Event Horizon
(I'm out of time this morning and even though I saw this movie over the weekend I wasn't that impress so here's a quickie plot synopsis)
In 2040, the Event Horizon, the first ship with a gravity drive that can fold space and travel faster than light disappears during a test of it's engine. Seven years later, it reappears in orbit around Neptune. The Louis and Clark captained by a man named Miller goes out to investigate. They bring along the scientist who invented the gravity-drive, Dr. Wier. They find the ship deserted with body parts scattered about and eventually learn that the ship visited a choatic universe and it is now alive, intent on destoying them. Many body parts and much gore later, Wier and Miller return to the chaotic universe with the gravity drive section while the command section escapes with the the surviving members of the crew.
Reflections from the Guild
[Note from Phil: I have not verified these but they sounded good to me!]
Brian Fitzgerald of Acworth, GA: First off, great movie. Is it just me or are the late summer movies better than the early summer movies this year. Hope this wave of good movies will continue. With "Alien 4", "Starship Trooper", "Titanic" and several others lined up the next several months are lookiong good.
The zero gravity effects were some of the best I've seen since "Apollo 13". It was also nice to see a realistic decompression of a person. Much more real than the "Total Recal", person blows up like a balloon idea. When that man was in the airlock it was nice that they actually put forth some real effort to save him. They did not just do the usuial scream "NOOOO! DON'T DO IT!!" and then as soon as he is out forget that he ever existed. But on to the nits.
First off, apperently the designers of the Lewis & Clark (the ship the people arrive in) took starfleet design courses. When the Event Horizon sends out the pulse that nearly destroyes it, all the consoles spark, explode, and catch fire. Have the designers ever heard about circut breakers to stop the 1,000,000 volts from coming into the controles.
Next, right after the Lewis & Clark blows up, Lawerance Fishborn runs out of the Event Horizon's airlock. Now the door is a sliding door where one half goes up and the other half goes down. There is a little of the bottom half sticking up. He steps on it and it seems to sag down. If it is strong enough to keep the air in the ship from blowing out into space why would lawerance Fishborn's weight cause it to move at all.
The 3 minute countdown at the end takes closer to 4 minutes.
I may be wrong about this but there appears to be a problem with the Event Horizen's whole gravity drive system. Sam Neill says that it creates an artifical black hole. If I am not mistaken the powerful gravity of a black hole would pull the ship into one point at the center of the black hole this would crush the ship like a very flat coke can it would not just come back looking like any kind of a ship at all.
8/25/97 Update
Brian Straight, Shawne, KS: Haven't seen the movie yet, but thought I would respond to this nit. [Concerning, the scene in which "Baby Bear" tries to commit suicide by flushing himself into space,]
If it showed him "explode like a ballon" in the vaccum of space, then it was
NOT realistic. And "Total Recal's" decompression sceens are rerallistic
since they take place on a planet with a very thin atmosphere, as opposed to
none.
If you where to be out in space sans space suit you would not explode ( I
don't rememer exactly what was said, but in the Start Trek:TNG episode
"Disaster" Geordi and Dr. Crusher put themselves in a vaccum by opening the
cargobay doors. Beverly says something like "you must resist the temptation
to (inhale or exhale)". If they did, then their lungs and chest would be
ripped open in the change of pressure. But their entire body would not
explode like a ballon.
(Note from Phil: I included Brian's comments because we revisit this issue from time to time here at Nitpicker Central. As far as I know the event of "Disaster" are medically correct. In that episode Bevery Crusher tells La Forge, "Once the air is vented the first thing you'll feel in an extreme pressure on your lungs. You have to resist the temptation to exhale. Next, our hands and feet will get cold, then numb and some of the capillaries on the exposed section of the skin may burst." "We will have about fifteen seconds of useful consciousness. Then, about ten seconds of extreme disorientation. Then, we pass out."
Now obviously, Trek isn't the final authority on this stuff but I wanted to make sure that we knew what was actually said in that episode. I do not believe that the writers intended to imply that Crusher and La Forge's lungs would be ripped out if they exhaled. I think it was more intended to keep the oxygen in and maintain useful mobility. In fact, it turns out that the human body is a fairly decent space suit. It does not explode in a vacuum. It does not spew blood from the eyes and veins as shown in Event Horizon. In short, the exposure of a human body to a vacuum is just not very dramatic. But, of course, that wouldn't be any fun at all in Hollywood! So, as usual, the Hollywoodites come up with this graphic, gory depiction to keep us watching the movie.
Now, if you happen to be the kind of person who would like to read what real scientist have to say about the human body and a vacuum, you might want to check out: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/sa/sd/intro/vacuum.html.
