to interfere with God. He is a crazed zealot who wants to kill anyone who interferes with God’s plan which fits perfectly into Garland’s script.
To understand the themes Garland is tackling in Sunshine, we need to take a look at the science fiction genre and how it can be used to comment on our present reality. Sci-fi author Isaac Asimov said “Science fiction can be defined as that branch of literature which deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology.”1 Alex Garland said that Sunshine draws from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien and Solaris: “Hallucinatory sci fi about star travel and feeling claustrophobic while gazing into the void. A sub-genre, linked by a common theme: that what man finds in deep space is his unconscious.” John Truby writes in Anatomy of Genres that science fiction shows how our current society, culture and consciousness can either free us or enslave, and how we can use science and technology to create a better society now.
In the screenplay Garland writes that Sunshine is a film about atheism. An atheist denies the existence of God, while a theist, believes in the existence of God or gods. An agnostic believes that the existence of God is unknown and probably unknowable. Each of these beliefs exists in Sunshine’s characters.
"Sunshine was created out of a love of science, and of science fiction. In the same way that 28 Days Later attempted to look back towards older post-apocalyptic stories, such as Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Triffids, Sunshine looked back to films such as 2001, Alien, Dark Star and the original Solaris. This was slow-paced, outer-space science fiction. Hallucinatory sci fi about star travel and feeling claustrophobic while gazing into the void. A sub-genre, linked by a common theme: that what man finds in deep space is his unconscious.
Aside from being a love letter to its antecedents, I wrote Sunshine as a film about atheism. A crew is en route to a God-like entity: the Sun. The Sun is larger and more powerful than we can imagine. The Sun gave us life, and can take it away. It is nurturing, in that it provides the means of our survival, but also terrifying and hostile, in that it will blind us if we look directly upon it, and its surface is as lethal to man as an environment can get.
As the crew travel nearer to the Sun, the majesty of the burning star fries their minds. The crew are hypnotized by it, or baffled by it, or driven mad by it. Ultimately, even the most rational crew member is overwhelmed by his sense of wonder and, as he falls into the star, he believes he is touching the face of God.
But he isn't. The Sun is God-like, but not God. Not a conscious being. Not a divine architect. And the crew member is only doing what man has always done: making an awestruck category error when confronted with our small place within the vast and neutral scheme of things.
The director, Danny Boyle, who is not atheistic in the way that I am, felt differently. He believed that the crew actually were meeting God. I didn't see this as a major problem, because the difference in our approach wasn't in conflict with the way in which the story would be told. The two interpretation that could be made from the narrative were the same two interpretations that could be made from the world around us. In that respect, perhaps the difference was even appropriate."
-from Alex Garland’s screenplay.
Searle, Pinbacker and Corazon are three types of theists. Searle is a peaceful sun worshipper while Pinbacker is an extremist who believes the sun is God. Corazon’s god is plants, or the Earth. Mace and Kaneda are atheists who make logical and rational decisions to protect the integrity of the mission. Capa is an agnostic through most of the film, an impartial observer (but perhaps his view changes at the end of the film).
Throughout the film, the science versus religion debate plays out among the characters. Pinbacker kills anyone who wants to interfere with God’s plan. Mace is concerned only with the mission, and sacrifices his life to ensure that the technology to complete the mission is intact. Capa doesn’t need time to think when faced with whether or not to kill Trey: if it benefits their ultimate goal of saving humanity, the decision is easy.
Pinbacker : Are you an angel?
Pinbacker : Has the time come?
Capa : Huh?
Pinbacker : I've been waiting so long.
Capa : Who are you?
Pinbacker : Who am I? At the end of time... a moment will come when just one man remains. Then the moment will pass. The man will be gone. There will be nothing to show that we were ever here... but stardust... The last man, alone with God. Am I that man? My God.
Capa : My God. Pinbacker.
Pinbacker : Not your God. Mine.
In Sunshine, God is not going to save the earth. And the Sun is not God. And man is not God. Science alone holds our ‘salvation’, not religious fundamentalism or extremism.
Garland’s screenplay asks the question (or perhaps gives an answer) will religion ultimately end humanity? Can atheism save us? If we take our destiny into our own hands without the belief that a God or gods has a plan for us, what can we accomplish?
At the end of the film, when Capa’s mission is complete and sunshine returns to Earth, I can’t help but wonder about what’s next for humanity. As Garland wrote, what man finds in deep space is his unconscious. So, will we remain enslaved by religion or will we transcend our limitations and become a more advanced civilization, moving further along the Kardashev scale?
In Sunshine, science and technology saved humanity, not God.
Thanks to a friend who suggested this movie!
Until next time,
Keith
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction