Is it just because people didn't like the Pinbacker subplot? Because that whole idea was definitely subpar, but not enough to completely ruin the movie, it still had an intense and incredibly satisfying ending, if predictable. Is there another problem people had with this movie besides Pinbacker?
shareThe ending betrayed the movie. The entire time you're fascinated by the IDEAS the movie presents and makes you think, then it turns into a slasher movie for absolutely no reason. Mindbogglingly out of place.
shareHow would you have had them continue the story from that point instead? I rather liked the fact that the final obstacle was a human threat.
shareA true Danny Boyle film would have seen the mission fail and everyone die... Just sayin'
shareI can't recall a Danny Boyle film that didn't have a happy ending.
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The first few times i watched this i also felt it was quite nas how they changed The focus from scifi to horror. Yet its important to remember how decisive The human factor is to any scientific mission, both in its sucess and failures. A man being one of The obstacles they had to face os credible to me, even if completely unrealistic.
shareYep. Pinbacker. It was a 9 star before that and it really hurt. I was already contemplating who I was going to tell about the movie before that scene.
From there it fell apart into a slasher and then run here for this countdown clock and run there to press this button sort of dribble.
Wonder what happened. Garland really pulled it together for Ex Machina. I like his tone and ideas a lot.
I liked the entire movie and I thought the Pinkbacker subplot was a nice turn because (as another poster noted) it made the final obstacle a human one.
Since there had to be a final obstacle in the third act (they weren't just going to dump the payload without incident and head back to Earth), I'm curious, what would people have preferred for a final obstacle? It seems that the final obstacle had to be mechanical (or computer), environmental (solar flare or something of that nature), or human.
Also, where do people see the third act as beginning? Since the diversion to Icarus I was a set-up for the final act, going there if it didn't advance the plot would have been pretty useless and therefore that entire plotline would have had to fall away (IMO). So the garden wouldn't have burned up, Kaneda wouldn't have died, and they would have had enough oxygen for the trip without having to deal with the possibility of killing crew members.
So, if you had the chance to write the final third - what would it be? It seems like a lot of people are complaining, but no one is saying what they think would be better.
Great post. I think the third act more or less begins right at the Pinbacker plot twist when the computer says "five crew members" and the tone of the movie changes to that of a final conflict.
I suppose that the final obstacle could have been supernatural or alien, which would have been interesting in its own right, but less believable and more unnecessary. I was satisfied by the ending we got. The fact that it was a human trying to stop them made it so much more believable, although he could have had a better motivation than just a religious fanatic. I even liked the slasher aspect, I loved tge concept of a horror movie where end of the world is a threat. The characters' deaths leading up to the ending had a huge dramatic impact especially since they contrasted deeply from the express need to preserve life in the first and second act, and really sealed the deal on "we are not meant to survive this, this is for something greater than ourselves" thus lending more emotional significance to the ending.
For me, the Pinbacker subplot was kind of unnecessary, as I thought the main plot was about the crew initially making a bad decision (rendezvousing with Icarus I) and then as the movie progressed, each one of them killing each other or better yet, the crew arriving at consensus about which of the next crew members were to be sacrificed for the success of the mission (for example, after they realize they're low on oxygen, or making one of the Icarus II crew-members become religiously insane after watching Pinbacker's logs, further jeopardizing the mission). It was perfectly the way it was initially, with the crew alone and their chain of bad choices. They could've sticked to this brilliant plot and finish it off with Capa completing the mission and then all of them dying (without Pinbacker).
But that never happened, and the Pinbacker plot came. At least Danny Boyle added his special touch to this character, making him blurry and whatnot and generally doing a well presentation of this 'superhuman' character, so it wasn't THAT bad for me at least.
That sounds a bit too much like "the goofy misadventures of the Icarus II crew" for me to really get into it. There doesn't feel like a real threat in that story. I think the only really acceptable path for that story to follow would have been for one of the crew to turn against the rest, which is an idea that has been done very well (Chronicle) and very poorly (Revenge of the Sith), and personally I think it would have been very difficult to make that character transition believable. To have one dedicated threat (who was involved from the beginning since he took over Icarus I and activated the distress signal) make for a much stronger ending.
shareThen again, the first act all the way to the point before the Pinbacker plot involved initially a 'bad' decision and the devastating consequences that a technically 'well-rounded' crew had to face to secure the mission: Kaneda's death, Trey's suicide, Harvey's misfortune (brilliant scene).
This is why most people kind of hated the Pinbacker subplot, because it wasn't really needed. Certainly (for me) it didn't feel like "the goofy misadventures" of the Icarus II, because it was really well presented from the very beginning the chain of events and the seemingly brilliant/logical decisions the crew took on-the-fly. Another element was Icarus itself, self-correcting the mistakes the crew made (very similar to 2001: A Space Odyssey, I know). For me it really has little effect if other films had done this before. I believable transition could've been presenting one of the characters leaning towards the religious side from the very beginning, and slowly progressing to insanity while witnessing all the chaos and after watching Pinbacker's logs, or presenting such insane character as a plot twist near the ending, so as to not make it too obvious, etc.
The part that confuses me the most is how people think a character being driven insane by the sun was out of place. Almost immediately the sun was shown as having a psychological effect on the psychiatrist that it was clear the movie was moving in that direction.
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