Also, since the human body does not blow up like a balloon in a vacuum, I find it very difficult to believe that it would do so in a light atmosphere! In other words, the events at the end of Total Recall were just plain goofy . . . which might be another indication that it's really just happening in Ahnold's mind. ;-)
Steven Perry: Real gory movie, though 40 minutes of gore were actually cut. After Fishburne said "We're
leaving" after viewing the last crew's final video, I almost said it too. High grade
X-Files episode.
The ship played "homage" to 2001's Discovery, the Klingon Vor'cha class, and the ship from
The Black Hole.
The ship was in "Neptune orbit" yet was actually in the atmosphere, which conveniently
allowed the director to put creepy lightning in the background. The problem is, if it's in
the atmosphere it should sink.
They have artificial gravity in the year 2040?
The timeline was rather optimistic. Mars colonies by 2030?
So why was Weir (Sam Neill) such a baddie? I mean, he starts having visions before he even
encounters the ship. Why? (Note from Phil: Mad Scientist Syndrome)
And presuming that he somehow got Satanic powers, how does he die and reappear? Is the ship
recreating him? (Note from Phil: Isn't that what he says--that the ship brought him back.)
Cooper gets blasted into space, then shoots back in using his air tank. Not likely!
Ignoring the fact that he probably lacked sufficient air, they had enough trouble finding
the ship in the Lewis and Clark. Do you mean to tell me that he just happened to jet from
space and land right in the front window? (Note from Phil: And what about the speed he built up on the way to the ship?!)
The ship was supposedly alive, sorta like The Shining. How? Going to hell may be
traumatic, but traumatic enough to give the ship life signs?
I'm no physics expert, but explain this to me: a black get smaller as it absorbs more,
right? So this drive creates a black hole that must start small, right? Then how come it
doesn't absorb the matter around it and immediatley shrink? Or am I very confused? (Note from Phil: I'm not sure that that the ship creates a black hole. I think it creates a singularity and I believe that a couple of physicists have just proven that you can have a singularity without a corresponding black hole. It's called a "naked singularity."
Besides that, the drive seemed as sound as FTL travel theory can get, though once again my
knowledge only extends slightly beyond "The Physics of Star Trek."
Jason Gaston: I really liked Event Horizon. I went in expecting the same-old same-old
man-eating space monster movie and was genuinely surprised! A bit
grotesque in some places and the characters were a bit... well...
wooden, but it's still worth checking out. BUT DON'T GO IF YOU DON'T
WANT THE WILLIES SCARED OUT OF YOU!!!!
Now the nits...
We were lead to believe that the unfortunate crew of the Event Horizon
was turned into "chunky salsa" from the g-force of the ship's engines.
If that is so, how come that one body survived?
2044 and people are still shaving with straight razors?
Shane Tourtellotte: I thought I should comment on Brian Fitzgerald's statement that the
black hole powering the "Event Horizon" would necessarily crush the ship
into itself. A black hole can theoretically be of any mass, not just
the octillion-ton remnants of stars. You could have a minuscule black
hole the mass of a car, and from a few feet away, it would have as much
gravitational effect on you as would a car: virtually none.
I haven't seen the movie, but I assume the ship's black hole is
artificially constructed, and thus of manageable size. It wouldn't suck
the whole ship into itself. The one theoretical problem would be that
tiny black holes should, by Stephen Hawking's theories, evaporate fairly
quickly and disappear with a very large terminal explosion. I won't do
the math myself, but I think the "Event Horizon" would have had a long
functional life before that happened -- though I'd dump it somewhere far
away when we were done with it! (Note from Phil: I confess that I did not have this stuff uploaded when I saw the movie--and I forgot my note pad-- but I thought they simply referred to the "thing" that the Event Horizon created as a singularity. See above)
Murray Leeder: A good film. Well done and supremely suspenseful from beginning to end.
Kinda "Alien" meets "Hellraiser"... not a bad mix.
I couldn't find a lot to pick, but here goes...
Both spaceships have command chairs which are suspended from the
ceiling, just above the floor. Is it just me, or is that really dumb?
Smoking in a spaceship? First of all, if current trends continue
smoking should be fairly obselete by the year 2047 (47, mind you!). And
why smoke on a ship with CO2 scubbers and the whole bit?
I liked this film, but it was very ambiguous from beginning to end.
Just why was Weir so taken by the extra-planar creatures? (My personal
explanation: In testing the gravity drive, Weir himself once went
through a portal, to another location on Earth. But, like the Event
Horizon, he came through with someone else, which remained lodged in his
subconscious until the opportunity to get back home arose. Then it
became dominant. Doesn't that make sense? I wish the filmmakers had
slowed down for a minute to explain it)
Weir describes the other dimension as "chaotic" and "evil". Chaotic I
can buy. But evil is a very human trait... I doubt a whole universe
could be "evil".
In Weir's vision which comprises the opening sequence, a very modern
looking watch floats by. Does that mean watches won't change in the next
50 years?
Did the captain of the Event Horizon intend his message in Latin to be
a distress call? Well, one way or another it reached Earth. If so, why
not say it in English? (Note from Phil: People in high stress situations do odd things. Beside, the captain spouted Latin a lot. Probably just wanted to impress everyone.)
I've only taken one year of Latin, but I believe the captain's grammar
was incorrect. The verb should go at the end of the sentence. I may be
wrong, and if I am, I'm sorry. (Note from Phil: Someone told me sometime that word order in Latin wasn't that important. Anybody know about this?)
And I'm still not clear on what happened to Mr. Justin, why the portal was still opened. (Note from Phil: I got the impression that the ship was in control of it's own portal.)
Why is it Hollywood's view of Hell is always gore and sewn-up people? I
mean, it's effective, but this movie claims that the other side is
"unimaginable horror". What we saw... the Spanish Inquisition was worse
than that! Not that it wasn't bad, but instead of "unimaginable horror"
we got "unimagnitative horror"! Still a good film though, but not for
the squemish. (Note from Phil: This is the problem that I had with the movie. I felt it was SO-SO.)
Ray Andrade: Event horizon was ok 'cept for to things that bugged me.
First, who designs ships like the "Event Horizon". I don't know
about you but enginer's usualy shy from that Gothic/Byzantine design.
Second, The decompresion scene was good however holywood still
needs to read those NASA reports. Decompresion actully happened to an
astronaut back in the early 80's. Luckily he was able to stop the fatal
leak before he passed out. I read his report suplimented and the way he
described it was similar to Nitrogen narcosis. He reported bad cramps and
the light headedness of the ailment however he had no sensation of
expansion. Now these aren't exactly good things but a later report
confirmed that a person could survive 55 seconds of hard vacum without any
lasting effects ([i.e. without the] bleeding eyes, coughing blood, and convulsions that our
hapless victum from the movie suffered).
Matt Warner of Burke, VA: This was one of the scariest movies I've seen in the last ten years.
(The ending was a little conventional, but hey.)
The biggest nit that jumped out at me concerned the recording of the
distress call. The space command people had assumably analyzed it with
high-tech equipment, but no one realized there was someone on it
speaking Latin until some shlep on a search-and-rescue ship heard it
with his naked ear?
I'm not sure, but did the writer play it fast-and-loose with scientific
reality when he had the captain describe the guy's immolation in zero
gravity? (I really don't know -- could someone clarify?) I seem to
remember a class movie from high school in which an astronaut stated
fire couldn't exist long in zero gravity; that without gravity's effect
on the relative weights of air and fire's gases -- something like that
-- which would take the gases up and away from the flame, the gases
would quickly smother the flame. I know that a recent shuttle mission
experimented with fire in zero-gravity, but the papers never got into
the findings. . . .
This movie only seems to be making a minor sizzle in the theaters. Is
it because -- that no matter how well made it is, with some serious scares -- it's too similar to "Alien"? I'd be
interested in people's thoughts on this subject. As a horror and
science-fiction writer, I think the future will see lots more
cross-genre stories. The ultimate achievement, I think, would be a
horror-fantasy sci-fi. (Note from Phil: Well, for my money, I didn't think the plot was that strong and I didn't think the acting was that strong and I didn't think the overall writing was that good. You take a movie like Aliens and that thing just grinds you from the movie it starts until the end and it does alot of that grinding without relying exclusively on gore. The scene where the team is counting off the approach of the bug-dudes and no one knows where they are is just a classic!)
Murray Leeder: Is Weir really shaving with the same razor with which his wife slit her
wrists? All I can say is... ewwww...
Gary Lesser: Well, I just went to see the film "Event Horizon." It was a very
exciting flick that kept me bolted to the edge of my seat, yet something
inside me still felt the need to nitpick. Here are my initial reactions
to this film
In many ways, it seemed strangly reminicent of the Michael Chriton novel
"Sphere." The differences between the film and novel consisted of the
film being set in space--the novel took place in the ocean--and the
ending. The movie ending was much more imaginative and exciting than
Michael Chriton's. Sorry Michael.
Call me crazy, but for a ship that was running out of air the crew seemed
to use the airlock an aweful lot. Picky picky.
In one scene of the movie, the "Louis and Clark" (sorry, cheap e-mail
service won't let me italicize) was about to dock with the "Event
Horizon." As the "Louis and Clark" was extending it's walkway the end
door began to open before it was connected to the other vessel. This
doesn't seem like proper docking procedure to me.
It looked like there was no airlock on "Louis and Clark." The floor
descended and the tunnel was wide open.
Nobody bothered an attempt at destroying the singularity drive system.
(I believe that this is not a nit, however, as the crew was having a
REALLY bad day and probably was not thinking too clearly).
The power of black holes get's another kick when the rear of the "Event
Horizon" creates a singularity and the newly separated front of the ship
does not get pulled in.
Gravity Boots, gotta love 'em. There is nothing wrong with them, they
just made me think of purple blood.
Finally (for now), at the end of the film, men come in in space
suits--presumably because they are in an environment not wonderfully
suited for human health--and yet the proceed to remove the unsuited
survivors from stasis. If the atmospere is OK, why are these people
wearing suits. (I know, I know, so our villian can take of his helmet
and scare the audience one more time before the credits role.) (Note from Phil: Maybe quarenteened?)
David Conrad: I thought this was a great movie, however there were some problems that I
found. In many sequences of this film, there were people walking through
the corridor (referenced to look like a meat grinder by one of the crew)
leading to the "Gravity Drive room" (the engine room, whichever you prefer
to call it). I would've thought that walking though this spinning hallway
would make a person dizzy or something, at least make them wobble to the
side or something, yet this never happened once that I saw! Once that I
recall, there was a person that ran down the hallway. I have done this sort
of thing at a couple of "Ripley's Believe it or Not" museums, (Branson,
Missouri and Dallas, Texas) everyone that walked through it seemed to veer
off to one side or the other and a couple almost fell down! Maybe it was
that injection before they were put into stasis back on there old ship
before they got to Neptune that made them special or something!
Near the end of the film, Sam Niel's character by the name of "Dr. Wier"
turns evil, and shoots a hole in the windshield-like glass at the bridge of
the "Event Horizon". Lawrence Fishburne's character called "Captain Miller"
graps on to some sort of a rope and pulls himself away from danger.
(Everything was being blown out of the bridge because of the hole that was
shot in the glass.) Wier grabbed on to a grate on the floor, it in turn
bent back because of the force of the air blowing out of the bridge and was
eventually blown out into space, yet it didn't seemt to bother Miller at
all! He continues to pull himself up the rope and out of danger, he even
saved "Starck", a female officer that was up on the bridge. I'd just kinda
like to know how he'd do this. Maybe you could tell me. (Note from Phil: That seemed pretty improbable to me as well but then I remembered that heros can do that kind of thing!)
9/1/97 Update
Murray Leeder: In Latin, the word order is typically [noun] [rest of clause] [verb].
But no, it doesn't really matter all that much; it's far from a rule,
except in formal statements (but idioms and casual speech break it a
lot).
When they scan the Event Horizon, they find de-centralized lifesigns.
So how come none of those register from their handheld sensors?
Weir plucks out his eyes, saying that eyes aren't needed on the other
side. Then how come, when the ship brings him back, he has eyes again?
Weir also says that the Event Horizon has a new crew. If it needs a
crew to operate, why does it presist in killing everyone off? (Note from Phil: Evil rarely make sense! ;-)
You can tell you've seen too many films like this when you're surprised
when the characters die out of order! Look at the people here... we've
got Cooper, jive talking and cocky, dropping sexual innuendo...
typically, he'd certain be one of the first to go. But he survives to
the end!
On the other hand, we have Peters who is seemingly virtuous and fairly
inconspicuous. Granted, there's no really reason for her to survive, but
she certainly isn't a typical choice for victim #1!
I've seen way to many of these things... definitely...
James E. Puntch: Ugh, terrible movie. Nice, sets, though. Anyway, the nits:
What kind of medical instruments were those in the sickbay?
What's the surgical benefit of a knife like that? (Note from Phil: If its the one I'm thinking of, I think it was some kind of bone saw.)
They used a big honkin' nailgun to repair the hull? Wouldn't some
kind of welder or adheisive work better at creating an airtight seal,
intead of pieces of metal nailed down?
Sigh, two and a half hours of my life I'll never get back.
Matt Warner: Just wanted to let you know that it took me awhile to find it, but the
hyperlink to the page about vacuum exposure is really http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/sa/sd/intro/vacuum.html (Note from Phil: Sorry about that! I've corrected it above. I meant to double check it and then forgot.)
Phil Farrand: Okay, one from me because this file is getting frozen today and it's my favorite from this movie. A one point the bad scientist plants an emergency detonation charge on the Louis and Clark. A crew member finds it five seconds before it explodes. He stares helplessly at the screen. Big tension moment. Boom! Except . . . right about in the middle of the screen, just under the countdown there's two buttons. One reads, "arm" and the other reads . . . "disarm." But the guy just stares!! Me? I'm punching that disarm button for all I'm worth! Doesn't matter if the mad scientist has shorted it out! I'm punching it!
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Copyright 1997 by Phil Farrand. All Rights Reserved.